Life at the 10 week Celebration of Fine Art Show

Things have been moving along here at the Celebration of Fine Art Show in Scottsdale. We only have 4 weeks left. The weather has been a bit wacky, but the patrons are still coming out in good numbers. We are really enjoying ourselves and making great new friends here. We miss some of our friends from last years show, but we get together from time to time to catch up and share a few good laughs. The artists and promoters at Celebration are so friendly, professional and hard working and the artwork is incredible. This gallery setting show is like no other in the country and has some of the best artists around.

A shot of our booth. We also have a workspace outside where we can work on new pieces. We’ve already created many new pieces while here.

Below Scott is working on a four tunnel vessel made from Mesquite Burl.

Here is “4 Tunnels Through” complete. It is gorgeous.

“Rejoice” was made from Ironwood. This is a beauty. It stands about 20″ tall with the copper base and 15″ wide. The wood is so dense and hard to work with, but has incredible color in it. And the turquoise really stands out on it as well.

“Root of Delight” was carved from an Alligator Juniper Burl. Scott incorporated the root section into the carving and I inlayed turquoise into all the very fine cracks that exhisted all over this piece.

“Iron Dancer” is a piece we finished before the show. It inspired a painter, Maia Leisz, here at the show to paint it and it turned out fabulous. She has painted a few of our pieces.

Here is Maia Leisz painting a collaborative piece with several artists works, including one of ours. She had so much fun with this. She is the happiest, most bubbly person at the show. I tell her she’s infectious. And that’s a good thing.

This is potter Joe Woodford taking a piece out of the kiln and doing his Rakuu method. It is amazing to watch him do the process. He puts a firemens outfit on, uses these huge tongs and carries a piece to a pit, where he then covers it with a can, stuffs newspaper in a hole and kicks dirt around to smother all the air.  You have to watch this process to fully appreciate it.

Even though we are extremely busy here at the show, we’re having fun, meeting new customers and making great friends. We’re creating some wonderful new designs and thinking of other things to do for when we come back next year. It’s a long 10 weeks, but we wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Trip to Oregon

One of the places that was on our bucket list was Oregon, and we finally got to make a trip there recently. With the passing of our beloved Sampson, we needed to escape home and the void he left. So instead of shipping a bubinga rocker to Primary Elements Gallery in Cannon Beach, we made a last-minute decision to deliver it ourselves, along with a few carved vessels and bowls. The drive was long and we pushed it in two days and arrived in Astoria at our hotel, on the river late at night. The drive was a little boring and our mood was quiet. We’re both missing Sampson so much and he is always on our minds. But we were excited to see Oregon for the first time. They don’t call it a rainy state for nothing. It started raining almost the minute we drove into the state, continued the three days we were there and most of the drive out of the state. It was quite foggy upon arrival and made it hard to see. The Columbus river was quite spectacular with its grand size, dividing Oregon and Washington states and running almost the entire length of Oregon till it hit the ocean. There were several large barges running up and down the river. Our room in Astoria had a view of the river and the large bridges that run over to Washington state and to the rest of the Oregon coast. Our first day there, we looked around Astoria and had to admit it wasn’t what we expected. I had always wanted to go there (being a fan of the movie ”Goonies” and “Kindergarten Cop”) and I guess I had a different vision of what it would look like. We toured a few things, including the Oregon Film Museum that concentrates on the “Goonies” movie and it was a huge disappointment. We did have a nice lunch on the river at a fancy restaurant and watched some ships come and go, along with a few sea lions swimming by. That same day we went to the historic Fort Stevens, which was thick with trees and was where the river and the ocean met. It was quite pretty, but the ocean always is. We drooled over the washed up logs and contemplated on how to get some home. But you must have special permits and a way to load them. Maybe next time. They definitely get a lot of rain up there. Everything was covered with moss. The trees were loaded with it, even homes and rv’s. The rain and fog gave an eery feel to everything. Overall, we enjoyed our trip and look forward to going back and seeing more of Oregon.

Our second day was making the delivery of the rocker to the gallery in Cannon Beach. This was a cute little town and everything we had expected to see in this area. We wish we had chosen to stay here instead. Maybe next time. There were several galleries and shops in the downtown area with quite a few shoppers for a rainy day. We made the delivery and chatted with the owner of the gallery, Stephanie for a while. Yes we share the same first name. She is a vibrant, energetic, friendly lady and seems to love what she does. Her gallery had an array of different artwork, along with a nice selection of wood art. While we were there placing out our pieces, we chatted with a couple and they ended up buying one of our carved mesquite bowls. That was a nice start to what we hope to be a long relationship with Primary Elements and the owner Stephanie. The rest of the day, we looked around the town and some of the sights. Our final day encompassed yet more rain and fog. We toured the Seaside Aquarium and had fun feeding the sea lions on exhibit. They were quite entertaining and we enjoyed the aquarium. By then though we were so sick of being wet and not being able to see much, we headed back to our hotel and relaxed for the next days drive. We wish we had planned better to leave a little earlier and head south to the Redwoods. I believe we would have enjoyed that so much and driving along the coast would have been beautiful. So next time we’ll have to incorporate that in. We hope the gallery does good with our pieces and that we can make another trip up next year.

Now that we are home, we’ve been working on finishing up orders. We are making a trip to TX to make four deliveries and pick up mesquite logs from our friend and fellow woodworker Buddy Compton. Then it’s back home to work on a few more orders and what we will bring to the Celebration of Fine Art in AZ. This will be our first year at this 10 week show. Celebration is the original 10 week show, being around for 23 yrs, and it is an honor to be juried into this show. It is quite hard to get into and they have a big waiting list. We hope Celebration will be a big show for us and that we can continue going back each year. We will miss some of our friends that will be at the other 10 week show, but luckily we can see them here and there and catch up. We have a nice booth that looks out over the sculpture garden and an outdoor work area out on its own. Since we are messy and noisy we will be put in a different area, but just down from our booth. We leave home on January 4th and the show starts on January 12th and runs through March 24th. Scott and I will be there everyday working for the 10 weeks, so we hope to be able to replenish what we sale and make more for the shows after this one. The weather will be so nice and we wish we could leave now. I’m looking at lots of snow outside, with a night of minus temps ahead and dreaming of the warm weather in Scottsdale.

Next year should be an interesting one for us. We are going to load up on a few more shows and travel to some places we have wanted to go see. So we plan to be busy and hopefully have some fun as well.

View of Astoria bridge going over to Washington State

View of river and boardwalk from hotel

Fort Steven-Ocean and river meeting

Scott and the owner of the gallery, Stephanie

One of the carved juniper bowls on display in the gallery

Scott with a new customer and her birthday present, a mesquite carved bowl

Cannon Beach

Whale sculpture in Cannon Beach

IN MEMORY OF OUR BELOVED SAMPSON

Family and friends that know us well, know how much Sampson meant to Scott and I. Our world evolved around this beautiful giant baby and we miss him so. Our lives have been quite lonely with him gone and it will take a long time for us to heal from this loss. Here are a couple of the last pictures we took of him. We will meet again at “Rainbow Bridge” someday in the future.

Outside enjoying the beautiful weather with on of his squeakies given to him by our good friends Gilda and Larry and their dog Chino

Laying on his favorite blanky among all his many squeaky toys. That dog loved his squeakies. What a sweat face.

My favorite photo of Sampson from a few years ago on a trip to Dog Beach in San Diego, CA. We all had so much fun.

Shangrila Happenings

Since getting back from our three-month adventure in Scottsdale, we’ve been busy doing things around home. That 10 week show really wore us out and it was nice to be home for a while and just relaxing, doing work around here and enjoying our peace and solitude. Scott’s mom came to visit for two weeks and we enjoyed having her here. Sampson’s health is improving. It’s been a slow recover but he’s getting stronger every day. It’s going to be a long process and we have to make sure he doesn’t over do it and go backwards. It’s hard to accept that he’s getting older, but he’s getting better and we hope to have him around for many more years. We also had a new cabin shell delivered. It will eventually join our original cabin with a sunroom connecting them. We have a lot of work to do before that point (wiring, insulate etc). But for now it houses our workout equipment, that has been stored since moving here, a place to put completed pieces, storage and a work area for me to inlay and do finish. It’s nice to have the work space. I’ve been able to work on a few new wall pieces for the upcoming shows (see some of them below). But first we want to show off our newest rocker made from Curly Maple and Ebony.

This Curly Maple with Ebony rocker has been on Scotts’ wish list for some time. So finally we made it. The Curly Maple has some incredible figure in it and Scott did a great job laying out the grain patterns to really show it off. The Ebony was inlayed into the runners, used for plugs and splines on the headrest. The black is a wonderful contrast to the white of the Curly Maple. Ebony is an expensive exotic wood and lends itself to being used for accents. I believe this is by far Scotts favorite rocker to date and it might be hard for him to give it up. But I’m sure this rocker is sure to go real fast. We will be having it professionally photographed in a few days and post those when they are ready. They are sure to wow more than our photos.

This shot is the best close up we could get to show the curly maple. But it doesn’t really bring out the figure. Hopefully the professional pictures will.

Headrest shows the Ebony splines that run through it. You can see some of the figure here as well.

Ebony inlayed into the runners. What a beautiful contrast.

Finally got a picture of this gorgeous Shangrila II rocker made from Bubinga. Photographer Brian Leddy took it last year while doing a photo shoot for NM Magazine. He traveled down to our place and took photos of several different pieces. But this is the one I really wanted. We never had photos taken of this beauty before it sold. It sure looks good with the NM landscape in the background. The Bubinga wood is one of my favorites because of how beautiful the grain is. And using it on this rocker makes it a real stand out.

This is another photo Brian took of Scott and I with the Bubinga rocker and one of our dinning chair prototypes. I really like how it turned out. The backdrop is so pretty with the trees in the distance. We get to look at this beautiful view every day.

Here are some of our most recent projects that we just completed for our show this week in CA.

This is a new wall piece design that we started doing. It consists of Mesquite log slices in various sizes layed out on plywood. Epoxy resin, mixed with black dye, is poured over the piece for one initial layer and the gold leaf is glued on top of that first layer. Then different stones (turquoise, coral, sugalite, canary and malachite) are layed on top of the gold leaf, still letting some of it show through. Another layer of Epoxy resin is poured over the entire piece till it is level with the top. The piece is then ground flat, sanded and a couple of coats of poly are applied to the wood pieces. Then another epoxy pour (possibly two) are the final process. We definitely go through the Epoxy Resin, but the effect is really cool. The ideas are rolling off of us and you will see many new designs coming up. Dims 37″ round

Made from Mesquite and Elm slices this small wall piece has routered grooves with different Gold Leaf layed into them. No final Epoxy pour was done. Just finish on it, to make it a little different. Dims  30″ round
NEW SCULPTURES

Here are a few of our newest sculpture pieces. Some will show up again in a later post after the Professional photos are done. But for now this is a quick over view of some.

PIERCED

This sculpture is still being worked on. But it will be complete just in time for the show. Professional photos will show up in a later post. As you can see it was quite a bit of work and took longer than planned. Scott first carved the outside and then outlined where he wanted to pierce with veins. He then drilled holes to a certain depth. Once he did that, he then started carving the inside till he reached those holes. This process took a while as he went down the sculpture to the bottom. Then he shaped the holes to a more appealing design. Dims are 31″ T x 14″diameter

GOLDEN MOSS

Made from Alligator Juniper this is a first in what will be a new design series for the sculptures. In a few areas of the piece gold leaf was applied to resemble the look of moss growing. Many coats of a gloss finish were applied to give it a high shine and add depth to the sculpture. Dims 12″T x 18″L x 6″W

EYE POD

Yes that is the name of this piece. Scott was being clever. To me it looks like a pappoose. This piece was a smaller version of one we had at the AZ Fine Art Expo. It is made from Mesquite Burl and came out just beautiful. Even though the design is simple in nature it is one of our favorites. It has such a nice natural shape to it and the little tunnel Scott created adds a uniqueness to it. Dims 26″L x 7″T x 5″W

Mini Me-Twister

This is the smallest twister we’ve made. So we’ve gone from 5ft tall, then 3 1/2 ft to this little 14″. I think this one will be popular, due to the size and design. This one perches on a Wenge base and can fit just about anywhere. Dims 14″T x 11″diameter

Mesquite Canyon

Another in our Canyon series, this one is sure to go fast. I inlayed turquoise into the natural cracks and Scott was sure to leave the yellow sap wood on the top, making a beautiful contrast. Dims 12″T x 14″L x 4″W

Bloom

Made from Alligator Juniper this vase-shaped vessel looks like a bloom opening up with the folds and curves in it. Even though it is only 12″ T and 8″ wide, it was one of the hardest to sand because of the tight curves and folds. This one stands on its own, making it easy to show off anywhere you place it. Dims 10″T x 12″ diameter

This Ironwood has turned out to be an incredible wood to work with. It has so much beautiful grain and color contrast. We don’t have much left, but Scott was able to squeeze out making this oblong heart shaped piece.

AZ Fine Art Exp-Living an artists life

Well opening day is here for the Arizona Fine Art Expo. The last few days have been a whirl wind of artists setting up their booths. Now that the show has opened, booths are all set up (with maybe a few minor things to do) and artists are getting their selling caps on. Many booths are setup so that the artist can still work and create (mainly painters), so as to still be able to add new pieces to the booth over the 10 week period. We opted to pay more for an outside working cabana, where we can still do some carving with grinders, hand shaping, sanding and other work. I have it setup in the booth to work on the computer, as I’m doing now, and do some inlaying. Sampson is all settled in the rv, which is right outside of the show, so we can go check on him and spend some quality time with him. He’s such a baby and doesn’t like it when we’re away from him. Scott is in the process of building a ramp so Sampson along with us, can get in and out of the rv with ease. Poor guy is getting old and can’t get up and down as easily. The weather has been just beautiful. Much warmer than back home, and it has been great sitting outside with Sampson and wearing short sleeves. We are officially Snowbirds. Till April 4th at least.

Below are some pictures of the booth setup and a great final shot of everything in the booth. We are very proud of how nice the booth looks and have gotten lots of compliments so far. We still have to setup the working cabana to enable us to start working. Scott is going to build some work benches, but it will mainly be open, so people can watch us work. We will be posting on facebook a tentative weekly work schedule, incase people wish to come and see a particular project. First on the schedule, once the cabana is up and running is to finish a large sculpture piece “Forest Reef”. Just the final sanding and finishing is all that is needed. In the meantime it sits in our booth to show people different stages of creating a sculpture. Next we will be finishing up “Twisters Cousin”. Scott started carving a smaller version of our 5ft sculpture “Twister” before we headed out to the show. He still has some grinding to do to it, then I will have hours of inlaying, sanding and then finally the finish will be applied. We plan to work on this piece the last weekend of January when a TV News crew will be here filming. Hopefully it will get us some more publicity. Other projects that will be on schedule are barstools, chairs and other carved sculpture pieces. So follow us on Face Book to see our work schedule and updated photos of everything going on.

Also happening next weekend is the opening of the Mesa Museum Contemporary Crafts Exhibit. The opening reception is friday January 27th 6-8pm in Mesa AZ and is free to the public. We have two pieces on exhibit (Bentwood Rocker and carved vessel). There are 50 pieces from 36 artists that will be on display from January 27-March 18. We received our invitation the other day and our carved vessel is proudly displayed on the cover. So that was a big surprise. We also had some publicity for this exhibit in the most recent Woodworkers West Magazine.

Of course we have to show a picture of Sampson. Here he is laying outside the rv with his squeaky toy. He’s really enjoying being able to sit outside and soak up the warm sun. No snow or -22 temps. This is the life.

This is a view from our rv looking at the show tent. Artists have pulled up to unload.

Scott is unloading a wall piece.

Starting to setup the booth. It seemed to take forever. But I guess when you have three days to do it, you find yourself not rushing. The lighting took quite a while, since we had never done that kind of setup before.

Here Scott is displaying our most recent articles from NM Magazine and Woodshop news. Everythings been polished and we’re almost done.

Booth is complete. Turned out really good. We have quite a selection.

This patriotic setup is out in the sculpture garden. This is one of my favorites so far. There is quite a bit of sculptures out in the garden, along with a sitting area and a koi pond. Inside the large tent is a cafe with some great food and sitting.  Along with some fabulous art.

Here are a few new pieces that we have displayed in our booth. To see more, please email and I’ll send you photos and info. Or better yet, stop by if your in the Scottsdale area.

“Achy Breaky Heart” is one of our newest pieces, this was carved from a very large mesquite and stands 30″ Tall and is 38″ wide. The middle was two trunks growing together and they started splitting apart. So Scott stitched it up with wenge pieces. It then took on a whole different look and meaning.

“All Shook Up” is an Alligator Juniper Burl. The picture does not do this gorgeous burl justice. It is approximately 12″ tall and 18″ diameter, which is a large burl. The burl figure on this piece is incredible. Scott carved waves into the top leaving some of the bark inclusions and then carved feet. This piece looks like its dancing. So being Elvis fans, it was appropriately named.

“Ancient Waves” is a large English Walnut Burl that has gentle waves carved into it and two fossils inlayed. The wood speaks for itself in this magnificent wall piece.

“Hearts 4 You” is one of my favorites, because watching Scott carve it was fun and amazing. Carved from one mesquite log, he carefully created four hearts into this piece, thus the name. I inlayed turquoise into some of the cracks to add a splash of color. Hard to believe he used a chainsaw to create this.

“Clam it Up” was made from Alligator Juniper. It resembles a clam shell and has abalone shell inlayed into the cracks.

“Outer Limits” is also Alligator Juniper. Being careful to leave the bark in tact and get some beautiful folds in it was quite a challenge.

“Hondo” is a Black Walnut wall piece. The walnut came from the Hondo Valley near Ruidoso. It has some beautiful dark to light tones and the carving brings that out. I inlayed turquoise and fossils into this piece.

“Haley’s Comet” adds a bold splash of color to our wall. It was made from Box Elder Burl and has chainsaw hash marks created into it. Since the burl wasn’t popping out enough for us, we decided to take a chance and dye it red. So far it has been a real hit.

Next update I’ll post pictures of the show events, other artists and more. So stay tuned.

Wood Shop News Article

Our Wood Shop News Article finally came out and it turned out great. Jennifer Hicks did a fantastic job.  We expected to get a few woodworkers emailing us, but we’ve also had some potential customers contact us as well. So some real good leads have come from this article. This magazine is geered to all woodworkers, but mainly emphasizes on large cabinet shops. So getting Jennifer to come to our rural home and interview us was quite a surprise. We feel honored to be in this magazine amongst all those power house wood shops.

We also had some photos in Wood Worker West Magazine, for the Mesa Museum Contemporary Crafts Exhibit that we were invited to. This was a surprise to see our two pieces that will be on display at the Museum January 27 through March 18. Right now we are geering up for our departure to the AZ Fine Art Show, that takes place January 19 through April 1. We have been busy working on many new carved sculpture pieces and a rocker. We will have some outstanding and unique pieces there and can’t wait for the customer reactions to our work.

 

AZ Fine Art Expo & Mesa Museum Exhibit

 

 

The AZ Fine Art Expo is quickly approaching. Only 6 weeks to get ready for this 10 week show. We are working feaverously to have enough pieces for the entire 10 weeks. This high-end show with about 100 artists, exists of mostly painters, but there is a variety of other artists, such as bronze, metal, clay, leather furniture and just a few other wood artists.  We plan to have both our Bentwood and Shangrila II rockers at the show. Not sure what other furniture pieces we will have time to get done, but most of our booth will consist of the Sculpture and wall pieces. We do have the opportunity to work at the show, so this will enable us to add more pieces throughout the show. The show also has a Market Place, where artists can place a few of their smaller items for sale. That way the booths are free for the larger higher end work.

Marketplace for smaller art pieces

The outdoor Sculpture garden also consists of a café, Koi pond and the artist working cabanas. This is where people can come and watch us work on furniture and sculpture pieces.

We are so excited to be a part of this premier show and to get away from our harsh winters. We were able to buy my sisters rv, which has plenty of room for the three of us. Being able to stay right at the show with Sampson is a huge bonus. We hope this show is good for us, so we can continue to go back. For more information on the show, see pictures and videos visit the following links. Or better yet, come visit us.

Show Dates  January 19-April 1  10-6 Daily

www.arizonafineartexpo.com

www.phoenix.about.com/od/events/ss/azartexpo.htm

 

Mesa Museum Contemporary  Arts Exhibit

Out of 242 artist submissions, with only 50 pieces being accepted, two of our pieces (Bentwood Rocker and a Carved Vessel) were accepted. This exhibit is of a variety of contemporary artwork by renowned artists across the United States. We feel very honored to have been selected to exhibit. All work is for sale and will be on display from January 27-March 18 2012 at the Mesa Museum in Mesa AZ. This exhibit works in conjunction with our Scottsdale show, so will enable us to be at the preview party and be able to tell people we will be at the AZ Fine Art Expo for them to see more of our work. The Bentwood rocker we will have on exhibit will be made from Cherry and Ash and the carved vessel is Alligator Juniper.

Just a couple of local celebrities that frequent the exhibit.

For more information on this exhibit, please visit the Mesa Museum website.

www.mesaartscenter.com

 

 

 

 

New Mexico Magazine Article

We are so excited that our New Mexico Magazine article just came out. It looks great. We weren’t sure how the backdrop would turn out in our natural setting, but it looks fabulous. Reminds us just how beautiful our area truly is. To be able to live in such an inspiring place with nature all around, is our piece of Shangrila.

 

 

Linda Thornton (middle picture) did a great job on this article. She is a very sweet person and had some knowledge on furniture making to help with this article.

 

 

New Mexico Magazine Interview

We were so excited to get a call that New Mexico Magazine wanted to do a full article on us. We have had a rocker and a bowl in their Unique Boutique section in the past, but never a full article. One of their writers came from Gallup and interviewed us for an hour. Then a photographer came out and took photos for over two hours. The magazine wanted a New Mexico setting, so the pictures were taken amongst the trees and with a view and the article sounds like it will have more emphasis on our area, why we love it so much, how it inspires us, etc. The article is set to come out in their October issue, which should be on stands in September. I will post when it comes out, but be sure to look for it on stands then.

We also had a writer (Jennifer) from Wood Shop News come from back east to do an interview and take photos. She had an interview in Phoenix and then Albquerque and wanted someone in between. She found us and we were available for the date she would be in the area. She brought her daughter with her, so they could see some sites and the first thing she told us was, “I love New Mexico”. She had never been here before and was awe struck. I’m sure coming from back east that this area is both beautiful and overwelming. We had a great interview, she took some photos and checked out our little cabin and then her and her daughter left to go to the Wolf Sanctuary that is down from us. This article won’t be out for a few months. We count our selves lucky and thankful to be included in a magazine that mainly talks about big cabinet shops. Every once in a while they talk about the small mom and pop (in our case husband and wife) shops. Unfortunately our camera was acting up and I didn’t get any pictures of her taking photos. But below is the NM Mag photos.

Overall both interviews were great and we can’t wait to see them and the response we receive. We’ve been blessed lately and are very thankful.

Here are some photos of the photographer for NM Mag taking his pictures. We are so excited and can’t wait to see it and what it might bring.

Photographer Brian taking a photo of Scott working on some chair spindles

Brian climbed up on just about anything to get his photo. Here Scott is working on the bandsaw.

Brian got down and dirty to get a lot of the photos. He loves it. Here he’s photographing “Grand Canyon”, one of our carved vessels

You’re getting a sneek peak of our newest rocker design. it is a combination of our “Shangrila Rocker” with flexible back lumbar supports. Talk about melting into a rocker. This one is soooo comfy. This rocker is made from Bubinga and was a huge hit at our CA show. I will be posting pics of it after I can get it to our photographer.

Updates on Cabin

We were able to squeeze in a little time to work on the cabin back in May. It was in need of a fresh coat of stain, so with the help of our spray gun, we got it done in no time. And it looks so much better. We also cleaned up and threw away a lot of things that were just lingering around. We wanted a little color, so we built some window boxes, painted them green and filled them with petunias. We used some old wine barrel planters to anchor everything and added some climbing jasmin, snapdragons and daisies. Now we have color. Just doing that little bit made the place look and feel much better. Our friends and neighbors said we were making them look bad and to stop it. We all had a good laugh with that. Next on the to do list is to do the window trim and add gutters. We’re already making plans for an add on and the long porch on the west side. Hopefully if all goes well with our summer shows, we can buy the materials for that and get started.

Nothing new on the inside, but the addition of a treadmil. We were able to make room for it. The additions would help with being able to move the treadmil in there along with the workout equipment we have stored.

We are finally getting elk to come through our property and not on the outskirts. I have a trough out for them and with this hot dry weather, they are stopping quite often. Unfortunately it’s when we’re sleeping. But at least they are coming through. We have lots of beautiful birds here right now. Between them and the hummingbirds, we are going through a lot of seed and sugar. But they are worth it. We just love watching all of them. We’ve had a lot of wind the past few months, making it scarey with all the fires in our state and AZ. We were getting lots of smoke from the AZ fire, making short work days. But it’s been clear lately and now we just pray that our area doesn’t have a wildfire like so much of the state.

Below are some photos of our little cabin to date. I have also included a photo of the freak snow we had in May. It melted that same day, but what wacky weather. We went to below freezing temps to the 90′s in no time. June has been hotter than normal by about 10-15 degrees with no acclimation for us. I lost a few plants with the unexpected May weather and now they are having a hard time with the heat. Gardening is quite a challenge here.

Cabin with a darker stain, window boxes and planters.

View of trees a little ways from us, with our new feeder station. This is looking out our french doors. Elk came up on the other side of the raveen right after this photo was taken. This view was blocked by a storage carport and we had just moved it. Great timing.

May 9, 2011 Snow fall. View from our french doors.

Fine Wood Artists Book

We have been featured in our first book, put out by Fine Wood Artists. This all color book features over 30 other fine wood artists creating furniture, turned bowls and more. Our Shangrila Rocker made from mesquite was featured, along with a carved vessel “Surprise Sensation”. This is very exciting for us and we can’t wait till our copies arrive. We will have this book for sale in Hardback for $55.00 and Softback for $$43.00, plus shipping. If you would like to have one of these art collectors books please inquire.