Hanging shows

First, some garden pictures. This is the most amazing Viburnum ever. Yes, it's a huge family and I don't remember the name of this particular Viburnum, but the variety is called Spring Dawn. It set the buds back in October and has been blooming ever since! It does that every year. And the flowers smell wonderful.



Here's my Katy McFadden sculpture at the foot of the viburnum.



One of the many hellebores blooming right now:



The Chinese paper bush. It's supposed to bloom in December, but mine is always late. And in years past, it only set the buds but didn't bloom. We'll see if these actually do anything this year. They smell wonderful, when they do open.



The chard and the leeks are still standing! I wonder if they're still any good...maybe they'd be tough?



OK, the rest of the day: today was a 'medium duty' volunteer day, just PAN and the library. Helped Sarah finish putting up the March exhibit by putting up those adhesive letters/signs. I hadn't done that before and didn't know how they worked. So now I know! Good thing to learn.

No studio work today, just volunteer duties and some Portland Open Studios errands. Tomorrow, I'll be at RSM the whole day, meeting with both seniors, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Then, the Big Day—I'll start to mock up books for both seniors on Thursday, my first day in the studio this week. As I was walking from PAN to the library, I came up with more ideas for the books (walks are even better than showers sometimes). Here are my current thoughts, obviously subject to change once I get started:

1. I want all 6 books to look similar on the outside—same size and similar (if not the same) covers, but to differ drastically on the inside in structure and materials. Superficially, I see the elderly as a homogenous group (except for my American mom of course!), and I think probably most people do. They seem frail, forgetful, slow moving, & dependent on their children/helpers. And of course, they look old, which to many of us is something that is 'other' than our own state (which might be completely delusional). But of course, the reality is not so. My 2 seniors are as different as night and day, and I'm sure the others will be different still.

2. For my first senior, something ephemeral, delicate, and fragile (she is, I think both physically and mentally). For my 2nd senior, something bold, expressive, and sharing.

Not sure how I'll pull off the 'same on the outsize, drastically different on the inside bit' yet.