Belonging To A Place

Long, long ago, in early November, I thought I would use the time between Thanksgiving and New Years to begin writing again and posting on the blog again and, well, life took me in a different direction. Honestly, I feel like I’ve been in a year-long acid trip. I have completely surrendered to it. And I’ve been enjoying it… even the dances with my dragons. It’s been a very deep, profoundly revealing exploration of my psyche that began, I suppose, when I asked the question, ‘who am I without Charlie?’

I was also planning to spend the winter promoting Meditations with Cows, leading up to the paperback release in February. Self promotion is hard for me in the best of times. It’s even more challenging during a worldwide pandemic while in the midst of a pseudo-psychedelic expedition. But this book is incredibly important to me—more specifically, the words that fill this book matter to me, and I want to share those words. So I’m going to share an entire chapter on social media.

This chapter takes place during the summer I spent living off-grid on the mountain with the cows… which happens to be another time in my life when I felt unable to share the profundity of the moment in the moment, being too immersed in living it. Writing this chapter for Meditations with Cows was the first time I wrote about *why* that summer was so lifechanging for me.

I’m so excited to be able to share this chapter with you. I’ll be sharing it in serial form, a little every day. You can follow along @dailycoyote on twitter or instagram. {If you like what you read, I hope you’ll share or retweet some of my posts, tag me so I can see and smile!}

And yes, the paperback is finally almost here. I prefer paperbacks—they’re just so pleasant to hold while reading. I almost always wait for the paperback release to buy books for myself and others. If you feel similarly, the time has arrived!

This is also a great time to talk to your library to request they acquire a copy, since paperbacks are more budget-friendly than hardcovers. My publisher did not skimp on this paperback though—they’ve printed it IN FULL COLOR! I’m so thrilled, all the photographs and design elements are beautifully printed in color, just like the hardbound edition.

Storytime begins today! See you on twitter and instagram.

The 2022 Charlie Calendar

Howdy, stranger. By which I mean, “howdy” to you, I’m stranger. I know I’ve been MIA, but I needed some time offline.

This year has been so freaking weird, too weird to condense into words just yet. A constant, though, has been how much joy Charlie’s pictures bring me every day.

I love having Charlie’s photos everywhere. Last year, I cut apart old calendars and taped up an entire wall of his pictures. I look at his framed photos and the pictures of him that other artists have sent me. I have him everywhere. And his magic leaps out of the 2-D and becomes multidimensional reality.

This is why I decided to continue with Charlie’s annual calendar – to share that joy.

This year’s calendar includes images from 2007 through 2021, all of which have never been used in calendars before. It’s really beautiful. CLICK HERE see all the details and bigger pictures.

Life is confusing but the Farmily is doing great. Everyone is healthy and wonderful, and it’s been a season of babies. I’ll share more when I dive back into the web, which will be soon.

I miss you, too.

Charlie in Platinum & Palladium ~ A Mutual Aid Auction

In the fall of 2017, after I finished the coffee table book celebrating Charlie’s tenth birthday and had sent it off to the printer, I was in that weird state of being absolutely buzzed from completing the project and also exhausted from the work. I couldn’t sit still and I couldn’t focus on normal stuff. The book had turned out better than I’d ever imagined and sales had too, so I gave myself a gift I’d wanted for years. I drove to New Mexico for a week-long one-on-one apprenticeship with David Michael Kennedy, one of the living masters of Platinum/Palladium printing.

Platinum/Palladium printing is one of the oldest photographic printing techniques. A light-sensitive solution of platinum and/or palladium is hand-painted onto watercolor paper, and a contact print is made under ultraviolet light – traditionally, the sun.

I also learned how to make high-quality negatives from my digital files, which allows me to create Platinum/Palladium prints from pictures of Charlie that I’ve taken with my digital camera.

Platinum/Palladium prints are gorgeous, truly luminous, with a tonal range that surpasses any other form of photographic print. (Frustratingly, it’s impossible to see the incredible print quality through a computer screen.)

The noble metals bond with the paper itself, so Platinum/Palladium prints are estimated to last thousands of years without any deterioration in the quality of the print. The Platinum/Palladium process is a spectacular blend of art, science, and magic.

It’s also quite rare these days. Platinum and palladium are expensive materials to work with, and each print is made, from start to finish, by hand. In 2018 I set up a darkroom to start printing at home, but then I decided to write another book and my fine art was put on hold. Till now.

I’m debuting this work with one of my all-time favorite pictures of Charlie, in platinum and palladium (50/50). I’m offering it for auction with 100% of the proceeds going to mutual aid. The funds will be donated to this reparations campaign: Homes for Black Women.

My friend Allison of Sunny Rising has coordinated this fundraiser with a great group of artists – there is beautiful work on offer, and you can find links to it all on her most recent post.

Charlie in Platinum & Palladium on Italian rag watercolor paper / image area measures 4″ x 5.5″ / archivally mounted on rice paper under glass / handmade barn wood frame measures 10″ x 12″

Please leave your bids in the comment section. The auction is also running on my instagram page – I’ll be cross-posting the highest bids from both places periodically so everyone knows what’s up (instagram seems to prohibit people without accounts from seeing anyone’s pages anymore, boo). Check back here to see if you’ve been outbid! The auction will close February 9th at 9PM MST.

I’m slowly resurfacing and will write more soon…. in the meantime, thank you for all the love messages – let’s share that love with this reparations campaign!

Babysitting Calves at Naptime

Can you even stand the cuteness? Babysitting is really common with bovines – one mother or Grandmother will hang out with up to a dozen calves while their mothers go off to graze or get manicures. This is Leila babysitting five calves at naptime – they found a very comfy spot on a pile of fresh straw. I really wanted to join them.

The following is a bit of a technical note, but maybe not completely boring? Starting tomorrow, on the anniversary of the day Charlie came into my life, my @dailycoyote Instagram account will become an extension of The Daily Coyote blog: photos of Charlie, posted daily, beginning at the beginning with his baby pics from April 2007.

I’ve been pondering this change for several weeks and reached conviction after the incredible flood of emails and messages I received around Charlie’s birthday earlier this month. Your notes affected me deeply – thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and love. Charlie has impacted so many people in such magnificent ways, and I think bringing Charlie’s photo archive to Instagram is the best way to keep sharing the wonder he inspires.

I’ll still be updating Charlie’s blog as I always have, and sending out new pictures to subscribers via email as I have always done and absolutely love doing – none of that is changing. But things have changed drastically, here on The Internet, since I started blogging in 2007. I’ve noticed so much more engagement on Instagram than on my blogs in recent years, and *I* engage more with others on Instagram, too, rather than going to dozens of blogs the way I used to in the ’00s. This shift makes sense – on Instagram, everyone is in one place and it’s so convenient. It’s the Walmart of the internet. And since things have changed in this way, the @dailycoyote Instagram account will be a way for newbies, who might never find Charlie’s blog otherwise, to learn about his magic. Today’s 20-year-olds were 8 when Charlie was born!

Pictures of the rest of the Farmily will now be @farmily.love so if you’re on Instagram, go follow that account for pictures of Daisy, Chloe, Sage, the horses, and the rest of the Farmily. With the book deadline and so much else going on, posting little snapshots over there may occur more regularly than big blog posts here. Even if you’re not on Instagram, you can bookmark this page and this page to see everything I post.