Great Design for Any Time of Year

This was hanging in an Urban Outfitters store in Kansas City over the holidays. Great, heh?!

Colum McCann's LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN

I just finished this book and liked it very much. The first chapter introduces a group of people living in New York whose lives intersect around a main character. Each subsequent chapter focuses on the life of a different character from this group and, in the end, the final chapter pulls everything together.

A Day At the Huntington

I'd forgotten how wonderful Pasadena is.

But today was a delightful reminder. I met friends Roger O'Leary-Archer and Pat Sullivan for lunch in Pasadena followed by a visit to the vast acreage of The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in neighboring San Marino. There, we saw three great exhibitions: The Color Explosion, about how color lithographs revolutionized the printing industry in 19th-century America; Central Avenue and Beyond, about the Harlem Renaissance in Los Angeles in the 1920's and 30's; and Drawn to Satire, a show of John Sloan's etchings.

The entrance to the Huntington.

Pat and Roger graciously pose. The place was packed with visitors today.

Part of the vast gardens surrounding the many buildings that make up the Huntington.

The Huntington Art Museum

The Arboretum

On the way home, I couldn't resist stopping off in South Pasadena to my all-time favorite clothing store, Koi, on Fair Oaks. (It used to be called Sonnie's.) So many beautiful clothes! Where to begin? I held myself back today, but it was terribly hard.

At Work on My Drypoint

I've been sitting at my drawing table several hours each day this weekend to work on this copper plate. The light is good, my new office chair is very comfortable, and great music is playing in the background. Intermittently, I work on preparations for the printmaking classes I'll teach this semester, which begin on January 11th. The papers on the left are class notes to update. I am hoping the updates will happen by osmosis.

Guard Cat On Duty: January 2, 2010

No new year resolutions for Sophie, apparently...

Our First Day of the Year

I tried a new recipe for dinner last night: Chicken Curry with Pineapple and Coconut over rice.

We had a lazy day yesterday. Joe played his 5400th game of Freecell. He started at game one and is working his way through all of them. Yes, there are millions, so it will take him a while. I started a new drypoint and am liking the results. Today I hope to finish incising the image and pull a proof. I like this one much more than the other one I've been working on.

Gisele and Bill Thompson recently sent their friends CDs of their year's favorite music including Yo La Tengo, Johnny Cash, The Cramps, and Billie Holiday, among others. I listened while working in the studio. Terrific!

After dinner, while Joe read, I watched another episode of BBC's Hamish McBeth from netflix. It is a series about a police officer in a quirky little village in Scotland. Beautiful scenery - makes me want to go visit. On my lap, Sophie napped and purred (he can sleep and purr at the same time) after his own special New Year's day dinner of a bit of the chicken left over from dinner.

A Little High Mindedness for the New Year

I don't think these things would hurt: sincerity, striving for our best, contributing what we can to the world, working hard, thinking creatively, finding our way. So, these are my goals for 2010.

Also, I'd like to learn how to use my iPod Touch.

Last night, Joe and I met our good friends, Debra and John Grace, for dinner at Trattoria Limone, the terrific Italian restaurant in our neighborhood I've mentioned before in this blog. Our strategy was to meet at 6, before the masses arrived, and it worked. We had a wonderful meal and lots of good conversation. When we left at about 8, all tables were full and many people were waiting in a happy, festive mood. I'm happy to see Trattoria Limone doing so well.