Hearts and Webs

Moncia: Starting from here. It's been a little over a month since we moved here and to be honest, it's been a challenging transition to this new life. Ever since packing up and moving from Caspar, I have neglected my daily photography practice, maybe out of a need to just be in the present moment rather than capture it. I've been missing my practice, though. My life feels out-of-sorts, unsettled, disorganized, drifting. It has been too many months living out of boxes, not having a space to settle into and make my own. I see the beauty around me, this new landscape of rolling hills and vast golden valleys. There are incredible vistas and colorful flowers I've never met before, an infinity of stars in the night sky and a jackrabbit who crosses our path and leads us home each night. I will do what I can to settle myself and practice going with the flow.

Evelyn: Hiking during the mid-morning through John Chestnut Park. These colorful, iridescent, and busy spiders were strewn about along paths and foliage. Quite lovely, really. The company just as colorful and curious.

Spirals

Squares & Spirals

Monica: I've driven past the Getty Museum in L.A. so many times on my way between southern and northern California, curious about that enormous structure on the hill just past the exit for Hollywood and before the exit for Mullholland Drive. It was only 3:00 p.m. and Michael and I had no agenda of where we needed to be, so we stopped. We paid the $15 parking fee and took the tram up to the museum which has "free" admission. I wasn't too impressed with the art displayed there and the boxiness of the architecture did nothing to stir my soul. However, the landscaping was gorgeous. And it was worth the $15 for the spectacular view of the city and the curve of the coastline as it jutted into the Pacific. The buildings in the twilight created strong silhouettes against an impressively smog-free skyscape.

Evelyn: I have always been drawn to spirals in nature. My favorite shells the ones with twists and spirals that disappear into what looks like no end. They show up in my artwork, in my mind as I lull to sleep, in the doodles I mindlessly scribble while on phone calls, in conferences, and as decorations. This white one, about the size of a Susan B. Anthony coin, I found walking in Caladesi. Delicate, flat, and already a favorite at my desk.

Adventure

Evelyn: Sometimes the day starts in unexpected ways, with a rush of details and maneuvers and connections that can spin circles around my energy. Such was my day, teetering on a rope over moving ground, solving and processing, jumping and making muscles. It is always an inadvertent adventure, my life, and it spirals with color, and crevices, and gaps, and shadows...a playground.

Monica: For as long as I can remember, I've loved putting on my walking shoes or hopping on my bike and heading off in a new direction, allowing myself to get "lost"—simply for the thrill of getting out into the wide world and discovering something new. These small adventures developed my confidence and self-reliance so that I had the courage at 7 to fly alone cross-country to spend the summer with one of my parents; at 11, to take the bus into town to meet my mother for lunch; at 15, to spend a year abroad in Italy; at 25, to spend 2 years teaching English in China; and at 35, to move to Mendocino to become an Innkeeper at a nature preserve. There have been so many adventures in my life thus far. I look forward to many more...