Long Ago Acquaintance

I joined Facebook last year and it has been fun to renew friendships with old acquaintances. Paul West and I met in college where we became close friends, then we went our separate ways and lost contact. So this has been my year to renew old friendships. The older we become the more we cherish the friendships we made in our youth. Maybe it's a way of retaining our youth because we still see them like they were years ago. We are still the same inside even though we have changed a 'little' on the outside.

This photo was taken in my studio and Paul is standing next to one of my old art quilts named "Voices in Fabric". I finished this quilt early in 2000 for an invitational exhibit titled Voices in Fabric and it contains a block that represents each of my friends that were also participants. I've lost contact with some of these friends but I have this quilt to remember them by.

Barefoot Maiden

Last Saturday Carla and I packed up our painting gear and drove to the Greenfield Winery in Chandler, OK to paint with the plein air group. Well, it was too hot to paint outdoors! By the time we setup our easels we were near heat exhaustion so we took lots of photos. I started this painting that day but I finished it in my nice cool, air conditioned studio at home. Faith Dyson was nice enough to come along and model for us otherwise it would have been a boring painting.

The FAD Group received another gracious invitation this year from the Midwest City Library to exhibit our work. They have a nice slotted wall with lighting and provide all the hardware for hanging our work. Stephanie and I met at the Library this morning to install FAD's work. The exhibit will be hanging from July 20th through August 14th.

Days Gone By

I just finished this 11" x 14" oil painting last night. For the moment I'm calling it "Days Gone By". The poor dilapidated boats have seen better days, in fact one of them has almost completely rotted away, the one in the middle is a hand carved boat that is no longer trustworthy, and the third one is still floating but it has been neglected by it's owners who no longer have time to go fishing. It's a beautiful, peaceful little pond that should be a great place to go fishing......if we only had the time.

Saturday Outting

This past Saturday at noon my friends, Carla and Stephanie, met me for lunch at one of our favorite places, Panera. We had plans for the afternoon to go gallery hopping. Our first stop was the ArtSpace at Untitled which is downtown OKC at 1 NE 3rd St. We, all being the fiber artists that we are, wanted to see their current exhibit, Altered Books. We were not disappointed, it was a wonderful, interesting and thought provoking exhibit so if you live in the area I can recommend it.

Carla and Stephanie standing outside the gallery. OKC has really made a lot of beatification changes in this downtown area. They completely removed 3rd street, repaved it, and all the condo buildings were built that you can see in the background.

Our next stop was JRB Art at the Elms in the Paseo District which is one of my favorite galleries! Please, check out JRB's website if you aren't familiar with this place. This month the current exhibiting artists are Tracey Harris, James Smith, Leslie Lienau, Harolyn Long, & Eric Stevens. We know Leslie and Harolyn so we were particularly interested in seeing their exhibits, which were fabulous!

While we were in the Paseo District we stopped at a new gallery that we hadn't visited before, The Contemporary Art Gallery and had a nice visit with Marie Kash Weltscheimer, who was the featured artist in the gallery this month. This is a co-op gallery so the artists involved trade turns gallery sitting.

We had a wonderful afternoon and enjoyed seeing all the art. It's always inspiring to visit art galleries and I'm so blessed to have friends that enjoy the same activities!

Tiger and the Eagle

I have this beautiful sculpture of an eagle, one side looks like his head and the other side looks like the whole body of an eagle. It had been sitting on a table and Tiger would sleep on top of the same table on in a chair near by and was never bothered by this 'bird'. The other day I decided to put the Eagle up in the window sill. Anytime Tiger sees a bird he clicks his teeth and chatters, it is so funny to watch him! Well, it wasn't but a few minutes after I put the Eagle in the window that Tiger started chattering his teeth and stalking the 'bird' from the floor. The window is up too high for him to jump up into so we put him in the window so he could see it wasn't a real bird. He would look at it and then try to jump down. Once he got back to the floor he would start stalking and chattering again, it was hilarious! We went through this procedure several times and every time we put him in the window he wouldn't chatter because he could tell it wasn't real but when he was on the floor he was sure it was a real bird in the window! Cats can be very entertaining!

Another Old Barn

I finished this 8" x 10" oil painting of an old barn last night. I thought it would make me feel better to paint while I was mourning over my cat, Dudley. It didn't really help but it was a distraction for a few minutes and I love to paint.

I'm not sure what I will paint next. I have some photos that I took on my trip to Arizona so I might start on one of those.

Goodbye to Dudley

My heart is breaking today because we have to give up our little baby, Dudley. He is a beautiful seal point Ragdoll that turned 6 years old in June. We adopted him when he was just a baby and he was our first cat so he will always hold a special place in my heart. I love him dearly. He is marking his territory too frequently now and we must find him another home. A nice lady is taking him today and will hopefully find a family that will take good care of him. Dudley is a sweet and loving cat and I will always remember him.

"Best Friends"

I've been invited by OVAC to participate in their 12 x 12 fund raiser event again this year. I really enjoy attending this event every year! They have over 150 fabulous pieces of art up for auction, live music, and delicious food from all the best restaurants in town. None of the art can be more than 12" x 12" and the bidding starts at $168. You can read all about it on the link I provided for OVAC.

I painted, "Best Friends", this weekend and this might be the painting that I submit for the 12 x 12 unless I change my mind and paint something else. (You know that's a woman's prerogative!) I really like this painting so I might paint a chicken and keep this one for myself.