Our Garden Bounty

How beautiful is this?! Not only because of the colors, but because it all came out of my garden yesterday! And it was as delicious as it looks. Talk about another natural inspiration!

Group Show

DogStar Books & Gallery

529 W. Chestnut St
July 1 - July 26
1st Friday Opening Reception, July 4th 5:30pm - 8:30pm

Artists:
Deirdre Citro; paintings
Cinda Collins; pop-art
Maggie French. folk art; collaged salvage
Victoria Gertenbach; Fiber arts/collage
Rachel Marie Kantner; Fiber arts
Ann Kimmich; paintings
Magdalen C. Mowery; paintings and prints

Natural Inspiration

I just got back from an incredible trip to the Olympic National Park in Washington State. From walking through the Hall of Mosses in the rain forest, following along the turquoise Hoh River, to picking up wild purple star fish at Ruby Beach, you can't be in more awe of God's creative hands.

Gift Cycle

The Gift Cycle is a cross country cycling project that carries works of art as gifts from local artists of one town to local artists of the next town along the route---a 3,000 mile journey uniting 12 plus communities. Watch the slide show here /// giftcycle.org

I think this is such a cool idea, I just had to participate, so I donated a couple pieces for when they come through Lancaster. One is a print of my "Your's or His" painting. The other is a painting that says what I think everyone needs to tell themselves everyday.

For their schedule, go here and to see pictures of artwork donated so far, go here.

Painting 2 for New Baby

I have a friend in Portland who commissioned a painting from me right after she had her first baby a couple years ago. She just had her second baby last September and I'm finally finishing up the next one. I LOVE how it turned out and can't wait to hand deliver it to her tomorrow night when my husband and I fly into Portland to see her.

It's based on a story book with the greatest line in it:
"I love you right up to the moon and back."

Frame for New Baby

Shhhhhh.
This is the frame I just finished for a friend and mailed it off this week. I was too excited to not show it, so I'm risking the chance that she'll see it before it arrives in her mailbox.

LIA Fundraiser Buttons

Who doesn't love buttons!
Lancaster Indie Arts, a small group of independent artists in the city, have created 1 inch buttons to sell as a fundraiser. Our main objective is to encourage and promote growth and success in our community, while helping each other through our own artistic endeavors.

We've done a lot this last year, for example, we helped implement the Arts Market section at Eastern Market last summer (which continues this summer). We also led the effort to hold Art in the Garden during the September First Friday. And you'll notice in my New Orleans trip article below, we sent a gift basket to a Habitat for Humanity home owner while I went with a team from Lancaster.

We're looking forward to the next few months as we've added another member to our group and are in the process of working on a show at DogStar Books for the month of July. And as a way of making sure we have the funds to continue helping our community, and outside it, we're selling buttons. If you'd like to purchase a random mix of 10, go to my etsy shop.

Press!

To my surprise, there was a great article about me and the Abstract Expressionist class I taught last week in the Lititz paper. It was a wonderful promo for my business and led a few people to contact me through it. Thanks Sallie for putting it together!

Abstract Expressionist Painting Workshop

I'll be teaching a class on Abstract Expressionist Painting tonight for the Lititz Village Art Association. If you're interested in learning more about this movement and how to literally "paint your heart out" then check it out tonight at 7pm at the Lititz Library. For more information, visit this link.

Appalachian Trail in PA

Started hiking a section of the PA Appalachian trail last weekend. What a beautiful experience!

What I Learned While in New Orleans

Bridge underpasses are still home to displaced Katrina homeowners.

I guess I didn't really expect to see much change from the last time we went down to New Orleans since the last time we went it looked like Katrina had just hit a month prior, but there was an inch of hope inside of me expecting to see at least schools and businesses reopening. No such luck. Where are these kids going to school if the ones we saw are still condemned and boarded up? Maybe that's why we saw kids on their bikes and having fun in the streets while we were working in the neighborhoods during school hours. It's just not right. And to see that President Bush and the President of Mexico and Canada were all in the city the same week we were was just a little humorous to me. Did you know that Canada was there helping the city of New Orleans immediately after Katrina hit before our own government was?

Because pictures of the neighborhood homes would have looked exactly the same as the pictures I took on my last trip, I didn't take any new ones. (It still looks like Katrina hit a month ago.) So, here a couple of me and my husband working on the floor systems to 5 houses that will be built in a couple weeks for the Jimmy Carter Work Project.

My husband, Andy

Working with my own tools and tool belt this year.

Some of us from the team also had the unique opportunity to meet the new homeowner of a house that we built 7 months ago and gave him a gift basket from members of Lancaster Indie Arts. I brought with me some awesome handmade items that LIA members Rachel-Marie, Maggie Mowery, Cinda Collins, Vicki Gertenbach and I created to help add a little love to the new home of a Habitat owner. I had no idea who it would be given to or how I would get it into someone's hands at the beginning of the week, but by the last day my husband had the awesome idea of tracking down the family of the last house we did. So we asked around and found out that the new owners were staying right across the street from their future place. So, we not only got to see the progress of the last project we worked on, but got to meet the future owner of it as well.

Gift Basket with goodies from Lancaster Indie Artists

The highlight of the trip for me was seeing the hearts of the locals who didn't let this tragedy affect their outlook on life. Everywhere we went, we were thanked with the deepest appreciation. And it wasn't always on the job sight that we saw this. I ran into Walgreens one day after working and got to the register to purchase my item and didn't even say a word, but as the cashier handed me my change, she thanked me for the work that I was doing there and may God bless me. (It wasn't until I got into the car and told Andy what happened that he pointed out it was pretty obvious with my dirty work clothes and my not-so-pleasant "glistening" odor that she knew what I was doing in New Orleans. Ha ha!)

And then on our last day our whole team was invited to a woman's home for some home cooked crawfish.

"You just bite down and suck it out!" she said.

And she not only wanted to feed us, but offered her FEMA trailer to us to use as a place to just sit and relax, use her bathroom, watch tv or even check email. Her generosity was overwhelming that day, and what a blessing it was to watch her attitude and see her heart as one who can still give love and offer what she has left as a lesson in making this world a better place by "being the change we want to see in the world."

Musician's Village Work Week

My husband and I will be going down to New Orleans next week with Habitat for Humanity. This will be our 3rd time down and we're very excited to finally get to work at the Musician's Village site. It's an amazing community of colorful homes built for the talented mix of musicians in New Orleans who lost their homes during Katrina. Check back next week for pictures of what we did and saw.

Joy

This is a painting I did while waiting to hear from God about where I need to go with my art career-wise. The result was "Joy" and the reminder that I need to find joy in what is happening right now in my career.

Out of My Element

I'm not one to just paint for painting's sake. But after visiting a show at the Quarryville library with very talented artists John Weaver and Mike Witmer, they inspired me to paint anything, even a still life I set up in my house. Now, if you've seen my house, you know how VERY uninspirational it is with saw dust and plaster dust all over the furniture, combined with my art studio being in the same living space as my office, living room and Lucy, our dog's room. It doesn't get much more uninspiring than that! But in order to do what I love to do, I've learned to live with it. And so last week, I took a shell that I found at the New Jersey shore and placed it in front of a canvas and painted it. Now here's why the show in Quarryville inspired me to paint the shell in the first place. The two guys stated that they had gotten together frequently over a period of time to paint the same thing, but from two different perspectives. It was so great to see the differences and unique styles between the two artists. A lot of the pieces were just still life's that they set up and made a lot more interesting as a painting than the real thing I can imagine. But because of their commitment to paint daily, or weekly, whichever they did, in order to develop their painting skills, and do it in a fun way by having someone do it with you, was really encouraging to me. I realized I need to paint more just to continue developing my style and abilities, and that it's okay if the painting doesn't "mean" anything. I've never liked painting something that didn't have a meaning behind it, but I guess I can get over that if I can get over living in a dull and prosaic house.

Baby Shower Invitations

Two of my best friends from back home are having babies this year and it's killing me that I'm not there to be with them through all their baby shower parties, weird food cravings, and being there at the hospital. But, I did get the chance to help design their baby shower invitations and be involved in that process. I guess I'll take what I can get!