This is What July Looks Like, Over Here.

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My dear friends,

This is what July looks like over here. So for this week, I'll let the photos do most of the talking and I'll kindly hush, hush. I hope they'll tell you the things they told me this afternoon: Sweet like peach juice from a tiny urban garden where the peaches have finally bloomed; fragile like a pencil line shaping starfish and budding branches and floating umbrellas and stitches too; bold like an L-O-V-E tee shirt in gray and white that shouts, "Iloveyou" like political protest; and a canning jar full of fresh-cut flowers that somebody picked from the farm and brought back to the house, just for you.

xoxo,
k.

Two Girls in Dresses in a Meadow by the Coast: A Tribute to Long-Lasting Girlhood

We've been friends for 26 years-- since we were in first grade and I asked her to teach me to draw those bubble dogs with the puffy cheeks! Luckily, she agreed, and agreed to an infinite list of other requests including being the maid-of-honor in my wedding this spring. Each of our lives has been full of joy and magic, challenge and determination, adventure and travel, love and elation, sorrow and grief, mystery and meaning--just like anybody else.

But there's something about having the same set of sturdy shoulders nearby for 26 years that just makes me well-up with sweet tears every time it's mentioned. It's like just the existence of this person in my life is enough to remind me of all the things I need to hold dear. Like she's this constant reflection of the girl I was and the woman I've become, and like she somehow helps to thread all those years into one cohesive and less complicated story. Thank goodness!

So, this weekend we carved out a few hours for an adventurous photo shoot: Two Grown-up Girls in Flowy Dresses in a Meadow by the Coast. It's as if we're truly blood sisters, or spit sisters, or some other sort of sisterhood established by the likes of first and second graders in clubs with signs that read, "Girls Only, Keep Out". Like we are actually keeping true to that pact we made on the playground when we offered those little silver necklaces in the height of 80s fashion: Best Friends Forever.

This is my tribute to long-lasting friendship, my toast to indispensable connection, my cheers to insistence on girlhood most importantly when we are actually adults. There's a power in it all, a resilience, a rebellion, an open-armed and whole-hearted embrace of the parts that make us stronger. The parts that twirl, and prance, and jump, and pirouette in the meadow overlooking the coast, and leap in the tall grass by the old farm shed, and continue to giggle regardless of everything else. The parts that motivate us, that inspire us, that lead us with little more than a porch light glowing softly over a rusted turquoise bench.

To all these parts and pieces of girlhood and friendship, I raise my glass of something bubbly and tap it against your glass...

A Few Things, Mostly in 3 Parts...

Part One:
*i've been watching it open, day by day, ever since we brought it down from the garden. one could say, i'm delighted with the petals and that tiny line of pink.*

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Part Two:
*one vintage dress, one favorite pair of blue jeans, and just enough wind so the edges of the fabric ruffle and twist and curl*.

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Part Three:
*i dragged a few linoleum blocks from the studio cabinet and continued working on the postcard project which resulted in this little series here... lino prints, embroidery thread, water-soluble pencils, and a line of poetry or two. still keeping to the theme of a big bird, a little house, and medium-sized girl named, clover.*

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Postcards, Poetry, and Summertime Hues.

(Hydrangeas from the farmer's market.)

(Two signs of summer: Bare feet & stone fruit.)

(A feast of local produce. Dear, California.)

(Artichokes line the driveway.)

(Our little peach tree, almost ripe.)

(Happy Bench Monday.)

(Blurry roses and clouds drift by, daydreaming all the while.)

(The beginnings of a postcard project.)

Hello, friends. A quiet holiday weekend over here with much needed daydreaming. It was a bit chilly but signs of summer are all around the garden, the farmer's market, and the neighborhood yards. I officially declare: Summer has arrived to Oakland! It's difficult not to find all the rose blossoms completely intoxicating, the peaches completely indulgent, and the tomatoes completely awe-inspiring as they begin to ripen into deep shades of purple and red. Oh, summery hearts.

In the studio, I've started a new collection of poems. Yes, after finishing my first poetry manuscript just about a year ago (and quickly deeming it "too long and too messy" to try to publish) I haven't written many poems at all. Quite a change from the few years previous when I wrote more than 300 pages! My goodness. So, it's good to return to a little poetic practice. I'm writing a series of poems based on these paintings which I found through Artkrush--subscribe if you haven't already--and also interweaving some theories of interior design and the infamous (and ever-entertaining) etiquette guidelines of Emily Post. Very fun. And very much in the beginnings.

Lastly, I just started a postcard exchange project with a dear friend in New York. One postcard a day for the month of July. We did a similar exchange about 5 years ago and I'm sooo excited to be doing it again. It's such a treat to find handmade postcards in the mailbox for an entire month! I highly recommend it. My postcards are snidbits of a story about a little house, a big bird, and a medium-sized girl named, Clover... I'll let you know as it progresses! xoxo, k.