If you are an artist who is need of a quiet and inspiring place to recharge your creative spirit and make some serious art… then you should look into the J.B. Blunk Residency. You can read all about it on their website, so I won’t go into too much detail here… but I will say, it is absolutely amazing – inside and out!

Everywhere you look you see something inspiring…. the view of Tomales Bay and Black Mountain that you can’t escape from if you try, the wall of handcarved wood, the sculptures in every corner, the huge workshop stocked with anything you need, the cozy wood-stove that warms your entire being…

I was only there for one night and I am a believer.

And now for my confession… I was so proud of myself.

We arrived in perfect time, right before the sun disappeared for the evening, so I ran around and photographed every possible angle – inside and out. And then after the sun was down, I sat in front of the fire and edited all the photos to perfection.

I was so happy to have such a head start on this project that I didn’t realize I hadn’t copied the files to my computer, instead I was editing them from the card reader. And then… I promptly erased the card so that it would be ready to go for my sunrise session. But I didn’t realize my mistake until days later when I franticly searched for those perfectly edited files.

So that explains why the only photo I have of the bedroom is the one with the messy bed – while beautiful even messy, it is not exactly the scene you would put in a brochure. I took a zillion photos the night before, with the room all perfect and the sunset shining through the window… and all of those photos are gone. I am heartbroken and haunted by all those lost photos. But… the good news… I learned my first lesson in 2009.

Copy files first – then edit – then double check.

Argh.