Josh’s aunt Mary Coney’s place near the Olympics, so much beauty…can’t wait for summer.
January 31, 2012
January 28, 2012
My dad’s boots
This is what was probably a quick sketch/watercolor dad did when he was between 12-15 years old, I found it recently in one of his duct taped bound sketch folders that he kept everything in, there are probably 20 of them with countless drawings inside. Someday I would like to have a retrospective of his work. He was so humble, he would have never tried to organize one for himself or ever try to sell his way into the game……..ah, I miss him terribly somedays…
January 24, 2012
Wolf Haven
Exciting news that my Getty Grant For Good is successfully transferred to Wolf Haven. They are doing incredible re-introduction work including the highly endangered Red Wolf and Mexican Gray. I will be working alongside an incredible woman named Wendy who truly speaks to the wolves. I will also be accompanied by some very good friends in sleek black coats who love to talk and live in the trees above the wolves, i’m so excited!
New Mexico
I did this shoot for Outside last year, a real dream job and dreamy spot near Santa Fe, NM…….thinking of mystical places and how certain ones have made me feel in the past. Here, the light was so perfect and the heat was almost unbearable, I was 6 months pregnant and so very tired in that weather coming from misty Seattle. After we heard the stories of the Natives and how they had lived in that house and buried their young inside the walls and then Davey and I getting caught in the lightning storm heading back to our hotel in the dark, driving through the mountains, I just have to think of how hard life was before now and how humans used their keen senses to live much more than they do now and how interesting it all is. I’m reading The Golden Spruce, and all the talk of how life is without humans in it, and what happens in the forest with all the animals and flora and fauna, and oh it is so incredible and unbelievable and beautiful. After no sleep in two days, my mind really starts to go, it’s actually kind of great. There is just so much happening while we go grocery shopping, like birds who swim 100 miles an hour under the ocean then land in the trees to nest, that kind of stuff.
More images from life lately………
November 16, 2011
Andrew Wyeth
Without question my favorite artist hands down. Reminds me of my dad and how much he loved him and appreciated his value for truth and inexplicable beauty. This is one of my favorite Wyeth’s, it reminds me of moonlight and that peace it can bring, specially with a beautiful animal asleep within it. Andrew’s writing is so perfect, really my favorite artist to read, his explanations of his paintings are so natural and mystical, there is so much going on there, yet on first glance it’s just a simple rendition, I guess that is the way with life……….we can think of it as simple and plain and sometimes boring, but to the enlightened mind, it is unbelievably beautiful and mystical, so many secrets to unfold.
November 3, 2011
New Work…………
New projects and great news that I will be working at Wolf Haven to continue my grant from 4Culture last year on For The Innocent. My new personal work consists of creating dioramas of birds and little creatures in my backyard while Maggie Scout sleeps is my new love, it’s an interesting process which i’m only at the beginning of but it’s amazing, it forces me to be calm and meditate on everything that is happening to me lately while I watch and wait for my birds to come in front of my lens, of course the birds look fake because of the backdrop and the lighting but that’s the greatest part, they aren’t! On tuesday, the yard was misty all the way up to the tall pine tree and sun was gleaming through, I heard a deep call and looked up to see two great blue herons soaring above together, ahhhhh so nice to be working again.
September 26, 2011
NRDC, Whale Poop and Tucker
Last week I traveled to San Juan Island for the National Resource Defense Council’s magazine On Earth. I rode all day in a skiff with four scientists and one black lab trained to sniff the highly concentrated but hard to find Orca whale poop in the straight of Juan de Fuca and beyond. As we found ourselves in deep green waters and the engine was turned off, Sam Wasser, the chief scientist whispered to me ” you are a very lucky girl today” and just then I saw a huge fin coming towards the boat and the words “close approach”, I held my breath as it’s white saddle gleamed from under the water next to the boat and then she glided up so gracefully out of the water right in front of us. I had waited forever for a moment like this. It was very natural, we did not go to her, she came to us or maybe she just passed us by, but I will never forget my day with the whales and Tucker and the 4 scientists who all share my extreme love for the wild things. Thank you to Meghan Hurley for thinking of me for this amazing assignment.
September 7, 2011
Maggie Scout at Long Beach……
Andrew Wyeth on my mind…………..
Real Simple Magazine prints the Trumpeter Swan…….
And also a new picture I found of my dad, probably from the 40′s or 50′s, at Berkeley or San Fran art institute, so happy and so wild!
August 16, 2011
Summer 2011………
The surprises have definitely wowed me with their numbers this summer. My sweet papa, Harry Robert Musselman, the painter who taught me to see deeply and to question forever all that really IS in life, passed away quietly on July 8. He had lost his eyesight 4 years ago, so spent his last four years fighting to assemble a world that made sense without his brush and paints. I wrote this about him a couple days after he passed on.
“To those of you who know me, knew my dad. Whether you met him once, heard stories of his wild and amazing life or were fortunate enough to have had him put his coat on your back when you were cold or pour you a shot of root beer. He was a rare, true gentleman and was very special to me. Harry passed away quietly last friday morning after struggling 4 years too long without the eyes that enabled him throughout his life to paint the wonderment and gorgeous beauty surrounding him. He was a real artist who never searched for fame or glamour, he was humble and would divert attention away from him to avoid being the center, unless of course you were a lady.
My dad was the greatest man who ever lived and he lived his last 8 months in the presence of his first grandchild, Maggie Scout Uhlir who would become calm in his arms almost instantly. I believe he is with my mom somewhere wonderful, smelling flowers and enjoying the loves of their lives.”
And the summer has just moved on without him, we were very close pals and so life has been a bit difficult without his loving laugh and calm self that instantly made me feel at peace and at home. I am thinking about him every day, how he found the essence of the tiny universe up until the very end and i will hold that close to my heart forever and hopefully share it with my sweet Maggie Scout and she will be able to carry that on.
