Scenes from the recent snows

While I was inside last week, working at the computer and typing occasional posts on Facebook, outside my window snow was howling down, forming into hills of white powder that were so tall we could hardly tromp through them, even days later.

Icicles formed on every edge of our roof, some reaching nearly four feet to the ground. (Since yesterday the ice on the roof has begun to melt and is now seeping through our windows, trickling down our walls. We are trying to catch the dribbles with towels, sponges and plastic cups lined along our windows sills).

Chickadees ate thistle at the goldfinch feeder, diving in for a quick peck before heading back out into the glistening white blankness.

(All photos Copyright 2010, Beth Blevins)

Postcards from Santa Cruz

Color comes to my blog for a day...

Here are some of the postcards I made alongside Chandra Garsson in Santa Cruz throughout the summer of 1982. (This will be mentioned in my interview with her tomorrow). We had hoped to have them reproduced, to sell as artsy postcards, but back then color xerox was $1/page and we couldn't figure out how to make a profit on the endeavor. 

I spent most of 1982 writing, taking photographs and doing collages, nearly unemployed and broke, supposedly writing my undergraduate thesis on The Aeneid (which I ended up writing and typing up one week in June 1983, just before it was due). It was a hard year. I was sick a lot, partner-less and didn't know what I was going to do once I had my B.A., which was one reason I kept putting off writing my thesis—as long as the thesis wasn't finished, I was still a "student," not just another Santa Cruz hanger-on.

And yet, seeing these postcards again, and remembering the many nights that Chandra and I stayed up together, working to make art for money but ending up with odd and sometimes beautiful collages as well as a lifelong friendship, I don't see that summer or even that year as a waste. 

(This postcard is a pic I took of Chandra that summer, painted and mounted on pasteled paper)

That summer of frenzied art also helped me realize I don't have enough guts or talent to be a visual artist. That's why I admire Chandra so much. She kept at it while I retreated to the quieter craft of words.