Magical Mystery Tour

Nineteen years ago, what seemed miraculous to me but a daily event on planet earth occurred in Culver City, California. Eve, my daughter was born. It was 6am, although my water broke at midnight labor didn't begin until around 4am. She was born consciously on a small cot at a birth center.

The journey has been fantastical and akin to a magical mystery tour. If blogs had existed back then I would have shared how I raised a child holistically, without vaccines, antibiotics and basically against the societal standards.

To celebrate many activities are planned over the weekend begining with a trek out to Santa Anita to the Arboretum.

Happy Birthday to my dear sweet Eve.


Photos of Eve ©RoxanaVilla

The Hive Report

"There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true,
do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know.
The keeping of bees, for instance."
~ Henry David Thoreau

Yesterday afternoon, just after "flight school" time for the bees, we assembled all our gear and added one medium super to each of the hives. Before doing so we checked the level of each and made some subtle adjustments. The ideal is to have each hive tilting ever so slightly forward.


To the smoker we used a mix of burlap and dried plant including white sage leaves, which by the way smelled wonderful intermingling with eau de bee.

Pictured above in the background are the two new medium supers, in the foreground the Warrior Bee's hive.

The girls now each have a new top floor added to their abodes. The hive I call the Warrior Bees (although they are quite docile now) has six medium supers while the Mische Bees have one deep on the bottom and two mediums.

Photos ©Roxana Villa

Pressing forward

Of the two presses that were brought over by Ben and partially set up in the autumn I've chosen to focus on the the Poco proof press. The reason being it is most similar to the Vandercook flat bed presses I use to own.

From the limited information I have gathered thus far there were three different varieties of The Poco Press manufactured by Hacker Manufacturing of Chicago, which eventually was bought by Vandercook in 1937. Although I have not been able to find a number on ours, I bet that it is the third, a number 2.


The bed of the press is not type high which I am assuming is because it was meant for proofing type that was set up on a galley tray. Although, even if I put a galley tray with type on the bed it is still not high enough. I tried to remedy this by adding more packing, but the cylinder only allows a certain amount of packing, thus that didn't work. I plan to remedy this by getting an additional piece of metal for the bed.


There are also challenges with creating complex imagery with multiple colors and precise registration. There is a fellow back east named Neil Giroux that has devised a rather complicated and creative system to get around limitations of the Poco. I'll boldy take that step eventually but not quite yet. For now I've just done some simple deboss pieces as I acquaint myself with the Poco and continue organizing all the new printing equipment in the garage studio.

It's been great fun getting back into setting type, locking things up on the press and pulling proofs. I'm addicted now and can't wait to do more. Yesterday I spontaneously set the word Thank you with a heart and made some little rounds to include with new natural perfume packages being shipped out. Soon I will create even more pretty ephemera and illuminations to go along with the perfumes.

Meanwhile, back in modern 2012, Greg now has a spiffy brand new apple computer. Nothing like embracing the full spectrum of new and old printing technology.

Image ©RoxanaVilla

The Edible Seed

In December, beamed down from the heavens into my brain, popped in an idea. It has taken until now to manifest. Many road blocks and pot holes got in the way which created some doubt if an end was truly in sight. Alas, I persevered and the first edition, which is only four and set to go out as a Thank you to specific people, is just about ready.

My customer, Elizabeth B., calls my house/studio Willy Wonkas Chocolate Factory. Thus here is a little teaser relating to the project, more details next week once it is actually all finished, photographed, etc.

Image: Ribes grossularia ‘Green Walnut’

To Wonder At

The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist.
For man it is to know that and to wonder at it.
~ Jacques Yves Cousteau

I ordered more of the little round lockets with the purple honey bee from Lori just before Christmas. There is only one left at the moment, thus I've ordered more and have some other lockets in the works. If there is an image that you would like to see on the lockets please let me know. I'm contemplating my honey bee painting and some of the illuminated images, like the original Vespertina portrait, done by Greg.

Images: Bee locket photo and painting ©RoxanaVilla

Blooming

Here are some shots from our visit to the Getty Center on Saturday. It was a beautiful, clear, sunny day with views reaching out to Catalina Island.

Since we arrived in the afternoon first thing Eve and I did was head toward the garden to take advantage of the light, knowing we could peruse the galleries afterward. Meanwhile Greg headed over to the drawing room to meet up with his art buddy Marshall Vandruff.


As we began to walk the labrinthian-like path of the garden I spotted some gorgeous blue flowers from above and pointed them out to Eve, stating that I definitely wanted to go check those out.


As we got closer I heard that special hum and saw that honey bees were very busy at work harvesting nectar from the blue blossoms. Must get some of these for my garden! Anyone know what kind of flowers these are?


After our fill of the garden we made our way to the photo exhibit and my personal favorite, the tiny gallery with the illuminated manuscripts.

By that time the sun was setting. We hooked up with Greg, Marshall and a bunch of Marshall's students in the big entry way before heading out.

All photos ©RoxanaVilla

What kind of bird are you?

The trailer for the new Wes Anderson film was released a few days ago. It looks absolutely fantastic and features Edward Norton, a fav in our household.



Meanwhile, here in natural botanical perfume land the new edition of Hedera helix solid perfume is ready. There was a challenge in the formulation due to the a lack of the featured Faux Ambergris accord. Thus, I made more of the accord, waited for it to alchemize and then went back to working on Hedera.