We are featuring work by Seeley Lake jewelry artist, Dona Miller during the month of October. Dona’s love of jewelry began as a child, sitting on the floor for hours with her mom’s jewelry box. She began designing her own jewelry in high school and spent time studying the work of a jewelry designer and family friend. During her career in high tech, Dona traveled the world fascinated by the cultures and their use of color and texture.

After leaving the high tech world, Dona returned to her love of jewelry design. Her work is influenced by the places she has lived and traveled, bringing the textures of nature into her designs. Her love of stones is featured in her one-of-a-kind pieces which showcase the stones she has collected. Dona currently teaches classes in jewelry design and techniques. Her students continue to be an inspiration to her, fascinating her with the unique perspective each student has conceptually and artistically. Dona is an award winning artist. Her work is featured in stores and galleries throughout the Northwest and in print.

Meet Dona during Whitefish Gallery Night, Thursday, October 6, 2016 from 6-9 PM. Dona's work will be displayed during the opening and throughout the month of October. The Purple Pomegranate will also be celebrating American Craft Week October 1-16^th. For more information visit: http://americancraftweek.com/

In what seems like just hours between the waning summer days and the first waft of fall, the trees around Whitefish have turned the most gorgeous colors creating a patchwork quilt of golds, reds, maroons, and oranges. The rain we had a few nights ago triggered the explosion of autumn hues. Huge stately trees have thick rings of leaves around their trunks like bright gold spot lights. On the way to town a day or so ago, I drove past a yard where a petite woman was working alone with her rake in the middle of a pool of leaves that looked as big as half a football field. The tree was sky scraper tall so she was completely dwarfed by the tree and the sea of leaves she stood in as she wielded her rake. Her rake even looked too small. I was thinking that she could be out there filling leaf bags for days! And there were still gazillions of leaves yet to fall off of her tree.

Yards and streets in town have been turned into mosaics of colored leaves that were pasted there by the rain. Cars parked under trees have been decoupaged with wet leaves. With the next breeze, they will be dried up and swirled away in all directions. Around here, it’s good to get as many of those leaves cleaned up before the white stuff comes so there’s not a blanket of wet, semi-mulched, laminated leaves to contend with in the spring. Not fun!

And, aside from fall arriving, football is under way everywhere. My guy is in gridiron heaven. He is GLUED to every game, every publication about the games, players, coaches, and into all other super important stats. Conversations and plans now revolve around what game is on when. As I type, he is yelling and cursing at the TV screen at whatever his team is doing wrong. Today, I got a text from my friend Becky in Florida whose husband is probably at the same depth of immersion (or is it obsession?) into football as my guy. If texts could yell, I would have had to turn the volume down on my cell phone. She asked me: “how can guys watch it non-stop and then watch the reruns over and over - as well as hours of commentary about that same game?!” There's no explaining it. My guy will record a game while he is watching it, and then watch it again going back and forth to parts that he has to see at least 5 times to make sure he saw what he saw, or that the refs' calls were correct. To me, it's just a bunch of guys running up and down and then leaping into body piles. Sorry, I never caught the football bug. There are favorite movies that I can watch over and over. I guess there is some similarity there.

So, in between the beautiful colors and the football mania, here at The Purple Pomegranate, we are catching our breath before the next season starts. Not mentioning what it is out loud because we are still breathing in the last gasps of summer, but it involves colder temps and white stuff that shows up everywhere. We're ready though. We have lots of cozy hats, mittens, and scarves - just in case - and probably in your size! Hope you are enjoying the weather change and maybe we’ll see you soon!