I thought I would share that my book “Neither God nor Devil” is on remainder and is selling for less that I was paying for it directly from the publisher. You can find it here (a resource for books online).

There are a number of reviews for it here.

I was hoping to have the time and inspiration to create some user friendly crafts but- no luck. Instead my constant bird muse has enticed me to make wire bird ornaments that are impossible to duplicate. One of a kind is nice but not when you want to make a post of how to make something!

Here are some pictures anyway. The “hope” ornament is inspired by our new president elect.

You’ll find more on etsy.

The following is a quote from an interesting article I found online: “Most animals – and human children under two years old – see their mirror image as another creature: they don’t realize that it’s really their own reflection. But elephants do. De Waal’s team discovered this with a giant mirror at the Bronx Zoo. 

“The elephant had a big mark above its eye and walked up to the mirror and started touching it,” de Waal said, “so the elephant has that kind of self-awareness that you find in children over two.” 

It turns out that elephants have an advanced sense of self, which means (in part) that they’re smart enough to be capable of really caring about others. The only other creatures thought to have this ability include apes … and human beings.Take capuchin monkeys: they’re not the brightest lights in the animal kingdom, but behind all that cuteness is the mind of a master problem-solver. Dave Peranteau works with capuchins for Six Flags in New Jersey. 

He says they surprise him every day. 

“And even on days off, the staff will call and say, ‘You’ll never guess what Jester did today,” he toldSmith. 

For instance, Jester, a four-year-old male, taught himself to pick locks well enough to bust out of his cage. 

“Not only did he let himself out,” said Peranteau, “but he wanted to have party, so he went around and let all of the other animals in the area out – birds, snakes, coatis, you know, you name it. Everything was out.” 

But recent studies at Emory University have shown that capuchins also have the mental capacity to understand concepts like fairness, and sharing with their fellow monkeys. ”

find the entire article here.

When I was a kid my grandparents bought me comic books to encourage me to keep up with swedish. This book is in the comic book format… I love it still! The illustrator’s name is Zdenek Miler.

you can find one of these books in english here.

These guys are just the sweetest. You just can’t get more design-y than the spots on a giraffe. Don’t you just love nature? This was a shot taken by my husband at Safari West in Napa, California. What an adventure.

My ultimate goal when I was a student at Rhode Island School of Design was to create a book of illustrations. After a few years of traveling and pounding the pavement in several cities, dragging my portfolio from one art director to another- I decided to write my own book.

The subject I wanted to write about was wolves. The animal had always fascinated me and after I spent a great deal of time watching them at the zoo in Rhode Island I realized that most people know little about the animal.

After about 3 solid years of painting, writing and research I created a 144 page fully illustrated book about wolves, their natural history, our myths about them and a history of our relationship with the animal. 

I signed on with a publisher who was keenly interested and I waited for a contract. Discussions continued about the title of the book, he suggested “The Communication of Wolves” that was the first sign… Then a few weeks later the publisher and publishing house seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. I was totally heartbroken, how could this be happening with this book that I had poured my heart and soul and life into?

Enter my husband to be who lived in San Francisco at the time, he had a family friend who was a literary agent who found the PERFECT publishing house for my book “Neither God nor Devil: Rethinking our Perceptions of Wolves”

In honor of my vow to be creative and true to myself I have created an artseed etsy account to show and sell my work and in the future the work of some very talented friends of mine. Hope you can find your way there one day.

BTW this has only just begun and I’ll be posting items of mine own and of my friends as they become available and when my mini heathens are in bed.