into the valley

Into the Valley, encaustic on birch, 6×6 inches

This is the piece that I thought was done last week, but when I brought it home from my studio I realized that it just needed one little tweak. So today I got to tweak it and now it’s finished. This landscape comes from a hike in Alaska. A very rainy, foggy, yet beautiful hike.

Today at my Culinary Communion class we learned all about fish and seafood. We learned a lot and covered many topics from how to pick out fresh fish to the ramifications that farmed fish has on the environment to the practice of genetically modified fish. (!) I didn’t know that they were doing that to fish. I find the whole topic of genetically modified food to be very disturbing. I learned how to fillet a trout and cook it up. My fillet wasn’t very pretty, but it will take practice, besides I’m not shy about asking my fishmonger to fillet it for me! We created about six or seven dishes, two of which were sauces. I am still full. My favorite had to be the Shrimp and Grits dish. yum-o.

After my class each Sunday morning I find myself feeling inspired. Inspired to make good food, yes. But more so, feeling creatively inspired to get into my studio and make art. Not sure why, but I’ll take it. Must just be the act of creation. Being in a learning environment. Discussions on topics that I feel strongly about. All of the above, I suppose.

Actually, when I was in my studio I had an urge to paint a fish, but I had other projects that I needed to finish up. Will return to that urge at some later date.