Happy Birthday

Song - Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver

Happy 100th Birthday...to our National Parks!

Hope you can join us on Monday at The Lafayette Library for the reception!

Julia Parker's painting will be there!

 BASA's collaborative piece "John Muir, Starry Range of Light" 

is a beautiful focal piece for our National Park series.

Suzun Almquist, Joanne Taeuffer, Marcy Wheeler, Sharon Tama, Jeanette Baird

Bay Area Studio Artists will be there to greet you!


"Going to the mountains is going home." - John Muir

Peace

Song - Going To The Chapel Of Love by The Dixie Cups

I have to tell you first and most importantly - we just had a wedding!!! 

Do you remember the children's rhyme about the old lady who swallowed a fly? That keeps going through my mind lately as I have been unusually busy for the last few months. So like the old lady who continues to swallow larger & larger animals to catch the fly, I have been embracing one event after another, after another!

In July we had a family trip to Montana....where I proceeded to get a bronchial/sinus infection for several months! Never went to the doctors as I have this little stubborn side of me that Mr. B knows ahhh so well....

 I also had a solo art show at Chow restaurant in Danville.

And a large solo show in Benicia during the month of August that took me months to prepare for. I then needed to plan for a reception and the show needed to come down after Labor Day and be stored somewhere.

"My Little Helper"

Also during the month of August we cleaned out our garage and remodeled/redecorated our downstairs bedroom & family room! 

 This meant picking out paint, molding, carpeting, light fixtures & furniture. And we also  helped to move our middle son from LA to Monterey!

 

Concrete color choices that don't match - let's see - do I really want a PINK patio....NO?

Garland making on the new patio

We had a new patio poured around our pool and a lot of yard work was done all in preparation for our eldest sons wedding in our backyard! (Insert a big smile here!) 

Lighting was strung up all over the yard.....above is the father of the bride working with two of our sons on the hanging of lights.

...and it turned our yard into lovely magic in the evenings.

I took endless trips to the nursery to purchase more and more plants - just because I did know what else to do with all of my excitement!

Boutonnieres were done with backyard flowers & succulents.

Two of the brides best friends came over the day before the wedding and we all worked on making the flowers for the wedding.  I just loved, loved, loved having women in my house!!!  (Just to remind you - I came from a family of 2 brothers and had 3 sons - that's a lot a guy energy!) 

The wedding took place on the evening of September 17th and it was simply beautiful. The lighting, food, ceremony, dancing, friends & family were all wonderful.....as were the bride & groom!

  

Several days after the wedding, Mr. B and I headed up to Tahoe for a much needed time to relax.

However..... 

We have had bears, Yellow-jackets and loggers around our cabin.

Not as peaceful as we were hoping for....but we are grateful for it all.

Peace

Tis not in seeking 

Tis not in endless searching

They quest is found

Be still and listen

Be still and drink the quiet all around

--Engraved on the back of Edward Rowland Sill's chair at The Greek Theater in Berkeley

Who Knew?

Song - Ali Baba by Los Garcia

Our son Jon came up from LA for a friends wedding this weekend.  On Friday I took him to Benicia to see my current show "Black - White". 

 But when we arrived......

They were closed and didn't open for another hour!

So I decided to take Jon on a little tour of historic Benicia 

which used to be our State Capitol for about a nano-second. 

 The "tour" included the Old Arsenal buildings that are being used as Art Studio's, 

Historic Downtown and of course - The Camel Barns!

 Camels in Benicia?????  Who knew?

The camels were a U.S. government experiment in the mid 1800's prior to the Civil War. They wanted to use them for military travel through the arid Southwest and for future railroad survey crews.  

The camel barns were built in 1855 and are built from some amazing chiseled stone. And even though the camels preformed beautifully in the experiment it turned out that they were too smelly, hard to handle and upset the horses.....

so you now can actually have your very own wedding in a camel barn!

Around the back we noticed a bunch of old wood that was protected by an open structure.
   

Jon spotted a hole where the anchor came though.......It was a ship, the Galilee from 1891. 

Next we headed out on the pier where a few birds, several fishermen and one shy sea lion greeted us.

Every time the sea lion came up for air, I would try to snap a photo of him 

but he was too quick and after 706 photos, I still didn't get a good shot of him. 

I think he was just messin' with my mind!

So I just decided to take a picture of someone who was a little more stationary.

Then it was time to head over to the show!

Samples of Light - Medium - Dark

The gallery is set up to move from lighter paintings to the darker ones........

 My painting "The Sound of Silence" is in the "medium" section.

These self-portraits were done by the group of women that I paint with - Bay Area Studio Artists.

Top: Suzun Almquist 

next down left "yours truly" on the right - Sue Bonebakker  

Third row down left is Joanne Taeuffer and right is Marcy Wheeler   

 Bottom row is left - Ellen Reintjes and right Sharon Tama

On Sunday - Nov. 15th we will be having an 

Art Talk & Tour of our work from 1-3pm.

Hope to see you there!

"A camel makes an elephant feel like a jet plane." 

-- Jackie Kennedy

Orinda Books Show and Reception

I paint with a small group of talented women "Bay Area Studio Artists" and we will be having a show for the month of August at Orinda Books.  The reception will be this Sunday, Aug. 2 from 1-3.  

Hope you can join us!

If the link above does not work for BASA, click below.

bayareastudioartists.com

e.....is for Escape

I have been preparing for a new show at the Lafayette Gallery. It is a small group show that consists of 5 artists.  The theme is "e is for escape".  Meaning that we escape through many things but as artists we mainly escape through our artwork.  I escape though gardening, reading, blogging, travel, music, enjoying nature as well as my artwork.  The show will run May 15 - June 3.  What's your escape?  Coffee perhaps?

The Barista - by Jeanette Baird

“A painting is never finished – it simply stops in interesting places.” – Paul Gardner