Biosphere by Dahlov Ipcar

My step-mother just paid me a lovely compliment! She was looking at postcards of the various horse pieces that I just sent off to Wisconsin (the Bradley Art Gallery in fact) and said they reminded her strongly of Dahlov Ipcar's work. So we sat down and googled Dahlov Ipcar, and Wow!! She has done splendidly varied work for a long time, including (I just realized) writing and illustrating a book my brother read to death when he was small – Lobsterman. I find myself particularly drawn to her Horse Mandala, and one in the Portland Museum of Art called Blue Savanna.

fish fossil
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I studied geology for my undergraduate degree, and what I liked best was paleontology. I liked the stories of how organisms changed, and I liked the sedimentary processes that saved the remains, and I was grateful that the blood and guts were not present by the time the fossils were ready for me to study.

ammonites
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Thinking about fossils, I went looking on Flickr for pictures of trilobites, but I found instead all these gorgeous swirled images of ammonites.

After I finish some trees, I have a fossil or two in my future. A set of fish bones. A trilobite. Definitely an ammonite.

Part of whatever I was sick with required a round of antibiotics and was probably strep. The rest of it has been receding slowly over the last week. I've been sleeping, and drinking a lot of fluids, and waiting impatiently to feel substantially better.

It is hard to think it is June already. May hardly made a dent on my consciousness and here we are rampaging towards the longest day of the year and the last day of school. Both the same, as it turns out.

I got postcards printed locally, and they are fabulous. There are now five horse postcards, and five brown things, and I will have them up on Etsy soon. The works that are headed to the Wisconsin gallery are mounted and languishing at the framers. When they are done there I will hie them to the UPS store to be swaddled in bubble wrap and sent on their way.

I have started a new piece, but it isn't to a stage where it can be photographed yet. You'll all be the first to know, I promise!