the last two weekends

Grand Gulch (that's down Blanding way) and Mesa Verde. It was so beautiful I was almost crying at times. Either that or I was just glad to be alive after hiking almost 20 miles:) My feet were really not used to me using them that much and one of my toenails tried to escape toward the end. Very fortunate to have patient friends with great equipment.

some recent-ish work

Here's some stuff I've done in the last few months. This first one was for an article in a BYU economy review magazine about the persistence of poverty. Part of it appeared on the cover as well.

Next are some product concept illustrations for marshmallow Peeps products to potentially be seen next Easter at a dollar store near you. My favorite was the jelly bean pooping Peep that they actually requested, but then were revolted by. If any of you know where they guy has gone who still owes me money on this one please let me know.

The last one is an identity for a plumbing outfit up in Montana. I'm off to Mesa Verde today and will hopefully have some awesome pics to post next week!

this makes me laugh

Don't you think the one on the right looks like Joel Gray?

Happy Mother's Day Mom

"The Lanyard"
By Billy Collins

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past --
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift--not the archaic truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Still miss you every day Mom.