Coming off of Valentine’s Day, of course I’m still seeing hearts everywhere.  Walks are brilliant for scavenger hunts.  We often pass this lock on the Burke-Gilman trail, with a heart on it.  And yesterday, I squealed and stopped my jog still when I saw this little red heart hedge at Green lake.

My boys and I, we love taking long walks.  Seattle is called the Emerald city for how green it is all year round, but you could just as easily call it the topaz, sapphire or lapis city.  I often find myself drawn to the all those blues and I love being surrounded by water and sky that defines our city.  Waking up to the sound of boat horns, seeing the birds soar in the sky and understanding what it means when “the mountain is out,” I feel so lucky to be a Seattleite.  I need my long walks because they are so essential for clearing my head.  As I’m out moving my body, I know my mind is working quietly in the background while I’m distracted by all the beauty created for you and me.

I’ve got stacks and stacks of artwork and jewelry to share/add to my shop, but I’ve been really slow at posting them. (With good reason though: I’m spending most of my time making them!) This pretty gold vermeil and sterling silver necklace is new.  I’m also bringing back a favorite print.

Has anyone else been browsing through the new fall collections? I’ve got a lot of favorites so far, but it’s hard to concentrate on while packing for our spring getaway that involves summery clothes…

This is for all of you locals – you in for a sweet treat because some friends of mine have organized a Bake Sale where 100% of all the proceeds will be going to the Foundation for Children in Need, an organization which helps orphans in Haiti.  The founder of this organization is run by our friend Leah’s family.  Leah’s mother is currently in Haiti right now securing shelter, food and clean water for the orphans of the 5 orphanages their foundation has helped for the last 8 years.  Please come and pick up some delicious treats baked by us!  From 9am to 3pm this Saturday the 30th, we will be in Magnolia Village, on MacGraw, the block between 32nd and 33rd. (Map + Facebook event page/invite)

I know there are so many of us who wish we could just get on a plane and be there, helping first hand.  Sometimes it feels like the direct eye to eye love and service would feel the most rewarding. But it is these small things, built by our own hands, in our own communities, that can also make a difference.  Every little bit helps.

I mentioned briefly last week that I was going to share a way to help Haiti through my own art – so 25% of all sales from my shop will go to the American Red Cross.  (I will be adding more items to the shop, some beautiful things that I’ve been working on… fingers are crossed it’s this weekend.)

Hope to see you at the bake sale and happy weekend!

One of my favorite recent shots on film. See it up close.

Brunch at the 5 spot where you can find the best omelet in Seattle.  Baking pumpkin pie cheesecakes.  Lego cities, wet sandboxes, pouring down rain, new paperbacks.  Girl’s night at my place with a scaring screening of one of my favorite movies, Wait Until Dark.  (We all screamed like little girls at that one part.  If you’ve seen it, then you know the one.)

I’ll always remember this summer.  If only for the most blissful weather our fair city has seen in the language of sun, because Seattle? We made pure poetry. But there was more. Much more.  The sunshine was just a background note to an emotionally pivotal season in my life.   Overwhelming, physically trying, new life holding, spiritually renewing, deeply traumatic, in the depths, safe at last.  I was being shown the entire range of human endurance in an intense concentration of time.  And I survived.  The reward of all this was a great jolt out of “regular” existence to a very real sensation of being here.  What all that means, or how to exactly describe it.. I haven’t figured it out yet. I can call it an awakening, but not the kind where you are scrambling for the frontlines making sure that everyone knows.  And not the kind where you write a book about it, because in this case, I’m not sure that words can properly color in all the lines.  This is the kind of summer you might not see in movies, unless it is the kind of closing scene that is really a beginning – where the heroine is shown gazing over the endless horizon, her head held high and though it is silent except for the wind blowing through the grass and her hair… you just know. That it is then that after seeing everything she went through back there that there is a quiet pact being made between her and her maker.  And you leave the theatre with the same resolve and the silent understanding these are the best days of our lives.

No day is too regular, no person in my orbit less than spectacular.  I feel like I knew all this somehow, but I wasn’t fully living it like maybe I used to.  That’s the best part of this “new” version of seeing things is that strangely, it isn’t new at all.  It’s so very familiar.  And a lot of what I feel that I am now is so much of what I was as a little girl.

So I want to thank you summer, thank you possible tragedy, thank you birth.  For turning into a sweet, sweet reminder of life.  You are a gift, and I will wear you as a locket worn under my shirt, never to take off.  I will take you out, open you for a few moments and remember.  Now that the last sunny day is gone, a new season begins.

I wake up understanding that I am lucky.  And when a slight fear creeps in whispering to me that things can’t possibly get better, something amazing is occurring – they just do.

Magellan, the penguin I created for the The Woodland Park Zoo and Urban Light Studios, has been adopted by Ballard’s own Snoose Junction Pizzeria on Market Street.  If you are in Seattle, you may have seen some other penguins popping up in the area.  All the Penguins on the March have now found a temporary home with a business in Wallingford, Greenwood-Phinney or Ballard until they get auctioned off in August and September.  Here is a list of penguins and their locations, extra points if you go on a scavenger hunt and play I Spy!

I’m so impressed with The Greenwood Collective building’s space…all that light, all that exposed brick, open galleries down a flight of stairs.  It’s got a true arterior soul. There was a lot of great community artwork being shown tonight during the art walk, among the unveiling of all the penguins.  I stopped in briefly tonight to say hello and took some more pictures of the Penguins on the March.  Enjoy!

As promised, here is a look at my completed penguin for the Penguins on the March project!  Inspired by the distance that penguins cover in their migrations, I felt that this guy was meant to be a traveler, and so I set out to bring that part of his personality…

He wears a scallop edged coat made of 1970s National Geographic maps, all cut into teardrops shapes and assembled project runway style. (I swear at any point, Tim Gunn was going to walk into the room, hands clasped, and say to me, “Make it work!”) Trimmed in velvet and vintage leather and plastic buttons, he dons a hat I crocheted for him, a lime cotton collar, as well as a tiny paper suitcase.

Mini trees near the base elaborate his sense of wanderlust through various landscapes, and gives him a pacific northwest vibe.

This morning Magellan was part of the Penguins on the March launch at the Space Needle, where he met all kinds of people, young and old, including other Seattle artists part of the project.

The launch event is a celebration of art and wildlife conservation, inspired by the Woodland Park Zoo’s brand new Humboldt exhibit, and continues tonight where Magellan and other penguins will be at The Greenwood Collective during the Art Up/Open Up Greenwood-Phinney art walk. After today, Penguins on the March will begin migrating into Ballard, Fremont and Greenwood-Phinney, where some will be featured in front of neighborhood businesses through September.  (Catch some select penguins at the Waiting for the Interurban sculpture in Fremont tomorrow, June 13th.)  After migrating through Seattle, the penguins will be auctioned off to benefit Woodland Park Zoo’s field conservation program, which supports 38 wildlife conservation projects in 50 countries worldwide. More pics from this morning’s launch, taken before the crowd got going…

One of the yummiest places in my city…Pike Place Market. Though it’s not just for tourists, lately it’s been packed because of the beautiful weather and all the summer season.  Weekends become especially difficult to navigate through all the visitors just standing between you and the seafood.  There is usually a wall of people there just to look, not necessarily to buy.  Locals like me forget that not everyone in the world has a market like ours, with goods displayed in such a novel way.