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“Hello Beautiful.” Great name for a painting, eh? It’s by Sarah Kinn and it’s hanging at the Open Studios show at the Boulder Public Library through October 14th. I love this title so much I almost don’t care what the painting looks like. The fact that it’s lovely just lends bonus points.

I’ve spent a lot of time watching viewers interact with paintings at Open Studios and other shows. Titles are a huge deal, especially for abstract work. Viewers look to titles for clues about how to understand a painting, to make a connection, or to confirm thoughts they’ve already formed.

As far as I can tell, there are two kinds of titles for abstract paintings. Descriptive and evocative. Descriptive titles act as tags that describe the physical qualities of subject or paint. (“Blue Fern” comes to mind.) They can be strong. But they’re grounded. Grounding. Evocative titles (like “Hello Beautiful”) are more poetic and action or story oriented. I’ve used both. I still use both. But these days I’m loving the evocative. How about you?

Boulder’s Open Studios is coming soon! If you’re in the area you’re warmly invited to stop by and say hello. My downtown Boulder painting studio will be open to the public from noon to 6 on Saturday and Sunday October 6th, 7th, 13th and 14th. I look forward to welcoming you.

When you visit my studio you’ll find:
• a new series of encaustic paintings inspired by a nighttime visit to the bee yard
• a picture book that shows how I make encaustic paint from beeswax and
• the tools and equipment for encaustic painting.

Visit my News page for the address.

Before I started participating in Open Studios as an artist I was an avid visitor. It was an energizing experience. So much to see and do! I always came home with a happy, dreamy feeling. Like the world had plumped out just a bit.

Here’s a list of favorite art blogs. These are blogs I’ve been following weekly or daily for many, many months. And they never fail to inspire. Most are beautifully written. Some offer compelling images. Or a smile. Enjoy!

The Black Apple
Beautifully written by a young Etsy artist – a painter and doll maker named Emily (thank you, Christy, for pointing the way). I’m impressed by the Etsy, crafty crowd in general. So many of them use blogging software brilliantly to create these cozy, crafty worlds upholstered in vintage fabrics, cupcake recipes, buttons and dolls. Blogging as an art form in and of itself. Ms. Emily’s blog is at the top of the heap. Her paintings are lovely. But it’s her warm writing style that keeps me coming back for more.

Gallery of the Absurd
It’s embarrassing… But yes, I’ve been known to check in on those celebrity tear-down blogs from time to time. I won’t list the worst of them here (they’re really not worth your time or mine) but can’t resist pointing you toward the artist 14′s Gallery of the Absurd. A brilliant satirist, 14′s celebrity caricatures read like Wacky Pack gum cards from the 1970′s. Low humor, high wit. Laugh-out-loud funny.

New Work and Inspiration
Lisa Call is a Colorado quilt artist and art blogger. Her thoughts on creative process are consistently intelligent, generous and interesting. Very easy to read. I don’t know how she does it. (Too many process blogs read like Morning Pages from The Artist’s Way. Lisa’s is a shining exception.) A prolific blogger with an impressive work ethic, I look to Lisa for inspiration whenever I need a boost. Thank you, Lisa! Your blog is sustaining.

PaintersNYC
I LOVE this blog. A simple concept. An anonymous New York painter posts a painting or two (or three) a week from a current NYC show. Debate ensues (many of the commenters are New York painters too). What more can I say? If you’re a painter, you’ve got to check this out.

Paris Breakfasts
Watercolorist Carol Gillot illustrates pastries. Her blog, Paris Breakfasts, brims with morning-lit sensuality. Bakery cases stuffed with rows upon rows of pastel macaroons, vintage tea cups, perfume bottles in Parisian blue. The writing’s minimal. This blog’s mostly about the pictures. And they’re beautiful.

The Sartorialist
Another fun picture blog. “Sart” is a fashion photographer who posts daily images of interesting people wearing interesting clothes on the streets of New York, Paris, Milan, Stockholm, wherever he happens to be. The photos are portraits as much as they’re about fashion. They’ll age beautifully. The other thing I like about this blog is the writing. “Sart” is a good moderator. Comments on the blog are for the most part positive and thoughtful. I love the way this blog teases beauty out of the everyday.

And oh, I’d be remiss if I neglected to mention Alyson Stanfield’s ArtBizBlog. Daily inspiration and marketing ideas for artists. It’s Alyson who encouraged me to start my own art blog here. The quality and quantity of information she gives away is remarkable. A treasure for all artists or anyone involved in marketing a creative endeavor.

They’ve done it! Scientists have identified a pathogen associated with honeybee colony collapse disorder. It’s a virus (Israeli acute paralysis virus). And although it’s what differentiates dead colonies from healthy ones it may not be the single cause of this year’s dramatic bee deaths. Other factors could include drought or the mass trucking of bees from one region to another for pollination. There’s some good reporting on the topic at NPR and the New York Times.

Based on my own personal experience drought has little to do with nectar flow – the recent drought years here in Colorado were some of our biggest honey years yet. This year by contrast, a year in which we got a decent amount of spring and summer rain, has been a slim one for honey production. Go figure. Although I can’t speak with authority on the scientific relationship between drought and honey production – I’m leaning toward the mass trucking of bees as a second possible stressor related to colony collapse disorder. We’ll have to see…

Here’s a picture of a bumblebee Andy found on the street in front of our house. She’s dead. But beautiful, eh? Fuzzy. Soft to the touch (like a kitten’s ear). Honeybees are fuzzy too, but it’s hard to perceive their softness because they’re small. Almost too small to feel.

Bumblebees are interesting. The workers don’t winter over so those big, fat, juicy bumbles you see bobbing around in the spring are queens working alone to gather all the nectar and pollen they need to start a new colony from scratch.

Unlike honeybees, bumblebees are native to the United States. And they’re great for our vegetable gardens too. Their buzzing, bumbling action literally helps shake the pollen out of native plants like squash and tomatoes.

There’s a children’s book called “The Bumblebee” by Angela Sheehan. Beautifully illustrated by Maurice Pledger. It outlines the bumble’s life cycle in the most charming way. I love the mix of good, descriptive information with tenderly drawn illustrations. It’s obvious that the authors hold the intelligence of their young readers in high esteem.

Monday was Honey Day! A big, grand workday. It’s the day we extract all our honey from the comb. This year’s Honey Day was similar to last year’s which you can read about here.

Honey Day is also the day I get my year’s supply of beeswax for encaustic painting. It’s the pristine, new cappings wax that we peel from the comb that makes the most transparent, versatile encaustic paint.

The photo at the top of this post shows a frame of honey sitting at the uncapping station. See the thin white layer of wax? Those are cappings. The photo below shows the cappings being removed by our friend, Ed, using the hot plane. (Skillfully done, Ed!) The hot plane is a heated blade that peels the wax back in a single, dripping sheet (when all goes well). Imagine a hot knife slicing through butter. See that amber honey under the plane? Hmmm… yum.

P.S Special thanks to all the wonderful FRIENDS who volunteered on Honey Day. Your help was indispensable. We love you.