swallowfield :: jennifer judd-mcgee

recently

i haven't been taking too many photos lately, and it's been bugging me. so i'm trying to pick up my camera a bit again. this is a little piece of my sea urchin collection.

some stuff i've been appreciating lately:

a mighty girl. what a great resource.

my pinterest boards. i fell in (like everyone else in the world) and i can't get out. it's so well laid out and visually pleasing to me.

beginners. i just finally got a chance to watch this lovely movie, and i thought it was excellent. one of the best movies i've seen in ages. my love for christopher plummer is deep and long standing, and he was especially good in this film.

minding your mitochondria.  inspiring + interesting to me as someone with MS, but good food for thought for everyone.

draw something. SO MUCH FUN. that is all.

 

taproot magazine

taproot! a brand new quarterly magazine; a venture/colloration between amanda soule, jason miller and ted blood. i made the papercut cover. it was an honor to be asked, and a really fun project to work on.

in amanda's words, taproot is a collection of curated stories written by and for people living fully and digging deeper; people who are interested in deepening their connections to their families, communities, and themselves as they strive to live locally and closer to the ground. In all the very different ways that manifests from family to family and home to home, at taproot, we hope to find the connecting thread that binds us together.

please do check out this lovely new magazine and read amanda's words about all of the thought and work that went into this project. i am glad to have been a part of its beginnings, and i can't wait to have the first issue in my hands. there are lots of great contributors - writers, photographers and illustrators. thank you so much, amanda, for asking me to do this.

hermit island weekend

last weekend we met a bunch of our old portland friends for a camping trip at hermit island in midcoast maine. i had never been there, though i've loved visiting nearby popham beach and morse mountain over the years. when i venture away from mount desert island it always strikes me how many incredibly gorgeous pockets of maine there are that i've never seen, and that idea both inspires me and overwhelms me a little. i want to see them all! but it never seems like we have enough time. plus, my local digs are pretty nice as is.

hermit island is gorgeous. six different beaches, nice campsites, a store with everything you forgot, showers. there is a snack bar too, but we never visited it so i can't say much about that. the whole place has the feel of something out of the 1950s. we did not bring bikes, but i wish we had. people bike everywhere, and it would have come in handy because our site was a bit far from the bathroom. we reserved our site in early march - i hear it can be fierce trying to get the site you really want. i have my eye on some of the true oceanfront sites for next time - they were pretty spectacular.

 

interesting aside: earlier in the summer,  the kids and i had the opportunity to participate in a book talk with author gary d. schmidt on his new book okay for now, through the awesome local  island readers and writers program. we loved him, and have gone on to read several more of his books, most notably lizzie bright and the buckminster boy, which coincidentally takes place in phippsburg, me - right where we were last weekend. we took a little detour to see some of the places in the book, and the kids were very excited. it was an inspiring read for us and i recommend it.

on the way home we stopped in to my friend erika soule's store, rock paper scissors, in wiscasset. she recently merged two stores into one, and it was gorgeous and well curated as always. i am always blown away by her sense of color and design. (i wrote about it here way back when.) if you are ever in wiscasset, do yourself a favor and stop in. you will not be disappointed. i have never seen anything in her store that i haven't wanted. it can be a dangerous way to feel about a place.

all in all, a super nice 42nd birthday weekend.

have a great week everyone!

happy stuff

summer happiness, a little list:

rainbow cake for my niece's birthday. i didn't make it - we ordered it from an awesome local baker. i am not sure i'd have had the patience. it was incredible! this actually happened earlier in the month, and i forgot to post it. those colors were so much fun to take pictures of.

papercutting + lots of other art in the works - a little bit of what's been keeping me away from this blog this summer. i am super grateful for lots of work, and also wishing for some days off. i'll take some by necessity later in august when the house is in move-inable condition, but a few do nothing days would be cool, too.

pods. i love them so much.

sea urchins. they never fail to make me happy.

and barnacles.(and wearing a sweater last night after two long weeks of high heat around here. i am a sweater lover.)

spotify. pretty flipping great. i think i am hooked.

mushroom wallpaper. after much debate, i went with it for one wall in my kitchen. i am ridiculously excited to get it up on the wall.i'll post some photos once i do.

melissa's tofu salad. i've made it several times this summer, and man is it good.

bossypants on audiobook, read by tina fey herself. she is so smart + funny. i want to be her friend. in a non-creepy way.

this made me laugh.

hope you're having a good summer, too.

 

 

 

 

summer = awesomesauce

the big news around here: we loved the last harry potter movie. LOVED. you should bring kleenex. we're all sort of mourning that it's over now. but excited for pottermore this fall. and this was super fun. and these.

also, feathers. they're a pretty big deal these days. she bought them and had them put in on the bus to art camp. not exactly a salon, but that's how we roll here in downeast maine.  excited doesn't begin to cover how she feels about them.  also? the girl selling them is raking in the dough.

some more photos of one of the prettiest summers i can remember. (i have been working on lots of art too, but it's all stuff i can't show you for awhile. it will be really fun to share it with you when i can, though.)

we're also loving fresh raspberries, grilling, the full moon, and adele.

i have a big house post brewing in my mind. we're renovating/building a house, and i haven't talked about it too much here. but i am going to post a little bit about it soon! prepare to be bored by paint color talk. :)

 

march, i'm so glad to see you.

i am (finally!) learning to use adobe illustrator. this has been on my list of goals for about four years, but i'm just now getting to it.  i am finding it to be a super steep learning curve, but i also feel inspired and full of ideas, which is such a great boost. (it could also have something to do with the fact that we've made it through february, my least favorite month.)  my fledgling skills are SO not up to snuff with the ideas i have percolating, but i am plodding along, slowly. i made this mary oliver quote this week. it looks so simple, but man did i agonize over it. i really love this quote, everything about it. it feels right to post it here as we go into march and i am thinking about spring.

things i am enjoying lately:

parenthood. i might even go as far as saying that i think this is arguably the best show on tv. i love all of the characters so much.  30 rock is a close second.

iron and wine, kiss each other clean. it's on repeat.

the makers project. gorgeous photos and inspiration from jen causey. i love this site so much.

the vegan stoner. fun, easy and yummy sounding recipes, plus bonus sweet illustrations. i appreciate the time it must take to put these posts together.

hope you're having a nice week so far.

 

all sweet things

it's school vacation week this week, and i have a house full of kids - friends are visiting from portland and getting to meet some of our new local buddies, too. it's cold but sunny, so i keep sending them outside every little while - this house is not so big, after all, and i can only take so much crescendo. but everyone is happy, and i am loving the chaos.

i posted a new card set in my etsy shop this morning -

i really love how these came out.  it feels like sending a little sunshine right through the mail. you can get them right here.   ((and speaking of sunshine in the mail, see those lovely lemons in the background? i was the dumb-luck winner of a big old box of lemons from sarah and her backyard lemon tree, lucky lucky me! it was ridiculously exciting to get those in the mail here in maine in the middle of winter. i am thinking of trying to make lemon curd with some of them later today.  thanks again sarah! ))

:::::::::::

i now have an art agent for licensing and illustration jobs! i am very excited to be working with lilla rogers studio.  my stuff should be up on their site in the next month or so, but for now, you can email them if you have a project in mind! i've been wanting to do more of this kind of thing, but not wanting to worry about all of the paperwork that comes along with it, so i think this will be a great partnership.

everything is going to be alright

loving my friend jenn's organized collections. she got a fancypants new camera and has been experimenting with it with great results.

i don't usually like to write product testimonials, but i wanted to mention, apropos of nothing, that i recently ordered a mounted print from plywerk, and it is truly beautiful! nice customer service, a lovely, quality product, and humorous emails. win. i will definitely order from them again.

hope you're having a nice day!

it's going to be a good week

good morning!  last week was not a very good one for me, but i am here to declare that i've decided this coming week is going to be excellent.

early morning creeping frost patterns are making me happy:

here's a song that's making me happy:

 

the upcoming tiny art show makes me happy.

this post from rachel made me feel both happy and thoughtful.

and...i am very happy to say thay we're going to harry potter world in march for a few days, thanks to my dad. we are huge, ginormous, ridiculous harry potter fans around here, so even though i wouldn't consider myself much of a theme park gal in general, the excitement factor is pretty significant. if you've been and have any tips to share, i'd love to hear them. i know, we're dorks. i'm okay with it.

have a happy, happy week. it's going to be, i swear.

 

 

no photos, but lots of news.

the past few weeks have felt so, so busy! tomorrow morning i leave for brooklyn, where i'll spend the day with friends before heading to etsy headquarters tomorrow night to take part in a virtual lab/speaker series. i am feeling both shy and excited about it!  (public speaking is not so much my thing, as a rule. when i was little and was asked to play my flute in front of all of the kids at summer camp, the only way they could convince me to do it was to stand behind a big rock so no one could see me.)  thank you so much to kari chapin for inviting me to be a part of this whole thing!

also, i just started a little spring deal in my etsy shop in honor of my visit there - buy two prints between now and april 15th and receive a third one for free. there are more details at my shop if you're interested.

there are two great art openings coming up that i'm excited to check out:

this friday, 4/2, the spring show opens at nahcotta. so much great art by some of my favorite artists!

and next friday, 4/9,  lisa congdon's solo show, fragmentary blue, opens at artstream. really looking forward to seeing her work for this show in person - see some on flickr here.

i'm seriously, crazily loving joanna newsom since i heard her on npr. alicia wrote a nice post about the same new addiction!

and i'm really digging this site: before i die i want to.

(this post has no photos because it is rainy and gross out and my backyard is a big, muddy puddle of floating sticks. but i am not letting it get me down. :) )

trying something new

it is school auction season again. that means each of my kids' classrooms will be working on a group project that will get auctioned off to the highest bidder. this year i'm pinch-myself lucky to have our school's fabulous art teacher as my co-pilot in supervising this project for my daughter's 5th grade class.  yesterday she and i got together to play in advance of working with the kids this week. we decided to try gel glue batik, with the help of a tutorial found here. it's pretty addictive! i've learned a few things so far: thicker fabrics work best, don't water the paint down too much, and really take the time to let the glue dry, and then to let the paint dry before you rinse it out. these are my own experiments - i'll post more stuff once we work with the kids, because i know a lot of people come to this blog searching for school auction project ideas. we're thinking of sewing some patchwork pillows or a table runner and a set of napkins, but i'm not sure yet.

 

 

 

see other projects and auction stuff here.

ps: am i now thinking about making my own fabric and sewing it into a dress or skirt via this book or this one? uh, maybe. i do have my brother's wedding coming up.  shoot me now.

pps: see the kids' updated progress here.