Not too jaded

David and I just celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary.... Jade. Did I buy or receive a jade gift? No. But we DID treat ourselves to the most beautiful painting by Flora Bowley with several jade green tones in it called, rather appropriately for the occasion, Rise Together.

Her paintings are beautiful, layers and layers of colour and pattern, bold images, unfortunately my photographs don't do them justice!

2 more of Flora's paintings in our house in Reston

It's a bit of a shock to find ourselves still around, so many years later. How did it happen?! But, considering the alternatives, very grateful. And, as I suggested to David..... we could potentially have another 35 years to go yet! (at this point we both groaned in perfect unison)

Here we are now, still surviving, all grown up. Inside we don't feel as changed as we look. but where did all that hair go?!

Jolly Gourd Show

Hurricane Sandy swept through our area at the end of October and although we were spared any of the terrible effects NJ and NY suffered, it did put a swift end to Fall. A lot of trees went from beautiful to bald overnight and the temperatures suddenly dropped to wintery levels. I'd been procrastinating over posting the inevitable farm market, pumpkin pictures and now they have quite a tinge of nostalgia.

In September I went to the Greenmarket at Union Square, NY, and took way too many pictures. Pumpkins look the same anywhere. It reminded me of my school trip to Paris, age 11 back in the '60s. The first place we visited was the zoo and I used up both the films for my Brownie 127 camera on pictures of animals! Came home with no record at all of the Eiffel Tower of the Arc de Triomphe.

 Farmers come from Long Island, upstate NY and New Jersey three times a week and set up as wonderful an organic farm market as you'd find anywhere.

See the bees on the bear's nose, smeared with honey.... brilliant way to stop them from harassing the customers!

Found that picture a little confusing! But it's good to know you can buy duck if that's what you fancy

Town and country. This was a wonderful organic bread stall, wished I wasn't living in a hotel!

It was really crowded and bustling with people shopping in the sunshine, lots of children, people on their lunch breaks from work, a few tourists like me.  New York is a very livable city.

After this wonderful trip it was back home to the N Virginia suburbs where the pumpkins lie in fields, even if they've just been placed there for effect....

This all feels a bit more authentic but I miss the cars, the skyscrapers and all that noise!

4 More Years!

After living here for 25 years, we finally took citizenship and could vote in this election. It was easy, a short walk from home and a 35 minute wait. There was an option to vote electronically or to fill in a paper ballot which you took to be scanned and and could see was counted immediately. We did that. I can't see why anyone thinks the electronic method is better? No paper record as back up if there's a dispute? I don't get it.

What I did get was this sticker. I've given many stickers out to children when I was an art teacher but I don't think I've been on the receiving end before. I felt really happy!

Then we went home and had a little patriotic red, white and blue celebration before David went back to work. Champagne would have been preferable but the Yorkshire tea sums it all up nicely!

Village In The City

I'm in NY for 2 weeks, neighborhood shopping for a potential move here next year. We usually stay within walking distance of David's office, which plants us firmly in the heart of all the touristy areas between Central Park and Times Square. It's fun but it's not exactly real life. So this time we headed downtown for the first week and stayed in Soho just outside the West Village. He experimented with a daily subway commute (which he still reverts to calling the Tube half the time) and I spent the days wandering around imagining being here permanently. I should be so lucky!

These roads of beautiful townhouses in the West Village used to be considered the heart of bohemia and in the 60s it was a very run down area. Now they're out of most normal people's reach financially and Bleecker St looks like an old town version of 5th Ave, lined with designer stores and film set locations.

While taking the photograph of the townhouses I was curious about the excitement a number of young girls were displaying over this building on the opposite corner. ("I can't believe I'm here, seeing it in real life!") Turns out it was used as the exterior shot for the apartment block in Friends.

The arch at the north side of Washington Square Park.

We first went to Washington Square Park in '87, a few months after we moved to America from England. We visited David's cousin who was sharing a tiny studio (one room) apartment in the Village with a friend. It was so tiny his bed was on a platform accessed by a ladder, the rents must have been exorbitant even then. Long time Velvet Underground and Dylan fans, we were excited to be in Greenwich Village but it was a bit intimidating. At that time the park was full of disreputable characters,  music and craziness and we had Chloe with us, age 5. Like Times Square it's been cleaned up and made quite safe and respectable since then. NY University has moved there, buying up several blocks of buildings around the park, so it's a major hangout for students, a popular destination for tourists and a general resting place for people with time on their hands like me.

There's still music.......

.....and there's still craziness......

.....this guy in the aluminum foil hat is giving a tarot card reading. He wouldn't allow anyone to photograph him with his special hat on but I was sitting behind him having a sandwich.

The other Dylan, Dylan Thomas, stayed in the Village several times in the 1950s as did so many of the Beat Generation writers and artists before the hippies and musicians of the 60s and 70s moved in.

Dylan Thomas was staying at the infamous Chelsea Hotel and preparing Under Milkwood for it's first recordings and performances when he was taken ill and rushed to St Vincent's Hospital in the Village where he subsequently died. Despite notorious heavy drinking, drunkenness on stage, blackouts, a fatty liver....  pneumonia, not alcoholism, was deemed the cause of death. There was smog in the city in those days,  another thing that's been cleaned up.

You can take a Dylan Thomas walking tour of the Village looking at the houses he stayed in, the places he wrote certain poems and the pubs he drank in, or maybe do the Sex And The City walking tour showing you Carrie Bradshaw's apartment house where she wrote her articles, the bars she drank in and Magnolia Bakery. Except she wasn't real of course, I was forgetting that. One end of the cultural scale to the other and all within the same few blocks. I love America!

Hearts and minds

I need something to occupy my mind when I'm walking so I set myself a goal to find 3 hearts....

Mission accomplished!

Swapping postcards.... summer project number 2

The Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap....

..... is a 4 times a year project co-ordinated by the wonderful Beth Nicholls of Do What You Love For Life fame. She picks a theme, you enroll, you design and make a postcard, post a photograph of it on a Flickr group, then mail it to the person assigned to you.

"Why?" you might well be wondering. Just for the fun of it and the sense of community.  I really enjoyed making mine and it was an interesting exercise to put so much time and effort into something that was going to be given away to a stranger. There's an online gallery of some 300 photos of various postcard contributions from people all over the world to look through. People leave each other encouraging, admiring comments. I love that sort of stuff!

This time the theme was Discover. I made an envelope out of felt and fabric, added beads and buttons, then attached charms to the inside, to be discovered when it was opened. Then I sewed it onto a postcard and off it went. Actually I mailed it inside an envelope as it wasn't practical to send as-is.

Now I'm waiting for mine to arrive from Canada!

The fabulous fit and the flab fighters

Lake Newport, my new gym

By the end of my recent 2 year gym membership I had gained 20 miserable lbs. There was no mystery as to why.... .. A/ I had not actually been to the gym once, not ONCE! during the whole 2 years and B / I had stuck doggedly to my preferred diet of caffeine, sugar and alcohol and it had ceased to serve me well.

Although I was now finally desperate enough to get myself to the gym I could hardly justify the cost after wasting so much money, so instead I decided to join the ranks of the Reston-ites who enthusiastically take advantage of the fact that we live in a planned community. We have 4 residential lakes to walk, jog or run around for free. In fact Robert E Simon, (who put the Res in Reston) designed this little suburban haven with our exercise needs in mind and there are miles of pretty footpaths wending their way through the communities, as well as tennis courts and so on for the ultra keen.

The people who, like me, head to the footpaths round Lake Newport every day fall into a few distinct categories. The fit and fabulous fly past in shorts, expensive footwear and tank tops, ipod headphones in place, exuding an intimidating sweaty, youthful vigor. Occasionally they can be be seen recklessly pushing sports-style baby carriages in front of them as they run, maybe with an equally athletic dog alongside, gamely keeping up the pace. They're like super-human beings from another planet compared to the rest of us.

The flab fighters slog wearily round on their worthy mission in thigh-hiding capri length sweats, surely the most unflattering garment on the market but cooler in our 100F humid summer weather than full length. (Been there, worn them) We exchange rueful smiles of mutual appreciation of each other's commitment and suffering as we pass.

After successfully shedding the offending poundage I've graduated to a kind of contented middle mode, addicted to accomplishing a brisk-ish 2 loops every morning but without the former sense of desperation. There are a few of us around, we're in it for maintenance and mental health or maybe just to walk the dog and meet the neighbors.

I'm not usually bold enough to ask people if I can photograph them but this lovely lady in her hat seemed to invite attention and sure enough, she obliged!

Lucky people live in lakeside houses. The paths weave their way around and between them

It's the heart of the suburbs ..... a mailbox may have it's own picket fence......

......  a plastic goose may guard a lamp post......

while some go for a more sculptural ornament .....

......and others fly the flag.

There are a lot worse places to live than Reston. Thank you Mr Simon!

Some favorite twofers

Coffee at the Whitney Museum NY

Chihuly glass at Delaware Art Museum

Chloe and Dan

my take on the Greek myth of Narcissus

Smokie and Frankie

David's make-do shoes held together with duct tape survived a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon when luggage didn't show up in time

sculpture in Meadowlark Park VA

Chloe and Juleen, Ritz Carlton NY Christmas 2011

A dear old, one-eyed friend

Happy Birthday to both of us!

Me 'n Owey (derived from Meow of course) London 1956 and New York 2012. 

Glen Echo Deco

There's very little Americana in the Washington DC suburbs, it all tends to be either too tasteful or too new. I recently signed up for a sculpture class at Glen Echo Park, Maryland,  about 30 mins drive round the beltway from home. I knew it was quite a center for art, dance and music classes but I had no idea they were housed in what was formerly an amusement park.

The buildings are beautifully preserved. It's surprisingly appropriate that they are being used to house artists' studios and galleries because in the late 1800s, before the amusement park was built in 1911, the park was part of a program called the National Chautauqua Assembly. This was an adult education movement with Methodist roots, dedicated to teaching science, arts, languages and literature and once referred to by former president Theodore Roosevelt as "the most American thing about America". There were traveling programs and some permanent sites, including Glen Echo.

I wore the right color!

The amusement park closed in 1968 and in '71 the Federal Government bought the land. The National Park Service collaborated with art organizations to create a visual and performing arts program on the site which would be in the spirit of the original Chautauqua movement. What an inspired decision.

It's an evening class, so I nipped out to enjoy the lights. Wonderful!

Anyone got a spare bulb?

Wanted, dead or alive

If anyone sees this little painting, let me know. I put it down on the ground while I unlocked the car in Rockville Md and promptly drove off without it. My friend Michael had taken care of it with no miss-hap for 2 months and just handed it back to it's doting mum. This constant erosion of the brain cell count is very trying.....

The Big Derecho

This week anyone living in the Washington DC area learned a new word, Derecho. It's sudden introduction and overuse reminds me of the Bush/Gore 2000 election when you couldn't get away from "gravitas"..... once one journalist used it,  it took off like a verbal rocket and still rears it's head occasionally at subsequent election times only to get a resounding nationwide shhhhhh

Anyway.... we had a derecho here last Friday apparently, pronounced de-ray-sho and according to Wikipedia, meaning a widespread and long lived, straight line windstorm associated with a band of severe thunderstorms which can exceed hurricane force, capable of striking with the force to knock down highway signs and trees. In other words, what we would previously have referred to as "a heck of a storm last night."

We were in Philadelphia for a live taping of Radiolab at the Academy of Music, wonderful evening, didn't think much about the thunder during the night. We turned up at the station the next morning, happy and refreshed after a good night's sleep, to find hoards of people sitting around dejected and despairing, enormous delays and then the total cancelation of all trains south to DC. Unheard of disruption and no real information, at least none that was audible. We ended up schlepping back to the hotel to stay another night, turned on the tv and that's when we discovered that half the east coast was in total chaos without power, people killed by falling trees etc. We finally made it home on Sunday after interminable waiting around and testing of patience and some considerable concern about what we'd find waiting for us.
There are worse places to check your email of course..... the buildings in downtown Philly are very grand like this hotel lobby which is a converted bank. Even the Starbucks down the road had marble floors, walls and giant columns like this.

Fireworks on the Blue Ridge

There was a heat haze so the snowmakers were on, misting the air

July 4th fell on a Wednesday this year and we headed down to Wintergreen in the Blue Ridge Mountains, for the annual festivities. We would have liked to spend the whole week there but last Friday's extreme storms knocked the power out over the weekend. Temperatures are near 100F most days.

Local band Modern Tactics doing classic rock covers in cowboy hats. They were great!

Main stage on the ski slope, getting close to singing the National Anthem at 9.30

Ooooooooooh!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!

Summer Project #1, Intuitive painting

Here is my normally neat, tidy, peaceful studio above the garage at our house at Wintergreen, VA, about 3 hours south of our real lives in Reston. I do careful oils and watercolors, always with a clear idea during the process of how I intend the finished piece to look.... even if it usually falls short of the mark :)

Recently I've been taking an e-course in Intuitive painting called Bloom True, by the wonderful, inspiring Flora Bowley. (With apologies for any unintentional misrepresentation...... ) she takes entirely the opposite approach--- paint is applied fairly randomly in many layers, then you begin to incorporate personal imagery and pull it out of the painting, still continuing to add layers of color and pattern as the forms develop. You apply paint with foam brushes, your fingers, bubble wrap..... whatever tools you like. This is not for the faint hearted, you can't get too attached to the results at any point or you may stifle future possibilities, as often bits you quite like get covered up or changed. She emphasizes that for all the beginning stages she has no clear idea where the picture will end up but "trusts the process". The results are amazing, even if our beginning stages are often "awkward teenagers"! It's very interesting and challenging to abandon preconceived goals to this degree, follow your intuition and just go with the flow. And it's MESSY!!!

Here's what my studio looks like now..... note the plastic sheeting on the floor for the squirting of water and the dripping! My pictures are at stage 4,  nowhere near completion. They have a layer of warm colors, cool colors, black and white, then glazes. Tomorrow they'll have changed again. Most of us on the course are taking photos at each stage to chart the evolution and sharing images for feedback. It's a very enthusiastic, supportive group.

What will we evolve into?

Here is the view from my studio door through to the backyard. The strange looking bare palm tree is a wind sculpture from Canyon Rd in Santa Fe, it looks lovely when it turns!

RIP Nora Ephron

Funny, insightful, lovely mentor. A woman's woman. We feel we have lost a friend although we never met you.

Tributes abound today, I liked you talking about turning to carbohydrates in a big way.... " I don't think 20 years ahead, I only think about today. Today I have already gone to a bakery. If you get knocked down by a bus, you don't want your last thought to be...I wish I'd had that doughnut!... I'm coming down on the side of the doughnut"

I think about you when I look in the mirror and feel bad about my neck :) Thanks for making it all seem  so much more fun.

Studio time

I am part of a group called Studio 155. We exhibit together as often as possible and every Friday we get together to work in a shared studio space in Rockville, Md. We met through the Corcoran School Of Art in Washington DC, studying Botanical Art. Several people were already established artists but some were beginners, drawn by an article in the Washington Post about the certificate program and a great review of an exhibition of contemporary botanical art at the Smithsonian in DC. Like minded, lovely people were drawn together to draw! We had a further bonding experience when we were invited to participate in a major exhibition at the Corcoran Museum, depicting plants recorded by Lewis and Clark. We traveled to Orofino, Idaho, accompanied by the botanist Dr James Reveal, to find the exact plants, photograph, draw and paint them. Since then we have continued to support and encourage each other's work in a positive, non competitive way I have not encountered anywhere else. We value our alliance very highly!

Measuring out life by coffee cups

Future exhibits

I read about Gwyneth Leech's installation in the Prow gallery at the skinny end of the Flatiron building, "Hypergraphia, paper cup drawings", and was able to see it just before it came down as we had planned a short trip to NY. She's collected and decorated paper cups for years and there are over 800 suspended in the space. Such a simple idea but they looked jewel-like behind the glass. 

Chihuly installation at the Delaware Art Museum

We went to the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington recently with some friends from my art group, Studio 155, for the opening day of our latest show, "Beyond Words, the symbolic meaning of plants". It's a beautiful modern building in an old, peaceful part of town with a permanent collection of Pre-Raphaelites and a sculpture garden and labyrinth outside.

These Chihuly's were stunning. There were far more than I photographed so I'm looking forward to seeing them again in March when we go back for our reception. Hopefully there'll be some strong sunlight!

We were all really pleased with our own show, it looked great and we've had good reviews.

See our work at the Studio One Fifty Five website..