Abby's Baby Shower Favors

makeshift light table using a clear lucite table with clip on lamp...

Susan tracing...

Martha tracing...

Sue's granddaughter Patience Rose documenting...

first stage complete!

Edna inspecting...

Deborah trimming...

The Queen of Hearts by Patience Rose

Patience with stitched stack 'o' Queens...

setting up to paint on Deb's deck...

painting...

glittering...

painting...

painting...

another inspection...

an army of Queens!

off with their heads!!

at the shower...

My sister Susan and I have been at our sister Deb's house the past couple of weeks, helping to care for our mother, Edna, who has Alzheimer's. Mom lives near Deb in an assisted living home. While at Deb's, we also helped her to prepare for her daughter Abby's baby shower, which was last Sunday. Deb asked Susan and I to design the shower favors. She had a Mad Hatter Tea Party/Through the Looking Glass theme, and had purchased small heart shaped mirrors in black velvet pouches. She wanted a Queen of Hearts figure holding this pouch somehow. We decided to make felt figures, like the ornaments that I have made, and Susan set to work making a couple of patterns of the Queen of Hearts from the Disney version of the story. Sue and I then set up 2 light tables and traced 36 Queens on white felt using red sharpies. The next step was to sew each figure onto another piece of felt, using black stitching to "draw" in the details. After each Queen got trimmed, we took them all outside onto Deb's porch, painted them with acrylic paints, and embellished each figure with glitter, beads, and feathers. This was a 2 day project, and we had alot fun! I will post some pics of the shower soon!

A Summer Studio

My sister Deb fanning her son, The King, my nephew, Seth Milman.

Seth in the King's Chair, 2009

pastel, oil, charcoal and colored pencil on Rives BFK

Seth, detail

American Wife (my sister Amy), 2009

pastel, oil and colored pencil on Rives BFK

American Wife, detail

My sister Amy and me.

While visiting family in RI the past 2 weeks, I did these two portraits in my sister Deb's lush backyard in Barrington. The first portrait is of my nephew, Seth, who is studying for his bar exam. He wanted a lawerly portrait, so he wore a pale blue checkered button down shirt and chose to sit in a chair that his family refers to as The King's Chair. Great choice! The second portrait is of my sister, Amy, who sat in the chaise lounge reading Curtis Sittenfeld's novel, American Wife. What fun to work in this opulent outdoor setting! More pics on the way soon of other creative projects tackled while I was on vacation!

Going Down River

Pt Judith, RI

I will be taking a blog break - I'm heading south to Rhode Island for ten days to visit with family, and plan to do a few portraits while there, in between swimming and enjoying the warmer ocean! I'll be back here on the 20th. Until then, enjoy July!

Beckett on Beckmann

I'm midway through an excellent book about Max Beckmann, Beckmann and the Self, by Sister Wendy Beckett. I so enjoyed Sister Wendy's BBC and PBS art history series back in the 90's, so this book popped out at me while I was perusing the MECA library selves (Freudian typo - meant to write shelves - good one! :^) shelves recently. I love her insights - she actually meditates in front of images of artwork before writing about a piece. And I adore Beckmann's self-portraits, so this book seemed like a double header (no pun intended:^) !

Here's a sampling of Sister Wendy, an excerpt from the book regarding the top image, Beckmann's Self-Portrait with Saxophone:

"...painted in Paris when Beckmann was riding the crest of his wave. He felt he could encompass contradictions, wear an acrobat's tights and an aesthete's quilted dressing gown, and still be effortlessly dominant. The saxophone, uniquely, may not represent music and its power to engorge all sadness and transform it, but modern life. He holds the instrument low, sub-duing it as it curls animal-like around his body. The saxophone resembles nothing more than a piteous snake, a mini-dragon, and Beckmann, its St George, wrestling the animal power to his purposes. It is a splendid image of a man at rest with his own superiority."

The Spell Has Been Lifted!

YELLOW.

BLUE.

Thunder clouds.

First brocolli harvest.

Finally, the wash back on the line!

Cilantro.

ORANGE!

Garry planting a peach tree, with Sal's assistance.

The moon rising.

Oh, to see the celestial bodies once again! And colors other than gray and green, and shadows! Ahhhh.....

The relentless rain, wind, and cool gray skies duked it out with some desperately needed sunshine this past weekend, and it was nothing short of miraculous when that sun came out and stayed a while. Amazing (and important to remember) how profoundly affected we are by the light and the weather.