Snow Play
Well it seems that this year has been a white, white winter for most parts of the country. Even in San Francisco where we live, it’s been unusually cold and rainy, fluctuating from wet and chilly one day to bright and sunny the next and back again. 
Yet for Maya, Zai and I, usually the Winter’s not complete until we make at least one trip to the snow even if we have to drive to it!
For me, growing up where “snow days” were always a welcomed possibility for that extra time off from school, I find that now I just can’t let Winter go by unless I see some real SNOW! I have to touch it and play in it, sled and snowboard, otherwise I’m just not ready for Spring and resent any sort of hot weather until I feel that cold, cold of snow FIRST!
Living in San Francisco where the seasons Continue reading »
Filed under From the Life | Tags: family, fun, play, season, winter | Comment (0)A Heart in the Dark: Wintertime
Monday was the darkest day of the year, the Winter Solstice. We are now at the deepest point of winter. I love knowing that. I can feel the season turning. 
At our house we’ve been filling our dark hours with Christmas crafts and keeping our windows steamy with lots of baking. Our tiny apartment is severely, profoundly decked out and we’ve got 6 different Christmas radio stations on our Pandora. Although I love absolutely any excuse to make things and decorate, it’s taken me a few years to fully receive 
the gift of Christmas brought to me by Matthew and his father and their profound love of the holiday. I’ve needed to go on a little Christmas journey.
When I was 20, my family disowned me at Christmas for being queer. Now so many years later, I rarely ponder on it. We have very little contact. But for years, Christmas served as an anniversary and was re-colored by the experience. The whole season became bittersweet. Over time, I looked for ways to finally Continue reading »
Filed under From the Life | Tags: celebration, Christmas, family, festive, fun, holiday, light, season, Solstice, winter | Comment (0)Hats for the Head
Here it is November and I’m waiting for the cold to hit so I can start wearing my warm hats! I will use any excuse whatsoever to create. And one of my favorites is “having a head!” My head affords me the constant excuse to make hats, crowns, horns and soon masks! Who knows what else my head might need?!
I have loved hats ever since I was a kid. Wild hats! An old lady friend of the family once gave me a large box of hats she had left over from the 40’s and 50’s. Out-of-this-world hats! Hats with feathers two feet long and spirals of ribbon and fake flowers piled high…you name it! What an era! I wore those hats for years and I can see now that they left an indelible mark on my psyche.
Here are some of my hats: crocheted, knitted, felted, ribboned, furred and flowered. I have so many more in the corners of my brain just waiting to sneak out…but for now…
Red Hat: (left) This one is made from a sweater vest from Zai’s babyhood. I wore it all last Christmas season. I have two huge poinsettias I clip onto the back. Tis the season!
Green Hat: (right) Someone gave me a big bag of vintage hand knit socks that had been worn many years and Continue reading »
Our Introduction
Hi! We’re Maya and Matthew Smith-Gonzalez and we’re the visionaries behind Reflection Press. While we could say all the stuff about how many books Maya has illustrated or the awards she’s won, or who Matthew is and what he does, we’ll save that for the About Us page on our website and get to that with our second phase website launch. For this post we’ll just stick to some fun facts.
