Cigar Box Wednesday - on Tuesday

Having to shuffle things around a bit due to holidays and birthdays, but didn't want to let a week go by without Cigar Box Wednesday - so here it is one day early. I have supreme confidence in all of you to adjust to this! This time it's doll parts - heads, feet, hands, legs, arms. Most bisque, a few plastic.

As all of us mixed media types know - nothing sets off that collage or assemblage better than a disembodied hand or foot! I acquired the majority of these when our local hometown hobby store went out of business after nearly 40 years.

A Week for Openings!

Towers & Spires

Almost two years ago at a workshop in Taos, Anne Bagby urged us to "Get your work out there!". Well, this year I've certainly taken her advice. I was counting up the other day and by the time this year draws to a close I will have participated in 15-count 'em-15 shows and exhibitions in 2010. The last two both open this Friday night December 3.

The Pity of War

Towers & Spires will be available for view at Cambria's Allied Arts Gallery for the next two weeks. And The Pity of War as part of the "War and Peace" exhibit at the Steynberg Gallery in San Luis Obsipo, which runs through the end of January. You were so right Anne, there's nothing that improves one's art like "getting it out there!"

Life on the Coast

What could be better than taking a kayak class
on a beautiful Sunday morning?
Enjoy your weekend!

Cemetery Saturday

This is a tiny graveyard tucked away just out of town in Nevada City, California.

Surrounded by tall, tall pines.

Stone, weathered by hundreds of snowy winters and blisteringly hot summers.

From the Bookshelf

I found this lovely book in my Amazon recommendations, for a ridiculously low price and couldn't resist. I'm glad I didn't. It is a delightful read, as well as being full of beautiful sketches. Vivian Swift spent the first part of her life traveling the world. She then settles down in a small village on Long Island Sound, and finds the world, there, in all the small and wondrous details of her surroundings. Presented in a monthly journal format, it makes you laugh, cry and think. An undiscovered gem,

Happy Thanksgiving 1913

A Thanksgiving postcard sent to my Grandparents
back in 1913 when they lived in Warren, Indiana.

And the greetings are as warm today 97 years later.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Cigar Box Wednesday

Very cool instruments you can make, using
- you guessed it! - Cigar Boxes!

Check it out here

and here

and here.

Towers & Spires

Towers & Spires

I've been working on this one for a couple of weeks and just finished yesterday. Margot helped me figure out how to attach all the large metal bits. The two brass church facades were a swap meet score about a year ago, and the central door I found this summer up in Sebastopol.

The background was done in Golden acrylics, using cross stencils and masks, and two sizes of puncinella . Xerox copies of English church spires and towers were coloured with water soluble oil pastels and provide not only visual interest but the title as well.

A wooden cross surmounts the copper painted door that opens to reveal a picture of a heavy wooden gate topped with a santos angel.

The final touch, ghostly wisps of an Anne Bagby stamp
that suggest ecclesiastical grill work.

The Water's Fine!

Here's another watercolour from our trip to Mexico 5 years ago this month. This was the pool, at the hotel in El Manzanillo, where we stayed for a few days at the end of our vacation. It looked right out on the Pacific to the west and the city on the curving south coast.

Life on a Different Coast - Provincetown

The north end of Provincetown beach,
looking out across the harbour.
Enjoy your weekend!