long time no see. how are you?
i’m sprawling out on my couch writing to you. listening to the neighborhood settling in for the evening.
my front door is open. cool air and the last light of the sun. birds fluttering in the oaks. a few cars motoring up the street. someone’s dog is barking.
earlier i cut open this old french book, a gift from pamela marie, who has flown to italy overnight and is keeping me posted on her escapades abroad. love getting her missives and pics from the italian countryside.
and yesterday i painted a quick stack of gouache books which i didn’t quite finish, but who cares?
i believe one of the women above is harriet hunter, sketchbook keeper. pictured here on the italian front in 1917 where she bravely ventured alone to care for soldiers. reminds me of that downton abbey storyline. remember? except she lived in a tiny wooden house with another english woman and this table was in their garden.
it’s all part of a new plot twist in the harriet hunter time traveling episode i’ve gotten caught up in. each night before bed i look through another of her sketchbooks (i have 2 now) then i sink deeper into bed, push my glasses further up, and permit myself to read 1 page of her 99 year old war diary. i first wrote about harriet HERE in this post.
i’ve learned more about harriet and i’ll be sharing everything with you soon soon soon. it’s a beautiful mystery.
i would like to collect more sketchbooks of women adventurers so do keep me apprised if you stumble across any that you don’t want for yourselves. especially you who go to estate sales. i need eyes and ears on the ground.
i believe the woman referenced in the entry above is the woman sitting on the chair at her desk. note the foot stool! 
future book covers. maybe a swedish travel journal. soon my sister and i will need a couple. i intend to make them for us.
it’s a long weekend. i’ll just be here making videos for class, reading war diaries, painting more stacks of books, eating blackberries, and dreaming about the new shelves that leo santa maria the handyman is building into my tiny studio closet. art supply storage! napping shelves for cats!
see you soon.
The Harriet Saga is just making my early summer! Agog…to think somebody didn’t want these treasures and sent them on their way to who knows where? Glad they wound up with somebody who put them up on the interwebs for these beautiful sketches to make their way back into the world. One can only hope that sometime in the far distant future our own watercolor missives might wind up in the perfect home too.
I spent the three day weekend with friends visiting from England, with their two young boys. I give you a huge and shiny medal of courage for tackling small persons on a daily basis at work – a medal, I tell ya. After they left from an afternoon of shouting in the pool (what is it about water that makes children shriek?) I spent the rest of the evening just giggling at the blissful silence that was left in their wake.
Sounds like a perfect weekend to me. I loved this post with the vintage photos and the possible materials you will use for future sketchbooks. Very inspiring. Have a great year end…assuming you are still in school….
I approve highly of your cover and paper choices for the Stockholm journals! In return I shall prepare several good meals for us when we are on our adventure – and carry the bags home from the market.
Such treasures you have in those journals!! Can you pm me about making on line classes? I need some advice form a Master! I am about to start and have outlines and samples and a willing videographer in my tech savvy kid, but I need to know about platforms and editing programs. Do you use a site like Udemy or just go it on your own.
Would so love some mentorship! Have a lovely creative weekend, my friend!!
very very soon i am going to do a post about my equipment, editing software, platforms, and setup. within the week! maybe this weekend. have been meaning to do it and your comment is helping to light the fire under my arse!
How wonderful your discovery of Harriet (a kindred spirit from another age) and her sketchbook diaries must be! Thank you for sharing.
I’ve been revisiting TTV these days and cannot help but wish there would be a TTS(weden). I really enjoyed reading about your visit last year and your journal for that trip was one of my favourites. I never had Sweden on my travel wishlist but I definitely do now! I cannot wait for the upcoming trip and the resulting journal!
Hi Mary Anne! It is very late here but wanted to say how glad I am that you have been able to discover some things about Harriet. How did you come by the diary? That is fascinating! I tried to find something out about her but was unable to. I am so much like you in that I get on a mission when I am interested in something, and it becomes a quest to learn as much about it as I can. It is like a treasure hunt. And I am especially interested in history! I can’t wait to hear more about Harriet and her adventures. She seems like she was quite an adventurous spirit.
I had a no good very bad day, in that my 95 lb golden retriever found a nest of bunnies. I will spare you the details, but I ended up taking the survivors (4 tiny wee ones, about a week old) to the local wildlife sanctuary. I don’t know if they can be saved so young. So, I am heavy hearted about it. Like I said previously, living in the country is both wonderful and tragic all at once, and I will never get used to it. I have made quite a few trips with injured or orphaned animals to the sanctuary.
My husband is gone for a couple of days, halibut fishing up near the Canadian border, so I asked my oldest daughter, Olivia, to spend the night. She ended up bringing the two granddaughters (ages 16 and 7) and we had a boisterous night. Olivia painted the tiniest little painting for me in gouache (which she had never used but loved), which I will post on Instagram tomorrow. Anna, the teen, brushed my hair for me and I gave her tickle scratches on her back and arm. She ended up in a fit of giggles and then had me in a fit of giggles too. I used to do that for all my kids. It is exactly what it sounds like, and feels AMAZING. Carolyn, the 7 year old had a lot of sugar and did about 15,000 jumping jacks, cartwheels and handstands. PHWEEEE! They have all gone to bed now, and it am just unwinding from the unfamiliar activity.
My dog is sleeping with a clear conscience, in spite of his instincts getting the better of him today. I can’t be mad at him. Dogs are dogs.
Anyway, thanks for sharing about your day, and I am excited to hear so much more about Miss Harriet. I am so glad you have fallen into her world, all of these years after she lived her full life. Hoping you are resting well and find some great adventures of your own this weekend.
oh karen i understand about the bunnies. i was devastated a couple of weeks ago why wyatt pulled a fledgling blue jay from the oaks and didn’t kill him, but injured enough to kill slowly. i was furious with wyatt. i know it’s animal instinct, but i was still mad and put him on house arrest. every fallen animal makes me cry. every single one. the gophers, birds, squirrels, lizards, mice. 🙁 thankfully he is getting old and kills very infrequently now.
your visit with the girls sounds dear.
i have so much more to share about harriet..