My Artwork - January 2018

February 1, 2018 Teressa Jackson

I started 2018 by changing things up a bit. I produced just three paintings, but all were larger than the typical 5"x5" pieces I've been making over the past year.

The ever-popular saguaro cacti were featured in a special request painting I made, and I felt that their stature deserved to be featured in a format with more height - so 5"x7" it was. These guys met with enthusiastic approval and packed up for their new Kentucky home - I'm just hoping they survive the winter temperatures. ;-)

I've been doing some volunteer work for the Humane Society of Southern Arizona (HSSA), and produced two paintings that were inspired by the furry friends they help there. These paintings are both 8"x8", and 20% of their sale price will be donated to HSSA. They both remain available as of the time I hit "publish" on this blog post (shop here!).

This month featured some unique challenges for a family member, and addressing those meant that I wasn't able to create as I would have otherwise. However, my flexible work and life proved to be a really great benefit at a time like this, when I was glad to be able to be where I needed to be and do what I needed to do.

I've returned to Tucson now. I'm starting a drawing class at the nearby Northwest Art Center, run by Pima County Parks & Recreation. It seems like it's going to be a great class, and the instructor has only been teaching it for 45 years (!!). He does some amazing realism work and although that's not exactly my goal, I do look forward to honing my techniques and hopefully learning to enjoy drawing more. Drawing has just never been my favorite thing, but it's also a necessary component to most of the work I produce. It's also the first drawing class I've taken in 20 years, which makes me feel a bit over-the-hill. Oh time, you're just so slippery!

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My Artwork - November 2017

November 30, 2017 Teressa Jackson

I'm settling into my apartment, routine, and new studio space (a.k.a. my dining area) here in Tucson. The apartments where we're living are quiet, have nice scenery, and lots of patio space to enjoy fresh air and sunsets (my favorite!). I've discovered a multi-use path that crosses nearby, and have been enjoying starting my days along the Cañada del Oro Wash, admiring the desert plant and animal life that call it home. The quails, roadrunners, and hummingbirds are some of my personal favorites. I never thought I would be intrigued by birds, but they are so different from those we saw back home in Louisville. Or, maybe I'm just getting old.

Hard at work packaging up those new greeting cards!

Last month, I talked about being excited by the opportunity to make some larger pieces of art, and a commission helped me deliver on that promise already. I was honored to help commemorate one of the most special moments in a friend's life, the day she got engaged on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. I sure hope that her fiancé is wowed by her thoughtful and creative Christmas gift. I certainly stressed enough over it!

I also rolled out a new product - variety packs of blank greeting cards. I have currently two "themes" - my Teressa's Trek cards are landscapes from my adventures over the past year, and my Reverse Mermaid cards feature those whimsical friends I recently began dreaming up. They are all professionally printed on high-quality paper that makes them closely resemble the originals. I'm very pleased with the work that the printing company did on these. I also whipped up a special custom design for a friend to use for her Christmas cards this year. I love it when people come to me with their fun and creative ideas.

I sure hope that all my friends out there had a fantastic Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a peaceful holiday season. It should be pretty low-key for us here, considering we still know pretty much no one in the area. For our Thanksgiving, I was super excited to find an authentic Chinese restaurant serving up piles of dumplings near the University of Arizona (go eat at China Pasta House now), and those were a perfect substitute for turkey in my opinion. Later in the day, I made empañadas. It was a day of stuffing ourselves with stuffed foods. How fitting!

Unfortunately, with the number of gift commissions featured on my art wrap-up this month (7 of the 9), I am a little afraid to share this post very widely and spoil any surprises. I guess I'll hit the "publish" button and hope someone out there in cyber land finds it and reads it. :-)

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"La Familia de los Pescados está Acampando"

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Bucolic Baker

May 4, 2017 Teressa Jackson

View from Mather Overlook at Great Basin National Park

When I first arrived in Baker, Nevada, I paused a bit, hoping I hadn't made a mistake. This remote outpost near the Utah border is home to a whopping 68 residents and Great Basin National Park, the reason for my visit. I had never heard of the park before I spotted a green swath on Google maps and zoomed my screen, looked it up, and learned it was one of our nation's least visited national parks. That serendipitous route seems to be how I often decide where to travel.

The lovely view from my accommodations in Baker

The town is basically a small grid of gravel streets dotted with trailers, campers, and tiny houses located in an expanse of high desert in the foothills of the South Snake Range. Most of the properties have some odds and ends strewn around their yard. The 1,200 square foot two-bedroom bungalow I owned back in New Albany would be huge in comparison to pretty much all of the residences here.

As soon as I pulled in to the last homestead at the edge of town, my host Margaret popped out to greet me. I don't see how anyone could feel anything other than comfortable with Margaret. While she hunted for my keys, she invited me in to her place and we proceeded to share a couple of glasses of wine and swap stories. What an interesting woman with an amazing life! By the time I got the key to my place, I had been invited to dinner with Margaret and her friend Beth at the only dining establishment currently operating in Baker, T&D's Restaurant.

It was Friday night and T&D's was hopping. Terry, one of the owners, was out due to a recent surgery. Patricia, another local, was filling in for him as the sole server because, as Margaret said, "That's just what we do around here."

Margaret is unable to drive due to a vision impairment, but that doesn't seem to be much trouble, even though she lives in one of the most remote locales in the United States. She helps other people, and they help her. People genuinely care about each other here. That's obvious.

Of course, I came here to visit Great Basin National Park, and that has also been a true highlight. This park is one of the most unspoiled places I've been. I've spotted as many critters as I have other visitors, including the yellow-bellied marmot, mule deer, turkeys, jackrabbits, sheep, chipmunks, mice, and birds.

I admittedly didn't do the best job researching (or much researching at all) when I decided to come here, and a good portion of the park, including the ancient bristlecone pine trees that really intrigue me, is still under several feet of snow. The road to the top of Wheeler Peak, the second highest mountain in Nevada, is still closed due to the snow levels, although on my final day I happily found it was open further than it had been when I arrived. This might be the desert, but Baker's 5,000+ foot elevation means that much of the year is frigid, with the town under a foot of snow during parts of winter. Wheeler Peak's 13,000+ foot elevation is obviously even more inhospitable and slow to melt.

Life is returning to the Strawberry Creek area

Challenge aside, the parts of the park that are accessible have been lovely, and the weather during my days here has been in the 60's and 70's with gorgeous blue skies.

I hiked in the Snake Creek Canyon area, traversing through fields of sagebrush, groves of ghostly white aspen trees, and pinyon pine and Utah juniper woodlands. It was so quiet that the creek was almost deafening and I could hear the clinking of the aspen tree branches as the wind whisked through them.

I took a peek at the Strawberry Creek area, which is closed due to a massive wildfire that destroyed nearly 5,000 acres of forest last year. There were tinges of green as the spring temperatures warmed the soil, and the blackened ghosts of trees still stood tall and animated against the mountains and sky.

The Baker Creek trail took me over the river and through the woods. Well, not so much a river as several mountain streams that were gushing with melting snowpack. I hiked up, up, up, through aspens and twisted mahogany groves, until the snow became so prevalent on the trail that I decided it would be wise to turn back. Toward the highest elevations, I spotted lots of hoof tracks. I kept my eyes peeled, but none of the critters that created them revealed themselves.

Something I learned while here is that the Great Basin, which spans much of Utah and Nevada, is so named because it is like a giant bowl, dotted and surrounded with mountains. This "bowl" used to be Lake Bonneville, the remnants of which comprise the Great Salt Lake. With nowhere to go in this region, precipitation makes its way underground, sometimes resulting in caves.

Great Basin National Park is home to a stellar example of one of these caverns, Lehman Caves, which I toured during my stay. Cave tours are the only part of Great Basin National Park that has a fee, a very reasonable $10 per person. The park itself and I'm pretty sure many of its camp sites are free to visitors. I truly think this is one of the most impressive caves I've ever visited. It's full of unique formations and home to some rare varieties of cave decor, including cave "shields" and cave "turnips."

People here have been just as warm and friendly to me as they are to one another, and this is honestly going to go down as one of the best experiences of my trip because of them. I often think of tiny places like Baker as somewhere I would be unwelcome because I wasn't "one of them." Everyone I've met has been happy to make my acquaintance and genuinely interested in me. They also have seemed pretty surprised when I share that I am staying in Baker for a week. Apparently that is unusually long. "Are you thinking about moving here?" has even been uttered once or twice.

After experiencing the hospitality and the beauty of this area, I could warm up to that question a bit... if only the climate here was a bit warmer, too.

Sunset at Great Basin National Park entrance

Falling for Fallbrook

February 11, 2017 Teressa Jackson

Following a lovely sunny last Sunday in January day at Encinitas' Cardiff State Beach, I wound my way through the hills to Fallbrook, California, the place I would call "home" for the next two weeks. In more ways than one, my Airbnb at Equinox Farms was sure to be a different experience than my previous temporary residences.

First of all, I would be staying in a camper. Although I did a fair amount of tent camping as a kid, I haven't camped at all in years, and had never actually slept in a camper. When looking at Southern California Airbnb options, this was certainly one of the most reasonable arrangements, so I decided to see how I fared in one for a couple of weeks.

Roosevelt the alpaca gives me the stare-down

More interesting than staying in a camper, though, was the property on which it sits. My host Tricia and her husband reside in their home on the property, and have created a beautiful and peaceful oasis of a little farm here. The camper looks out on their menagerie of critters, which include an alpaca, a llama, two miniature horses, a full size horse, two goats, chickens, ducks, a pig, and a couple dogs.

The day after I arrived, I came down with either a tremendous migraine or a terrible 24-hour stomach bug. Being sick is pretty miserable, but being sick all alone is even worse. I'm not one to ask for help, but when Tricia learned I wasn't well, I eagerly accepted the Sprite, crackers, and rice she delivered to my door. It did, indeed, cure whatever it was that ailed me.

Fallbrook is a cute little town that is apparently known as the Avocado Capitol of the World, and I have definitely eaten my fair share of these delectable fruits over the course of the past two weeks. I also enjoyed some local flavor at area restaurants, chowing down on a hearty breakfast at Fallbrook's Main Street Cafe and devouring some seriously spicy Thai food at Thai Thai.

My day trips have included time to enjoy the rugged and beautiful coastline at La Jolla's Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve, the retro vibe at Oceanside's pier and downtown, strolling the streets of Temecula, foggy trips to Carlsbad's Ponto Beach and to the top of Palomar Mountain, and the artsy streets and breathtaking oceanfront of Laguna Beach.

After months in more rural locales, it took me a bit to get used to the way people drive here, but outside their cars, I've found them to be incredibly, surprisingly friendly. Aside from a brief trip to San Diego years ago, I have mostly experienced the culture in northern California. I don't care to delve into negativity, but I'll just say that the demeanor around here seems markedly different from my previous impression of Californians.

One of my favorite pieces I created in Fallbrook, inspired by a pelican I saw on the pier at Oceanside, CA

I have enjoyed the places I've visited, their lush green scenery in stark contrast to the ruggedly beautiful Arizona desert. The hills are covered with boulders that look like they were sprinkled there by a hand from the sky, and the roads in the countryside boast orchards of avocados, oranges, and grapefruit. In other parts of the country, we forget how much of our food comes from this gargantuan state.

However, I truly think what I will miss more than anything is this lovely place I have called home. The camper, while small, really has everything I need. I can gaze out my window and see bunnies, a pig, chickens, and a miniature horse frolicking - all in the same unbelievable scene. I have also been quite productive, cranking out paintings at a relatively quick pace.

Painting of Dolly Llama I created for Tricia in gratitude for her hospitality

But most of all, my host Tricia has been an absolute delight. I have had little interaction with most of my other Airbnb hosts, and really didn't want or need to. They have certainly been responsive if I needed them - this is just a much different arrangement. A successful photographer and businesswoman with a whole lot on her plate, Tricia always had time for a few moments of lovely chitchat. She made great recommendations. She made me feel at home. I'm delighted to have met her and shared her space for a bit.

I'm not ready to take up residence in southern California anytime soon, but this place has definitely carved out a little boulder-shaped niche in my heart. Hasta la vista, Fallbrook!

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