What on Earth is a HooDoo?

noun, plural hoo·doos.

1. voodoo. bad luck.

2. a person or thing that brings bad luck.

3. Geology. a pillar of rock, usually of fantastic shape, left by erosion.

If you picked #3 you may have visited the strangely wonderful Bryce Canyon National Park, Home of the HooDoos…not to mention-the mysterious eye in the sky! (hint, upper left)

What you can see on the Peek-A-Boo trail in Bryce Canyon.

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Bryce Canyon is by far the most unusual landscape I have ever walked through. I’ve been there twice and can’t wait to return.

The Joy of Beaches in Winter

Christmas at the beach-a California tradition.

Big storms sweep in from the west and huge tides bring in piles of tangled kelp and other beach debris.

The impossibly tangled piles buzz with Kelp Flies.

The Kelp’s gas bladders keep the long stem or stipes, floating upright in the water.

Northern California beaches are not known for shells but there are dense mussel beds and those shells are easy to find.  This sketch includes a scrap of Abalone shell, fish spine bones and crab claws.

I love collecting this sort of beach debris for my Beach Portraits.

And then there are the Harbor Seals, who haul themselves up to nap on the sunny rocks.

And sometimes there are the husbands, who nap anywhere they like.

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Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2013

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a free music festival started in 2000, and entirely funded by Warren Hellman, is a joyous annual event in San Francisco.

I’ve been attending, more or less, for many years, and this year’s highlight was the Kate Mcgarrigle Tribute with many of her family and friends singing her songs and clowning around.

The set was kicked off by Martha Wainwright, Kate’s daughter, singing Matapedia and Sloan Wainwright, her sister-in-law, singing NaCl.  The guest stars that crossed the stage were some of my favorites, and all friends of the McGarrigle Sisters:

Maria Muldaur, Emmy Lou Harris, Buddy Miller, Steve Earle, Kate’s ex Loudon Wainwright, and Richard Thompson. Her songs were as extraordinary, funny, poignant and beautiful as ever, and the one non-Kate song was sung by Loudon Wainwright, about her!

Here is Emmylou and her Red Dirt Band from 2008

and Ricky Skaggs

And now for a gallery of those who have passed to the giant Banjo Jam in the sky! 

Earl Scruggs

Hazel Dickens

Ralph Stanley

Thank you, Warren!

Remembering a War Spring

10 years ago yesterday I just had to get away from the radio news, breathlessly covering the “shock and awe” of Bush’s army entering Iraq.

There was only one thing to do. Draw a breath and draw a flower, or 10.

My hill was covered in spring wildflowers. 

Studying the forms and colors helped take my mind off what I thought then, and know now, was a pointless, wasteful war–based on lies.

Identifying the flowers, looking them up by color and shape and rolling their Latin names in my mouth was oddly calming. 

Bad things were unfolding overseas, but the velvet nap of pink Maple leaves unfolding was very good.

Lucy was still alive and lay near me, eyes and ears tuned for signs of danger.

Pinks and oranges starred the grasses.

That war is now supposed to be over. Other wars loom. March is here.

Time to go draw flowers again.