June, 2022
Summer finally came, in kind of a bi-polar way. Some glorious days, some sweltering days, but all were welcome.
We started to take advantage of the Morton Arboretum in suburban Chicago last year, and continue to visit it for beautiful morning walks through hundreds of acres. What is the difference between a walk and a hike, anyway?
It’s become our custom to follow those trips with a garden lunch at Piccolo Sogno, which I highly recommend as the closest thing out slow Italian afternoons on the Amalfi Coast.
June also included a trip down to Atlanta and a reunion with Chery Baird, my amazing art teacher, for a three day collage workshop. Even better, I was joined by my bestie Deb Lehman. I’d been stocking up collage fodder to start a new series called All My Dream Flew Out the Window – in the best possible way. Each piece is based on a beautiful view out of windows around the world and across time –
– the collage posted here is the view from a bathroom window – yes, a bathroom window- at a restaurant called Torre Normanna in Maiori on the Amalfi Coast, a spectacular place.
June, 2022
Another in my series of view from windows I’ve known. This one is a loose interpretation of the view from my bedroom window in Grosse Pointe Michigan. It was a small room with a view at the roof of the house next door and and an alley beyond. The house was a busy one, but since I was the only girl, I had my own room and spent a fair amount of time there. Just as I was planning this one, I learned that a lovely woman I knew as a child had passed away. She was always very kind to me and always used to tell me that I didn’t have to try to chase my future or happiness, I could just look out my window and I would see it coming to find me. I think it was a way to reassure a kind of socially timid girl, but I did turn away from the window, leave the room, and chase my future, and it’s turning out great.
June, 2022
Here’s another in the new collage series – this one is based on the view from the yoga studio at Miraval in Tucson, Arizona. I’ve had photos of this view for years, it’s such a striking vista – I usually meditate with my eyes closed, but this view always tempts me to keep them open and just get lost in those mountains and that sky.
June, 2022
All those new collage papers I made in Paducah set me off down the rabbit hold of fodder techniques. Time to put the big stash of new goodies to use – this is the first in a series called All My Dreams Flew Out the Window – in the best possible way. It’s the scene from the balcony window at the condo we’ve visited for the past few years in South Walton County, Florida. We go in November, when it is still relatively quiet and we get to enjoy beach walks, sunny days, and spectacular sunsets. The high top table on the balcony is my favorite place to create while I’m there.
May, 2022
The stars aligned and I was finally able to stop by Ephemera in Paducah, Kentucky to take a workshop this month. It fit perfectly (kind of) into a road trip we decided to make for me to do a speaking engagement in Austin, Texas. And gave me a chance to bulk up my collage fodder stash in time for a visit back to Atlanta for a collage workshop in June and a new series I have in mind.
Kristin, who is the owner of Ephemera, is someone I have known for years since I crossed paths with her professionally in her earlier incarnation as an economic developer. She pivoted almost ten years ago to this successful life as a teacher and owner of one of the best known studios for visiting mixed media and other art teachers in the country.
Turns out, I got there just in time. Kristin has just announced that at the end of the year she will be taking a “gap year” and Ephemera as it is today will cease operations (at least with her at the helm), so I’m glad I got there when I did.
If you don’t know, Paducah is legendary among quilters – the center of the U.S. quilting universe – and years ago reated a program to provide artists with incentives to revitalize a section of the downtown area. It’s a riverfront city with beautiful parkland, and at this time of the year it’s a luscious green everywhere.
