Autumn with Abigail

...the Argiope Aurantia

In spite of her frightening appearance, this femme fetale is harmless to humans (though I did not sit her on my shoulder to see). Abigail has taken up residence on my front porch, where she wove this stunning web between an arborvitae and a boxwood. She is often referred to as a garden spider, for her tendency to set up house in gardens, and though harmless to us, you do not want to fly in her midst if you happen to be a bug or butterfly (and I would not want to find her cozying up to me on the sofa!). I'm hoping she hangs around until Halloween. She's such an authentic decoration, don't you think?

If you've noticed an absence of art on my blog lately (as well as an absence of blogging generally), it's because it is my crazy season at work, which will end blissfully at about 10 am tomorrow morning, when my colleagues drive off in a rented minivan for our annual convention in Atlantic City. As the graphic artist, I spend the month of September designing and overseeing RUSH printing jobs for books, fliers, brochures, buttons, stickers, giveaways, cds, and display units. The RUSH part happens because everyone enjoys the last warm, lazy days of summer until Labor Day, and then they panic when September arrives and they've not given a thought to their convention projects. I've become accustomed to this panic, which sets in immediately on Tuesday morning after labor day, when the rested and suntanned return from vacations at the Shore and on the Cape. My voicemail and email boxes are full of exclamations and exclamation points stressing how urgent their projects are, even though they were not given a thought just a day earlier.

So after 10 am tomorrow, I will take a deep breath, a sip of my diet Pepsi, and hopefully get back to a regular pace at work, which allows my mind to wander in creative ways so that when I return home, I can blog and make art again.