Roofing

After years of patching our leaky roof, we had to finally take the big step and do something more major. The house was built in 1909, so that's been a lot of patching going on. Since it cost so much and no one would see it, I decided we could at least share what the materials looked like before they went up top. In the first picture, you can see our good neighbor, Dick, with help from Eric, removing the roofing material from Jane's parking place where it was dropped off. We weren't home when it happened. Kris called me on my cell to tell me about it...oh, no, we knew it had to be moved or their might be a neighborly disagree-able-ness. Thanks Dick, Kris and Eric. Whew! So, isn't our roofing attractive? We assume that it looks great up top, too, but only the roofers know. It was very exciting to hear them pounding away. Normally, pounding overhead, while I was trying to work in my studio would be very annoying, but not this time. Woo hoo, a new roof! No more leaks. (fingers crossed)

Spring Bada Bing and Etsy.com

The Richmond Craft Mafia held their Spring Bada Bing today. What a terrific event. Lots of crafts people, not only from Richmond, but from lots of other places. Adrien and Kate are in their Keen booth (they're among the founders of the mafia) and Tere and Jessica are at My Precious Studio's booth. Mary (top) & Anda (bottom) came down to represent Etsy. They're with the Etsy Lab in Brooklyn. Many of the crafts people present have Etsy shops. It was lively, lovely, well-attended and hopefully a financial success for these fabulous young people making lots of really good stuff. Buy handmade!

Pink Martini

We were so excited...last night, we got to see & hear Pink Martini in person. They performed with the Richmond Symphony Pops orchestra. Wow, were they GOOD!! We swayed, bobbed our heads, clapped, tapped our toes, and kept from singing along (okay, so I did softly sing along with Sympathique) (and my niece and I softly sang along with Yolanda.) Their new album will be out mid May, can't wait to own it. I was sorry I didn't wait for an autograph but the line was long and they hadn't even appeared in the lobby yet. My niece and I did get t-shirts. I wore mine today and met the woman who sat next to the groupie who'd come down from New York. He was waving his arms to certain songs, and when Chine Forbes offered up some CDs, he was first down to the front....and then many people went forward to the front and danced. How fabulous is that!?

Smithsonian Craft Show

We drove up to DC to see the Smihsonian Craft show. It's really good, really high end, really worth the drive. We bought a ceramic piece that is very cool. The center circle lifts out and is a separate little plate. We loved the way the potter cuts notches in his pieces. Even the little bowl has a tiny notch cut on the underside. The ceramic artist's name is Sang-Joon Park and he's an alumni of Pratt, just like Chuck.

New random art finds

These small works of art keeping showing up. The "jacket" was on Grace St. near Ipanema restaurant and the piece with the text was on Broad St. outside of Art6 Gallery. I love finding these.

Tea time at Carytown Teas

While my old friend Paula was visiting from Connecticut, we decided to have tea at a tea shop. What a wonderful, peaceful time. Patricia, the owner of the shop, made us delicious cucumber sandwiches and provided scones with clotted cream. We ordered two types of tea, a Bulgarian lemon balm and a black tea with ginger. Both were so yummy. You can check out the web site to see the different types of teas Patricia offers at Carytown Teas. Call ahead to make a reservation and have yourself a relaxing tea time. THANKS Patricia! We loved it.

Virginia Tech

There's nothing anyone can say to add to what's already been said. The shooting at Virginia Tech was very tragic. These images are from walking around my neighborhood with my dog this morning.

more of the Vietnamese restaurant

We were seated right under the TV, though there were many empty tables in the place. The cut-out woman with the baby is by a mirror, and if you look closely, you'll see John and Susan and the TV reflected in it. The TV was showing, what I assumed, was a classic Vietnamese mythic tale. The monkey man was very fabulous. The women were beautiful and laughed a lot with high little voices. The pig nosed man was pretty scary looking. Any idea what this story was? The food was very good with large portions, as you can see from two of the dishes we had, and it was very inexpensive. What a treat.

Vietnamese restaurant

Our friends, Susan and John, took us to a tiny Vietnamese restaurant, tucked away behind a busy street. John described it as like being in the guy's house. Also, the owner is an artist. There are almost life-sized painted wood cut-outs of women leaning against the walls. His studio was in a corner behind where we were sitting. None of us had ever seen such an unusual clock! The whole thing was a pendulum. You helped yourself to chop sticks from the container on the table. It was like we were not in Richmond.

Here are two of the collages that I made in Paris last fall. Chuck framed them for me and they'll be in a show in Korea this summer. They're 12cm x 12cm (4.75"x4.75") framed 23cm x 23cm (9"x9") so are small pieces.

Kurt Vonnegut

One of my favorite authors died. I will now begin to reread all of his books, again. So long Kurt. Thanks. So it goes....

I found this piece about Vonnegut and like it so I'm sharing it.

I may add more links as I find ones I like.

Town Hall meeting

Tonight, my friend Phyllis and I attended a virtual Town Hall meeting sponsored by MoveOn.org
Candidates across party lines were invited to answers questions by citizens, though only Democrats responded to the invitation. We got to hear all but Senator Clinton due to tech problems. We were glad we attended, although I'm not sure I learned anything new. It was good to hear how the candidates fielded questions that weren't scripted. Check out the MoveOn website later to see/hear the candidates respond.
Thanks to Rain for hosting and to Andrea, from Informva.org for keeping us informed.

Artist Trading Cards

A colleague of mine asked me to come talk with his class about Artist Trading Cards. I did that this morning and it was such fun to share my collection of cards with the students. One of them had been a student of mine last year. She's very much involved in making and trading cards herself, so the two of us were double the ATC love. Here is an image of some cards that were in a show I curated and a group of some of my cards. I started with ATCs about 3 or or 4 years ago after learning about them on the old PostcardX. Since that time, I've been lucky enough to get a card in a book and more amazingly, to meet the initiator of ATCs, M. Vanci Stirnemann. You can see my picture with him in my Nov. archive. Type Artist Trading Card into your browser and see what you get. Check out the sites, make some cards, trade them, get others to do it, trade some more. Make tiny art!

random art & more

I found another little painting in my neighborhood. It's near a day care place. A woman passing by as I was taking the photo said that she thought it was sweet and we should have more of these around. Great! I have no idea how long this one will last, of course. This curious little shelf, attached to a light pole, had nothing on it for a couple weeks. I put a stone on it. I've noticed that the stone moved around over a period of a few days and now the stone is gone. The shelf remains. Who put it there? Why did they put it there? Hmmm. I saw these tulips on my walk in to teach at VCU on Monday and snapped the picture on my way home. All of the tree wells around this corner house are filled with tulips. They are so beautiful and as I pass each time, I silently thank the home owners for giving me such beauty.

More French Film Festival

Drs Peter and Francoise Kirkpatrick are the founders of the festival. These film clips show the range of films, L'avion, about a child and a magical airplane, Bamako, about Mali, the World Bank & the IMF, and a documentary about Jacques Chirac using clips from public resource materials. The directors, Karl Zero and Michel Royer, are working on a film about George W. with a 2008 release. The Chirac film and the last film, "Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas," were our favorite films of the festival. We love seeing and sometimes speaking with the actors and directors that come for the festival. This year, it seemed that there were more of them than ever. It was long, difficult to sit on the "historic" seats for so many hours, but we can't wait for the next one.

French Film Festival

This past weekend we spent most of our time at the VCU French Film Festival
The festival is held at a historic, movie palace in walking distance from our house. While walking there, we say, "we are SO lucky to live in our neighborhood." Tri-colour banners are hung on the street, the local businesses promote French food, music, culture.
We saw 13 short films, a doc. and 8 feature films. Whew!