the rhythms of june brought me many wonderful things, not the least of which being my 50th birthday. thank you, thank you... i am so grateful to be exactly where and who i am... 50 years into this life! my husband gave me a new digital slr camera for my birthday.. a canon EOS 40D to be exact. my son and i took those hawaii pics with the new camera.

have i mentioned that artist brit hammer is working on another book, titled mosaic: finding your own voice? i have so enjoyed working with brit and getting to know her a bit.. ever since i submitted a few pieces in her call to artists. she will be using some of my work in the book...my rhythms series... and she requested larger pics than the ones i originally submitted. so i have been trying out my new camera on the series of six pieces... one each for january through june. i have managed to get a set that i think will do. i am really amazed at the image quality... you can actually see that the marble is marble. i am still learning, so cut me a little slack... but i think they are pretty good for a start.

so, here are the new photos of all 6 rhythms pieces... there will be 12 in all by the end of the year.

well... i suppose it has been a while since i posted, hasn't it? a lot has happened, but not i felt like talking about. i'll try to do better. and to make up for it, here is a little aloha from our recent trip to hawaii. this is one of my favorite sunset photos. you can see all our (my son's and mine) good pics on flickr... just click aloha.

the mini salon at the SAMA conference was wonderful! what a joy to be able to gaze upon such a varied display of mosaic art. it was pretty exciting to watch the bidding action, as well. i am happy to report that my mosaic given, not lost sold for a nice price... higher than its starting bid. teresa sullivan, SAMA's past treasurer, and bill buckingham, of mosaic rocks!, were in a bit of a bidding war over it, and teresa won. that really made me feel good.

i will try to get some pics posted of the event.

here are my last 2 rhythms pieces... march and april.

i am really starting to get into these pieces, and to enjoy having a monthly focus. i think it will be fascinating to see all 12 of them together at the end of the year, don't you?

gosh... it sure has been a while since i have posted anything, hasn't it? not sure why that is... guess i have not had much to say.

the SAMA conference in early april was great! i really enjoyed meeting a lot of new people. i also had 2 very good workshops: one with bill buckingham and sophie drouin on working with stones; and the other one with sonia king on the business of mosaics. volunteering was a wonderful experience which gave me an opportunity to meet even more people.

the MAI 2008 exhibit was very exciting... so, so many good pieces representing a lot of different techniques and materials. i think that my favorite mosaic in the exhibit... the one that wowed me the most when i first laid eyes on it... was by scott henderson... i believe.. and was titled swan lake. absolutely stunning! kind of surprising, as i am really more into abstract these days... but it was beautifully done and so, so striking... it just kind of took my breath away. click on the thumbnail to see it.

still working on my monthly rhythms explorations, and i am enjoying both the process and the challenge. i also finished up my latest floating planes piece from my above and below series. i am calling it subtleties. i am not sure how i feel about it... it just did not turn out as i had envisioned it. it was very experimental... but really nothing like i anticipated. i will expand on all that some more when i post some pics in a few days.

not much more to talk about right now... i will post my april rhythms piece now.

more later...