seattle holidayz

we were fortunate to have the opportunity to go home to seattle for the holidays (BIG thanks to Dan & Joanne and Lorrie & Jim for making it happen) and here's some snapshots we thought we'd share from our 2012 christmas adventures- seattle all dressed up for christmas, wandering and feeling nostalgic for the gray cloudy skies, coat weather and pine trees, one of Joanne's nativity scenes, the weather, a place for claremont this christmas, still life of the aftermath of christmas morning

catch up

its been a while and as we are getting ready to head to Seattle for christmas we thought we would do a quick visual recap of some highlights of the past month- as seen on Facebook, we prepared a casual version of a traditional thanksgiving dinner this year making turkey burgers, sweet potato fries and some green beans with goat cheese, joe started a new job in November as a design consultant for a custom closet company (new work shoes pictured), Tina gave her first art lecture at Biola University followed by studio visits with graduating seniors earlier in December, finals are finally over for the Fall 2012 semester and here is an image to remember the semester by, a quick snapshot of a color theory presentation on the color pink

joshua tree anniversary weekend

we knew we would be too busy on our actually anniversary day (November 8th = 4 years of marriage) to do anything special so we decided to go camping at Joshua Tree the weekend before to celebrate: driving through Joshua Tree National Park, looking out from the campsite, shadows and landscape, a portrait of the desert sun as seen blazing past tina's neck, joe the explorer, timer pictures on rocks

fish pumpkin

a 2012 joe + tina halloween- inspiration images for our pumpkin, an action shot of Joe getting into it with the wood carving tools, pumpkin seeds, meet fish pumpkin

next year: shark pumpkin.

orange county fair

some friends introduced us to the orange county fair last weekend: the crowds and the ferris wheel, joe's fried frog legs which tasted like a mixture between chicken and fish, a food booth color scheme and matching garbage can, and finally, pig races (photo lifted from the internet).

building a couch

Tina and I decided to build our own couch. I drew some sketches and was inspired by the simple construction and design of mid century plywood furniture and the unfinished/exposed look of Restoration Hardware's Deconstructed Furniture Line. These qualities seemed simple enough to replicate because  the way real furniture is built and upholstered seemed like a lot of work and skill. I used salvaged plywood leftover from some sculptures I made. I ended up with a sort of plywood bench/love seat. Tina chose raw silk as the upholstery and she mixed several samples of dye, we decided on a bright warm blue.

flags and art

a view from our 4th of July spent with friends, BBQ, & some outdoor music, an installation of Tina's on view all week at as part of a fiber exhibition showcasing student and faculty work from cal state long beach fiber art department (find the exhibition details on Facebook here or on tina's blog here)