Cala Lillies are the dependable presence each spring in my overgrown garden. Their white, architectural curves opening from the straight, green shoots add spots of brightness to the various corners of the yard they inhabit of their own accord. 

But it is the hellibore that speaks to me most emphatically of renewal each spring. I take note of the spikey leaves growing too big and brittle during the fall as I walk from my back steps to studio each day, and then stop noticing it altogether during the wet winter as it disappears. But in spring it surprises me. I noticed the new bush today, with its full crop of young heads, bowed, showing just the outside blush of their lavender petals with delicate veins of deep purple mixing with pale green. To see the full flower one must bend down and lift up the blossom as if lifting the chin of a teen-ager and saying “here, show me your wonderfulness that you are so reticent to present to the world.”

Blog to Facebook

Could it be this blog has outlived its relevance and optimum life as a forum for updates on my studio and general thoughts? My limited resources are perhaps better spent keeping my Beach: A Book of Treasure Facebook Page active and interesting.  I would rather put the thoughtful design energy into my e-mail newsletter (despite it being relatively sporadic) and the books themselves, while Facebook can post the more spontaneous thoughts and comings and goings of the studio.  I welcome feedback from my readers on this transition either here or on Facebook.

Our current state of affairs -- with zillions of platforms for communicating on -- is not conducive to "paring down," but this advice is never out of fashion. With limited time resources I am slowly winnowing down to a system I think best fits the material.  Of course this is liable to change at any instance.  (somehow I feel like I have been here before...)

The Work Table

My Studio Worktable at work

I have been receiving items from a wonderful array of sea glass lovers to put to work for my next little book.  I went to visit Katie Carron in Walnut Creek on a foggy and mysterious day.  I arrived at her boyfriend's house and there, laid out on his dining room table, was her entire collection of seaglass -- two hundred pounds -- sorted by color.  It was spectacular. Much of it is from a beach in England below a long-shuttered glass factory.  Many of the shards are the discard from the "end-of-day glass" the workers were given to do whatever they wanted with.  I could not resist the yellow: