We're coming out the other end of a big (for Portland) snow storm, that effectively hobbled the city and made for a strange 5 day weekend.

Cardoons are always champs through the toughest of weather

I turned out to be a great time to reflect, make some art, and watch a pretty great BBC show called Mastercrafts. It's a sort of a competition reality show but in typical BBC fashion there is very little emphasis on who wins (after all nothing will truly restore the empire). The show takes three novices and teaches pretty rigorous traditional crafts. The moral ends up being, one can learn stonemasonry, greenwood carving, weaving, stained glass, and blacksmithing in a relatively short period of time, but no one can learn to thatch a roof.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM4S2hGZDSE4ffSC-WJsm-6w1I4i4vhQw 1/6 Green Wood Craft. Series celebrating the nation's craftsmanship and the recent renaissance in traditional crafts, presented by Monty Don. Three hopefuls who are passionate about learning green wood craft are put through their paces by the country's leading practitioners. The students quickly discover that the craft calls for precision, dexterity and patience.

Here is part one of the first episode. Incidentally this channel has all sorts of BBC art docs if you're into that sort of thing

Lastly here is a snowy lil' gallery