Yellena James’ Drawings

Yellena James, Temple, Acrylic on Wood, 12x12 inches.

I just found Yellena James online, and her work is absolutely stunning! Some of her drawings have been seen on the Anthropologie website, and have also been featured in Vogue Australia and on Apartment Therapy.

Yellena James, You and Me, Pen and ink on paper, 7.5 x 7.5 inches.

Her drawings are mostly pen and ink, sometimes acrylic (all my favorite media too!), and they are typically very small (8.5 x 11 or smaller).

Yellena James, Honeyseeds, Acrylic on Canvas, 12x12 inches.

For a while I had been working very small, but I had gotten away from those tiny works. I don’t know why. I think Yelena James has just inspired me to revisit some of that smaller work and reengage with my old drawings.

I’ll post a couple of my own small drawings in another entry, and then I’m going to get busy working on some new ones!

My New Paintings | Part 2

Sugar Free No. 4, Red Radial
Mixed media on board. 24x24 inches.

I have a few more paintings to share with you... These are a couple more from the “Sugar Free” series. I still have a number of paintings in the works, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to earnestly begin another new batch until the holidays, when I’ll get a chance to spend a week’s vacation working on them. I have a couple other series I’m planning to show you over the next few months, as well: some straightforward and some abstract landscapes. Please let me know what you think.

Sugar Free No. 4, Red Radial, detail.
Mixed media on board. 24x24 inches.

Sugar Free No. 5, Three Flowers.
Mixed media on board. 48x36 inches.

Sugar Free No. 5, Three Flowers, detail.

Mixed media on board. 48x36 inches.

A Note from My Dad

Growing up in a separated family, I was always traveling from one parent’s house to the other. Sometimes, my dad would leave secret notes in my suitcase that I would only find once I’d reached my destination.

I received this note when I left for graduate school at Cranbrook Academy of Art. For some reason, I never removed this note from my suitcase, and it still has its home there today, even though it has been over ten years since I left for grad school, and almost seven years since his death. I find this note again, for the umpteenth time, whenever I travel anywhere with my suitcase. It brings me comfort.

It’s funny, as a young person I was always mortified when my dad called me “Wiggle” in public. Dad was a genius nickname-giver. The nickname was coined when I was a little girl — he would chase me around and tickle me endlessly. I would love to hear him use that nickname one more time!

Word of the Week — DENTAL

Each week, I close my eyes and choose a random word from the dictionary. I then do an image search for that word online, and choose some of the most interesting, unusual, and unexpected results to share with you.

Dental Rock.

Microscopic view of plaque.

Stereoscopic photo of a man in the dental chair.

A goat.

I love the LA Kings!

I had to go to Los Angeles last week for some meetings and work at The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. Luckily, Matt was able to get off work and make the trip with me.

Dustin Brown is one of my favorite players.

Matt introduced me to the NHL in 2004, and the LA Kings immediately became my favorite team... We got the chance to see three home games this week versus San Jose, Anaheim, and Carolina. The Anaheim game was really exciting with lots of physical play. And the Carolina game was a nail-biter, but we were able to pull off a win in OT.

I just ordered NHL Center Ice this morning, so we can see all the games on TV from Colorado. I’m looking forward to our next trip to LA so we can see another game in person. Hockey is definitely the best sport to see live.

Word of the Week — CART

Pink Studebaker golf cart.

A wheel.

Painting by Goya, “Children with a Cart”

A Victorian cart from the 1800s.

Images from a Road Trip

Train in the Utah desert.

Matt and I drove from Colorado to Southern California yesterday. The weather was perfect, and I spent a good chunk of the day with camera pressed against window.

The San Rafael Swell in the Utah desert.

Power lines in Nevada, east of Las Vegas.

Sunset in the Mojave Desert in Southern California.

Word of the Week — SEE

I just got this idea that at least once a week, I’m going to look for random inspiration through basic internet search engines. The only rule is that I will choose a word at random from the dictionary, and then post the four or five most interesting, strange, or beautiful images that show up in my search results.

Ironically, the first word that jumped out of the dictionary today was the word “see.”

My New Paintings | Part 1

Sugar Free No. 1.
Mixed media on board. 24x24 inches.

I hope you enjoy the first installment of my paintings from 2008. I’ve completed about 15 paintings so far this year, in addition to all my design projects. Now that I don’t spend half my days commuting in Los Angeles, I’ve had more time to focus on my painting practice.

I hope you can see the 3d elements in these photos. There is a textural relief that protrudes off the surface of each board.

Sugar Free No. 2
Mixed media on board. 24x24 inches.

Everything is still so raw in my mind; I haven’t yet refined my “artist statement.” I think for now it’s enough to say that I’m profoundly inspired by color in nature. I’m not interested in making some kind of critical judgment about our culture, but I do want to offer another perspective on the beautiful things around us. Hopefully my work can make you smile—maybe it will lighten your heart.

Sugar Free No. 3
Mixed media on board. 36x24 inches.

Backpacking in Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness

Matt planned an awesome backpacking trip into the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness this weekend to check out some rarely-visited natural arches above Mee Canyon, within McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area. We invited our friends Whit and Sarah, and we set out about noon on Saturday for a nine mile hike into the arches. We didn’t see another soul during the whole trip, and we were lucky enough to spot five different arches. We also found a patch of huge boulders on the ground that had obviously recently fallen from up high.

We camped out on a rim above Mee Canyon. It’s amazing the way everything tastes so good after hiking 9 miles with a 35-pound pack on your back!

Even though none of these arches have formal names, I decided to call this one “Teardrop.”

Historic Exploration

I went to the east coast with my mom last week. She won a Commissioner’s Citation, the highest honor a civil servant can get in the Social Security Administration. We had a great time at the award ceremony, but my favorite part of the trip was visiting some historic U.S. landmarks.

We walked all around downtown Baltimore and found an historic Methodist church, completed in 1872. It was named the most significant building in Baltimore by the American Institute of Architects. The detail and craftsmanship of the architecture is so beautiful. You don’t get to experience this kind of history out west.

When we finished with our business in Baltimore, we drove over to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the site of the deadliest, bloodiest battle in the Civil War. In only three days’ time, almost 60,000 men died on both sides of the conflict. They said the river ran red with blood. The image above is a memorial to one of the regiments from New York. There were monuments all over the battlefield, remembering all the dead and wounded from the fight.

We also visited Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Too bad the light was so bad that day, because none of my photos came out! I really loved Independence Hall because that is where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and where the U.S. Constitution was written. What an amazing place!

I Dreamt of Things...

I dreamt that I had to give a big presentation with a bunch of other women in an auditorium full of people. We put together a broadway-style show complete with brightly colored costumes, song, and dance. We sang our lungs out about womens’ power and strength. Our big finale was a Cirque du Soleil swinging acrobatic performance on ropes above the audience. After the presentation, Tom Cruise came up to us and complimented our work, saying he never realized women could be so powerful.

Dinosaur Bones

Yesterday I spent the morning on a tour of the Trail Through Time, an area within McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area that is riddled with 150 million year old dinosaur fossils. I had been out to this trail before, and despite the interpretive signs, I still had difficulty identifying the fossils. With the help of Zeb Miracle, our tour guide, seeing the bones was much easier.

We saw vertebrae from the neck of a Camarasaurus dinosaur. Just a section of the neck bones was about 20 feet long! The bones embedded in the rock have a slightly grayer color and are smoother than the rest of the rock. The best part was that, unlike in a museum, we were allowed to touch the fossils to get a sense of the size of these creatures.

We learned that this area of the Colorado desert, now known as Rabbit Valley, was once a lush wetland where dinosaurs and other animals came to drink. It’s hard to imagine that this dry desert was a jungle millions of years ago!

My Grandma’s Vintage Fabrics

My Grandma, Violet Foushee, recently sold her house and moved into a retirement community, so the family was there trying to help her get rid of things and get organized. She has been quilting longer than I have been alive, and over all that time she collected quite an extensive variety of fabrics to use in her projects. There was fabric piled in every corner of the house; several closets were stacked with samples from floor to ceiling and under every bed were rolls of old upholstry cloth. I was lucky enough to commandeer a big boxful of my favorite samples from her collection before she had to downsize.


I recently began to use some of these fabrics in my paintings. I’m looking forward to getting about 15 of my recent paintings professionally photographed in the next month or two so that I can post them here for your viewing pleasure.

My Sister’s Tribute to Our Dad

Ok, so when our Dad passed away almost 7 years ago, I wanted to get a tattoo. I don’t know what it is about big life events... but it seems like a good time to do something drastic, perhaps something big, but definitely something meaningful. I could never think of the perfect design for a permanent tattoo, so I never got one. This spring, my sister Lindsey sent me a photo of her new tattoo. It was genius! I wished I’d thought of it myself.

The body of the angel is the letter “V” representing my dad’s first initial. Then she drew wings on either side of the “V” and put a golden halo at the top. It’s so spot-on... Dad is our guardian angel, if you believe in that sort of thing. I’d at least like to think he’s still out there keeping an eye on things for us.