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Sticks and Bricks: Rebuilding Community is Resistance

ElisaMG

With all of the mayhem going on I’ve decided its best to wait on loft ownership. I’ve entered back into sticks and bricks life, establishing community in a rental. With everything going on in the world, or should I say the United States, right now it seems smartest to not spend a dime, keep saving and turn my focus to building community and making art. I did not come to that decision in any kind of logical, rational way. It was as most of my better decisions, a little voice within guiding me step by step.

You see on the day I made all of my big moves I literally woke up chatting with one of my cousins in Alberta, Canada. I was making my plan to finally live in Canada, honoring my Canadian citizenship, that had been gifted to me so many years ago.

Anyhow, a friend had been telling me how her brother, a very established artist, had moved back from New York and gotten into an art studio on the Central East Side of Portland. She thought it would be such a good idea for me. Her brother has shown his work worldwide and actually was represented by someone in town who is one of the who is who of the art world. It is common to feel like a fraud as an artist and I found myself back there, along with feeling poor, so I laughed at her everytime she mentioned it. So instead she tricked me into visiting ADX studios by telling me she wanted me to meet her brother and see his show. Of course I said yes.

Yikes I need a trip to the salon. But who has time when there is painting to do.
I share my studio with two friends.
My happy place.

Once we arrived she started showing me available studios and had the owner/curator/representation telling me the details of each space. I laughed and said I was a bad bet for commitment since only this morning I was planning my escape to Canada. The landlady’s response was even though the lease was a year, she would allow me to give two months notice and leave with no penalties. I thought that was a little intriguing. But then I came up with another excuse… it’s too expensive. She said I could share it. I was surprised at how excited my artist friends from my open studio were to say yes and jump at the chance. It dawned on me that I had access to a tool of resistance, making art. And that I needed to stay in the fight. So I stayed. We were in! A community of over 90 artists, working together, meeting together supporting eachother. It is a very diverse group from woodworkers , to performing artists, to architects, painters, and more. The space we ended up with is a lovely space in the loft with a glimpse of the outside world natural light via the adjoining studio. I’m excited to dive back into painting as a real commitment again with a dedicated space. I’m plodding along on my current theme, which will be better named down the road, but is all about raising funds to help the environment. If Dumpy deystroys the environment nothing else will matter. We have to take care of this place we call home. The more I learn about environmental issues, the more I want to paint and finish this series as well as change my own day to day practices. I’m not perfect, but I know there is a lot we can do and get it right still.

“Petrichor” a sneak peak at my upcoming abstract series speaking to environmental issues.

At the same time, I knew it was time to get my own space to call home, big enough to ditch my storage unit. After intentionally looking long and hard, I wasn’t coming up with much. Everything in Portland is overpriced and nothing was very impressive. It made me miss the freedom of my small trailer space. At least there it was beautiful and there was no trash outside, or people sleeping in my front yard. And if I didn’t like something, I could get up and go.

The pillows are ridiculous. But at least I’d found another use for them outside of the trailer.
In the mornings I hear the very quiet rumble of the grocery store getting ready for the day. It’s quite pleasnat as a way to wake up.
Dudley and I seem to 99% of the time have all fo the rooftop patio spaces to ourselves.

It was the end of the day and I decided to check out one more apartment building. It was a big coorporate kind of place where you are supposed to schedule appointments for viewings. The last corporte apartment I looked at, I had scheduled a viewing and the landlords never showed up for the showing, so here I wasn’t expecting much. The front office person you could tell was tired. Her demeanor spoke of putting up with a lot of stuff on her job. She explained I needed an appointment. I’m not sure what I said but all of a sudden she said she could show me a couple of places. I can’t explain it but I walked in and it just felt like home. So I figured, I’d figure out the expenses and make it work.

Portland at night.

Both Dudley and I love it here and have found so many things about it that we didn’t even realize we’d like. I have ten foot ceilings, and hardwood floors. I can put in ceiling fans and avoid having to use AC, and we are over a New Season’s grocery store. Literally nobody lives below me. It is so quiet. My view looks out at a quiet block of old homes as we are in a neighborhood surrounded by several old Portland neighborhoods with beautiful homes in them. I got a one bedroom because everybody was going for studios and they couldn’t rent one bedrooms so they offered them at a better deal, which I suppose could catch up to me one day and bite me in the behind. But for now we are loving it. The layout is perfect. I had to buy a few things but were able to find quality furniture pieces we love at very inexpensive prices. And the cool thing is there is so much around me, I could literally go carless from here. I step out on the street and their are buses that will take me to the doorstep of most of the places I like to go and more. And someday I’ll be riding that electric bike as this is one of the best walkable, bikeable cities.

From 200 Square Feet to 600 Square Feet.
Apartment is Dudley approved.
Sullivan’s Gulch Neighborhood in Portland is surrounded by beautiful landscapes everywhere.

Today, I got bold and went to a building social making some new neighbor friends. I’m the old lady in the bunch, but that’s ok. Many times in life I have been the young gal befriended by the older lady, so I guess I can pay that forward. Right now, with all of the chaos and hate, it feels good to get to know people in new circles, and to get closer to people in the circles I’m already in, bonding together, and standing up, even in small ways to an America going in the wrong direction. It feels good to have joined an art community where I will be able to resist through my art. It feels good to have some roots, doing something counter to what my fears make me want to do. It feels good not to run, to stand my ground and fight in my own kind of way. I’ll still have time in my life to enjoy that Canadian citizenship. For now I need to be here fighting to build something better especially for our Canadian friends and neighbors.

“Your Hair Sucks!” Photogrpher, unkown protester
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Goodbye Beast. Hello Mr. Frog!

ElisaMG
Airstream Life helped me downsize finding my Artist LIfe.
Artist Life called me to say a Bitter Sweet Goobye to my Airstream. My Tiny Adventure Continues!

A lot has happened as those who follow me on social media know, but I’m actually still living tiny. Just in a way I did not expect.

We love our snuggly space with grandma’s old loungers to watch TV.

Exit plans are all good, but things never really go as planned. There really was a lot of thought, journaling, researching and waiting in leaps in jumps to transition out of Airstream life. I had to think what comes first? Do I sell the Airstream and then find an apartment? Do I find an apartment and then sell the Airstream? Can I sell the Airstream myself? What do I need to fix on the Airstream in order to sell it? What if I sell my truck first? How will I move my Airstream? It was a whirlwind of thoughts, ideas and possibilities. What comes first the chicken or the egg?

And as for exit plans, so much has changed even since I started writing this post I have been battling in my head exit plans on a larger scale. So I thought I better get to catching you all up on the first leap from the Airstream to city life, so that in a near future blog I can catch you up on possible country leaping as well as studio news!

We love our little Mr. Frog who jumps us all around Portland getting to know the city landscape. Our next goal is an electric bike, and public transport to cut back on our use of fossil fuels.
A view of Portland from Nob Hill. Maybe a future condo, if not back in the Mini Apple.

What I ended up doing was selling “Beast”, my truck, first. A diesel truck actually holds its value quite well. At least my Dodge Ram 2500 4×4 did. (I like saying that. =] )I lost a little money on the fact that I chipped up the paint job during that last winter ice storm banging on my truck to get the ice off so I could get to my generators when the power went out. Oh well, such is life. I was still able to get a good price and walk away with enough cash to turn around and get Mr. Frog, my new Honda HRV. When I saw that car on the lot my thought was wow, that’s a jazzy car! Funny because it actually looks like every car out there, but I do love it. Its small, the gas mileage is worlds better than a diesel truck and I’m able to whip around town learning the city much quicker than I could before. When it came time to tow my trailer out of the park, my car salesmen brought his truck, also a Dodge Ram 2500, over and helped me tow it. However, I do know that my ultimate downsize tiny move will come the next round when I go completely without a car. Living in Portland, the city is completely walkable and I will feel better not contributing to the demise of our planet with a car. Oh one last thing about my new car… the seats fold completely flat, my matress its in the back and I can easily car camp in it, which is lovely! I took my first car camp trip to Half Moon Bay in San Fransisco and had a good time!

We still love road tripping to the coast and across the country. Car camping frees us up to be more spontaneous and have more fun.

As for selling my trailer, that was a learning process. In the end I found it way to difficult to sell myself, and I’m good at selling stuff. The marketing was the hardest part. I was dropping $100 here and $100 there to advertise in all of the right places. The responses I was getting were only coming from facebook marketplace of all places. It was dragging on and I didn’t want to go through another winter making it less valuable. Airstream was not great on information but eventually I figured out that I had a couple of options with them, I could either outright sell it back to Airstream, where I would get a little less, or I could consign it thorugh Airstream. Of course they found thousand of dollars of work that needed to be done, which was bulloney. I knew the dollar amount for the work that had to be done, but there is no way to argue with them. And if I chose to consign it it woldn’t get sold until next spring. So I took the route that got me less money back but actually probably saved me money as I was able to wipe out all of my debt immediately, sell all of my extra gear instead of gift it for another chunk of money, wipe out interest payments since all debt was paid off, and simply be done with a bunch in savings. Outright selling her back to Airstream was the best deal.

I hadn’t been a roomate in over 30 years so moving in with a colleague from my theater side gig was a leap of faith too. Hopefully she enjoys the company as much as I do. I live in the upstairs of my friend’s house which technically is the attic. There are two finished rooms up there and a doorway that leads to the rest of the attic. The rent is kindly priced unlike anything else in Portland, allowing me to save up for that condo or loft where my studio is in my living space. And because there are two rooms I have had a studio in the second room which works out. And I’m still living tiny. I haven’t actually measured but I’d guess the space to still be around 200 feet. Although I do share a shelf in the fridge in the kitchen and the bathroom downstairs. I have a huge redwood right outside of my window and incredible backyard garden that takes me back to the rivers and creeks I have been living on. Once in awhile Dudley and I drive back to our old stomping grounds and “smell the Redwoods”.

We enjoy sitting out on the front porch.

I’ve picked up a mentee which keeps me learning. And I’m working on a series trying not to show any of it until the unveiling of the entire show. I’m working in the abstract completely on a theme that is centered around the current climate crisis which has allowed me to learn a lot about living with an even smaller footprint. I’ll share some of the things I’m learning in a future post.

As usual, thanks for the follow. I am no longer on facebook, so you’ll have to catch me here, or see when I post on bluesky (@ElisaMG.bluesky.social) or instagram (@TinyAdventuresOfElisaMG) while I’m still there.

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Where To? Where Next? Part II Finding Home

ElisaMG

If you haven’t seen the writing on the walls, inbetween the lines of the blog or heard it in my voice, that little voice inside me is directing me in new directions. Airstreaming has connected me back with my art and my heart. And now it is time to dig further into making my art. Also the last three years have shown me how important it is to stay connected to close friends and families. That said, Airstreaming has given me the courage to jump knowing there will be a landing. I don’t need to know all of the details up front. I am working my way back into some kind of sticks and bricks where I can have a home studio. This will give me the freedom to paint a little more freely, and not have to worry about space or how much sells or what studio rent will be. Plus, if you have been following me you know how much I love hurricane force wind and ice storms in my trailer. My trailer did well taking me through it all. Now it is time to find something that doesn’t leave me wondering if I’ll make it through or dragging heavy generators out because of power outages. Its time to say good bye to Nefelibata and let someone else have beautiful adventures with her while she is still in good shape. So, yes, my Airstream is for sale. And yes, I’m selling it before knowing exactly where I will land. I have a few landing places in mind, but for now, first things first. I’m focused on selling her.

I didn’t realize how physically and emotionally challenging this part of the job would be. If you are just starting trailer life, have an exit plan, but also have a plan B,C, and D because I guarantee your exit plan won’t go as planned. Anyhow, I thought I use this time to share abit about my Airstream. The add is currently running on Airstream Classified if you are seriously interested.

2018 Globetrotter For Sale

After six years of full-timing across the United States and Canada, it’s time to sell my 2018 Globetrotter and let someone else enjoy her.

My model has the front bedroom queen bed and rear dinette (that also folds down into a bed) with panoramic windows, and two sunroofs for lots of light and wonderful views.

The interior Natural Elm Barcelona Blue

The exterior features the automatic patio awning, automatic stabilizer jacks and automatic front jack. My model has 50 amp and two AC units on the top with a Heat Pump and a full Zip Dee Awning package, plus a microwave oven and televisions in the front end and back end. 

Here is a link to the original brochure for all of the technical info….

2018 Globetrotter: 

Click to access 2018-Globetrotter-Brochure.pdf

Upgrade that I did (It didn’t need much): 

2 six volt AGM Batteries installed 2019

Mattress replaced 2019

New Tires April 2024

If you are inerested, the trailer will be available for sale soon at Airstream Adventures out of Portland. Contact them for more information.

As for my blog and Art…. we aren’t going anywhere. We’ll still see you down the road. As a matter of fact we hope to either have a car camper or van in the future and actually get on the road more than we did in a 28’trailer.

I had a really nice video with cool music but can’t quite figure out how to upload that so that is all I’ve got for you.

Thanks for keeping up with me on my journey. See you somewhere furthe down the road.

Art and Travel, LifeInAnAirstream, TinyLiving

Where to? What next?

ElisaMG
“Monday Blues” Acrylic On Canvas 16″ x 20″

Downsizing The Mind, Finding Focus

Living Tiny goes hand in hand with downsizing and downsizing is not just about material things but ultimately about the mind. How do we spend our time? What do we put our energy and thoughts toward? The whole purpose of downsizing material things is to lead us to having more focused intentional purposeful thoughts.

Do you ever find yourself spinning in your mind with way too many thoughts? I find managing my mind a lot harder than getting rid of old shoes and too many outfits. I guess that will be my excuse for not writing in awhile this time. Writing a blog is really putting yourself out there for folks to see into you and your thoughts, and maybe I didn’t want you to see the messy parts. This painting represents embracing the blues, sitting still with the ordinary of a Monday, being there for oneself as one travels through the mundane to figure out what’s next.

“Immersed In The Layers, Where Do We Go Now” Acrylic 36″ x 24″

Loss, Connection, Choices Moving Forward and Art

This painting was pure feeling. The feeling was deep. My dad had been such a big personality in our family. Losing him left us not just with the loss of him, but also the loss of our identity as a family, our identity in our various roles in that family, our sense of purpose and direction. Losing him meant losing our mother too. We had to give her the space to figure out who she was after somewhere near sixty five years of marriage and seventy three years of knowing each other. Our mother couldn’t be who she had always been. As I said to her, “Women in your family live long lives, you’ve got a lot of years left? What’s your next gig?!” Everytime I hoped my mother would find happiness and joy in this new space, I realized I was hoping I would too.

Have you ever noticed yourself wishing things for others that really you want for yourself? I highly encourage getting paint and just putting it on canvas in whatever way is calling to you! Choosing the next color that makes you smile, paint with your hands, or something you think your not supposed to paint with. Have fun. Play. As for travel, travel the same way.

All of a sudden I felt like I was finally a grown up. It’s kind of silly, but it’s what I felt. Each layer of paint in this piece represents a feeling I allowed myself to feel in the moment, layering on the complexities of how we redefine ourselves after we have a great loss in our lives. Someone said it looked like the city. I’m a believer the viewer sees what they are supposed to see for themselves, so I said, sure it could be. I was already slipping away from a nomad existance to one connecting to a community here in Portland. The wealth of beautiful people to make friends with has been overwhelming, although nobody replaces the time tested friendships from past lives long before travel trailer life. So I now found myself looking at my own immortality along with everything else. After all it will come one day. So many questions have been swirling in my head. Should I live closer to mom and family again? Our time is limited and precious. Should I live closer to old friends who have traveled through time with me? I value and miss those types of friendships and know how long it takes to make new ones like that. Do I want to live in some swanky downtown condo where life is bubbling and busy? Or will I miss my little bubbly creek in my back yard? What about my art life? It has been such a gift, overflowing with opportunities that just don’t stop. I’ve become very clear on what aspects of the art business world I like and what I have no patience for. Yet will I have to compromise in order to paint. When paintings don’t move there is a point where I can’t keep stacking up paintings. I’m not sure exactly why I even think that way, knowing my intentions in my vision boards, and my journaling have all manifested themselves in real life, and my work keeps moving. I know how I choose to think about myself is exactly what I will attract into my life. As you can see, there has been a lot of buzzing about in my mind and downsizing the noise that whirls about in there is my next focus so I can get clear on next steps.

“Immersed In The Layers, Where Do We Go Now Ford Gallery PDX __ Surprise Party
“Sandy And Friends” Acrylic 30″ x 30″ City Of Portland Art Collection

Manifesting Your Dreams Starts With Intentions

In case you don’t follow me on all of those other social sites, which I wouldn’t blame you if you tried to stay clear of all of that noise, here are some updates. This last year I put intentions into the universe via a vision board that had me meeting curators, getting to know galleries, and entering shows and answering calls for artists. Guess what happened? All of the above! For me personally the two most exciting things that happened in 2023 were getting to know The Ford Gallery PDX and how shows run there, as there are several opportunities throughout the year to interact with them and the style of art there is a match with mine. Also, selling Sandy And Friends to the City Of Portland for their art collection through the Regional Arts and Culture Council. If I could continue doing things like that making room for and allowing myself to continue to paint, that would be amazing. Also, it has been fun to get some workshops going in The Troutdale Art Center. The Artist’s Way group has been a wonderful opportunity to share gems from Julia Cameron that made such a difference in my journey and Open Studio created a small community of like minded creatives to connect with. Currently we are all trying out her “Word Deprevation” activity where we get real quiet, shutting out tv, social media, even books so that we can hear our own voice and words in our hearts and figure out what direction we want to go.

“When The Stories Get Told” Acrylic on Canvas 36″ x 24″

Listen For Your Story, Hear Your Unique Voice And Journey With The Ebb And Flow

When The Stories Get Told depicts a common scene of the elders sitting around sharing the stories. Anyone who has ever had the opportunity to be a mouse in the corner and witness the stories being told, know there is so much to treasure in hearing and holding the stories for future generations. The stories tell how we became who we are, how things changed over time and also give hints at where we might be headed, all things I contemplate as I look at possible choices and whirl around contemplating what the consequences might be of any one given choice. Will I actually make it to the real Tiny House I desired when I started out? Will I continue on in my trailer content with things as they are? Will I end up in condo in the Pacific Northwest? Or will I end up in a 1900’s condo with built ins that uses space wisely, like a tiny house, but in another city closer to family? Time will tell. I do know if I include my truck trips, which I wouldn’t have done if I weren’t living trailer life, I can add North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho to my map. Montana, Oklahoma and Texas are all I need to complete my Western Adventures. Of course that’s not counting Hawaii and Alaska, both of which I have no interest in hauling a traielr but do plan to visit. And I do know it would be fun to have a base and travel Van Life style going forward. There is an ebb and flow to this travel thing, as there is an ebb and flow to life. I’ve witnessed other Airstream friends in it, and see myself in it too. I gues the trick is to enjoy the journey. For now, Troutdale, Oregon is still home sweet home.

Photo Actually Taken at my first site in Southern California 2018
pre pandemic, pre everyone jumping into trailer life.

Thank You!

As always… thanks for the follow and sticking with this forever transitioning blog. 😉😘

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Tik Tok? Tick Tock! Is It All A Dream?

ElisaMG

I noticed I haven’t written since October. The whole thing of being a nomad, the romantic notion of wandering from place to place pretty much crashed into real life. It’s fun watchig folks on Instagram or Tik Tok post tiny snippets of their seemingly perfect lives floating about, boondocking in the middle of nowhere, from place to place. It allows us to dream. It takes us across time and space and out of the reality of our office cubicles. I also noticed the tick tock of time as my hair is getting more grey by the day marking how quickly time is flying by. Time does not wait for us to claim our lives.

In reality, at least when it comes to my truth, I have simply trusted my gut and followed it to where I am today. I’ve had a few good loops around the United States and Canada. I enjoyed California camping throughout the state, and learning how to navigate the beautiful desert. I’ve braved wind storms, snow storms, ice storms and enormous hail while dodging back and forth across country on crazy mountain grades with switchbacks and drop offs. I’ve enjoyed the Canadian Rockies as well as the Plains. I’ve gotten to visit with so many relatives, who little did I know, I would never see again. What have I not done? So far I have missed the East Coast, which seems to be a different kind of towing involving more expense and the need for better plans. It doesn’t seem to offer the as many boondocking opportunities and for me the reallity of cruising all the way across country and back, missing the extreme weather that shows up at the weather changing months of May and August September, well… just wasn’t realiistic. I also had dreams of cruising in Mexico but found that would take more research in terms of finding insurance companies to cover me, being more fluent with my Spanish or ideally having a copilot who knew the landscape better than me to recommend where to even steer towards. Maybe someday I’ll still make it to those locations but I seem to be leaning more towards flyng in for my visits there. And in all honesty, if sitting stil slows time down a bit, I’m ok with that too. The older I get the faster it seems like time is flying by. I feel fortunate to have seen as much of the world as I have.

The Pacific Northwest simply felt like home when I landed here, minus the existance of my family and those special 30 plus year friends we all treasure. But the PNW has had an abundance of new friends. In losing my dad it struck me how time was really flying by. It had me focused on how many good friends I had lost and how fragile life is. It hit home how important it is to continue making new friends in order to keep having those long time friends because time keeps ticking. I have lost seven close friends and family members since the dreaded 2020. The effect is what I would call exponential grief, a more keen focus on my end of life plans, and exit plans for trailer life and a lot of time thinking about how to make the best of the time I have left, as well as where I wil want to be when towing becomes more physical than I want to deal with. I already don’t want to climb up on my roof. Maybe I should make myself! Maybe it all goes downhill from there! Ha!Ha!

No, I’m not really ready to leave trailer life yet, although watching a handful of towing friends leave the life makes me a little sad each time. Some leave because they miss a home made with house parts (like me). Some have to take care of aging spouses who can no longer travel safely. Some leave for health reasons. And some just want new adventures. Watching the trend of trailer life folks who flew into the the trend in 2020 only to turn around and sell their rigs before they had even put 1,000 miles on them, causing the industry to spike and now return values on trailers to slowly take a dive… well… I just shake my head. But still, I have no regrets. I didn’t buy the trailer to make a bunch of money on it.

I got into this in the first place because I wanted to move toward living in a tiny house. I still do. I have gotten as far as making friends who actually made that dream work and will help me and connect me to good builders. I toured a frien’s tiny home that was a little small for me, but absolutely beautiful in design. It helps to see things up close in real life. I think if I had a relative with land, like my friend, that would be my current first choice for where to park. Parking on a friends land seems too big a risk if things go south and too much to put on a friendship. That said, the industry is a long way off from normalizing Tiny House living. Sure, they are making tiny houses for homeless people, making tiny house communities for addicts as a way of living that is not so stressful, and allowing grandmother tiny houses on other people’s properties as well as creating highly sought after, highly over priced tiny house communities. Sigh. I drooled over Acony Bell and a coastal tiny house community out here, but the reality of getting in, in a house I designed was jut not going to happen. Plus they are so far from the city. And although I realized I have lost some of my “city girl”. I still am a city/country girl at heart. Also, the new thing to look at when scouting a location to live is the thirty year climate projections. Being under water, taken by a tsunami or burned to a crisp just isn’t attractive. So until the industry allows you to put your tiny house on your own land, in any county you want, it remains more of a dream than a reality.

I do know one thing for sure. I like house parts vs trailer parts. And trailers are made of trailer parts. They are cheap, unique to your. trailer, typically made in China and therefore not quickly replaced I’m told due to the supply chain. They are also expensive and break often, no matter how much you spend on your trailer. Plus they take specialized folks and tools to work on them, unless you dive in and DIY! yah…. diy is like die for me. Not my cup of tea! Although I’ve done a lot of it because I had to. House parts can be fixed by a regular handyman or woman. They are also easier to figure out when doing things oneself. Plus, I know they said this to me in the beginning but I wasn’t listening… trailers are not made to live in fulltime, and they are not made to live in in extreme weather, both of which I do. And both of which I would totally do again!

So, I will sit still here and soak up as much summer as I can in hopes to get sick of it, and crave winter again. After last years ice storms and hundred mile per hour winds, below zero temperatures and frozen water hoses I’m not super excited about winter. But I’ll be working on my attitude adjustment all summer and replacing my broken winter gear. Plus I joined a gym where I can swim and get my hot tub on in the really miserable months. Quite possibly I willl fly and visit all of you when I really need to get out of here.

The best part about my going on this going on six year journey thus far is it has helped me prioritize experiences over things living more minimally and it has allowed me to truly dive in and explore my world as an artist! That, is as the commercial says, priceless! My. goal in this next year is to make more connections with curators and galleries in downtown Portland and cities across The States, allowing me to make more art, make bigger pieces and get my work in front of the audience that loves it and buys it, so that I can keep making art. Delving into my creative world is what gave me peace, helped me grieve and healed my heart from all of the loss since 2020. It continues to do so.

So, where is my art currently? I have small works showing at Piccolo Coffee House on the mainstreet in downtown Camas, Washington until the end. of this month. I am part of an exhibit, that the ROHO Arts Collective out of Minneapolis Minnesota is putting on for the summer, in the Cargill Gallery on the second floor of the Central Library downtown Minneapolis. I will have two pieces showing at the Newmark theater in downtown Portland, Oregon. I have some work up in Poor Michaels Emporium in Manitoba, Canada. In July my small works show will be dowtown in Gresham at Shop Girl Consignment. Of course I’m still working out of and showing work at the Troutdale Art Center. And I have my eye on a couple more Portland galleries and downtown fashion shops. So come for a visit, or have fun tooling through my online portfolio here.

I apologize for slowing down to two posts a year and will try to check in a little more often. Thanks for sticking with me.