various. sundry.

1) garden: growing! things are actually continuing to grow in the pots (with the notable exception of the thai basil- there in the back- we bought a month or so ago at whole foods...i have half a mind to haul that empty pot over to whole foods and demand a refund for the faulty seeds they sold me. jerks.). b and i are planning to divide the tomatoes today, which may end up killing the bigger ones, but they're supposed to be planted at least a couple feet apart, so they'll die anyway if we leave them together.

2) aaron bros. was having a sale on frames last week, and i found a great one for this beautiful photograph- taken by none other than the lovely photographer of nature-y things, ms. alida oegema. she took this stunning photo at glacier national park; i love having a big "window" into the great green wilderness of the north here in socal. it's good to have a reminder that such places exist.

3) sitting there below the picture is a wonderful little artwork by cathy reichel-clark, a local artist we met a week and a half ago at a little art show called "art on palm" in altadena. b and i hemmed and hawed over her work for a loooong time, and talked to cathy quite a bit in the process. her work mostly consists of hand-built ceramic vases. she can't use a wheel because of (i think) some sort of neurological disease that causes numbness in her hands (and feet), and generally leaves her exhausted. her work is exquisite- it's very different from most ceramics works because of the fact that it's not thrown, and until i saw her work i would have thought this would make her work inferior. but she's very talented and creates work that brings out the best in hand-built ceramics. it's so elegant and interesting (i wish i had thought to take pictures!...if she would have let me- she doesn't have a website..and i can't find any pictures online), and her glaze work is really amazing- b and i really like this black and white design, but she also had pieces that were very "rustic" looking, some that were modern-arty...a really wide range of decoration techniques that was all very, very beautiful. well, we didn't buy anything at that fair, but thought about it and then went to the sierra madre art festival last weekend, where she had a booth, and there we decided to take this piece home with us. yaaay! :) 

4) this mysterious black binder contains the first hard-copy version of a project i've been working on with scripps professor roswitha burwick (and others). i'll have more to post about this at the end of the month. :D