20% OFF Giclee Prints - 10 Days left!

Since I'll be out of town next week, I thought I'd get in one last reminder about the 20% OFF Sale over at my website on FineArtAmerica.com.  The link in the title will magically transport you over to that site (Beam me up Scotty!).  The Discount Code to take advantage of this sale is:  GDPDBZ. This discount is good through 2/26/2011.

I have over 70 images uploaded there now, with more to follow this week, and this promotion is good for any size Giclee Print, as well as purchases of Note Cards and Note Card Packages. Matting and framing options are also available for the prints, and there's even a canvas option if you are so inclined.  Here are a few of my more recent postings there, but I hope you'll get a chance to check out the entire gallery.

I've recently organized all of the images into categories, or galleries to make it easier to find a specific image. Pictured at the top is "The Reiner", which you will find in the Horses Gallery.  To the left here we have my rendering of the Oregon State Capitol building, which you will find in the Scenic Portraits Gallery.  Finally, to the right, we have my rendering titled "Kestrels", which you will find in the Wildlife Gallery. 

Coming in March, look for a special through my Etsy Shop which will feature the laser-engraved wood product line.  Since the shopping cart on my website is not really geared to specials on a wide spectrum without making massive changes to the website, I'm looking forward to being able to offer these special promotions through my Etsy Shop and FineArtAmerica Gallery.  Stay tuned.

Artist of the Week - Arman Barajas

As part of my ongoing endeavor to feature the work of other artists in my blogs and newsletters, the featured artist this week is Arman Barajas, of Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Arman is a friend, and if you've visited my website at all over the past 5 or 6 years, you are looking at some of his work every time you visit Art from the Inkwell.  Arman is responsible for the re-design of my website, everything from color scheme to navigation to logo.  

While web design is one of Arman's talents, this blog will focus on his work as a sculptor. The link in the title will take you to his website, but here is an excerpt from his Artist Statement to help you along with the introduction:  

Understanding myself, relating to others, and life around me are my inspirations, and the emphasis of my body of work. My art gives a minimal amount of information, and is stylized to create a genuine feeling for nature, humanity, and balance.

I've included a few examples of his work here to get you started, and I hope you will get a chance to stop by his website to see more of his work.

Final 2 weeks of FineArtAmerica Special - Discount Code GDPDBZ

Just a quick reminder about the special that has been running through my FineArtAmerica Gallery for the past few months.  You can still get 20% off any purchase of Giclee Prints or Fully-customizable Note Cards through February 26, 2011.  Just enter the Discount Code GDPDBZ when you go through the check-out process to receive your discount.  Matting and framing are available, and also included in the promotion.  Now onto other matters.  What's up with Castle Hill Lighthouse, pictured here?  Only good stuff, I hope.  It seems to be a hot ticket item for me lately, both on the FineArtAmerica Gallery and my recently opened Etsy Shop.  Took less than two weeks to record the first sale on Etsy.  Must be some saavy shoppers with a keen eye for detail over there.  But seriously, for my artist friends out there, if you haven't checked out either of these sites yet, I would highly recommend them both.  They are great venues to post your artwork, get a little extra exposure, and maybe even make a few sales!  Let me know if you have any questions about starting up accounts at either website.  It really is a snap.  And you just can't beat their rates.



Check out this great product I found!

I stumbled across Christopher Sia the other day while searching through other Artists' websites and online offers, etc. and really liked the content. The link in the title will take you over to his site. As someone who works in Pencil, as well as Ink and Scratchboard, I got to thinking that if I was ever pressed to give a "How to" type class or write an instruction manual on what I do, I wouldn't know where to begin.  That may sound kind of silly, but it's true.  I don't really know how to do what I do; I just do it.  I've worked with other artists through the years, getting tips and techniques, but never any formal training.  I've been pretty much self-taught in my chosen media, whether it be Pen & Ink, Pencil, Scratchboard or Calligraphy.  So I guess having some natural talent is a good thing (a good place to start, anyway), but can also work against you in some ways.  Quite a few years ago, when I was living in Orlando, I was "recruited" to teach a class on Calligraphy to a local women's craft class.  Here again, I knew my process for getting to the end result, but I had a heck of a time breaking it down into basics that beginners would be able to follow along with.  So, I grabbed my "How to" books and plotted out a 6-week course, and you know what - we had some fun with it for the next 6 weeks!  The most challenging part of the class was having someone who was left-handed in there, and trying to figure out how to adapt the strokes to her natural motion.  Don't really remember if we were successful on that one or not!  Anyway, this looks like a great course - very succinct and easy to follow, with lots of extras.

New artwork - Meet Scooter

I haven't posted any artwork in a while, so I thought I'd post one of my more recent horse portraits - "Scooter".  Scooter belongs to our family veterinarian, Keri Sanders at Ark Animal Care in Mill City, OR.  Keri and the staff at Ark Animal Care are the greatest.  Over the past summer we lost two of our faithful companions, Henri and Sheba to old age.  They were both over 14 years old, and were a special part of the Howe/Tripoli household.  We greatly appreciated the care and kindness of everyone at Ark Animal Care, to us yes, but especially to Sheba, and then Henri, as we dealt with their illnesses up to the time it came to say goodbye, just a little more than a month apart.  Anyway, I did this portrait of Keri's horse, Scooter as a show of our appreciation. I completed the rendering using a combination of stippling, or pointillism and stroke work, and worked with black and brown inks.  The framed original now hangs in the office of Ark Animal Care.  The link in the title will take you to my FineArtAmerica Gallery, where you can see a larger image of the portrait, as well as all of the other portraits there.  I've recently organized the artwork into galleries, which for the most part, correspond to the galleries on my website.  There are a few differences, most notably the combining of the Northwest, Southwest and Golf Course categories (as you would find them on the website) into one gallery - Scenic Portraits, on FineArtAmerica.  As I add more artwork into that gallery, I will more than likely sort them out again down the road.

And now, for something a little different, as Monty Python used to say (no hammers smashing heads here though).  A few posts ago I introduced readers to Christopher Farlow, as artist associate of mine through FineArtAmerica, and he will be featured again in February's newsletter.  Today, I'd like to introduce my readers to one of my LinkedIn associates, Cindy Rademacher, owner of CJK Marketing.  Cindy lives in the Missoula, Montana area, and her businesses deal with Health, Wellness and Fitness.  One of her newest additions is a diet lollipop! Go figure, who would have thought you could lose weight by sucking on a lollipop. I'll try to have more info on Cindy's websites for February's newsletter as well, but in the meantime, to view her public profile on LinkedIn, just click on this link:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/cjkproducts. 

A reminder and a correction

Just a quick entry here to post a reminder to anyone actually reading this that there is a little over one month remaining to take advantage of the 20% Discount on all purchases through my FineArtAmerica Gallery.  The link in the title will take you over to my website there, and all of the artwork has recently been organized into galleries to make it easier to sort through the images.  Use the DISCOUNT CODE:   GDPDBZ  upon completion of your purchase to receive the discount.

In my last post I mistakenly listed Christopher's last name as Farley instead of Farlow.  Don't know where that came from, as I was looking right at it and actually typed it correctly in the link I provided to his FineArtAmerica gallery.  Chalk it up to a minor brain fart I guess.  Anyway, his name is Christopher Farlow, his artwork is still fantastic and worth checking out, and at least I was successful in pointing out to him that the title of his piece "On Eagle" should in actuality read "On Eagle's Wings".  So I guess we all have those little brain farts from time to time.  So long as they are not while driving a car or operating heavy machinery.

Featured Artist - Christopher Farlow

All right, this feature is not quite like Google's Artist of the Day, but I mentioned in an earlier post that I would from time to time try to introduce my friends and readers to new artists (or at least new to them!).  I came across Christopher a few days ago while I was putting in some time on my FineArtAmerica Gallery.  I belong to a few different groups there and was looking over some of the new work posted in the Pencil Drawing Group, and was blown away by Christopher's portraits.  The link in the title (or here) will take you over to Christopher's website http://www.pencildrawn.com/, where you can see for yourself some of his incredible artwork.  I've posted a few images here to whet your appetite, but I heartily recommend taking a tour of his website to see the complete portfolio. In addition to the posting in this blog, Christopher has given me his permission to include his artwork in my monthly Art from the Inkwell Newsletter as well, so those of you who follow me there will get to see more in February's edition.  In the meantime, enjoy!

This one is titled "Jessica Biel Drawing".  In Christopher's FineArtAmerica Gallery, there are actually 6 other Jessica Biel Drawings, at various stages of completion, so they are titled, appropriately enough with "Work in Progress" included in the title.  Each one focuses on a different portrion of the overall portrait, this one being the finished project.

This one is titled "On Eagle" and shows excellent craftsmanship in portraying wildlife in pencil.  There is a second eagle portrait titled "On Eagle's Wings" as a work in progress.  Not sure if the "Wings" was left out of the first title on purpose.  I'll have to check with Christopher on that.  All of these pieces are also posted on Christopher's FineArtAmerica Gallery.  This link goes directly to Christopher's gallery, just as my link will take you to my gallery.  If you would like to look through the portfolios of other artists who post their work on FineArtAmerica (and there are thousands!), you'll need to go to the main page at FineArtAmerica, and probably open an account to have access to all of the artwork posted there. There are three types of accounts:  Artists, Galleries and Collectors.  To my artist friends out there:  this is a great place to post your work and meet artists from all over the world and start new friendships and share experience and insights.

New Shop on Etsy.com

Just a quick posting here to announce the opening of my new storefront on Etsy.com.  Thanks to some of my LinkedIn contacts and groups, I was introduced to the online marketplace that is Etsy.com.  Follow the link in the title for a preview of my shop there.  So yes, here is yet another way for folks and (hopefully) potential customers to access the artwork from my website.  Each one of my storefronts is just a little bit different from the others, so if you don't see what you're looking for on one, just check out the others.  Looking for T-Shirts, Mugs, Calendars, and a whole slew of other products? Then CafePress.com is the place to go.  How about quality Giclee prints in a wide variety of sizes and Fully-Customizable note cards? That is the specialty of FineArtAmerica.com.  Plus they have matting and framing options available.  So far, I'm in the process of uploading select images to Etsy.com and will offer them as prints and note-cards, and down the road, I should be posting some of my laser-engraved gift items there as well.  The number of items posted there will more than likely be on a rotation schedule that will change every few months, but you can always slide back over to my website to have access to my complete line of 11 x 14 double-matted prints, note card packages, laser-engraved gifts and original artwork.  PayPal is available on all of the storefronts for safe and secure payment of your purchases, and links to the various storefronts will available on this blog, as well as my monthly newsletters and on the website.  And don't forget that you can always access my Amazon Shop as well if you're looking for Kindles, Books, CD's and all things Amazon.  As always, I welcome any inquiries regarding commissioned portraits, and would be glad to answer any questions regarding any of the product lines available through my website and storefronts.

Sad day for America

No links today, nor artwork, nor news of Holiday Concerts or recent trips.  Just some random ramblings about what transpired over the weekend.  What a sad and tragic day Saturday was.  I had just returned home from my daily walk with the dogs in the foothills near our house, and was settling in to prepare and cook my world-famous spaghetti sauce.  As I was prepping the sausage and ground beef (soon to be meatballs), I thought I'd check my DVR recordings for a little entertainment while I cooked.  I turned on the TV and of course, never made it as far as checking out the recorded programs listing.  The rest of the day was devoted to coverage to the tragic shooting in Tucson, AZ.  Once again, violence and hatred take over the headlines, and senseless killings rule the day.  A Federal judge, a 9 year old girl, a political aide and 3 others lay dead in the aftermath, and 14 others were seriously wounded in the shooting spree, among them Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was the reported target in the incident.  She suffered a through-and through shot to the brain and is in critical condition in the ICU. 

What has transpired since, in many regards, is equally sad and somewhat shameful.  The political positioning and speculation as to motive began almost immediately.  Left, right, sane, insane, unchecked vitriol from all sides.  It makes one pause to consider the sad state of affairs in America.  But is it really any worse than at any other time in our nation's history?  I think not.  We are a nation born of bloodshed, and political unrest has been a benchmark of our growth throughout our history.  Once it took days, or even weeks for news to reach from one end of the country to the other.  Now it is seconds.  Once it was eptithets that were hurled at opponents, and maybe an occasional duel or two.  Now we use automatic weapons and hurl hand grenades.  But let's keep everything in perspective.  In Sunday's Statesman Journal, our local newspaper in Salem, Oregon, the events of Saturday morning and all that had transpired since, were relegated to page 11.  Plastered all over the front page of the newspaper, above the fold and below were articles about tonight's BCS title game between Oregon and Auburn.  Now that is truly shameful.

FineArtAmerica update

Back to business now that the Holidays are over, guests are gone, and Holiday Concert Series has run its' course.  Speaking of the Holiday Concert Series, as promised, here's a quick review of the Pink Martini New Year's Eve Concert - FANTASTIC!!  One of best concerts I've ever attended; I'd rank it right up there with the James Taylor/Carole King concert that we saw last summer.  And you could tell that the audience was filled Pink Martini fans, because even though they may not be widely known around the country yet, whenever one of their signature songs was performed, the place went wild.  China Forbes, their singer is amazing.  If you listen to any of their CD's, you get accustomed to hearing her sing in English, Spanish, Italian and French, no big deal.  In addition to those selections, she sang three versions of "Silent Night", in English, the original German, and Arabic.  A traditional Chinese New Year's song was performed, in Chinese of course, and yet another portion of the show was devoted to Hannukah, sung in Hebrew and a Spanish/Hebrew hybrid language, call it Hebrish or Spanbrew or something. But it was beatiful nonetheless.



Dall Sheep

Okay, back to the topic. Pictured here is one of my latest postings to FineArtAmerica, titled "Dall Sheep". The link in the title will take you over to the profile page at FineArtAmerica.  Since I have over 60 images posted there now, I've organized everything into Galleries to make it easier to tour through the site.  The galleries for the most part will mirror what I have posted on my website, like Faces West, Wildlife, Horses, etc.  As a reminder, there is still almost two months left on the 20% OFF promotion for Giclee prints and note cards purchased through FineArtAmerica.  That Discount Code again is GDPDBZ, and expires on 2/26/2011.

Holiday Concerts - Part III - Pink Martini

Whew!  It's been a hectic week, so I'd better get this in tonight, since we head for Portland tomorrow for Pink Martini's New Year's Eve Concert at Schnitzer Auditorium.  The link in the title will take you to the home page for the Official Pink Martini website, where you can listen to some music, watch some videos, find out about their upcoming concert schedule and more.  If you've never heard them play, or for that matter heard of them, you owe it to yourself to get to a concert or at least get your hands on a CD.  They are yet another fabulous Portland area band, and a great way to close out our Holiday Concert Series.  Now I need a rest!

Season's Greetings

Don't know if I'll get around to a post tomorrow, or over the weekend for that matter, so I thought I'd wish everyone a Merry Christmas today.  Click on the title to (hopefully) open a link to a Jacquie Lawson ecard, which was sent to me by some friends, and that I wanted to share.  The photo here of Santa coming in for a crash landing is actually a life-size doll at the Kris Kringle Store in Leavenworth, from our trip there two weeks ago.  He is suspended from the ceiling, and is quite impressive.  His eyes seem to follow you as you make your way through the shop, so he's defiinitely keeping tabs on you to see where you end up on his list.

I recently entered two of my Pen & Ink portraits into an online art contest sponsored by GuestGallery.com.  The two portraits I entered were "Charles Bronson" and "Game Face", which I use as my logo photo on the Art from the Inkwell Fan Page.  Results came in today, and "Game Face" was among the top 15 vote getters in the contest.  Not sure how "Charles Bronson" fared, though I can say that on my FineArtAmerica Gallery, "Charles Bronson" is far and away the most viewed portrait on that site, although "Loggerhead Key Lighthouse" has been coming on strong lately.  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

Last minute gifts?

Well, here I am, a day late and a dollar short as usual!  In addition to my website, FineArtAmerica Gallery, and CafePress Storefront, I now have an aStore as part of the Amazon Associates program - just in time for the last three days of Christmas shopping!  It pays to check into your various accounts once in awhile.  Here, I've had an Amazon account and been part of the Amazon Seller Central program for about a year now and wasn't aware of this other option until I went shopping at the Kindle Store last week and noticed the section on the page regarding opening an aStore as part of the Amazon Associates program.  So anyway, I've been working on this for a few days, starting out with some basics and adding a few different categories to get started, and voila! Here we go.  For starters, I'm listing categories like Apparel and Accessories, Books, Music, Cameras & Photo, Computers, DVD, Sports & Outdoors, Video Games and of course Kindle Store.  Eventually, I hope to have the entire gamut of Amazon products available as I continue to add more categories.  So, all of you online Amazon shoppers out there - please bookmark my storefront for easy access.  Of course, I'll provide quick links on my website, newsletters and this blog as well. 

As a follow-up to last week's post about our trip to Leavenworth, WA - a great time was had by all!  We checked into the Pension Anna, on Friday.  Pictured here is the old Chapel, which was converted into lodging at the Inn, and is where we stayed.  Spacious rooms downstairs, with a loft and two single beds on second level.  Saturday morning brought the snow - started about 9:30, and continued all day long - to the tune of about 16 inches of snow!  Made for a great sleigh ride/dinner that evening, although getting back into town afterwards was a little tricky.  Last weekend was the Christmas Lighting Ceremony.  The whole town is lit up and looks like a picture postcard; the streets are blocked off for pedestrian traffic, and there are all kinds of events that take place throughout the day.  All in all, one of my favorite places!  The only bad part of the weekend was that we didn't get to see our friends A.J. & Terrie.  Due to all of the snow on Saturday, he had to spend the day Sunday plowing out his driveway and road to their B&B - Sky Meadows Retreat, so their guests would be able to get out. We'll catch up with them next time around.

Misty River Christmas Concert



Misty River Band



As much as I complain about the rain in Oregon during the winter months, this is a great time of year to be in the Pacific Northwest, if for no other reason than the Holiday Concerts.  A couple of weeks ago I did a couple of blogs about one of our favorite Portland area bands - The Trail Band, and their terrific concert.  Well, last night we attended the Christmas Concert of another of our favorite Portland area bands - Misty River, so I guess this was the HOLIDAY CONCERT SERIES - PART II.  Another great night of music!  The link in the title will take you to their website, where you can check out their schedule if you live in this area, read about their 13 years together, and even download some of their music.  Again, I think we have every CD they've come out with so far.  MISTY RIVER blends folk, bluegrass, country, Celtic and original music into a seamless and highly distinctive Americana sound that has entranced thousands of fans.  In two weeks, we'll have the HOLIDAY CONCERT SERIES - PART III - New Year's Eve with PINK MARTINI!  Yet another fantastic Portland area band.  I'll keep you posted on that one.

"Oldie but Goodie - Part II"

Finally getting around to posting that second "Oldie but Goodie" that I mentioned last week.  This one is titled "Homesteader", and like the "Golden Eagle" image that I posted last week, is one of my early Graphite, or Pencil portraits.  As with "Golden Eagle", I recently had cause to remove the original from its' frame, and took the opportunity to scan it into the computer.  Again, I used PhotoShop to clean up the background noise, and am very happy with the results.  The original photograph was taken by a friend of mine, Jon Carissimi, and while the subject was a farmer in Florida, I thought that he fit in perfectly with my Western portraits, and so he found a home in my Faces West Gallery.  The link in the title will take you to my FineArtAmerica Gallery, where you'll find "Homesteader" along with all of the images I've posted there so far.

You'll Love it in Leavenworth!

Heading out to Leavenworth (no, not that Leavenworth) for the weekend.  This is a photo of Leavenworth, WA from a snowy day last January.  We were visiting some friends, getting in a little snow-shoeing, a sleigh ride some great meals and some wine tasting.  This weekend starts the Christmas Lighting of the town, and we wanted a return visit.  Leavenworth is a quaint little Bavarian town about 20 miles west of Wenatchee, and is one of our favorite spots to visit.  We are actually hoping to relocate there one of these days, but that is another story. The link in the title will take you to one of the Leavenworth websites, and you can get an idea of what the town looks like all lit up with Christmas lights.  Quite breathtaking!  Every building in the town must follow the Bavarian village theme, and it is quite a festive little town.  There's always something going on.  There a couple of ski areas nearby, so it is a winter destination.  In the spring and summer, the town square is home to a summer-long art festival (which is why I want to find my way there one of these days).  Lots of friendly folks, and the neighboring towns of Cashmere and Peshastin are quite nice as well, and nearby Wenatchee is large enough to have some of the anemities of a large city, yet small enough to retain that small city feeling.



Golden Eagle

Today's post could be sub-titled "an oldie but a goodie".  But before I get into that I just want to do a follow-up to a post last week regarding The Trail Band concert that we attended on Friday, Dec. 3rd.  This group never ceases to amaze me.  Not only does every member of The Trail Band play about a zillion different instruments, everything from a piccolo to a contra-base, with assorted stringed instruments and hammer dulcimers, horns, woodwinds, you name it, but they manage each year to mix it up and put on a show that is without parallel.  After 17 years, they definitely have found the formula for success.

Now back to today's post.  This pencil portrait, "Golden Eagle" was one of my early pieces and was actually used as my logo in an earlier incarnation of my artistic endeavors.  Back then, my company was called Faces West, and I focused primarily on Western, Native American and Wildlife portraits.  Of course, this was waaay before scanners and other technological advances that we take for granted today. Anyway, "Golden Eagle" has been framed and part of my collection for the past 25 years, give or take a few.  I recently had to re-frame the portrait, and thought - "hey, why not scan him now that he's out of the frame?"  So that's what I did.  With a little help from PhotoShop to clean up some of the background "noise" from the scan, the image looks as good now as it did back then.  So I uploaded the image to my website and also to my gallery on FineArtAmerica, and wouldn't you know it, two days later, I was informed that a print was purchased from the FineArtAmerica Gallery.  So while I was running a lucky streak of one sold print, I figured I should add another "oldie but goodie".  I'll post that image next time.  By the way, I liked the association of the name Faces West so much that I use it as one of my galleries in Art from the Inkwell.  Guess what type of portraits you'll find there.

Soulful in Ink

Today's featured portrait, titled "Soulful in Ink", is actually a second version, or rendering, of the same subject, titled ironically enough "Soulful".  The first version was completed in Scratchboard, and was a return to that medium for me after a few years away.  The link in the title will take you to my Profile page on FineArtAmerica, where you can see both versions, as well as all the other artwork posted there.  Although Scratchboard and Ink are similar looking in the end result, getting there is quite another story.  In some regards, I liken Scratchboard to Sculpture or Carving, where you start out with a clump of clay or a block of wood, and try to imagine what the negative space of the final product is, and then peel it away a little bit at a time.  Although you're working on a 2-dimensional sheet of scratchboard paper or board, the thought process is similar.  You have to think about the ink that shouldn't be there and scrape it away, and hope that the end result will be at least somewhat 3-dimensional. 

In this case, I had a couple of small scratchboards, measuring 5"x7", lying around that I wanted to experiment with.  The first attempt was my piece titled "Barn Owl", which can also be seen at the FineArtAmerica Gallery.  Then, as I was working on "Soulful",  I thought that this particular piece would make a good ink rendering as well.  However, I didn't want to limit myself to the constraints of working on such a small piece, so I upped the measurements to 8"x10" for the ink version.  What a difference those 3 inches made.  That and the fact that I was back in my comfort-zone of working with laying down the ink, rather than scraping it away.  I felt that I was able to get a little more depth into the end result by adding layers as I needed them.

It should be pointed out that working in Scratchboard is not always a question of taking out the negative space from the image you are working with.  You also have the option of starting out with a sheet of paper or a board that has been treated with the white, chalky clay, but has not been coated with ink.  This is great when you are going to have large areas of white in the rendering.  Scraping away the ink coating would not only be tedious, but the end result often will not look very uniform.  Instead, you add the ink to the areas that need it, and leave the rest uncovered.  In this case, you will then actually add the ink as you would in an ink rendering, a stroke at a time.  The desired result here is that the transition between the ink work and the scratchboard work flows seamlessly, and you can't tell where one or the other technique begins or ends.

Just a reminder here:  anyone interested in purchasing Giclee prints or fully-customizable note cards through my FineArtAmerica Gallery can take advantage of 20% Savings through 2/26/2011 by using the following Discount Code:  GDPDBZ

A Trail Band Christmas

Time for our annual excursion to the Trail Band Christmas Concert in Salem, OR.  The Trail Band is an 8-piece all-star group of musicians from Oregon that present musical theatre performances dramatizing the history and music of the West.  Featured in the group are Marv and Rindy Ross, of Quarterflash fame ("Harden my Heart"), and the Christmas Concert always features guest performer Linda Hornbuckle as well. Click on the link in the title to go to their website to meet the Trail Band, check out their performance calendar and listen to some of their music. They are an amazing group of talented musicians and put on quite a show each year.  They are very reminiscent of a group I used to perform with, The Colorado History Theater, and our production of  "Legend & Legacy".  Where "Legend & Legacy" told of the history of Colorado Springs and the surrounding areas through vignettes, character studies and music, The Trail Band is mostly music with some humorous anecdotes.  Their Christmas CD's are great, as are the CD's that focus on the early settlers.  I think we must have just about every CD they've come out with so far.  If you live in this area of the Pacific Northwest, you should definitely try to see one of their performances, and if not, I highly recommend starting your own CD collection.

Liberty's Journey

Wow, two days in a row! I'm on a roll! No artwork today.  Earlier this week, some friends lost a very special member of their family to bone cancer - they're own Lady Liberty, or Libby for short.  In their email informing us of the news, they included this link to a website that had been set up for Libby 9 years ago. Click on the title to read all about her story.  It is truly remarkable, at turns heart-breaking and heart-warming, and amazing how this little Rottweiler pup brought so many people together along her journey. It particularly hit home with us because we said goodbye to two of the companions pictured with me in the profile photo this past summer, Henri and Sheba. They were each about 14 1/2 years old, brought us endless hours of joy, and are sorely missed.  We've added another companion to keep Boots company, Cooper, but that's another story.  Actually, they all have their own stories, and maybe someday, I'll post them here as well.