Isa’s Journal

Paper Pusher

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.”  – JOAN DIDION Paper Product Highlight Each new year brings a round of navel gazing and new resolve. 2023 is no different, and I need to toss out some old patterns. Over the past few…

Gifts in Kind

Fi and Bai “Always give without remembering and always receive without forgetting.” Brian Tracy Every year I write a letter to our kids and then adapt it into a blog post. Here’s the 2023 edition. My dear hearts: It’s that time of year and I know you have been breathlessly awaiting my annual year-end letter.…

Gratitude

Rose in an aspen grove When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. John Muir Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it stays true to its origin story. Our Thanksgiving tradition may look nothing like the first meal between the Pilgrims and Native Americans,…

Letter from Peru

Andean Motmot “Conservation is sometimes perceived as stopping everything cold, as holding whooping cranes in higher esteem than people. It is up to science to spread the understanding that the choice is not between wild places or people; it is between a rich or an impoverished existence for Man.” – DR. THOMAS LOVEJOY The view…

Rate of Reveal

View of the Elk Mountain Range from the studio at sunset I chase light like I chase color, and the Fall light in the Colorado Rockies is my favorite. I try not to miss the alpenglow sliding across the peaks every evening. This ritual is worth the pause. I cherish these last vibrations of summer,…

The Power of Three

Reflections on Isa Catto Studio’s Third Year in Business. Modeling our first wallflower sarong in the garden with the ever faithful Rose. Photo credit: Caitlin Atkinson Hot Air Transport A year ago, my family crawled into a hot air balloon gondola in the predawn darkness of Kenya’s Masai Mara. We slid into the gondola, which…

Taking Up Residents

Celebrating the Aspen Words Writers in Residence program and the importance of supporting creative process. I have a stubborn case of look at me/don’t look at me syndrome. As an artist, my fine art is on full display, and it’s no small joy when people respond to my creative expression. The same goes for my…

Common Currency

“Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question…

Seriously, Why Watercolor?

Watercolor is underrated. It’s a medium linked to hobbyists, children, Prince Charles, and retirees. And me. I used to paint in oils until I developed a bizarre allergy that delivered hives. At times my arms looked like they’d been attacked by a mammoth, angry insect. So I moved on to water-based mediums like acrylic, but…

Rubbernecking

A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains.Tennessee Williams April brings back my sister Heather. She arrived on April 7th, 1959, and left on October 17th, 2014. We were born six years and one month apart to the day and for me, April…