Laume's Studio

Yesterday I woke up to a couple inches of snow and spent the morning outside taking photos. This morning I woke up to at least a foot of snow and ran out to take even more photos.

And this time I remembered to put my boots on first.

And speaking of boots, look! Especially Deb, look! I got them the other day at the thrift store, brand new, never been walked in, my size, for five dollars. Aren't they wonderful! And warm too.


I lied. Not on purpose. But I said I was gonna go work in the studio last night and I never got back to the studio again yesterday. Why? Trying to take photos all morning, I had stumbled upon an embarrassing truth. I couldn't take some photos because I had so much clutter sitting about that some of my favorite things weren't even visible. This was a very sobering, embarrassing, but useful piece of information because it was so frustrating it lit a fire under my butt. So instead of working on my purple project, the rest of the day I decluttered. I'm far from being clutter free yet (and by clutter I mean bad clutter. I like good creative clutter. Just not in-the-way, useless clutter) but I did get some serious mess cleared and went to bed in the wee hours of the morning tired, dusty, but very satisfied with my efforts.

I went in early today and turned the heater on in the studio, so I'm hoping this afternoon I will get in there as promised.

This morning I took more photos outside, but I'm not gonna share any of them. I though more snow would mean better photo ops. Nah, mostly it just covered things up more. I did, however, find some wonderful images on my way to the store. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera with me. I almost did, but then decided I needed to concentrate on the not-so-plowed roads, and getting there and back so my husband could use the 4-wheel drive to get to work on time. Drat. But I've got them up here. In my head.

So I'll leave you with a few WORD PICTURES. My art for the day.

I saw a robin. My very first robin of the year. A very confused robin. A little smudge of rose and brown standing in the middle of the intersection under my snow laden maple tree. He'd come back to an early, drab brown landscape and clearly didn't know quite what to do with the sudden switch to white.

I saw a fluffy, old, black dog running around and around like a young puppy, making huge joyful circles in his front yard while his owner, also old, slowly and carefully worked with a shovel to clear a straight, narrow path down to the driveway.

I saw a flourescent orange plastic sled propped up against a weathered, unpainted, wooden fence.

I saw a woman walking along in the dirty, dark slush of the roadside, wearing a pale pink sweater like a bit of spring that somehow held on through the cold.

I saw a ridge of white mountains topped with gray snow clouds while driving underneath equally low dark clouds. Between us was a slice of sun running across the valley like a sparkling river suddenly cut into the landscape.

I saw a squat round skeleton of a tree, standing in a white field, laden with snow, only the thinnest line of branch still visible, like a pencil drawing come to life. In the tree were a dozen or more crows, ink spots splashed into an image that was otherwise almost not there.