AUCLATDOTW : 7 : A Beautiful Day

Today was the most beautiful day. I spent quite a lot of it in a chair soaking up the sunshine. I did not, however, take pictures of the beautiful day. For once I just sat back and enjoyed it. This photo is from our Lums Pond hike last weekend. I saw so many magnificent varieties of fungus. They have been inspiring my canvas structures back in the studio. I’ve been calling them structures because they are drawn from walls, roof, fungus, but they are actually pretty flat. Earlier this week I sewed breast shaped “fungus” onto a tree form. I’m torn between letting it be loose and pasting it all down with matte medium. I’ll post a photo later this week.

AUCLATDOTW : 4 : What is that?

If anyone knows that that bug is I'd love to know. That's what I love about hiking- you just never know when you'll see something new. We hiked 7 miles around Lums Pond in Delaware yesterday. The most we'd done before was 4- maybe. All summer the plan had been to build up our stamina for the big hike. But instead of that sensible plan we took a month off. During our last attempted hike the mosquitos chased us back to the car. So we sat around like lumps for a month and then idiotically decided to get back into it by walking almost twice as far as we ever had. We made it. Barely. But even when we'd only gone three miles and were already exhausted I never really considered turning around. Mentally three familiar miles seems longer than four unfamiliar ones. I am absolutely driven on by the possibility of seeing something new, unexpected or unusual. I love the treasure hunt aspect of hiking.