HOLIDAY HOME TOUR

Thanks to all who came to the Holiday Home tour. The rain held off just long enough and the crowds came. It was fun to meet some new friends and catch up with some old. Hardly had a chance to take any pics the day of, so these will have to do. Enjoy and have a happy holiday and best of luck in the new year!

Now that is a yule log!

Persimmons, mossy Oak branches, seville orange branches and old hotel silver

Rosemary and burlap from used coffee sacks

Lucca guarding the yule

New Route Blanc chair

Tablescape, cranberries, moss, olives asparagus and old gilt

Lemons and clementines in the bedroom

Stockings at the ready

An ode to our loved old dog Corbu (always seemed more seal than dog) RIP

Very thin Santa

More of St. Nick

Pommegranates and a very red ladder

New round table edged in Edna Saint Vincent Millay

Old Earthen Santons from Provence

Route Blanc chair from the back.....saw blades at the edge

old sacking

Bone inlay

Route Blanc..... the road less travelled

Star of old paint brushes

The home fires burning

Persimmon harvest

Entry and stairs to guest room aglow

Boys night out

The entry gauntlet

The boys are still out

Tree made of cut-offs and discards from the years projects

Old feed tub, now la Source

Garden gate with seville orange and persimmon

Cedar walk

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

All the kids are home from school, my parents are in town and it is a spectacular fall day. Started the morning with a run and rounded the corner to catch this light blasting through the small oval in the entry. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. The family, the friends , the food, mostly just the time to sit back and be a little thankful for the things that go right, and being able to do something that I love and have people actually appreciate it.

Happy Thanksgiving.

HOME TOUR ANYONE?

This December we are participating in the St. Helena Schools Holiday Home Tour. This annual event features homes in the Napa Valley decorated for the holidays. This is a fundraiser for the St. Helena Primary and Elementary School Parent Group- a worthy cause! With 6 homes on the tour you are bound to find some great inspiration! For information, please see www.sthelenaholidayhometour.org. Hope to see you.

NAPA VALLEY MUSEUM SHOW

What to do? I am planning a show of my work at the Napa Valley Museum to open in Feb 2011. It is starting to come together. Maybe a nest at the entrance to draw you in? A show makes me ask myself again what it is that I am trying to do? It is an opportunity to take a snapshot of the current evolution of my work, it is an experiment in a different kind of space. I have had meetings with the museums director and exhibit committees, measured the space and it has been an education to talk about my work from the exhibit point of view and to hear about how other people view it and envision an exhibit of it. Choosing what pieces to include or to make for the show; how to lay them out in the space, how I would like them to be viewed, how the show should unfold; it is an opportunity for me to view my work from a different angle, to stand back and re-examine its purpose. Function and Art, Art and its function, function is art? Art is its function? To be continued.....

GAME ON

Just finished this wall sculpture:

They showed up just at the right time. They were regular guys. Some were a little "rough" around the edges. They were discards, used.....but not used up. There was not a superstar among them. Not one of them "too" fond of the limelight. But like those in the past have shown, it does not take a "superstar" , what it takes is a team. A team that can count on one of its guys filling the slot that needs to be filled, and getting the job done that needs to be done. Misfits.....I don't see it that way. Maybe, they are just the team for the times. Good luck guys. Make it a good series. Fight hard and entertain us all.....and.......GO GIANTS!

FOLLY

Sometimes I return to my roots. I still feel the tug of those Italian renaissance architectural models. In the spirit of those is this sideboard. It is the color of liquid honey, rubbed and burnished. The top is dark waxed steel. The drawers are mounted at the sides and the pull is articulated as a window opening. The doors are concealed in the architecture, there are small strips of bone inlay at the base of the arch at the center and atop the keystone is a small gilt pot-au-feu (pot of fire) anchoring the center.

RACK IT UP

Just finished a large wall hung plate rack. Headed to Bennett Galleries. www.bennettgalleries.com Destined to anchor a good wall and frame a bevy of dishes. Very graphic, inlaid with bone discs and bands, carved oddities all-over, small wrought steel pulls on thin cabinets at the base.