Ojai in Pastel

Last week was my fun, crazy, social week! Tuesday night (Valentine's Day) I had a dinner party for some of my single girlfriends (very fun!), then my Mom came Thursday and spent the night, and Friday my friend Erin came from San Diego with her magic fairy daughter, who is 5 years old, and they left yesterday morning.

So, here I am. :)

I will be blogging about our adventures to museums and so on, but in the mean time, I thought I'd share this pastel - in the spirit of celebration!

Last Tuesday, I was Juried into the Pastel Society of Gold Coast. For a while now, I have been showing my art to you, my blogging friends, but haven't been putting my new work out there in other realms. So, here goes and here's to new adventures!

The e.e. cummings poem below, was read aloud by my friend Rachel at dinner on Valentine's Day. It was so beautiful, I thought I'd share it with you.

Ojai Preserve, Early Spring

Pastel and watercolor underpainting on mounted Wallace paper

somewhere I have never travelled

e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

touching skillfully, mysteriously her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

[i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses]

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Hope you are having an amazing week!!!