I took a break today to tour this year’s Chihuly exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden. It is breathtaking. The sculptures are enormous. We had a beautiful sunny day with gray clouds in the surrounding sky. It made for a moody, thoughtful stroll.

Who doesn’t love a pine cone? I always welcome a these “woody flowers” (as I call them), since they remind me of my childhood days and they are just so pretty.

My Airstream is parked under a grand old pine tree that drops big, beautiful pine cones all the time. Now that I am in wreath making mode, I was excited to finally have the time to make a wreath for the trailer. I obtained a flat wreath form and hot glued them to it. So easy and totally my style. I finished it off by touching the edges with gold paint. Let the Holidays begin!

I have admired horsetail (Equisetum arvense) for decades as a beautiful graphic element for a garden. They require a lot of water, and given they can be invasive, a potted specimen is perfect. The horsetail is practically a living fossil, as it is one of the oldest plants on the planet. It spreads by spores and rhizomes and therefore you need to be careful where you plant it.

Last weekend I got a hold of some and intent to cultivate it in a planter to act as a natural screen. Like bamboo, only smaller.

Horsetail has an airy,upright look, with wiry, leafless 12-24-inch stems. The shoots are tipped with a cone that produces the plant’s reproductive spores. They should be planted in a container to control unwanted spreading.

I cant say for sure how long it will take for this pot to fill up, but I am guessing a year or so.

One needn’t go far into the forest to find happiness. After a two-hour hike we had plenty of inspiration to paint the remainder of the day.

This past weekend was the Ladies’ Fall Getaway to the mountains. We packed the car with too much food and art supplies and drove north to spend three days loving the abundant time and inspiration with best friends. This weekend was all about gouache paint and seldom used watercolor paper. Suzy and I hit it hard and painted most the weekend, surprising ourselves with how fun it was.

This image is a detail of a journal page I worked on. I think I ate too many carbs, because the bagel motif showed up everywhere.

This hot number reminds me of the days of pattern designing. That seems so long ago…

And what this is truly about is to share my expression of love and admiration for three amazing women who I get to call friends.

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
— Marcel Proust

The 7 blocks of festival grounds were music stages, gourmet food tents and trucks, and dozens of amazing murals painted specifically for the Life is Beautiful Festival. The largest and most impressive was this approx. 70×30 foot wall mural by the artist Zio Ziegler. The process is all spray can and the detail is amazing. In person, this mural is astounding. Watch a video of Zio at work. He’s my new favorite. I can’t wait to see more of his work.

The image (above) is the mural in progress. When complete (below) all the black was chipped away exposing the gray brick. I saw this late Sunday night, illuminated by lights that exposed the texture. It was amazing to see in person.

CC and I drove to Las Vegas for the Life is Beautiful Festival. We found out about this first annual event by looking to see where ZZ Ward was playing next. The line-up was so amazing that we had to go. And a good thing we did. It turned out to be the most surprising music festival with the addition of a special Food and Art component. The art really knocked us out, but that’ll come in the next post.

Here’s the lineup: (my favorites in Bold)

Kings of Leon, Beck, Imagine Dragons, The Killers, Vampire Weekend, Pretty Lights, Alabama Shakes (pictured below), Childish Gambino, Purity Ring, Big Gigantic, Dawes, Cults, Earl Sweatshirt, Andrew McMahon, Joey Bada$$, Capital Cities, Youngblood Hawke, ZZ Ward, Poolsde, Family of the Year, Cayucas, Nico Vega, Wallpaper, Alpine, Chancellor Warhol, Children of the Night, Tink, Dreamers, Rhyme N Rhythm, Ekoh, Rusty Maples, Same Sex Mary, Sabriel, Crazy Chief, A Crowd of Small Adventures, Goldboot, Turner, Shalvoy Music and DJ Zo, Empire of the Sun, Passion Pit, Jurassic 5, Zedd, Janelle Monáe, STS9, Portugal. The Man, Danny Brown, The Joy Formidable, Charli XCX, Living Colour, Allen Stone, Haim, Smith Westerns, Twenty One Pilots, Robert DeLong, Five Knives, Wildcat! Wildcat! The Kingston Springs, Cosmic Superpunch, Knocked Up Kids, The Dig, Moondog Matinee, American Cream, The Dirty Hooks, Most Thieves, Kid Meets Cougar, Beau Hodges Band, Haleamano, Jordan Kate Mitchell, Joey Pero and His Band, Dusty Sunshine, DJ 88 and DJ Supra.

Alabama Shakes was off the hook!