Nature!

Battery Park

 For a number of reasons, primarily the arrival of spring and the opening of the farmers' market, I've been thinking a lot about nature.

 I was happy when Mary of Uncustomary picked this as her monthly theme.

My walks in Battery Park with my grand have also made me aware changes in the season - with the little yellow flowers in abundance. My grand loves to pick them. Are they buttercups? I don't know. 

Battery Park

I love walking down the path towards the children's play area and having my grand get so happy about the flowers and the sweet gum balls that are all over the ground.

The market at Byrd House opened yesterday and my CSA had the most beautiful produce.

I got some curley kale, some peppermint chard, some asparagus, radishes, and salad greens.  I'm going so happy to have produce fresh from the fields again. Oh and eggs from really free range out in the open hens. I know my farmers! It's all real and tastes so good.

Here are the French radishes that I like to eat as a snack, crunchy and slightly spicy.

Everything is organic,

except these strawberries. They family says that they're not certified but hold to many organic practices. Hmmm. They're very tasty, sweet and juicy. 

Being part of a CSA since 2001, I've been made aware of buying local and seasonal. This really puts one in touch with nature. Tomatoes only grow certain times of the year, wow, not like year round in the grocery stores. Ditto all our other produce. It's seasonal!! It's nature.

Also, since I've gotten on Instagram, I'm taking lots of photos of flowers. Nature at it's prettiest.

After a long, cold winter, oh spring, I like you so much!!

May! It's finally here - with Mail Art & Bizoo

 I'm happy to be making Mail Art daily, though I'm not doing one a day on a regular basis. Not ready to commit to a 4th project like that, but here are the cards from the past few days.

I'm using the old colored paper that tears and marks up easily.

I think the reverse is really good, too.

I added these women who are NOT in distress - oh no, these women are seeing the Beetles in person for the first time!

I put a photo of my grand in the care of this old guy. It made me laugh to do this. I'd accidentally printed some of her photos on regular paper so the color wasn't that great. It was easy to cut it out of the background.

May 18, 2013

Look at our cute gatito! He was so tiny and had lots of room in his sling bed.

He forgot about this bed after awhile, sleeping in other locations, so I moved it upstairs in the "library" area of our bedroom.

April 30, 2014

He rediscovered it a couple days ago.






No more gatito!
But still so pretty.

Some Mail Art and more, of course.

 I'm back to my old favorite Mail Art fun: altering vintage postcards. This one got a bird on it and some text and was sent out to someone who needed encouragement. A person whom I do not know and who doesn't know me. I hope he feels encouraged by it.

I received a new batch of old postcards from B & R on Friday. They give me new views to alter.

 I started to put photos on Instagram and began with plant and flower photos. We have these growing in our front rock garden and I love how alien they look close up.

 Last night, as the sun was setting, I suggested that we drive over to Fountain lake instead of going directly home from The League of Space Pirates live streaming event. This was what we saw. We stayed, sitting on a bench until it was dark. There were lots of other people enjoying the sight/site. Notice the duck, which was doing a solo tour of the lake.

This is a view of the walkway at VMFA that captured me last Friday. There was something so captivating about it - the light, the trio of trees at the top, the curve of the rail, the pale clouds. I really liked it.

Bizoo photo by Chuck Scalin

Bizoo is very, very fond of a large zipper plastic bag. The kind that one stores a blanket in, or a sweater. He goes into it and turns around to face the opening. Maybe he thinks he's hidden when he's in it? I keep it in my closet and bring it out for him to have a bit of play time with it.

Here's our girl Z wearing the coat, dress, and hat outfit that her Aunt M wore when she was this age. So cute! Both of them.

Do you have any clothes from when you were a baby?  Nice this didn't go out of "style."

OOh, long time no see!

 The dogwood trees are in bloom, except for mine. It's a hybrid of some kind and we put it in last year and so far no blooms. I can't wait to see what it'll look like once it does have some, in who knows how many years. It's kind of sad looking now. This lovely bloom is on the tree in N & J's front yard.

 We're so happy spring is here. I love all the little flowers that are popping up.

 What are these? Are they primrose? They're in my back garden but I have no idea what they are. I do like them, however.

 Passover was a busy week for us. M arrived from the north and C and L arrived from the west.

 We had a terrific time, with lots of cooking and eating involved. We even "invented" a dessert using chocolate covered matzah. We came up with Matzahmisu, get it? Like Tiramisu! The recipe is HERE on my recipe blog.

We were so sad when everyone left to return home. It was such fun!

 The annual Monument Avenue Easter Parade was perfect this year. The weather was sunny but not too hot. People dressed up or not, and strolled up one side and down the other of Monument Avenue. I caught this mother-daughter duo from behind. They were so colorful and the little girl was so cute with her very tall Easter chapeau.

There were food and beverage tents, crafts, and hats for sale, and games for the kids.

 At each end of the parade there was live music.

The crowd was estimated at 25,000 people!  And it felt like that at times.

Dogs, rabbits, and even a pig, wore bonnets. Not sure any of them like it, but it was cute to see. There was a person dressed as a bunny giving out candy and posing for photos. It was a happy looking bunny so the children weren't freaked out.

Someone set up this darling bunny tea party on their tiny front lawn.
Across the street, a couple of children set up a lemonade and cupcake stand and were doing a brisk business.

A lovely start to spring. Yay!

Slow Art Day and more

 Slow Art Day 2014 was terrific. 21 people showed up, including kids, and all seemed to enjoy it.

This is a painting by Jasper Johns.

 I was too distracted and happily excited to remember to take photos, so these lovely participants suggested that we restage some "looking" moments. The Lee Bontecou piece was intriguing.

I was happy with the five art works I chose and people said that they enjoyed seeing them, also.
Next year, April 11th. Put it on your calendar and join me, or any of the Slow Art Day events near where you live.

 Mail Art happens still, though not daily.

I've got a few of the little musicians left but am slowly finding the right cards to use them on.

My knitting class has ended for this session, but I'll join up again in June. I made these mitts using double pointed needles! I was wanting to learn how to use them.

This year, I plan to continue to knit through summer. In the past, I put it away until cool weather but it's so much fun learning new stuff.

By the way, I didn't create the pattern on these, the yarn did. Cool yarn!!  Do you knit?

My new forsythia bush.

It'll be green before long but I'm looking forward to next pring when it'll be yellow again. I love forsythia, the herald of spring.

What's your favorite spring plant/flower?

Slow Art Day 2014

VMFA

ID stickers for event

Main Entrance area

"It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see."
Henry David Thoreau

Slow Art Day is the global all-volunteer event with a simple mission: help more people discover for themselves the joy of looking at and loving art. This year there are more than 225 venues!


Why Slow?
When people look slowly at a piece of art they make discoveries.
The most important discovery they make is that they can see and experience art without an expert (or expertise).
And that’s an exciting discovery. It unlocks passion and creativity and helps to create more art fans.


This is my 3rd year hosting. I'm very excited to show off the paintings that I've chosen for this year's participants. I have 45 people registered, which is double from last year, plus a few more coming that haven't registered. I'm not sure how many people will actually show up. I'll post photos from the event shortly afterwards.  Check the list HERE to see if there's an event in your city.

Travel!

Oh lovely spring has come at last, and the geese are mostly gone from our little fountain lake, and the trees are blooming. So pretty.





Mary, of Uncustomary, has asked us to write about Travel this month, but I forgot to post on the date that she assigned. So it goes.

I did, however, think about it a lot.

Here are a couple of photos from a couple of our trips, and my thoughts that this topic prompted.

I grew up in a neighborhood and a family where people didn't plan to go to Europe because they CAME from Europe. But I wanted to go travel there. I don't know why, but I did.

I wanted to learn lots of different languages and travel. I can remember thinking about this when I was 10 or 11 years old. Meanwhile, my friends were yelling at their mothers, "Speak English, Ma!"

I never thought I'd get to travel anywhere, other than our car trips to the neighboring state for my father to fish in some new lake or river, or when I was a bit older, cross half the country by train to see my older sister and her husband in California.

But by chance, I got a job that permitted me to go to far away places, and then later, my husband and I got to travel together.

We went to Denmark and Portugal, off the beaten path back in the day. And then we got to France, and Spain, and England, oh my. I loved it. Even later on we were fortunate enough to travel with our kids and spend weeks in a foreign city, soaking up the new and different, and other languages.

My husband received residencies and we were able to return many times to a wonderful studio in Paris, where we met artists from all over the world. We learned that we're all the same, not that we didn't know this, but we really got to experience that. I still think about it and how fortunate we've been to have had this. Amazing memories, and friendships that continue even over great distances.

Now I've added to my traveling in a different way, by sending out Mail Art

all over the world. 

This piece went to Marseille, to an exhibit about Mermaids.

If you've never left home, traveled some place different, I highly recommend it. You don't have to cross the seas or continents, just go to some place new nearby even, and just enjoy the experience. Or even, send Mail Art to people far away. Whatever you decided to do, it'll expand your mind.