My art production may appear to be a little slower than usual, but I believe I am working just as much! My latest works have been larger and more time consuming than many of my previous ones. Not included in this blog’s photos, I began an 18x30” piece on May 19, which is still in process. When complete, this will be the largest painting I have created in many years!

I have also been spending more time planning my artwork. I admit to often being lazy about creating preliminary sketches and studies, but some of the new work I have been creating really necessitates this activity.

I began the month of May working on a 16x20” watercolor on Aquabord piece entitled Phoebus Cartel, pictured at the bottom of this blog. I recently learned that an alliance called the Phoebus Cartel (sounds nefarious, right?) was formed in 1925 to reduce the lifespan of… wait for it… lightbulbs. This was reputedly to force people to buy them more often, although some dispute this and say that the shorter lifespan bulbs use less energy. I’m honestly not sure which is correct, but like most things, I am guessing the truth is likely somewhere in the middle. Lightbulbs lasted around 2,500 hours in 1925, but the cartel limited them to 1,000 hours.

This got me thinking on the idea of planned obsolescence, and the idea of things becoming obsolete in general. And that got me to… endangered moths! Yes, that’s right. Endangered moths. The two moths featured in this painting are the prairie sphinx moth (left) and the Patagonia eyed silkmoth (right). The prairie sphinx moth or Wiest's primrose sphinx (Euproserpinus wiesti) is a species of moth found in areas of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. It is classified as critically endangered and included on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The Patagonia eyed silkmoth exists in just one U.S. location, in an Arizona cemetery comprising less than half an acre. In Sonora, Mexico, it lives on two “sky islands,” which are higher elevation areas that are ecologically different from the lowlands surrounding them.

My dog Lola and I also provided a video “tour” of Phoebus Cartel, and it can be viewed here or on my YouTube page.

The other painting I completed in May, also pictured at bottom, was entitled Mi Pequeño Desierto. My husband and I recently purchased a home in a charming and somewhat historic part of Phoenix, and the front yard was a big selling point for me. I love being able to look out on my own little piece of desert beauty with plants of various shapes, patterns, colors, and configurations. I began this piece with that space as inspiration, but of course I made it even more my own in my mind. This painting measures 8x12” and is painted with gouache paint on watercolor paper.

In this era of quarantining and social distancing, as well as an increasingly hot desert (helloooo summer!), my adventures in May weren’t too adventurous. We planted a lemon and a fig tree in our backyard, hung a hummingbird feeder, installed a new mailbox, and took care of some other odds and ends in the home improvement realm. I also took advantage of a slight dip in temperatures and hit the Whiskey Bottle, Turpentine, Black Mills Trails at McDowell Sonoran Preserve one morning in Scottsdale, Arizona. The blooming chollas, yuccas, and saguaros were truly incredible!

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