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.

Logos for McInnis Canyons NCA

Final New Logo

I was recently commissioned to come up with some ideas for logos for McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area (NCA). Above is my final design. Below is another good option I presented to the NCA managers.

McInnis Canyons is a special place because of the variety of landscapes located there. It encompasses about 123,000 acres of wild land in western Colorado. There is an array of natural arches, a 20-mile stretch of the Colorado River, and remote canyons. Also in McInnis Canyons are caches of ancient dinosaur fossils, Native American rock art, and other cultural sites.

Another concept for the new logo

The old logo had several problems:
(1) It was too complex. It had too much detail to work well in a variety of applications.
(2) It didn’t reflect the character of the local land. Land managers felt that the old logo was more reflective of Arches National Park, using its iconic image of Delicate Arch, instead of representing the unique quality of the land specific to McInnis Canyons NCA.

The old McInnis Canyons logo

Concepts for New FIDM Catalog

I’m working on a new college catalog design for The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. The book is about 200 pages and includes just about everything you’d ever want to know about the college.

Cover 01

I’m planning to have 4-6 different covers for the catalog (depending on how many will fit up on a press sheet). The blue rectangle will be the same on each cover, but the background patterns will change. I like the idea of a mix-n-match/grab bag spontaneity of having a variety of different covers.

Cover 02

This is an example of what a spread inside the catalog might look like.

I Dreamt of Things...

Last night I dreamt of a big, beautiful, historic library. The library had a big bell tower with a winding staircase. There were stained-glass windows and multicolored light streamed into this lonely space.

In contrast to the quiet space of the bell tower, the library’s lobby was bustling with activity. There was a litter of six or eight puppies wearing big florescent-colored sombreros being cared for by six or eight little Mexican boys. The puppies were running around the library and the boys were chasing them.

Every time I tried to leave the library, a security guard would come and hold me down as I screamed, and someone would give me a tranquilizer shot. They would hold me down until I fell asleep.

Paintings to Inspire You

Laurie Riccadonna, Tree

I was looking at some galleries’ websites and came across these beautiful works by New Jersey artist Laurie Riccadonna. Her work focuses on the relationships between pattern and nature. She is influenced by Spanish and Moorish ceramic tile decoration. Visit her website to view more images of her work.

Laurie Riccadonna, Snowy Egrets

Speechless at Ice Lake

We were climbing the last steep pitch toward Ice Lake, after already being completely amazed by a meadow below, when we crossed paths with a family who was coming down from having already visited the lake. We stopped to chat with the father, who simply said, “It’s totally worth all the effort... mmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” He was right.

This is the bluest water I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

This is a difficult, if short, 6-mile (round trip) hike with almost 3,000 feet of elevation gain from bottom to top. When we got to the top, Matt and I spent an hour and a half enjoying our lunch of granola bars and dried mango, exploring the lake, the meadows, and the wildflowers. We even got screamed at by a couple of marmots who thought we were too close to their homes.

Wildflowers Beyond Belief

Matt and I spent a long weekend at South Mineral Creek campground near Silverton, Colorado. I can say without hesitation that this was the best possible place we could’ve chosen to spend our weekend. On Friday, we hiked the Ice Lake trail that leaves right from the campground. It’s six miles round trip, with almost 3,000 feet of gain from bottom to top... a difficult hike, but totally worth the effort.

I’m separating my account of this trip into two separate blog entries — that is how absolutely amazing this hike was. I’m starting with the wildflowers, which were out of control. I took over 400 photos today, if that tells you anything at all.

Colorado Columbine (Aquilegia caerulea)

It’s easy to see why the Colorado Columbine is the official state flower... It’s so big and delicate and gorgeous!

Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maximum)

I just love this Cow Parsnip, partly because of the name, but mostly because of the way it captures the light and forms a little umbrella for it's big floppy leaves down below.

Elephant’s Head (Pedicularis groenlandica)

I guess it’s pretty obvious why this plant is called “Elephant’s Head.” Each little flower looks like an elephants snout!

Honda Civic Hybrid = 54 mpg = WOW!

Matt was filling up the Civic Hybrid on Thursday for our camping trip when he pointed out that we drove 758 miles on one tank of gas! I love the Civic Hybrid! Suck it, everybody who still drives a gas guzzler!

Anna Zemánková’s Drawings

Anna Zemánková (1908-1986) was from what is now Czech Republic. She loved to draw as a child, but didn't begin her serious work until mid-life when her son gave her some art materials to help her combat depression. She found solace in art, and created floral and botanical drawings during hours of solitude. In the 1970s, Zemánková began to develop new techniques of working with the surface of the paper. She began to punch holes into it, and created raised textures in her work by manipulating the paper's surface. She also began working with collage techniques, incorporating textiles, beads, threads and other materials into the paper. (To find out more about Anna Zemánkovás life, go here.)

I find this work really inspiring... I love the imperfections in the line quality and shapes, the textures created, and the recognizable abstract quality of the work. I also like to use various materials in my own paintings, and love to explore multiple ways to manipulate the drawing/painting surface, creating 3-dimensional textures that interact with light and shadow.

Dominguez Canyon Weekend

A cliff at the top of Big Dominguez Canyon.

Matt and I went camping this weekend with a bunch of people from Colorado Environmental Coalition and Sierra Club. Dominguez Canyon and its surroundings are in the process of becoming a special protected area, called a National Conservation Area.

The weather was perfect this weekend. It rained a few times, but everything cleared up and dried out in time for us to hike six miles and enjoy a barbeque and campfire. Tom Wolf was a guest speaker, and he talked about a biography he recently completed about Arthur Carhart, one of the first advocates for protecting America's wild places. After we heard about Arthur Carhart and his dedication to protecting public lands for all Americans, we were gung-ho about helping to continue his legacy.

Mushroom in the campground.

Even though it has been a hot, dry desert summer, the rain over the last few days has caused everything to burst with life. I love the way the desert turns bright green after a big storm, and wildflowers and mushrooms pop out all over the place. The mushroom you see above was about six inches in diameter! Below is a great example of Indian Paintbrush. We also saw a fresh bear track in the trail yesterday while we were hiking... always exciting!

Here’s an article from the Montrose Daily Press about our outing.

Indian Paintbrush