My Reward

Driving Highway 2 through Index on our way here yesterday, Peter suggested I needed to avoid the telephone poles. I think they add something to the photo! The mountains along the way were breathtaking.

Just outside Leavenworth, Washington ( on the eastern side of the state over Stevens Pass on Highway 2) along a road that meanders along through a rural neighborhood one comes to a fork in the road. Turn left for Sleeping Lady Resort was our choice and it is from here that I write: the only sound is YoYo Ma playing Cello (thanks to the amazing tiny speakers I purchased to attach to the iPod function on my iPhone!) and Peter turning the pages of his book as he lolls in a rocking chair in the corner of our beautiful cabin in the woods here along Icicle Creek. The sun comes late into this deep valley and it is casting beautiful light across the wooden floor. I am luxuriating in my reward for a few months of very hard work in my studio.

Last week at Larson's Mercedes Benz dealership showroom in Fife the 16th annual RAGS wearable art show and sale played itself out over 3 1/2 days. Those who organized ( the fabulous women of the RAGS Guild) and we artists who had spent the previous months creating our goods to sell, were cautiously hopeful that people would turn out again and make purchases - one third of which is given to the prevention and intervention programs at the YWCA of Pierce County. However we all know of the current economic challenges and I am guessing I was not the only artist who wondered if he/she would take back to their studio most of what they brought to sell. Our amazing $80,000 gift to the YW for each of the past 2 years we didn't think was possible to repeat.

The results for the whole show will not be known for a month when totals will be revealed at the YWCA's annual luncheon but I was thrilled to part with a major portion of the works I had created and many of the artists were likewise pleased. I am always grateful that people enjoy wearing my work and I have also learned to not be crushed when someone says "No thank you". My marathon days of cutting and sewing for sometimes as long as 12 hours were rewarded .. and now the restful days are here: my reward!

Sleeping Lady Resort is a unique place built by Harriet Bullitt ( see www.sleepinglady.com) in the mid 1990s and a place we have tried to come to a couple of times in the past, but not been able to get a reservation: the secret is to come in the off season. Nestled in the woods among the beautiful long needled pine trees you find on the dry side of the state, it is an ecologically conscious site with much to offer. It was my birthday gift from Peter, last birthday, to come here and so we are here to loll and do as little as possible for a few days.

In the corner of our little cabin is a telephone ;

what a relief that it isn't mine to answer but it

looks beautiful, in its own way, nestled there

in the morning light!

Walking out the door, the fragrance of the pines is amazing and one only has to look up through the needles of the tree outside the door to imagine the potential for creating something wonderful by interpreting those pine needles into a design ... but for now it is surely time for the first nap of the day.