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I hope the new year is finding everyone very well and I hope everyone had a very peaceful and relaxing holiday season. We had a good visit with Chris' family in Arizona. Our excitement for the trip was during our drive up from Phoenix to Winslow, when we hit impassable snow in Payson, AZ and ended up having to stay the night in a hotel. It was quite strange - there wasn't one bit of snow on the southern approach to Payson, but as we passed through the town (which really isn't very big), we came into steady snowfall and positioned at the northern departure of the town were several police who were discouraging drivers from continuing on. So, we stayed the night, bought chains for our rental car in the morning and made the very slow trek toward Winslow. It was a very beautiful, but somewhat nerve-wracking drive.

As with most gift-giving holidays, I usually receive a good number of children's/art books for my ever-expanding collection, but this year I was also able to add some original illustrations to my collection. My husband gave me two original paintings by Omar Rayyan, of whose work I'm a huge fan. You can see these paintings here and here. I think he is just brilliant with watercolor!

The new year also brings with it a new video game project (to be disclosed in the future) for my husband who spent the last several months of 2009 working long and hard on the environments for Darksiders which just came out in stores today! Tons of video clips here.

As for resolutions for the new year, I think I'm just going to recycle last year's resolutions and give them another shot considering the only one I can say I really succeeded at was gaining some weight. Maybe I should add to that list to try to update here more frequently!

It's been such a long time since I've updated that I'm just not sure where to start... So, we're finally all settled here in Austin after our big move from LA. It's hard to believe we've been here for about a month and a half. The time just flew by and now it's nearly Christmas! I had forgotten how all-consuming long distance moves can be. During the move there are these long stretches where we're just waiting around, but at the same time there are so many little loose ends to take care of. It seems like I've done everything but art lately, although I did manage to scribble down a first draft of a very simple early reader that's been swimming around in my head for a while.

We spent our first two weeks here in an Extended Stay on the east side of the city which was . . . okay. We managed to find an apartment within our first four days here which I thought was very efficient of us! So I was able to call in for delivery of our possessions pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the mover scheduled the delivery for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving which was the same day we were supposed to fly out to visit my parents. Try as I might to reschedule, I couldn't reach the moving coordinator, who, as it turns out was sick with the flu for an entire week, so we had to cancel our trip lest our things be left on the curb or shipped around the country for a while before they made their way back to us again. Needless to say, none of us were to happy about any of this.

One of my big concerns regarding the move was not knowing how the cat would handle it. I've never traveled with a cat before so it was uncharted territory for all of us. He actually did surprisingly well on the flight over and in the hotel. There was a bit of growling and slinking around, but he took it all really well. Where I made my mistake was when I took him with me to the empty apartment one day to do some cleaning. He was fine all day - really interested in checking the place out and then in the very late afternoon something in his little brain snapped and he started dashing around madly and frantically washing, twitching his fur and shaking his head as though there was something on him that he was trying to shake off. It was very disturbing to watch him in this state. We took him to the vet to see if what was bothering him was something environmental. The vet seemed rather baffled by our description of his behavior and suggested we just keep an eye on him for a while. He did gradually get over the problem, so we can assume it some kind of bizarre stress response. Thankfully, he's all back to normal now.

So far, I'm really liking Austin. It's very pretty - very green - not at all the stereotype of the dry, dusty Texas I'd always imagined. And I am so happy to have forest the reaches right up to our back balcony. It's quite an improvement over our last view of the building next door - the typical LA 'view.' We have a nice big picture window in the master bedroom which makes for really great bird-watching. The cat and I are both loving it. There seem to be a couple pairs of cardinals that frequent the juniper nearby. They are just so pretty to watch flitting around, nipping berries off the branches. Must paint a cardinal... The wildlife is just great around here and we haven't even started hiking the local wilderness yet either. The forests must be teeming with deer since we see them all the time. They are pretty brave. They come right up onto the lawns and you can get pretty close to them without spooking them at all. I know a lot of people have deer in their backyard, but I never did so it is pretty novel to me. Oh - and I saw a little owl the other day! It was just so cute! Must paint an owl...

And here I was worried that I wouldn't have any pictures to post since we all know pictures are the best part, right? I went outside, thinking maybe I'll see something interesting to shoot. Shot a couple pictures of berries for future reference and on my way back to my apartment I spot three deer grazing on the lawn just like I was saying:
Well, most important of all, my husband is very happy with his new job which is a very good thing since we did move all the way here for it after all. He's working on a next-gen game called Darksiders. It's set in a fantastical post-apocalyptic future with angels, demons, etc. and you play as one of the four horsemen. It's still in it's early stages, but what they have so far looks really great. There are some trailers here (yes, you have to sit through a commercial if you want to watch them) :
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21723.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21562.html
This one's an interview/trailer:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22357.html

Well, I think I've yammered on long enough today. It's almost time for dinner anyway. Since I probably won't update again until after the holidays (we'll be in Arizona!), I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! See ya in 2008... Read the rest of this post

Monday, an article in the New York Times confirmed the story that the Barnes & Noble on Astor Place in New York is closing, and put to rest the rumors we'd been hearing that a new branch would open in Chelsea. The Astor Place branch will close on December 31, citing astronomical rents, the bane of all bookstores in NYC. (Strangely, the quoted yearly rent of $1.15 million for 32,000 square feet works out to only about $35 per square foot -- well within reasonable range, even for a bookstore.) The Times reports that a new B&N will open at 270 Greenwich Street in TriBeCa on November 28, "so the total number of Barnes & Noble stores will be unchanged."

However, a Tuesday article in the New York Post makes that last statement questionable. Real estate sources say that the Chelsea Barnes & Noble won't renew its lease when it comes up next May, though Barnes & Noble hasn't confirmed this. But the Post also says the chain may have signed a lease at Lexington Avenue and 86th Street for a new store to open next year. Go fig.

Possibly the best part of the Times story is two paragraphs at the end, where Meg Smith of the ABA offers McNally Robinson as a counter-example to the gloom-and-doom of the bookstore news. But read through the comments on the article for almost every possible perspective on the issue, from optimism that perhaps this signifies a return to local retail, to despair that New York is becoming ever more unaffordable and homogenized, to apathy about the importance of bookstores at all, and a brief debate about whether McNally Robinson is in fact a chain (it isn't; see comment #33). Fascinating stuff, and far from simple.

And then, check out the Tuesday Daily News story on independent bookstores in Brooklyn, which are thriving despite competition from Barnes & Nobles in their area. BookCourt (Boerum Hill), A Novel Idea (Bay Ridge), P.S. Bookshop (Dumbo), and Spoonbill and Sugartown (Williamsburg) are doing just great, actually. (And of course this brief article doesn't cover half the indie bookstores in the borough.).

Three New York papers; two days; three articles about bookstores. It's an interesting moment, folks.

It's Monday Inspiration! I don't know about you, but it feels like a Monday today. I stayed up reading the rest of HARRY POTTER and I couldn't fall asleep after finishing it. J.K. Rowling is quite a genius, but a little kill-happy in this last book. After a while, it felt like no one was safe.

Anycow, I find the best inspiration is found while yard-saling and by going to Barnes and Noble for book worship. We did both this weekend. I happened upon a series of fab Japan-started books by Aranzi Aronzo-- that are quirky, odd and cute, all at the same time. Here's the book links click here.

Hello Friends:

I promise I won't make a habit of using my "art blog" to advertise deals on our internet mall, but I thought this may be fitting, considering lots of artists enjoy the Harry Potter books.

Go HERE and check out this deal from Barnes and Noble.com. It's quite amazing and it's short lived!!

I guess I could also use this time to say that I've just wasted my 200th post on an entry for the mall.... I'm not happy about that !!

As always, thanks so much for stopping by.
Until Tomorrow:
Kim
Garden Painter Art