santa barbara, santa cruz and san francisco

i am enjoying my big tour and working vacation. the columbia river was so beautiful to drive a long for a few hours til i headed north to spokane, washington.

ha ha, too bad that tree was moving. there was no place to stop when i was most enjoying the view. and i also enjoyed seeing a moose standing up to his armpits in a stream next to the highway.

going back to catching up on where i've been on my tour, after leaving los angeles, i treated my s.elf to 2 nights at the immaculate heart retreat center (http://www.ihrc.net/) in santa barbara. it was restful and beautiful. my room was the old nanny's quarters in the beautiful old main house of the estate. i enjoyed meeting other women on group or personal retreats.the food was tasty and healthy, with lots of fresh foods from the organic garden there.

after my personal retreat, i came down from the mountain to my house concert at perry and doug's house in santa barbara.

perry is an artist and perry and his husband's home was an art piece.


perry's friends were fun-loving and ready to laugh and sing along and come up the the "stage" and share a talent. mita was my amusing side kick and impressed us all when she played a blade of grass very loud. it was great to see don carlos, formerly from 29 palms, and some other desert friends.

the next night i had a house concert arranged by petrine michum and it was hosted at the lovely ranch of John Poitras, who has been interested in having house concerts. i felt like a queen staying in petrine's cute guest house and i made her a green smoothy the next morning. here i am at john poitras barn/concert hall. i really enoyed meeting petrine's friends and the wonderful dinner conversation (and dinner).

my favorite flower is the california poppy. i had to stop to take this picture.



after the concert at perry's house i was on the road to santa cruz to have a house concert and relax and make some art on the porch of linda roseman and kate simmons. they had a bunch of really fun loving friends, too, some of them sharing their talents. perry and doug told some of their friends in santa cruz to come, and bruce, who was at my first house concert at my cabin, was in town and brought his cousin.

linda's friend opened the show with a cute love story about her car.

here is linda and kate, with "i can see your aura" mermaid, linda sang a great song with that title, both at the house concert at my cabin and at her house concert in santa cruz.












here i am making art on linda's porch, i am a big fan of porches, i guess they are a bit like gazebos, which i mentioned earlier that i do not like, maybe gazebos seem to lonely to me out there in the middle of the yard. : ) i really loved my clown that is living with perry and doug in santa barbara now, so i had to make another dog with his clown.

i like santa cruz, and even got my new car ran into in the parking lot by a sweet little old lady. i tracked her down, some nice folks had witnessed her rubbing her car against mine as she backed out, and as i was shopping in trader joes. i ended up going to her house and finding out she also used to play guitar, and sang and is very crafty. we had such a nice visit that we decided she ran into me for a reason. linda and kate plan to visit her, as she lives alone and her husband died a couple years ago and she has no children. it was a very heartwarming visit, inspite of the new dent on my car. since i am into art cars, maybe i'll decorate the dent.

my next show was in san francisco, in lady bee's garage. lady bee has wonderful friends and i enjoyed meeting them. i was delighted when matt venuti showed up and played his hang drums for us!
matt and i met at the TED conference in 2003 and he did a wonderful version of my song "some thoughts on if i should die, some day" for my tribute album. i know matt is way over qualified, but he played the sewing machine and delighted us all.

















my next stop was san rafael to see my dad and my step mom gwen. we had a great visit, and i got to make a green smoothy for gwen's sister and her husband. they loved it, and it has been so fun to put fresh greens from people's gardens in my smoothies, george and gayle had mint and sorrel and plums and some other stuff i forgaged for in their garden.

my friend alicia bay laurel is the vegetable fairy and when she visits, she loves making veggies for her hosts. i like making green smoothies, but not everyone is into them.

here are some fresh finds from joanne licardo's garden in portland:














well there is another blog entry. i hope to get better at this. : ) i really am sad about michael jackson and have always been interested in his music and life and once read his autobiography in the 80s. it was cute because he was being so nice to everyone and i feel like i kinda sound that way. not that i'm not nice or have something mean to say... i'm just feeling like i'm learning to ride a bike with this blogging stuff.

it's been 3 weeks on the road, michael, here's where i've been

hello michael! i'm having a really good time on "shari's big tour" this summer.

i'll catch you up on stuff, it has been almost 3 weeks since i began my trip.

the first stop of my tour was a sunday afternoon concert/talent show/pot luck, july 5th, at the home of my highschool pal, elizabeth (james) johnson's house in stevenson ranch, north of los angeles (that's her in her back yard there to the left). we hadn't seen each other since monica (riecke) morakis' wedding about 20 years ago. elizabeth said she owed a bunch of her friends a party and this would be a great way to see them and see me and be part of my big tour. here are some pictures of the lovely friends of elizabeth johnson's family.



about 50 people showed up, and almost half of them children. i enjoyed gearing my set even more for kids (as if my songs are not already kid-friendly). after some brave youngsters broke the ice, more came up on "stage" to share a talent, play my guitar, and tell jokes and stories. fun was had by all, it seemed. i was most complimented when 3 of the 8 year old boys later told me that my show was really fun and that they really liked the "randomness" of my songs.







"like when you met jesus in the parking lot of the hardware store, that is so random." it was fun to be understood and appreciated by such bright and creative home-schooled youngsters.





well, michael, this is a fake shot of me pretending to be performing. my camera and it's operator do not take good pictures in the dark, it was dark when the show started.

here is my lovely assistant preparing to pass out instruments for the seamstress song. i really enjoyed her hanging out on stage with me, unfortunately she had to go home to go to bed before i got to play the seamstress song.

that was the first stop on shari's big tour.

i had fun staying with my friend marian treger in los angeles and making art all day monday for a back yard garden party and art sale at joyce davis' house in culver city, tuesday, july 7th.







michael, here i am making art in marian's living room. she chose the name "magnetta" for her art pen name. for short, she's "mags" and i'm "shags". i have a lot of nicknames. sometime i'll list them. i'm sure a little mystery is fine, too.

you can see magnetta's art on her book shelves behind me, she is my protege, and she even sold 2 of her peices at joyces garden party.

i usually try work 10 hours a week on my art and it was really fun to work 11 hours on art on this day. mags worked on her art and display.

here is my favorite piece of the day.

thanks to joyce for the lovely snacks (pigs in blankets, home made cookies, iced tea and lemonade and lots of other goodies) and hospitality!

here is "cousin joyce" with some of her elfs. i am "cousin elf" because of a sale we had some place where i was supposed to be related to her. that is another one of my nicknames, michael, do you have a lot of nicknames?




here are some pictures of the lovely folks that showed up for the garden party.

this is erica and gabriella with "life in the slow lane"






and here is the lovely krishna, who showed up a day earlier on joyce's door step and
then wondered if she was a day early. joyce loved the surprise visit by krishna (baby due any day!) and gave her a fresh-out-of-the-oven oatmeal cookie. krishna took goldy locks and the bear! and those flowers i really liked and the woman with her purse.



here is the lovely deb lacusta who used to buy art from me at the santa monica airport flea market, i'm happy she searched and found my website recently and is adding to her elf collection.





joyce's happy back yard in culver city.





here is my table of art.

well, those were the 2 first official events of shari's big tour. as you know, michael, because you were there with randal, the first unofficial event was the practice concert/potluck/talent show at my little cabin in morongo valley on july 3rd.

here are a few pictures of that event before i go off to work in portland, making some fun art with the stuff joanne and i got at the goodwill "bins" yesterday. they have lots of good crap to make art with in portland! i found more today at the sellwood baptist church's annual basemet sale. have a lovely day and remember,

micahel blackwell, something good is gonna happen to you today!

















michael, bruce, casey and randal!




steve and martha, kate and linda, ingerborg, nichole and valya.... toodles for now, thanks for reading, stay tuned for more, love shari

This is for Michael Blackwell

i'm blogging today for michael blackwell because he wanted me to blog on "shari's big tour" and he may be the only one reading this. hi michael! yesterday on our lovely picnic on the beach that kate simmons made for linda rosewood and i, i talked of my dislike of typing captal letters. kate said i should blog without capitals, then. then we talked about other things we dislike. i've had a longtime dislike of gazebos. and mayonnaise. we thought of a fun thing to do with a gazebo that could change my opinions of gazebos. what if you dug a bathtub in the center of the gazebo and invited friends over to do a bathtub performance, all invited would do a bathtub performance. now THAT is a good use of gazebos.

so i am blogging with no capitals. we saw some dolphins breaching right there at our picnic on the beach in santa cruz!!! everyone on the beach got excited and stood up and pointed. the dogs kept playing.

i LOVE front porches, having indulged in my 2 front porches when i lived in kansas city. linda roseman has a most perfect porch and i set up my art making station on her porch and worked for 3 hours yesterday on her porch. she said it was fun to have life on that old porch again, which lately had just been about a pile of firewood in the center of it. i enjoyed moving the firewood and kate found me an old table that linda found in a thrift store.


i'm at the whaler car wash in santa cruz now, my car is having it's first bath since i bought it a month ago. i love my new car! it's a diesel jetta like the last one. this one is supposed to get up to 50 mpg, but with amp, sewing machine and art supplies (i travel with electric drill and jig saw) and other stuff, so far i am getting close to 40 mpg. but that's still good. and the sewing machine is a big hit at the house concerts, with guest performers playing it.

i have to go prepare for tonights' house concert and make some more art to post soon, i'm still paying off the down payment on my new car so i've been working really hard and making lots of art. thanks for reading this, michael! : ) your friend shari

Alicia Bay Laurel donates her mother's sculptures (a bunch of heads) to Art Queen

Yes, that's right, I admired those heads every time I visited Alicia Bay Laurel at her mother's house (Verna Lebow). Last week I went to LA to collect what was left of them after the big sale. I just found some interesting facts about my friend on wikipedia, wow, I didn't know she was on there.
More than one friend wants me to blog on my upcoming tour of North America. Thank you Michael Blackwell and Randal Black and Steve and Martha Koeppel. Here is my first blog in
a few years.
Here are more of Verna's heads inside my old 1940s handmade trailer at Art Queen. The trailer is my satellite gallery where it is fun to put goofy shows such as Verna's heads. I especially like how she puts glasses on her heads. Alicia encouraged me to add accessories to the heads, so I look forward to how this can evolve...
Here is Inky, the ferel mother kitty at Art Queen. She's so cute, isn't she? She started petting me for the first time since January, just last week! She rubs up against my leg if i am standing at my work table in my studio. We had her fixed a couple years ago and her two sons, Fluffy and Milton are still at Art Queen. Sometimes Fluffy will chase a piece of string I throw for him. That piece of string has provided hours of entertainment for both Fluffy and me.

here is inky walking away from the world famous crochet museum at art queen. Well, that is my first blog for now.
and here is a poem:

I see the bee
does the bee see me?


love

shari