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A Beautiful Weekend Wedding

Hello my friends, I will keep you waiting no longer.  Here is the wedding dress I have been working on for 6 months on my beautiful daughter.

These 2 photographs were taken by the photographer – the very talented Lelia Marie (mouse over her name to go to her blog).  Jay, my new son-in-law, is the sweetest man and we are so happy to have him in our family.

As Lelia was taking photos, I snapped a few from the side with my phone.  This is one of Elizabeth and Jay with their little Bichon, Miss Lucie Manette.  Lucie was the flower dog in the wedding.

This is Elizabeth and Jay with their attendants.  The ladies are Jay’s attendants and the gentlemen are Elizabeth’s attendants.  The first two are Jay’s long time friend, Gayle who came from Seattle, Washington  and my son, Jonathan from Vienna, Virginia.  Then there are Elizabeth and Jay who live in Berkeley, California.  Following them are Jay’s sister, Becky who lives in Chicago, Illinois and Elizabeth’s dearest friend since they were 5 years old, Luke who lives in Gunnison, Colorado.

This photograph is Elizabeth with her brother, Jonathan!  I can tell you this is the only time I lost it during the wedding.  Seeing them together and smiling like this brought me overwhelming emotion.

The only detail I do not have a photo of is how the train attaches to the back with a placket of pearls.  However, I am sure you get the idea.  The skirt is 4 layers of silk and the bodice is 6 layers of silk.  The train is of silk georgette and the only embellishment is a circle of pearls where the skirt attaches to the bodice and the pearls at the top of the train and where that attaches to the skirt.

This was a beautiful wedding and an amazing weekend.  People came from all over North America to celebrate with them.  My niece, Kara Malcolm made sure everything ran smoothly and she did an incredible job.  We had so much fun and now Elizabeth and Jay are relaxing in beautiful Kauai, Hawaii!

A Few Days to Go

We just have a few days to go until our daughter’s wedding.  Everything is moving fast and furious here and I think with the help of some amazing family, we are really pulling it together.  Here is a glimpse into some of the things I have been doing.

Yummy food has been tasted and the caterer selected.

Broken items have been contended with.

Accessory items have been collected.  We have a room full of things!

The last minute dress details have settled down.

I have made fascinators.

Prepared silverware,

and prepared tablecloths.

I have worked on a painting to use for the guest “tree”, too.  This is a WIP and has already changed a lot.

This is a dog friendly wedding, so I was able to help shop for doggie treats one day.  That was fun.

We have shopped for beverages

and more beverages.  Of course we have other things to drink, my friends.

Then one day I get this in the mail.  I open it up and there is a precious note from Elizabeth!  Well, that note is for me only and let me just say it made me cry as I was so touched.  We are going to have a wonderful weekend.  Friends begin to arrive tomorrow and I really need to get my house in a little better order.  During all of this, my son and his girlfriend have taken wallpaper off of a bedroom and painted that, so I have a room to get back together.  Also in the middle of all of this, I was graced with dealing with a kidney stone!  What great fun that has been!

So bear with me my friends, next week I will share some wedding photos and you can see this dress I have made for my daughter.  Then I will get back to art!  I must…so many things happening in the art world.  You want a peek?  Go to Atelier 325 and explore all Andrea and I have going on!

Yards and Yards of Silk!

I have been telling you I have been really crazy with projects around here.  Today I am going to share with you a real labor of love and hang on to your hats, because you are about to hear a bit more about the projects around this particular event!

On Thanksgiving Day 2011, my daughter’s boyfriend of seven years asked her to marry him.  He is an amazing man, so of course she said “yes”!  We were all excited and emotional and she made plenty of phone calls and sent plenty of texts that day.  But they were comfortable the way they were, so neither of them were in a hurry to jump into the wedding planning.  They had other things to do like move to California, begin a new academic program and get new jobs.  But finally the planning began.  Elizabeth and I would look at dresses and she could not find anything for her very tiny frame that looked good or did not look as though she was being eaten up by a dress!  She knew I had made my own wedding gown so many years ago and we had designed clothes together when she was little so it seemed reasonable I might take on this project.  She knows a bit about fashion and was even teaching a university class based specifically on writing for the fashion industry (to student designers).  So I began to sketch ideas.

She began to settle into some ideas and we worked together on this.  More ideas came…

And more ideas popped into our heads…

But finally we had to call it quits on the ideas and actually get to work on this dress.  So we settled on an idea and took ourselves off to the largest fabric shop in the area where yards and yards of silk was purchased.  We purchased some muslin for a test run of our idea and for fitting, but that was minor.  The silk was another story.  I contemplated that silk forever, it seems.  I was nervous about cutting it and the 4 – 6 layers had to be cut so precisely for it to hang right – and a wedding dress has to hang right!  I put myself into artists mode and just jumped right into the cutting out of this dress!  I cut and I cut and I cut, then I began to sew.

I stitched on the sewing machine, I stitched by hand.  I took out stitches and stitched things again!  I was on a roll and nothing could stop me now.

I worked out pleats and train details.  I contemplated if this fell right or that would hang the right way on Elizabeth, since by this time she was living in California and I was on the east coast, things were a bit tricky.

I sorted pearls and collected scraps.  I also washed my hands a lot!  I forbid my family to come into the dining room where I was working, because I didn’t want anything to mess with this work.

I tested and made many embellishments.  I hand-stitched a great deal.  So after 200+ hours of work, I only have some pressing remaining on this wedding gown my daughter will wear in just a couple of weeks.  I do feel nervous about it, I will not lie.  I also will not show you the dress until after the wedding, but now you know some of what has been occupying my time.  I will share with you what else I have been working on with this exciting event next week.

So tell me about your projects?  What is keeping you occupied?

More Bottles and Cats Paintings

 More “Bottles and Cats” paintings will be at the Fluss Mit Flair in Giessen, Germany this summer.  Andrea and I will have other paintings for your browsing and purchasing pleasure, but the Bottles and Cats were a big hit at the market in Heuchelheim last year.

Andrea and I thought it would be great fun to bring them back.  Since one of my bottle paintings was stolen, we thought maybe our popularity had grown and they would continue to do well.    If you missed the story of the stolen painting, you can read about it here.

So are you making plans for the summer months?  I really have to get through spring first.  Next week I will have another story for you about some other work I have been doing.  In the meantime, tell me what fun things are happening in your world.

Introducing: Atelier 325

For quite some time now I have been telling you that things were in the works here.  I have been painting and doing a lot of other things.  I will be revealing what I have been working on over the next few weeks and months.  Today, is one of those days of unveiling.

Andrea Hupke de Palacio and I have been collaborating with work for quite some time now.  You may remember the Door Queens Project and I often mention her here.  Our friendship and our art relationship has really grown.  We found we work very well together and wanted to expand on that artistic give and take.  The challenges came when we tried to understand how we could collaborate and still live continents apart.  Well, the powerful arm of the world wide web became our dearest friend (it’s power brought us together in the first place years ago).  So after a huge amount of work, we have launched Atelier 325 – an artist collective.  We invite you to visit our web site to see what is going on within the collective!  We also invite you to the associated art journal, Kind Art.

I had mentioned before I would be in Europe this summer and would see Andrea!  I am going to do more than see her, because we will be working together on 3 different projects.  We will be at Fluss Mit Flair in Giessen, Germany which proves to be a great festival on 23 June.  Then on 6 July we will open a joint show with German artist, Verena Kuhnlein, at the City Atelier in Fulda, Germany and the exhibition will run 7 July through 30 September, 2013.  After that, we will head back to France to facilitate a 2 day Creative Art Retreat near Paris.

So you could say we have been just a little bit busy, but this is not even all!  Please stay tuned to this blog for even more information and PLEASE visit our new web site and art journal, too.  We would love to see any and all of you at these events or send your friends to see us if they are or will be in Europe this summer!

Uncreative Day

As much as I adore my creative days and doing creative things, some days are just duds.  Today was one of those rather uncreative days and I feel it in my bones.

The State of Virginia got it in it’s head that I had to go to the Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and show them I was me (have my photo taken) and to prove to them I could still see well enough to drive (take a vision test).  So off I went this morning.

And it was raining like crazy!  Would this mean, quite possibly, the lines would not be long?  I had checked on their web site and they said the wait was only 2 minutes, but that would sure be a record if that was true.  The truth was it was like a 25 minute wait and a 5 minute “take care of business” deal.  The people there made up for it, because they were very nice and even smiled at me.  She even said, “Have a Happy Birthday!”  As that is the reason I had to do this as this is my birthday month.  So that done, I thought I would do one more errand on my way back home.

I did not need a lot, but while I was near I thought I would head over to MOM (Mom’s Organic Market).  It is a lovely place to shop.  Everyone smiles at you there!

The produce is lovely and mostly local.  Maybe I should have purchased some of these veggies to paint.

On this rainy day I so took advantage of Mom’s free coffee or tea!  It is such a nice offer.

                                                                   Mom’s has unique things!  I did not buy any of these.

                                                                       Then after I went home, the sun came out!

So I decided to take a walk and see the where spring was peeking through.  So how is it for you when you feel you do not have a creative day?  Is it hard for you?  Maybe tomorrow…that is what I am thinking now!

Want to go to Europe this Summer?

Just Waiting 17″ x 12″ acrylic on 200gsm handmade French watercolor paper

Among other things, I am planning an art trip to Europe this summer!  While I am not “Just Waiting” (like the bottles in the painting), as I have an incredible amount of work to do to prepare for this trip and another important thing to accomplish before then.

I told you there would be lots of things to share with you and this is just one of them.  Yes, I will see Andrea for sure!  We will be putting our heads together when I am there and see what comes of that.  I am not sure of all of the details, but I plan on being in both Germany and France this summer!  Will you be in Europe this summer?  You might want to think about it!  I think it is going to be very exciting!!!!

Walking Through a Dense Forest

In The Forest 6″x6″ (sold)

Lately it feels as though I have been walking through a beautiful, but dense forest and writing blog posts have not been on the schedule.  I hope to change all of that, however, as I have so many things to share with everyone.  Some things I am not ready to share but keep watching this space as I have lots of exciting news for the future.

Today I want to tell you the story of an art forest adventure.  If you remember from my most recent blog posts, I did a market with Andrea in Germany at the beginning of November 2012.  It was a wonderful market and despite the weather many people popped by to have a look and purchase our paintings.  A lovely woman purchased some of my bottle paintings and decided to give one to her daughter as a gift and shipped it to her in Berlin.    When Andrea next saw this woman she indicated she needed to speak with her about the paintings.  When she met with Andrea, she needed to choose another bottle painting because the one she had shipped to her daughter had been stolen!  Someone has actually stolen one of my paintings and in Berlin, no less!  I do hope the person who took this painting is enjoying it.

Oh, I have more stories to tell, but I am not prepared to share them just yet.  Keep your eye here because lots of exciting things are to come and later this spring, I will tell you one of the big things that has been keeping me away from the blogging so much!

Have you ever had any of your work stolen?  What keeps you from blogging?

I hope your forest is as beautiful as ever!

Art Moving Forward

Today I am following along with some words (and deeds) of wisdom from Andrea and sharing with you a few of my painting which were shown at the Martinsmart in Heuchelheim, Germany.  These also sold, as were the ones Andrea showed you in her post.

The top two pieces are paper on canvas and the bottom two are paper only.  They are all done with acrylics and ink.

As Andrea says, we are both busy moving our art forward and sometimes getting to this blog is nearly impossible. Thank you all who continue to support my efforts here and have been staying with me throughout these very busy times.  Busy is good, believe me I am not complaining at all.  I am always thinking of you!

Paintings at Martinsmarkt in Germany

Andrea and I have been very busy lately.  If you are in Europe, please consider stopping by to see what is on offer.  So it is back to work for me.  I just wanted to let you know what has been going on around here.