It’s a Vitamin, not an Epi-pen

It’s a Vitamin, not an Epi-pen

As I write this, I’m having an amazing vacation on the Amalfi Coast. Feeling relaxed, good company, great vistas. There is a beautiful garden where I could sit quietly and keep up my practice  Of course, there are also people to be with, naps to take, wandering to do. Who needs meditation at a time like this?

Based on my experience, it turns out I do. It has to do with the realization that meditation is a lot more like a vitamin than an epipen. It’s something to take day after day, even when you feel OK, to build you up for those times when something unexpected or something that could destabilize you arises. In other words, it’s not just for emergencies.

Color Palettes

Color Palettes

I’ve been wondering why these colors have been insisting on being part of the new series of mixed media paintings I’m starting. They also showed up in the collage pieces I created as part of #collagejoylove.

Today I realized it is probably because I’m just now on my way to spend some time at the lovely @villa_la_contessina in Sorrento Italy. It’s a long-delayed return visit, but apparently the colors have stayed with me all this time wanting to be seen.

If you want to know more about this beautiful villa and the other places we go along the Amalfi Coast, I’ve written up a guide that is one of my gifts to you when you sign up for my newsletter.

 

Joyful June

Joyful June

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.

 

Fabric Tourism

Fabric Tourism

I missed my Italian travel adventure in 2020 and again in 2021 (you know why), but I did finally make use of these beautiful fabrics from my last trips to Florence and Naples.  The blue and green fabric is from a place in Florence, the Casa dei Tessuti – it is worthy of another post, so I’ll have to do that sometime.  The others were from a place in Naples.  If Casa dei Tessuti is a temple of fabric, the place in Naples was more like a warehouse.  My friend/landlady when I visit Sorrento, Anastasia del Vecchio, was kind enough to go exploring with me one day, and we found a treasure trove of fabrics you would see on the runways – they had the catalogues to prove it.

Anyway, months passed and the fabrics seemed to precious to use.  Finally, just before quarantine I found #sewanastasia and Kate Van Asten of #wulfka here in Chicago and they taught me how to draft patterns from examples already in my wardrobe and in my imagination so they would fit me.  That gave me what I needed to spend some of that inside quiet time finally bringing these fabrics to life.

I don’t know what other people bring home from vacation, but I visit fabric and paper stores, and am happy to see these treasures finally brought to life.