Catching Up

You may think I’ve been goofing off all summer, swinging from a hammock between two shady trees, sipping iced tea, and reading Scandinavian mysteries. Not So! The Brooksville Farmers’ Market is up and running and I’ve had perfect attendance for the last nine weeks. One Tuesday morning I had a whole crew of assistants:

Peter (my nephew), Bella (my niece), and Bella’s best friend, Lucy

Note the new blue tent, the new PenPets banner, the new clear plastic card rack, the new "Welcome to Brooksville" T-shirts, and the new driftwood bookmark rack. It took eight markets to pay for all my expenditures, but it's all gravy now!


I’ve also mounted three exhibits of my work. In June I had a solo show, “Woodcut Critters,” at Mainescape, a Blue Hill garden center that also sells pet products, and now sells a full line of my PenPets greeting cards—like hotcakes, they say! At the end of June I showed seven woodcuts and pen-and-ink drawings at a group show, “Chosen Places,” at the Deer Isle Artists’ Association. Currently I have another solo show of 25 woodcuts and drawings at the Brooksville Free Public Library. Here are some shots from the opening.

Judy Madson (past President of the Library Board of Trustees) & Leslie

Leslie & Heather Tooker (current Co-President of the Library Board)

Leslie & Margie Van Dusen, Patron Saint of PenPets!

Speaking of the Brooksville Free Public Library, our Board of Trustees held its Annual Summer Book Sale on July 10th (I was in charge this year) and we made a whopping $1,700 selling used books from 9:00 AM until noon. Not bad!

I’ve also done two new PenPets commissions this summer:

Minnu & Dakota

8" X 10" pen-and-ink

2010

Jassie (short for Jasmine)

8" X 10" pen-and-ink

2010

And that’s not all! I carved a multi-color woodblock and I’m now illustrating a book, but more about these adventures later.

A Little House for the Library

Noble House

7" X 5" pen and ink

2009

I'm on the Board of Trustees for the Brooksville Free Public Library. Every summer we host a fund raiser so that we can keep the library open two-and-a-half days and one evening a week. This year it's a house and labyrinth tour and I'm in charge of designing the invitation and publicity posters. Thus, a house drawing instead of a dog!


Here's the design of the labyrinth which is cut into a hayfield next to the house.

It's a little house this year, in keeping with tough economic times, designed by a local architect--Bob Knight--as one of his Lucia's Little Houses. Living in a little house myself, I like his philosophy: "I have been designing houses of all sizes since the late 1960’s but the house type I find most satisfying and challenging is the good small house. Here on the coast of Maine the demand has increased steadily for the little and efficient home that takes advantage of sun, site and design to reward people with modest housing needs." Here's the same house from another angle on the cover of his book. You can check out the house plans on Bob's website.

Cranes

I drew these cranes for a Brooksville Free Public Library brochure. They are based on the magical, bigger-than-life, felted crane that soars over the children's section of our library. Fiber artist and neighbor, Mia Kanazawa created the crane and it is a magnificent sight to behold! Mia felts wonderfully whimsical animal sculptures and puppets--elephants, kangaroos, giraffes, camels, clownfish--a real Noah's ark collection!

When Tom and I taught at the Koc School in Turkey, flocks of cranes used to fly over the school on their way to Europe for the summer or Africa for the winter. The joke was that all the female teachers got pregnant when the cranes flew over!