Tag: Studio Visitors

Garage Project

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Our son Jon gave us a wonderful Mother’s Day present this year… two weeks of his hardworking, strong and good humored self… and a new life for our old studio garage…

With help from our generous neighbors Walt and Sue, Jon managed to shore up the leaning building, rebuild the falling down shed out back, build beautiful new cedar carriage doors and put a shiny new red metal roof on top.

We took a day off in the middle of the hard work to attend the Sheep and Wool festival and had a glorious day amid the fleece and fiber and we got at least one Reeser’s Ice Cream visit in and one wild night of studio scrabble.

In a few weeks, after the summer Granary show, I will take more time to finish the small details and organize the work space and then be able to use this as a real workshop for panel prep and woodworking and framing. Here’s a few pics of the progress…

I will sleep much better tonight…

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Thanks to our friend Susan who suggested we try calling the electric company to see if they would come and take down the 100 foot tall fir tree that was threatening to topple onto their wires that traverse the studio yard. I have been fretting about this tree for a couple years and this winter it began to take on a lean that was terrifying. The roots were lifting out of the ground and I layed awake through the last two nor’easters listening for a crash.

So I called, Micky came out the next morning and said yep we’ll treat it as a storm damage so we don’t have to pay for it and she actually thanked me for calling them. This morning the trucks showed up with a crew of happy hard working guys who quickly and professionally took that baby down…. AND they hauled the wood to the corner of the yard for us AND they raked and cleaned up ! I am impressed and grateful.

Pat and Finn and I watched the show with awe and when they left we sighed a big relief and crossed that chore right off the big list. Now we’re taking suggestions as to what nice shade tree we can plant there …

Here’s a slide show of the tree felling adventure… PS- after a few days I removed the slide show because it was causing the blog to open very slowly…

Zink family to the rescue…

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One small step for our studio garden….one giant THANK YOU !!! to the Zink family who showed up in force yesterday to help haul two truckloads of dirt to the new raised beds out back.

These guys really know the meaning of hard work and humor and friendship and kindness. Saren, Chuck, Dana, Jim, Jake and Ryan….we are so grateful to you for making a monumental chore into an evening of fun and good company.

Here’s a little slideshow of the dirt moving party… and the snap-your-fingers-progress that has these new beds ready for planting way ahead of schedule…and a much appreciated random act of kindness… [slideshow]

Knocking on my chamber door…

Posted on by heather • 4 Comments on Knocking on my chamber door…

This cardinal and his mate have been tap tap tapping on my studio window incessantly for …ever.

I have tried closing the blinds, leaving them half open, open all the way, hanging strings in the window… putting up tiny signs that say hush… and still…every day…he and his mate come back a’ knockin’.

I even suspect that this is the second generation because last year the female had a strange growth on her head…probably from knocking it all day…and this year it’s gone.

One morning this winter, while I was eating breakfast, a cardinal slammed into the kitchen door. I mean kamakazi. He didn’t make it and what with the three feet of snow on the ground the best I could do for him was to throw him in the garden. He sank like a stone. Yesterday I found the bright red feathers amongst the brilliant green chives.

Perhaps he was the patriarch and the current pair are keeping up the family tradition of trying to get into the studio…or just to get my attention…

this must be the muses…

but I’m just not getting it yet.

Any thoughts ?

Finnegan’s Birthday !

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I remember sitting at this computer a year ago today…plowing through piles of tax papers and getting an email saying that a litter of 14 pups had arrived…and one of them was our sweet little girl…

So far she has celebrated her birthday with a little run through her snow maze…some zippers around the studio kitchen…whining at the window as she watched Zola get on the school bus…then…on the sly…while I was writing this blog entry…she somehow found the stash of bully stick chews and gave her own self a birthday present.

We have a couple more surprises in store for her today…and I can’t wait to see what others she has for us.

We look forward to many years worth of fun and adventures to come….Happy Birthday Finn.

Brandywine Valley Visit

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Earlier this week Pat and Finnegan and I took a day off and drove over the river and through the woods to visit Robert Jackson in his Kennet Square studio. Bob is a highly accomplished realist painter and a magnificently kind and generous spirited human. I’ve followed his work for a while now and after meeting for the first time earlier this year we’ve started down the road towards a friendship that I hope will endure well after we both can no longer lift our paint brushes.

Here’s a look inside his studio at Bob and his wall of boxes…

To see some of his work and appreciate the skill of this story teller and his wonderfully rich sense of humor… click here.

We traveled a little further on down the pike to the Brandywine River Museum to soak up some of the Wyeth family inspiration.

If you live in the area and have young children their model train display is a must see. And they currently have an exhibit featuring illustrations from Alice in Wonderland throughout the years. But it’s the magic of Snowy River that I go to see.

But with the sun setting earlier each day now we soon headed back home along the country roads…passing Amish farmers getting one more plow in before the coming snow…

Since Kennet Square is also the mushroom capitol of the world we stopped at an organic farm and bought a giant box of freshly picked mushrooms to bring home for our first snow of the season tradition…mushroom soup.

Right on cue the biggest storm of this century is in full blizzard mode outside of the studio today. We’re right in the one to two feet swath and… with the heaviest snow yet to fall…I just may get to use that snow blower that has been sitting in the garage for three years now !

But first… the soup.  I’m too excited to paint.

Duck a la Doug

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Outside there is fog and freezing rain and it’s a cold wet muddy mess of a day, but inside it is toasty and bright and still buzzing from the laughter and stories and good food and wine that always accompanies a studio visit from Doug and Scott.

These guests arrive with most of the meal in tow and make themselves right at home in the tiny kitchen …

It’s always a treat to be with them and this time of year it is all the holiday cheer we need to raise a glass or two or three in front of the roaring fire and toast the gift of their dear friendship.

Salut !

Paying it Forward

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Our grandson Ben Lackey is one of our favorite humans. He made the studio his home this weekend and we had 48 hours of intense art lessons sprinkled with lots of deep and meaningful conversations, leaf raking, wood gathering, dog training , leftovers and laughter.

A senior at Seton Hall Prep in NJ this year, Ben is pushing himself hard to finish his high school career on a high note while he waits for those big envelopes to arrive with good news from the colleges that he hopes to attend next year.

It was a heartwarming gift to be able to sit across the table from the confident young man who only yesterday we were cradling in our arms. But there was some serious work to do and we had a blast helping each other out.

I recycled my old digital camera to Ben in exchange for some heavy lifting around the log cabin… we got our chores done and Ben got this rainbow on one of his first shots…

The best part is always seeing the grandchildren reflected in Pat’s eyes…

And the apprentice made sure that the young artiste stayed focused…

Except for lunch breaks…

And Finn’s own personal reward…

It’s all about teaching the eye to see and the heart to understand and the hand to follow that lead… this student gets it and is well on his way…

My first crock pot…

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My friends Saren and Susan are responsible for this latest obsession. On our walk last week, when we were hiking around the woods with the dogs, we got around to one of our favorite subjects…food…and I forget how… but it was revealed that I did not own a crock pot. Not sure how I made it through this first half century without one  but, after another mile or so, they had convinced me that I NEEDED one.

After my usual compulsive internet researching and two horrific days of trudging through the land of Oz…aka…obscenely overstocked retail zoos…I collapsed in a shopping meltdown and ordered this one on line…

She arrived on the anniversary of my grandmother’s birthday which is a very good sign as she was a wonderful cook…so in her honor I have named her Phyllis.

And, since Pat nursed me through the melt down with such grace and good humor…I decided that the inaugural feast would be her favorite…pulled pork.

The goal is to be able to make suppers that I can throw together in the morning and let cook all day so that when I come home from the studio the cooking is done. And so that if I lose track of time and forget to stop painting…Pat can eat dinner before midnight. Phyllis passed all the tests.

An elegant look, clean simple design, easy to use, easy to clean, big enough for meals that can last for days, and…yes Susan and Saren, I thank you !

Bon appetite…

Pictionary Night

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One of the best parts about having a studio is sharing it with friends. You have met our terrific neighbors before in this blog…Sue and Zola Lloyd. Together with their loyal pup Jed, they put all other neighbors to shame…simply the best.

This summer we started a game night tradition with them and Zola’s cousin Zack … and what better game for an art studio than pictionary. Pizza and Pictionary Nights have become our favorite and the uproars of laughter and loud guessing from teammates is good for the heart and the soul.

Til next time guys…