2, 8, 9

the 3 of us have driven from 7pm-1am 4 out of the last 5 days... 6 hour trips to and from phoenix and king's canyon (i feel like i need to find a way to include the numbers 2, 8, 9 in that sentence, too, since the rest of the digits were used somewhere - lol).

first of all, we took the same drive through the desert that i'd taken midweek to go back to "art unraveled" for another art workshop... this one was taught by Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch, the premiere expert in encaustic techniques (to me - in all my playing with this medium, i've had only her book "encaustic art workshop" to go from)... it was great. i got to ask her a bunch of troubleshooting questions about things that have come up in my pieces as i've worked with encaustics, and i mostly just got to play! new techniques i'd never been able to get a good grasp on, like painting with pigmented encaustic paint and image transfers onto the wax, and then just making stuff! very therapeutic... i made more than a dozen "pieces" ranging from a 12x12" piece (the one of jason's face) to 3-dimensional baby food jars and lids... here's some of them!

meanwhile, during my restful and fun day, jason and joey were off having their own adventure - they went off-roading on the Apache Trail, and picnicked by one of the lakes out there.

then we all drove back together into the night again... here's an excerpt from my journal from that drive west on the 10 (and a shot of those amazing towers i talked about before):

"inky blackness broken only by the snaking yellow and red lights along the highway, and the milky way! have never seen so many stars. so little "light pollution" out here. but it's amazing how even the dim glow that headlights emit can darken the dazzling sky. light obscured by light. [insert profound metaphorical insight here.] heading back into the los angeles basin where youre lucky to see the big dipper or orion's belt, i just have to say: if God intended for us to see this many stars all the time... he wouldn't have invented the sun. [note: i think it was getting a little late when i was writing this part... lol]

the sterile coolness of the air conditioning versus the wildness of the wind...

dreaming of ways to turn my "drillbit measuring template" into an actual belt buckle [a byproduct of that found object jewelry class from earlier in the week]; i am suddenly snapped from my reverie by a huge falling star. it is green! and looks as though it must have crashed on the road directly ahead...

the wind becomes twice as brutal, attempting to dislodge my brooch-turned-makeshift-hair-flower, and i realize i'm in that magical place of the wind turbines... harness that energy! so strong and unruly! [the end of my random musings-while-driving :]"

so we drove there saturday night, back sunday night, and then monday night we took off for a camping adventure! we met some friends up in king's canyon (near hume lake/yosemite), and spent two full days hanging out in the forest and by the river, before driving back down wednesday night! we all feel amazingly rested after all that driving and all those escapades!