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Reflections...

3/17/2018

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I never thought I would enjoy a beach vacation quite so much.  We both loved it actually!  The Caribbean was admittedly not on my radar until a friend invited us to share a house with them.  I'm so glad we did it!  I understand the allure of the Caribbean now.  It is quite possible the most comfortable environment I've ever experienced.  Not too hot, never cold, perfect amount of humidity, and absolutely beautiful beaches, forests, and water!  I think we'll be back.  

As for artistic inspiration, I think flowers and seashells are the take home.  We've been back for a while and I'm having trouble easing myself back into work.  All I want to do work!  I want all the designs I've come up with to be done, in my hand, manifested immediately!  Unfortunately when you take 6 weeks off you go a little soft, and my calluses are all gone.  But it's exciting working with the Larimar I picked up in Santo Domingo!  And the amber scavenged from the beach in Cabarete!  Here's a glimpse into what's coming for the new show season...
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Whale watching in Samana Bay

2/25/2018

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We piled in the car and took a little road trip to the tiny north cost peninsula called Samana for some Humpback whale watching. The drive was long considering we were only going 110 miles away, but the average speed you drive here is about 25 miles an hour. There are potholes, motoconchos (motorcycle taxis carrying everything from bread to washing machines to entire families), Guaguas (minivans with 27 people inside! I’m serious, I’ve been in them), tractors, garbage trucks, tiny pick-ups loaded down with scrap metal. The list goes on and on. It’s definitely not as crazy as India or other parts of Southeast Asia, but it keeps you on your toes the whole time. No cruise control and a good podcast here! We stopped for lunch at a roadside cafe. In most parts of the world I’ve found roadside cafe’s have excellent food. It would be like our Truckstops in the US only there are real people cooking up fresh local food from scratch! I had a whole fried fish with roasted eggplant and tomato. Amazing! We walked across the “highway” for a look at the beach before getting back in the car and this is what we saw. Plastic, plastic, plastic... It really brings home the fact that the oceans are the worlds dumping ground. There is no clean water anymore. The only pristine beaches are the ones someone manicures.
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So, did we see whales you ask! Yes we did. We weren’t lucky enough to see one breach, or wave at us with a 15ft long flipper, but we saw them come up for air and flick their tales before going back down. I dont have great photos but Andy managed to get some video that I’ll try to post on YouTube. It was so fun being on a boat, out at sea, in decent swell waiting for whales! Almost everyone on the boat took Dramamine (I decided not to) and a few did get seasick. Fortunately I had no problem. I keep thinking someday I will get seasick, but it hasn’t happened yet (knock on wood).
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The highlight of the ride home was an impromptu stop for chicharone! They heat a cauldron full of lard over charcoal and throw things in. Delicious!!! You select from a buffet style table in the photo on the left. On offer (from the top of the photo down) you have:
Chicharone, a strip of pork that includes meat, fat, and skin fried whole and then chopped up with a machete and doused in lime.
Patatas, chunks of a white sweet potato-like tuber, fried.
Banana, fried whole and also diced with a machete.
Pollo, pieces of fried chicken.
Fish Croquettes, diced fish made into a ball, breaded and fried, also served with lime.
​Longanitza, last but certainly not least, a homemade dry sausage, fried in strips and diced with a machete.
The jug on the table contains a sauce made with bitter orange and pickled vegetables. An aphrodisiac they say, but I feel like they say that about everything in the Caribbean... The photo on the right is homemade local cheese. Dairy hanging in a plastic bag in the tropical heat! What could possibly go wrong? Nothing actually, it was good. Salty, probably made with citrus like a paneer. They eat it with the little wafers of bread hanging in a bag behind the cheese.

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The 27 Waterfalls of Damajagua

2/20/2018

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The best $20 I’ve spent in a long time! My sister came to visit us here for a week and we decided to go on this waterfall excursion about an hour and a half away from Cabarete. We hiked for about 45 minutes through the tropical forest of mango, mahogany, and cacao trees and then jumped, slid, and swam our way back down through 27 waterfalls. I don’t consider myself to be an “extreme” person, but I didn’t even hesitate at the highest jump (21ft). The water was so warm, but it was softly silty like glacier water. Our skin felt amazing afterwards, and my abs hurt from belly-roll laughing all the way down!
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Cabarete

2/17/2018

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So, this is what we’re here for! Kite surfing. We arrived just over 2 weeks ago, and nearly every afternoon Andy’s been out flying a kite. As you can see from the photo it’s a popular sport here. I’ve been beach combing! So far I’ve got 3 pieces of amber; it’s much more illusive than I originally thought. I’ve also been doing some designing. The architecture, typically a great source of inspiration, is somewhat lacking here. The flora on the other hand... stunning! I think much of what I design here in the DR will be botanical. We are staying at a sort of compound of 4 individually constructed, beautiful houses surrounding a central courtyard with a pool. Andy and I are in a house that borders this amazing freshwater lagoon in a national park. Here’s a panorama of the view off our balcony. Its teaming with water fowl, bull frogs (noisy buggers, but so cool) and I’ve even seen large Herron on multiple occasions! A pina colada, and a sunset on this balcony and I’m a happy camper!
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Santo Domingo

2/13/2018

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Is this the new world? Cuz it looks just like the old world! Staying in the Zona Calonial in Santo Domingo felt like we were in Spain again. This area of the city is the oldest, much of it having been built while Christopher Columbus’ son Diego was Governor. To the right is a picture of the first church of the Americas. Unlike the churches in Spain, this one was not filled with gold leaf woodwork or other amazing church relics. It was sacked by Drake in the 1560’s and never really recovered.
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We visited museums, ate new foods (including Longanitza, a typical Dominican sausage that they deep fry) and enjoyed the pool at our Colonial style studio apartment after hot days exploring the city. We left a day early to meet our friends on the North coast in Cabarete because we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes! Unfortunately colonial style architecture does not include screens or mosquito nets.
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Lazy Days

1/29/2018

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Our first stop was Bayahibe on the south coast. We were so fortunate in our accommodation! The place is swarming with resorts, but we got to share the most beautiful home of an Italian-Dominican couple and their adorable 2 year old daughter. A freshwater pool, infinity pool, and you could dive right off the coral bench into a deep calm sea! After the snow and cold of a typical Montana winter you don’t get much closer to paradise than this! Click the “YouTube” button to the right to watch a short video I made. And stay tuned; our next stop is Santo Domingo!
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It’s off to the DR!

1/19/2018

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I do not love winter! I know, I know, “I live in the wrong place“ you all say. It’s not totally my fault… I was born here. But since I don’t ski, or ice climb, or snowmobile, or ice skate, or any of the other extreme things people in Bozeman do, I’m getting out. For a few weeks anyway. Some friends of ours asked us to join them in the Dominican Republic for the month of February. We have never been to the Caribbean so we thought, “hey, fun, let’s do it“. We fly into Punta Cana on the East Coast on 24 January. I hate what resorts do to a people‘s culture and environment, so we won’t be doing that. We are staying in people’s homes through Airbnb. We’re looking forward to visiting national parks, historical attractions, Amber and Laramar mines, and my extreme husband will probably do a lot of kite surfing on the north coast. Maybe we’ll learn the Merengue or Bachata while we’re there!

I’ve done some reading to prepare. I really liked “In the Time of the Butterflies“ about the Mirabal sisters, leaders of the resistance against the dictator Trujillo. “Feast of the Goat” was a little harder to get through, but still a worthy novel. I also read, “The Dictator Next Door” which was helpful in understanding Trujillo’s rise to power, The Good Neighbor Policy of the Roosevelt administration, and others that some say propped up the dictator for so long.

If you’re thinking “I don’t even know where the Dominican Republic is”, don’t worry, a lot of people I tell don’t know either. It shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. Columbus landed here on each of his 4 voyages to the New World. Santo Domingo, the capital city of the Dominican Republic, is considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Americas.
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The Gablonziers!

2/16/2017

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If you like the vintage glass jewelry that I make you should watch this video:

http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/ivysilani/1102732990-folklorika/214562260800005-mackane-sklo/titulky

It's filmed in the Gablonz region of the Czech Republic, and demonstrates the amazing processes used to create the glass buttons, cabochons, and chandelier components that I now use in my jewelry.

Even though it is in Czech, this short film brought tears to my eyes!  This is why I work with Czech glass!  It is imbued with history and craftsmanship.  I like to think that the pieces the men and women created in these glassworks before WW2 have a new life in the jewelry that I make.  They are being set for the first time.  Their beauty and the labor that went into their fabrication can finally be appreciated and shared.

My next trip abroad may just have to be here, the Gablonz region of the Czech Republic!
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Sunday Honey Harvest!

8/28/2016

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We pulled honey out of our FlowHive today!  It worked amazingly well.  I've put a video on my youtube channel, you should check it out: YOUTUBE
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Have I been on vacation a bit too long?

5/12/2016

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Not really, I just felt like "making" something with my hands. Nice overcast day at the beach! And let the tide take it away.
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    Alison B. Sweeney

    Why We Travel?

    -to leave the rat race behind and remind ourselves that we as individuals have value beyond our monetary income (or lack there-of). We are human BEINGS, not human doings.

    -to put ourselves outside our comfort zone, which lets us grow.

    -to eat.

    -to find new artistic inspiration, and sometimes cool materials.

    -to remind ourselves how lucky we are to live in Bozeman.

    -to spend time together, playing and dreaming, away from work and responsibility.

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