owls & dogs

Hugo & Morella - collage, gouache & ink

Two more sweet little owls. I have a feeling you'll be seeing a lot of owls so I've decided to name them. Li'l Art Owls - all originals, matted and attached to a bright white heavy card with a matching envelope, sealed in cellophane and waiting to show up in my upcoming etsy shop update. Hey ! What's up with that shop update anyway? You may have wondered. There's been a tiny delay as Mama's been workin' hard trying to rustle up some big paying work from Customer No Uno - that and the fact that I'm taking this opportunity to set up a new etsy shop with the proper name 29blackstreet - the shop name I meant to have ... you may have noticed my current shop is called sablack77 - meant to be my username never a shop name. It's all about building the brand. Wink. Building that Creative Empire, tiny bit by tiny bit. Cause ya know ... Mama's got a plan ... and it's a big one.

Have you read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle ? I finished it Monday night and oh what a great read it was. A near perfect book. A big, nearly 600 page, story that gently pulls you through it. The big sadness (and there is sadness) is subtle and in the author's own words - intentionally impressionistic - sadness was my biggest fear reading this book. You know I don't mention Jake nearly as much as I used to here on this blog but I do still miss him terribly. When I think of him, when I really think of him, with that deep concentrated thought, the kind you reserve for trying to conjure up someone or something who you know you'll never see again - I still feel as if the air has suddenly been knocked out of me. It's often when Miss D and I are walking around this little village, she'll have stopped deep in one of her olfactory investigations and I stand nearby waiting for her and often looking up at the sky and I'll think to myself if I could only have one more visit with him. Oh the things I would tell him ... I love that dog more than even I can fathom. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is about dogs, not just about dogs, but dogs play a central role in the book. Yesterday while working away at the teak topped desk I listened to Oprah's 90 minute web cast * book club conversation with the author David Wroblewski with lots of questions via Skype from readers and book clubs from all over - and it was absolutely fascinating and added many more new layers to my understanding of not only the book, the story and it's characters but of the author and the art & craft of writing. I highly recommend listening or watching this book club web cast if you've read this book and loved it.

it's a lavender land of bubbles today.

* also available as a podcast through itunes