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

Some ladies and I have been getting together for themed "Ladies Lunches" for over 10 years. I think we had our first themed luncheon at Jean's house in LA.

Last week Nancy and Marian and I met at Real Food Daily for a casual, non themed luncheon. I tried to send them the video I took on my newly discovered video camera on my newly replaced Palm Treo and since Nancy couldn't open the file, I thought I'd make a post about our lunch.

Here we are being our normal goofy selfs.




In the past we have had many different themes at our luncheons. Trees, fathers, mothers, the sun. Often they are pot lucks and the offerings are often beautiful as well as tasty, we are all such artists.

Here are some pictures from a visit by Nancy and Marian to Joshua Tree a year or more ago.



We were amazed at the size of this ocatillo, Nancy and Marian remind me of birds looking at this great tree.


I'm not sure what the joke was, but you can be sure it was funny, someone is always making us ladies laugh. It is good to have ladies to laugh with.

love
Shari

Kitties at Art Queen

I thought there were 5 cats at Art Queen, but today I discovered what Inky's kept hidden from us for 8 weeks. First there is little Inky (Randy named her, he's so clever!) the little girl cat that first appeared here over a year ago as just a kitten. She was Curious George Marmalaid's side kick (George was the tall thin almost 2 dimensional orange tabby cat that got adopted last winter cuz he's so friendly and his new owners down the street didn't want him to be cold in the winter, we were all happy about this). Then this tiny black kitten showed up. George would eat the food me, Bob or Ralph's kids would feed him but he'd always leave some food for Inky. Inky was not as trusting or friendly as George so no one has adopted her yet, except for her fans at Art Queen, where we feed her every day. She's almost tame, she rolls on the ground in front of me and people she knows, and meows and comes in my studio. I can't easily touch her and if I do, she runs away. This past week she's been taking tuna fish and cheese out of my hand, yay, that's real progress!



This is Inky, above. Below is the one remaining kitty from her first litter. Sometimes I call him Tiger. A visitor to Art Queen thought that Tiger was so pretty ("They breed cats to have markings like that" she said) and that maybe she was part Bobcat. I don't think she is, maybe just in spirit. But she or he is so pretty. We can't get close enough to have a look to see if she's a boy or girl.

I have full intension to get Inky and Tiger fixed, but was away for most of July, and after Tiger had been weened (sometime in July), Inky unfortunately got pregnant again. She is now, today, at the point of turning the kitties away if they want to nurse, and the kitties are eating the cat food I sent out for Inky and Tiger. I thought there were 3 kittens, and a few weeks ago I thought none had survived, as they live under a storage shed in Lobby Lu's back lot next door to Art Queen. Today, I was surprised, delighted, and maybe overwhelmed to see one after another, 5 kittens show up to eat from the dinner bowl. They are the cutest things! There are 2 white siamese looking kittens, and 3 black and white.



I have been having fun with my new Palm Treo cellphone, updated and replaced for free about 3 times since I originally won it at the TED Conference in 2003. This new one makes videos and takes much better pictures than the old one. I took all of these pictures today with my phone.
This one (below) is the most rascally and brave. He comes into my studio, was the first I saw to eat food with his mom and Tiger and is the star of the movie below. He looks like he's wearing pants. Maybe he'll be Mr. Lucky Pants. I once wrote a song with that title.

Mr. Lucky Pants
Have you been to France?
Mr. Lucky Pants
Did you buy a hat?


Isn't he the cutest thing ever? Maybe he should be called Batman or Batcat?
What about this picture of Mr. Lucky Pants in the bean bag chair on the Art Queen stage? There's lots of room in that bean bag for some friends for Mr. Lucky Pants.


Here's a look at his pants and with his mom. She's small cat herself, these cats are pretty small but ready to go to happy homes.

These cats are so cute and sweet. I hope to find good homes for all of them. I would have them at home but Randy is allergic to cats. And I don't want them to suffer another cold winter like poor Inky had to by herself last winter. Come to think of it, she found some warm comfort in the big white and black very ferel cat that comes around at night sometimes to see if there's food left in the cat bowls. There always is, I suspect those kitties save some food for their dad. I once saw Inky being all friendly and trying to rub against her man, but he was all business and just wanted to eat.

Bobby Furst came by last week mentioning a great visit to the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. I mentioned that his partner Jane a month or so ago had said their cat needed a friend because they had just lost their other cat. I pointed out Inky nursing 2 of her babies and Tiger was standing by. Bobby said he'd love to take the gray one. I asked if there was any way he could take the gray one and Inky, they are such good friends and groom each other and cuddle together. I loved Bobby's affirmative response:

"As far as I'm concerned, I don't care how many cats I have, cat's are easy." I cracked up and he went on to say dogs are not his favorite to live with because they are more high maintenance.

The nice lady on the phone at Northridge Veterinary Clinic in Yucca Valley said to bring in the kittens when we catch them and they'd find homes for them. If you know anyone who wants one or more of these adorable kitties, please let me know.

Here is a video I took tonight. I'll try to take a better one in daylight tomorrow. The kitties are playful after dinner so I thought I'd do an experiment to see if feral kitties know what to do with balls of yarn. It took less than 2 minutes, and they all figured it out.




Look at Mr. Lucky Pants go with that ball of yarn! Well, that's my 2nd blog, thanks for stopping by! And remember, something good's gonna happen to you today!

love, your friend
Shari