![Chandler O'Leary [logo]](https://chandleroleary.com/wp-content/themes/chandleroleary/images/logo.png){kind=logo}
Yesterday was such a beautiful day, and my hands so badly needed a break from carving, that I took a day off and headed upstate to bask in the tulip fields.
And then, when I got home, there was a postcard waiting for me from my friend Jen—from her own tulip tour in the Netherlands.
I’m taking that as a sign that playing hooky yesterday was the right idea.
Since Jessica and I got back from teaching at the Penland School of Crafts, I’ve been struggling to put the experience into words. But no matter how I go on about how beautiful the Blue Ridge Mountains are; or how unique Penland’s creative culture is; or how amazingly talented each and every one of our students were; or how seriously delicious a hot bowl of cheese grits is after a walk in the chilly morning fog; or how many wonderful people we met; or how much we loved the challenge of basically teaching two classes in one intense week—well, I get a little incoherent. So I’ll let my sketchbook do the talking. (I kept a little notebook in my apron pocket all week, and every time I had a second to spare, I was scribbling away.)
In short: we can’t wait to go back. Huge thanks to the lovely folks at Penland for hosting us and creating such a wonderful place to learn and make things; to our seven fabulous students for their enthusiasm and willingness to dive right in; and to our angelic friend Mary-Alice for being the absolute hands-down best teaching assistant the world has ever seen. Hope to see y’all again soon!
The Tailor and I took a road trip to a friend’s farmstead wedding in North Dakota this month.
We figured that while we were at it, we might as well make a mountain (read: 750-mile) detour to complete our vacation.
So off to the Rockies we went,
sketchbook in (my) hand,
with our eyes peeled for roadside attractions,
and the camera ready to capture every perfect moment.
I think Washington was jealous that I left it for Texas last month—
—because when my best friend Elizabeth came out for a trip to the San Juan Islands, we were treated to endless rain. That’s okay, though—the San Juans are absolutely gorgeous in any weather.
The place could not be more different than what I saw in West Texas—not the landscape,
not the culture,
not the flora or fauna, either.
What it had in common with the desert, though, was that it made me fall in love in exactly the same way.
Mexico on the left, Texas on the right.
With all the crazy work I’ve been doin’ lately—and all the rain that this season brings—I really, really needed a vacation. So the Tailor and I took ourselves on a little road trip—way the heck down to the Texas-Mexico border. Yep, we drove 2,200 miles one way, just to be able to stand ten feet from an international border. It’s a pretty amazing feeling, actually.
We spent most of our time at Big Bend National Park (you know how much of a national park nut I am!), which allowed for plenty of time for sketching—
—and lots, and lots of desert sun to soak in.
When Jessica and I were in North Carolina last summer, we had just enough sightseeing time to squeeze in a short trip along the aptly-named Blue Ridge Parkway.
Between the dappled sunlight,
the lush Southern greenery,
and the unexpected splashes of color,
we were enchanted in an instant.
(I, for one, was tempted to do a little Katniss Everdeen impression—just run away from it all and head for the hills.)
It wasn’t hard to imagine sitting down and breaking out the paper and paints, with all that blue haze as inspiration.
The folks at the nearby Penland School of Craft certainly agree. Since Lucy Morgan founded it in 1929, Penland has become a national center for craft education. Widely respected for its preservation of handcraft traditions, Penland is centered on total-immersion study and both traditional and experimental techniques. Settled in a quiet pocket of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it’s an inspiring setting for focused work. Thanks to its reputation and location, the school attracts some of the country’s best artists and fine craftspeople to study and teach in the Penland studios.
So you can imagine how thrilled and honored Jessica and I were when they asked us to come and teach a letterpress workshop there this summer.
We’ll be teaching a one-week printing intensive, and doing our very best to turn the printshop upside down. This ain’t your grandpa’s letterpress. Here are the details:
A printmaking intensive with Chandler O’Leary and Jessica Spring
Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC
Summer Session 7: Aug. 26 to Sept. 1, 2012
In the class, we’ll work with both hand-set type (don’t worry, we won’t monkey with any linotype machines…) and photopolymer plates to produce editioned prints that combine the two techniques.
We’re going to get pretty technical, pretty fast, but don’t worry—the workshop is open to all levels of experience. That way we can bring letterpress newbies up to speed quickly, and give more experienced printers the chance to go nuts and geek out with us.
“Unnatural Light” by Jessica Spring
You’ll be doing some death-defying typesetting by hand, using Jessica’s acrobatic techniques,
On a Mission Dead Feminist print
and I’ll teach you the ropes of designing for photopolymer, so you can throw a three-ring hand-drawn circus into the mix.
So get thee to the mountains and join us! Registration is open now, but don’t wait too long—the class is capped at 12 students.
See you in North Carolina! Save me some grits, will you?
I love it when a journey is required to bring Christmas home.
Hoping yours is holly-jolly, merry and bright.
The three days Nicole and I spent in Victoria were star-studded with beauty and color, but nothing was quite so breathtaking as the Butchart Gardens, just a few minutes north of the city.
Now a Canadian National Historic Site, the Gardens were the private grounds surrounding the home of Robert and Jennie Butchart. So the place didn’t feel like your average botanical garden or arboretum. There were no exhibit signs, no identifying plaques next to the different flower types, nothing that created the feel of a museum—instead there was the perfect illusion of taking a stroll around the grounds of a palace, or traveling back in time to the days of manor houses and perfectly-maintained estates. Yet this was no exclusive world; the estate is named “Benvenuto” (Italian for “welcome”). The Butcharts welcomed to their home any visitor who wanted to see it, and they were famous for their hospitality. Jennie had reportedly served 18,000 cups of tea to friendly strangers before her family convinced her to charge a nominal admission fee.
It wasn’t hard to see why the visitors came in droves. Nicole wandered off to admire the variety of blooms, but I stood mesmerized by the light.
Usually gardens in the Northwest have a somewhat otherworldly glow, what with our silver skies and rainy mists. But in full sunshine, the place was an absolute riot of color.
I could have spent the whole day just losing myself in the jewel tones all around me.
But Jennie Butchart’s garden is so much more than a flashy display of color: it’s also a staggering feat of environmental design and land reclamation. Jennie was way ahead of her time.
You see, the Butcharts’ land began as a turn-of-the-century limestone quarry, which supplied Robert’s cement company with raw material. When the quarry was exhausted, all that was left was a barren pit. It was Jennie who had the idea to transform an industrial wasteland into a thing of beauty. She had many tons of topsoil brought in by horse and cart, and over the course of several years, she gradually, patiently reclaimed the land and shaped it into a thriving garden.
The result is the stunning Sunken Garden, a masterpiece of earthworks and living sculpture. I was expecting the Queen of Hearts to appear around a bend in the path, a flamingo tucked under each arm. The perfect English garden.
As I continued along the path, suddenly I found myself transported to Versailles—
—and then to Japan.
Lest I lose my bearings, though, reminders that this is the Northwest were ever-present.
Jennie’s garden has evolved far beyond a labor of love. It’s truly a national treasure, and an international curiosity—we heard well over a dozen different languages spoken that day, and struck up conversations with people from five different continents.
Yet despite the flocks of travelers, it was never difficult to find a moment of peaceful, contemplative solitude. I can’t wait to return, and eventually visit Jennie’s garden in every season of the year.
No stay at the Empress is complete without sitting down to Afternoon Tea.
Now, I love a good cuppa no matter where I am, but leaning back in a squashy chair and gazing upward at something like this makes every sip a little more special.
The Empress has been pouring tea every afternoon since it opened in 1908—it was the first venue in Victoria to offer it to the public.
For over a century it’s been one of the city’s biggest tourist draws, but it was easy to forget all about the crowds. Somehow it felt like a quiet, private meal at the home of a dowager aunt. Not normally my, uh, cup of tea, but I loved how unexpectedly cozy it was.
The scones made me miss the Tailor. He would have loved them—and then tried to figure out the recipe.
The savory course was to die for. It was a curious, perfect mix of England (curried chicken, cucumber finger sandwiches) and the Pacific Northwest (best smoked salmon ever). Two months later, I can’t even look at this photo without the memories flooding my taste buds and making me salivate.
The Inner Harbour just outside the window, a good friend across the table, and a seemingly endless array of flavors to hand: the perfect recipe for a relaxing Sunday afternoon.
Yeah, I know. It’s a week before Christmas, and Hanukkah starts tomorrow. Our tree is up, and we even had our mega-huge holiday party last night (62 people—a new record!). But somehow, my mind is occupied with red-gold maples, not flocked evergreens. Maybe it’s the fact that everyone’s lawns are at their greenest at this time of year. Or maybe it’s the knowledge that once these Festivals of Light are over, there’s still a whole lot of actual winter darkness and that Northwestern silver-grey pall to overcome before the sun returns. Whatever it is, I’m not quite ready to let go of autumn yet. So in between the holiday records and the hall-decking, I find myself poring over my fall photos.
Autumn is always my favorite time of year, and this was a particularly good one. We had more sunny days than we have any right to expect in the Northwest, but that’s not the half of it. This was my thirtieth fall, so for me, there just seemed to be a hint of celebration in the air.
And so to start our next decade off with a bang, my friend Nicole (who also turned thirty this fall) and I spent three glorious days in Victoria, British Columbia.
In order to catch the morning ferry to Vancouver Island, we had to leave T-Town at oh-dark-thirty to reach Port Angeles at sunrise.
With view like this as a reward, though, it was hard to complain about the pre-dawn slog.
The tall cups of hot, strong coffee—and knitting!—keeping our hands warm didn’t hurt, either. After a ninety-minute crossing over the Strait—
—and a tight squeeze through the snug Inner Harbour—there we were.
We checked into our hotel,
and then set out to see the sights—those just around the corner,
and a few slightly farther afield.
We couldn’t have asked for better weather for exploring the city,
or better light for showing off its photogenic side.
And whenever our overstimulated brains needed a break from all the grandeur, we could turn our attention to sights both quaint—
—and cute (as a button).
My favorite thing about Victoria, though, was discovering a visual melting pot of Old World and New World,
and of East and West.
When I think of the American West, what usually stands out in my mind are dramatic natural vistas with little or no human presence. So standing on the other side of the border, and seeing an English-style Parliament complex just a stone’s throw from rugged mountains and First-Nations totems was a little jarring at first glance. But then I realized that Victoria isn’t necessarily a city of contrasts, but something else altogether: a blend of all the best parts of the cultures and environments that have come together here. It was both comfortably routine and utterly foreign at the same time.
And I remembered that all my experiences in Canada have been like that: an unexpected twist on something very familiar. Always at hand is the feeling of great adventure in a strange land—and the sense that home is just around the corner.
