My New Website & an Etsy Shop Giveaway!

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My friends, I have a new website! It feels like a birthday present to myself. I couldn't be happier. Go ahead and please take a peek at my new site www.katrinarodabaugh.com I built this little baby all by myself and as many of you know, I am not a savvy graphic designer or a professional IT person, but instead I am just an artist and writer who very much wanted her own website. And now it's finally been birthed out into the world. Phew. Break out the cigars and champagne and pretty pink balloons!

A simple site for some artists, still some glitches to work out, but this is a huge step for me in creating one online place to house my other online spaces. A little home to showcase my work as an interdisciplinary artist, a writer, a crafter, an artist, a blogger, and an Etsy seller. It's still a work-in-progress, but I am so happy with the progress. Good grief.

As a little present to all of us, I'd like to offer a giveaway to celebrate my website. (Or, more specifically, to celebrate the launch of my new website which means I can go back to other things like writing poems, making prints, and taking photographs. Joy!) To be eligible for the giveaway, all you have to do is take a peek at my new website "Katrina Rodabaugh: Art + Life" and then come back here and give me a little feedback.

Let's go with threes, to make things easier. Just summarize my website in three words, feelings, technical notes, glitches, good thoughts or anything else that you'd like to leave for feedback. Just pop over to my website, make a few mental notes, and then come back here and leave a comment on this post with your three things. I'll choose one person from all the comments for a free item from either of my Etsy shops. The winner will choose the item and I'll package it up pretty and send it off to you, free of charge.

Hooray! I'm up and running. I hope you'll help me celebrate... xoxo, k.

Flags of Surrender and a Poetry Reading Too...

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My friends... This morning I put my dear mama on a plane back to New York. She was here for a week-long visit and I couldn't have been happier to host her. She's one of those magical folks that are just instrumental to my very core. One of the folks I hold so very, very dear to my intellectual and emotional make-up. I like to believe their fingerprints will always line the inside of my thinkings. Like my life was shaped this way because they were in it. Like my love was shaped this way because they were in it. Like my hope and strength and determination and purpose were all made that little bit clearer because of their reflection. Those handful of people, you know? I know, you know.

We took a weekend trip up the coast to visit family friends and each morning I managed to take a walk with my husband. We scampered out of the house shortly after waking... camera in tow, sneakers practically mis-laced, hair still full of patches and spots from the sculpting sides of the pillow. I'd been feeling so discouraged by projects almost-finished, technical difficulties out-of-my-hands, general distraction with the sudden change in season, but somehow this daily walking set me straight. I just decided to give in. To waive my white art flag up at the big grinning sun. "Okay then, you win. Today I will just enjoy my mother's company, my husband's good conversation, my old sneakers, my new camera, and this time to simply walk along the coast. Okay, then... I give in."

Oh, and one more thing I want to share, upcoming...

I'll be giving a poetry reading this Saturday night for any of you Bay Area locals. I'll be reading along with two poets who I adore and admire--Kristin Palm and Sarah Trott--two fellow Mills College graduate poets who have gone on to publish their first books. This particular reading is in honor of the very recent publication of Sarah's first book, Planned, just out by There press. (Find the details for the reading on the There website, right here.) Wish me luck at about 7pm on Saturday night, I'll be jittery and eager and anxious with poets and prose. xoxo, k.

Almost There...

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Friends, I just found these photos stashed in my summer folder on my computer. It makes me realize how much the outdoor lighting has already shifted from late summer to early autumn. I gasped when I saw the bursts of yellow against the periwinkle blue and rustic barn. Such a surprise of color, somehow.

I can't seem to keep my mind focused these days, perhaps it's a back-to-school rebellion somewhere deep inside my cells. Lately, every time I try to finish-up a project it still ends up, "Almost there". Even though I'm not heading off to classes this fall, I have to wonder if somewhere in my cell-memory a part of me is daydreaming up at the clouds as someone beckons I come back into the classroom. I think somewhere in that story, there's a pad of paper and a pencil and a dozen sketches of large-winged butterflies too.

Oh, and a huge Swallowtail butterfly has been coming to the bougainvillea in front of our living room window these past few days; flapping its gorgeous yellow wings as it leans in close to the bell-shaped blossom. I think pale yellow and periwinkle and magenta are most certainly "earth tones"! Wouldn't you agree?

If you would also like to be distracted, take a peek at these artists whose work I stumbled over this weekend at the world's most amazing magazine store: Chris Silas Neal and Gordon McBryde. (I'm smitten with Neal's work while I love the blue sky photos by McBryde, perhaps they helped inspire today's blue-sky post. And... if you haven't seen these Polaroid note cards yet then you might want to take a peek, they are currently making me swoon.)

Yours in daydreaming distractions--
xoxo, k.

August, From My End.

1. what i see, Point Reyes National Seashore.

2. to hold.

3. we pretend this is a VW bus, please do.


and a view from our Oakland:

1. our favorite spot for brunch.

2. bottomless.

3. lovenotes, left by others on the benches.


and a view from inside/home:

1. late august harvest: purple, grape, plum.

2. dear friends were married, these flowers say so.

3. apple spice muffins, in the mix.

4. my fine little baker's dozen.

5. the littlest roses, from the farmer's market.
a perfect pale of pink.


and from up in the hills, just outside of Oakland:

1. twirl, twist, cartwheel when i can.

2. a few favorite things: Uppercase & my polaroid.

3. brown curls falling from barrettes, ever since i was little.

4. halves, my peach.

5. shades of silver, weed, & sunlight.

Dear friends, I hope your weekend was lovely (A long weekend for those of you who are reading this from the States, Happy Labor Day). I, sadly, have been quite sick with a strange summertime cold that tore through my little arts office. So, while my weekend was full of tissues, movies, a couple of books, and plenty of ginger tea, I did manage to take a handful of photos. And there were a few other local adventures in the past few weeks that I want to share with you now. This is (roughly) what my August looked like.

I try to get out of the city as much as possible to reconnect with the land and expansive skies, but this also includes day trips to places like Tilden Regional Park in Berkeley and just up the coast to Point Reyes or down the coast to Half Moon Bay. That's one of the many magical things about the San Francisco Bay Area, in just over one half hour you can be completely surrounded by wilderness and big wide sky. It's really amazing, to have access to both urban and wilderness habitats in such close proximity.

August has been full of travel throughout Northern California, including picnics, daytrips, and vacation too. But it's also been full of photographs, wildflowers, farmer's markets, homemade meals, and the last harvests from the garden. As you know, I'm slowly but surely building my own website this month (I inch closer to a finished site each week, squeak squeak) but it's also full of a few other things that will build momentum throughout September and October too. My hands have been busy with digital things like cameras, Photoshop, and websites, but in the not-too-distant future I believe I'll be busy with ink, and thread, and paper too. (Sigh of delight.)

Happy September, my friends, it's suddenly the ninth month of this year. My goodness, say it isn't so.