What Inspires Us?

Oooh, to make beautiful sculpture as nice as this weathered log. Saw some beauties on the Big Island this year. This one was at a sweet little beach at Waialea Bay. Gentle waves the day we were there but the trade winds were blowing just enough to drive us off the beach a little earlier than we'd planned. We're wimps.

Undulations and smoothness, little surprises in places, and one big dramatic flourish.

What more could one want in a sculpture?

Now, how to translate into something I can actually make in my studio...

What Inspires Us?

On a quick trip North we happened upon the 100th Birthday Celebration of the Hawthorne Bridge in downtown Portland. Beautiful flowing textile installation on the bridge was lit up in a techno-colorful way that was hard to capture with my digital camera and rusty photography skills. It is inspiring to know that people have visions this large and can get them financed--even if they are just a temporary moral booster like this was.

Our other detour was up to see the Johnston Ridge observatory 5 miles away from where Mt. Saint Helens blew out her northside in 1980. We were living in Portland when it was all happening and watched the roiling plumes that clear May day. Seeing the new landscape we were reminded of the tremendous energy that caused the blast, landslide, ash and gas storm. Makes one feel incredibly small. We were witnesses to a huge geographic event that was just a blip in the timeline of this earth.

It was lovely up there in a sobering way.