Dispatch From LA

The Secret Life Of Clouds

A few more peeks at the visual feast that is Artful Blogging.


Rain soaked days. More than I can count now.

A new way home has me paddling through Los Angeles with new eyes. Tomorrow I'll take the camera with me.
Before and after the rain there are plenty of smoky clouds...

If you live in the land of perpetual rain your wonderment at clouds may have dimmed. But not mine. The world is a secret hypnotic place with clouds floating about.

Maxfield Parish has been loading and unloading his paintbrush outside my workshop window. Clouds make it difficult to concentrate on anything but the sky. So I won't.

Wyatt Earp agrees. Clouds have him waxing poetic on the table in front of the window. After work we both sat and stared and thought deeply about many things.

The senior member of the cat posse has no use for clouds. But newly formed watering holes with cold water are a different story.

1:23 a.m. 52 Degrees

Today was a day made for enchantment. Los Angeles after rain. Like fine tuning the focus on a lense. Every particle of blurred dust wiped clean. And snow in the mountains so close, so close. Winter has returned to the city after a long hiatus. Drifting off to sleep to the sound of rain falling is a pleasure I'd almost forgotten.

Early afternoon was sunny for a few hours. Enough time to spray a few new stencils. KELLY Snelling was kind enough to let me cut stencils from some self-portraits she had posted to her blog. Hers is a perfect face for making into a stencil portrait. Exquisite bone structure. I rarely have a desire to cut stencils of people I don't know, but when I saw these photos. Well...you know what happened next.

Since winter found us, everything is springing up strong and full in the garden.

The heat-seeking geraniums that were supposed to love dry conditions are growing like The Little Shop of Horrors plant in the cold rain.

Here's a sneak preview of what's coming up in the latest Artful Blogging magazine. I'll be showing more in the days ahead. The photos are gorgeous, but what I'm really enjoying is reading everyone's thoughts on the process. I'm one of those people who enjoy a good wordy blog.

Here are a few more beauties for you. Pure talent coming off the pages of RED SHOES. You'll want to check it out.

I know i've sent you here before. but I LOVE this blog with all my heart. Maybe because the dogs remind me of Papa Moss and his herding years. There are only a handful of blogs I check daily. THIS is one of them.

Then prepare yourself for one of the best designed artist web sites I've seen in awhile. Martin Bochicchio is NOT to be missed.

This just in from my sister, Carol. What? Of course I don't have her permission to broadcast her emails, but she sends them to ME. And I'm the one with the blog aren't I?

You must do a follow up with the story of Dottie playing Paul Anka's "Having My Baby" in the motherhouse while the male workers were remodeling the 5th floor.

Maybe I Can Find An Old Habit To Slip Into

My sister Dottie is a Sister of St. Joseph, an order of nuns that originated in LePuy, France in the 17th century. She sent me these beautiful photos of Ramona, one of the sisters, making lace.

A bit of history from the S.S.J. website:

The Sisters of Saint Joseph were among the first Catholic communities to be founded for the ordinary woman. They were not wealthy or educated and worked to support themselves especially by making lace, a common trade in that region of France. Today, those who are attracted to this still live among the people and offer their lives in love and service. We carry on the heritage of our founders, six French women who joined a Jesuit priest in 1650 to begin a community without cloister or habit and devoted to the needs of the ordinary people. They shared a profound desire for union with God and the "dear neighbor".

The community grew. In 1650, it was formally recognized as a religious congregation by the Bishop of LePuy. By the time of the French Revolution, it had spread through south central France in the region of the Valey. Then, caught in the political turmoil of the times, the congregation was disbanded. Some of the Sisters were martyred at the guillotine and others returned to their homes or went into hiding. After the revolution had ended, a heroic woman, Jeanne Fontbonne, who had narrowly escaped the guillotine herself, refounded the Sisters of St. Joseph at Lyon, France. She was known in the congregation as Mother St. John. Before long, the sisters were numerous again. In 1836, a request came from the Bishop of St. Louis, Missouri for Sisters to teach deaf children. He had been advised by a friend in France to "…get the Sisters of St. Joseph because they will do anything". Three sisters crossed the ocean and came to a log cabin in Carondelet, Missouri to found a school for deaf students. From there, they spread across the United States beginning new foundations and now are members of the organization known as The United States Federation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph.

When I was still a kitten living in Kansas I would visit Dottie at the Nazareth Motherhouse in Concordia.

I have fond memories of cavorting about the countryside on bicycles and sliding down snowy hills on pink trays from the cafeteria. I also seem to recall Dottie relocating lifesize statues of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph adorned in bra and underpants about her and the other young nun's living quarters - behind doors, tucked in beds. You know. Just the usual places one expects to find Jesus, Mary, or Joseph.

Having a Moss girl join the convent could be compared to letting a bull in a china shop. Sure a few things might get broken, but imagine the fun along the way!

She also sent me these cool photos of old scrapbooks from the archives.



Next time I get out to Kansas I must lock myself in the archives with a bunch of life-size statues standing guard. Maybe I can find an old habit to slip into while I pore over old scrapbooks and journals.
Wait. Did they make habits back then in size 2X?
Note to self: check.

The Journal Laboratory

The underpainting experiment continues in the journal laboratory.

Digital words are all I'll add to complete this page.

Yesterday evening these clouds heralded the arrival of rain. The golden ones look especially innocent, but look at that dense black mantle above. It made a forboding line on the horizon and I for one, was glad. I may have stood out on the porch and clapped. I don't recall.

Many are not as thrilled as I about the prospect of a week filled with wet and grey.

The thought of rain fills Wyatt Earp with deep melancholy.

A few days of checker playing with the rest of the cat posse isn't going to kill him.

I'm having great fun watching a different JANE AUSTEN novel unfold on Masterpiece Theatre each week. So far I've seen Persuasion and Northhanger Abbey. Next week is Mansfield Park. 100% pure entertainment. I highly recommend them.

I also recommend going HERE to see these elaborate paper cuts. Have your smelling salts at the ready.

Oh, I Can Do Both.

Today, among other things, I underpainted a stencil. Added more sketch lines over the top. Made a pig nose. Like almost everything I strongly disliked it at first. Now I'm growing fonder. The piece I always end up loving the most is almost always the same piece/page I reject so fiercely in the beginning. Since I know this about myself I usually ignore my initial reaction and soldier on.

Lately, Over The Rhine sets the mood while I piddle around in the art workshop. I am in love with every song on both of these CD's.

A leisurely Sunday, made slower by the fact that tomorrow is a holiday.

I'm almost out of exacto blades. Dogoneit. This will require a trip for art supplies. Bears in hibernation don't like heading out on supply runs. Nor should they.

Running out of stencil film is less likely to happen. I order it by the foot from PJ STENCILS

These flip-flops from FREE PEOPLE have my dreaming brain working overtime.

This email just in from my sister.

Here is a good mom story... when we were leaving Panera on Friday night she grabbed, and I do mean grabbed, a couple of bites of cookie that were sitting out as you came in for sampling. She has no shame at all when it comes to freebies. So we are walking out to the car in the 5 degree weather. Picking our way precariously across the ice and slush and such and I say "Mom, stop eating those cookies and pay attention to where you are going!" and she says "Oh, I can do both," chomp chomp chomp... it was v.v.v. funny.

An Ode To My Shoes

See. I really do have more than one pair.

What's In My Journal

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Thing, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

by William Stafford, from Crossing Unmarked Snow

I've posted that poem before. I'll probaby do it again. I like it. A lot.

Winter mailart I sent out in December. See those metal page trimmers? Those are some new-fangled 7 Gypsies contraptions I got online.

Lately I've been hibernating like the she-bear I am. It's winter. I need a nap. Still having trouble putting words together to make sentences.

Bear with me during my minimalist period here.

In other news my sister took Mama Moss shopping for the latest craze to hit her senior living village. Thong underwear.

I do wish Carol would try and talk M.M. down when she gets one of her Big Ideas, but she has a bad habit of encouraging this type of thing.

This postage stamp sized photo of the latest ARTFUL BLOGGING magazine was the only one I could get my grubby mitts on. If you get out your 30x jeweler's magnifying glass and press in very close to the screen you may be able to read the yellow words that read, "Passionate dispatches from an LA blogger." I never thought of myself as passionate, more like possessed. Who knew?

This next issue is available February 1st.

Let me just lumber back to my fur-lined den now.

They All Fell Out Of My Pocket

A wild cold wind is circling Moss Cottage. Someone's going to bed early with The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao. A good stretch of reading is what I need. As soon as the cat posse finishes their pilates maybe they'll be so kind as to warm my feet. One can hope.

More woodgrain pages. I can't get enough.

TONI sent me some exquisite security envelopes. I didn't have these patterns. I'm sure you'll agree they are fabulous.

I'm fresh out of words this evening. Must've used them all up today. Either that or they all fell out of my pockets on the way home. I've just got a pile of "ands" and "thes" left. And everyone knows you can't string together a decent, or even clever sentence with those.

There's A New Girl In Town

Buckle your seatbelts muchachos! The Faux Bois bug snuck right up into Moss Cottage and bit me on the arse. Yes indeedy. From here on in expect to see everything covered in knotty pine. For a couple of months now I've had faux bois wallpaper on the brain. Secretly fantasizing about stenciling over great swaths of it. Flash forward to this weekend. I was in the hardware store picking up an arsenal of new spraypaint colors when the idea came to me, as if in a dream. It was the voice of James Earl Jones urging me to go to the contact paper aisle. And that's when I saw them. 3 rolls of the most fabulous wood grain patterns ever. 15 feet of salvation staring me in the face.
So forget whatever nonsense I was spewing about whatever latest obsession had me by the throat.

There's a new girl in town. And her name is Faux Bois.

After a breakfast date with a pesto chorizo frittata and a friend, I spent a peaceful day cutting a few stencils and trying out some of my new paint colors. I spotted this bit of humorous street art on a wall near the restaurant.

Contrast if you will the difference between one of my current boxes of paint...

and the new cans. I'm going to try my level best not to lose these lids. And to turn the can upside down and spray until it runs clear amen.

Here are the complete pages from Friday.

While I sprayed the Missus pondered the furthest reaches of the tree limbs.

She did some quick calculations of branch strength and her weight and decided to go ahead with her plan. Up, up, up she went.

And when at last she had found a suitable spot she settled in for a long winter's nap. Yes she did. Note the paw dangling limply over the edge.

My girl RANDI sent me out some birthday mailart that I haven't stopped looking at. That's the best kind. The kind you want to study over and over again. That cool little folder is going straight into the visual journal. Part of my package were these enormous circus letters. I have big plans for them which may or may not involve woodgrain contact paper.

Many dear thanks for the birthday thoughts. From where I sit up here at seat #45 the view is great. You kittens still in your 30's have something to look forward to I promise. And you mighty She-Bears pushing 60, 70, and 80 I can hear you chortling all the way from the fourth row. Save me a seat.

I'm not a wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve type, and I don't often express how warm I feel when I get some of your comments and emails. I've even met a few of you in person. (Judy, Tyn, and Suzanne) Difficult for people who know me well to believe, since saying I'm not social is an understatement. And before I started blogging, I rarely, if ever, commented on blogs. So all this is to say a deep and quiet thank you. Even, and especially to all of you who read but don't comment. I know you're out there. (see your own fun pie charts at Sitemeter when you sign up for FREE)

I see you coming from New Mexico, Oregon, Canada, France, United Kingdom, Austria, India, California, Massachusets, Minnesota, and so many more places. It's all, every bit of it, lovely & amazing.

Elvis & I

After school I limped home, dragged myself up the front stairs, and collapsed in a pathetic heap at the art table. Need journal. Must cut things. Must glue things. Must slosh paint around. Must cut new birdy on new branchy to spray onto page. Must, must, must. Starting to feel better. There now. All better.

Neither page is complete. Will finish tonight after I have gotten my fill of staring into space. Teaching baby alligators to tell time is hard. Very hard. Harder, for instance, than making a new pair of party pants. More painful than a Brazilian wax.

Man your clocks! Fingers on the blue minute hand! Ready set GO!
Not the red hand, the BLUE hand.
BLUE
The other one.
The long one.

Driving to work was peaceful. High pink clouds in the dark sky this morning.

Everything soft and out of focus.

The bridge has something different to offer every morning.

This last shot was taken walking out across the school yard to my classroom.

The question of the week comes from The Postman. Remember him? In the middle of composing his sentences for his story he stopped to ask a profound and beautiful question. (You may find it less so.)

"Miss Moss...I got to know. Do monkey's cry?"

And while I'm on the subject of the profound and beautiful you may wish to visit THIS enchanting blog that my sister found. Bedlam Farm Journal makes me very very happy. All of the Border Collies remind me of the dearly departed Papa Moss who used to train herding dogs. He wouldn't have a clue what a blog is, but I bet he's like reading this one.

Elvis & I had a birthday a few days ago. I have now been alive 45 years on planet earth. It's a good place to be, I think I'll stick around awhile. I figured you'd want to see my party hat....or not.

8:09 p.m. 51 Degrees

The skies over Los Angeles remain a snowy grey. It won't snow here of course, but I like seeing it frosting the wall of mountains to my north. It's good to know that if I chose, I could drive for an hour and hole up in a snowy cabin. The fact that I've never done it is irrelevant. My intersection between reality and dream life can be as wide as I want it to be.
While I ponder the logistics of landing the sleigh and reindeer in a snowy clearing next to my Currier & Ives cabin I may as well cook something.

How's about some roasted fennel? (insert collective cat posse eye roll)

A drizzle of olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar, salt&pepper then into the oven for an hour or so. There's a recipe HERE

A lemon begonia sits on the kitchen ledge to remind me that the sun could return at any moment to interrupt my cool domestic bliss. It's the only yellow I want to see for the rest of winter. Sun be damned! Rain, rain, and rain some more!

More visual journal pages. My assorted bird specimens continue to get a workout.

Searching For That Moment Of Narcotic Bliss

More pages from my ongoing journal chronicles.

I continue my love affair with the security envelope. The second the mailman drops the goods in my box I am on the porch. The letters and envelopes with checks inside and mailart are getting tossed aside and I greedily rip open the bills and junk mail searching for that moment of narcotic bliss. That moment when I find a New and Different pattern. Oy. With this level of intoxication who needs martinis?

My sister sent me these photos of her giant house cats. She insisted that I post them forthwith!

Will you get a load of the crispness of these shots. I'm almost convinced that a Nikon is in my future.

Only problem is no matter how great of a camera I get, the cat posse will NEVER have clean and tidy faces like this. No siree. My cats are barroom brawlin', squirrel catchin', bird chasin' bandits. Not a gentleman or lady cat in the bunch.

Meanwhile my other sister caught these sweet little foxes romping in her backyard.

Looked like a mother and her pup to me.

Our sky finally ran out of rain about 12 hours ago, but thankfully the night sky is rolling in with a fresh supply.
Stop fooling around and get over HERE and check out The Scent of Water. Lots of good stuff to soak up over there.

Storm Track!

This is my kind of forecast! Before I batten down the hatches I have a few images I've been meaning to share. An outdoor ornament tree in Silverlake shining in the sun. I was attracted by all of the glittering chaotic oppulence. I'll have an extra large helping of that please.

And maybe a big slice of this succulent & protea wreath.

A clever new graffiti poster caught my eye.

And finally, an unfinished visual journal page. In between bouts of staring into space, puzzling over the coming storm's trajectory & estimated time of landfall, and boarding up the windows of Moss Cottage I barely had any room left over in my crowded mind to wreak any creative havoc. Some days there is more thinking to be done than others.

Fantastically Uncivilized Behavior

The days are all about luxuriating in doing NOTHING important. Nothing urgent. Not finding envelopes for fallen baby teeth. Not answering a single solitary question. Not seeing other humans or hearing chatter. It's difficult to describe the strong need I have for solitude. For fantastically uncivilized behavior.
In the quiet of the day I went out back to the spraypaint station. A squirrel watched me from high up on the roof. We worked out there together. Me on my stencils, he on his acorns.

The visual journal didn't end up going to Carmel. Too heavy and cumbersome for the road. I took my plain old writing journal instead. Here's what became of those pages I had made up in advance.

New Year's Day sunset was spectacular. Wide bands of fire spreading out across the sky. Stars blooming in the dark spaces.

From my porch I watched.

A silent, alert witness.

Maybe, like me, you are entranced by security envelopes. I've been using them on almost every page. Look what I found. I think it's the most beautiful thing I've seen in awhile. Drop-dead gorgeous. GO have a look for yourself.

And have you been here? This is my best blog find in awhile. Really. FOUND OBJECT has it all and excellent writing to boot. Hightail it over there STAT.