miniatures

 Building shrubs with paper. Or perhaps they're underwater corals.

one evening in Ravenna

There are magnificent things to see in Ravenna; photographs are pointless in conveying the scale and intricacy in the craft you may find there. I can only share tiny things I saw next to things that sustain open-mouthed staring for several minutes.

Ravenna has grand mosaics in the true sense of grand but at some point I stopped looking. I saw bamboo flapping against the top of a high wall. Of course I found a gap to spy through and was rewarded with a daffodil garden and six white peacocks just before it got too dark to see.

We only just made our train back and then decided to take the next one anyway and spend an hour exploring the joy that is a supermarket in a foreign place.

Visit Ravenna, the city bikes are free and the mosaics are heavy on gold (and old).

(I found sugar-paper confetti on the pavement outside the train station)

Autumn eggs in knits

Easter rings in warm colours and knits in this neck of the woods. I try to draw these patterned eggs every year (remember these that Matt made?) but made more than the usual three or four, probably because I'm a bit stressed out. They help me breathe and focus. Have a very happy and peaceful Easter. I'm going to make my favourite people a pot of tea now and then put on a heavy pullover and take Boris (the best Boerboel-Ridgeback in the world) for a walk in the wet park.

yellow landscape

Postcard: the Gamsberg seen from the Namib

Photo credit: H. Theiss

Upper orange

I walked all the way up Upper Orange street last week on my way to the Finnish embassy, found a park called the Homestead, sat in the sun under a fruit tree and stuffed these in my purse.

1979

Postcard of hotel in Kenya, 1979

occupational therapy graphics

Here's some OT memorabilia from my mom's 'paper bits' drawer. 

First is a Manual Dexterity test (suprisingly difficult), second a reference card for pupil dilation with a coma scale index on the reverse and third a printed card (occupational therapy students learn extensive artisinal skills in their 1st year).

party legs

yellow heart leaves