my dear friend carol blinn sent me a prospectus in the mail. she has a new book called eye story. frieda fitzenmeyer is the actual artist, carol does the work. frieda has been eating lots of bonbons over the years, while carol slaves away, making all of frieda's books by hand. frieda? well, she's a bit ephemeral, but carol assures me she exists! in any case, travel over to www.warwickpress.com and have a look see. and buy this book, it's based, carol assures me, on frieda's real life experiences.

and then there is the photographic essay my daughter hannah calls north country hands at work. this is her senior show from college of the atlantic. hannah and ian followed me around all over the place visiting friends and artists, often for potlucks or a picnic or to gather wild things for dyeing... hannah has distilled this growing up into photos of ten very special people. a silversmith or two, several fiberartists, a calligrapher, a blacksmith, a letterpress printer, a boatbuilder. oh, and me, a papermaker. and she chose to shoot black and white and moody. she also bound one exquisite artists' book documenting the project. so if you're in potsdam on saturday afternoon, stop in at the arts council. i'll be there, too.

meanwhile, back at the ranch.............some shifu eye candy.