Fireweed Fluff and Albert Handell

We were so honored to have Albert Handell at our home on Campobello Island, NB for a roasted organic vegetable dinner harvested from our garden last night.  Albert is known worldwide for pastel and oil painting and among other honors he was elected by the The Pastel Society of America into the Pastel Hall of Fame, making him one of three living artists so honored at the time he was selected.  Here is a wonderful video interview recently conducted with him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GlRCJa_S_0  We are facilitating a workshop for him in Lubec, Maine.  We got a very respectable number of students for a tiny town:  15!

In the meantime, I created a few kaleidoscopes from a photo of yesterday's seasonal plant change:  our fireweed went to fluff!

Two Stop Studio Tour and Show at Mulholland Market

It's hard to believe but the season in Lubec, Maine and Campobello Island is beginning to draw to an end.  The flowers are beginning to fade, even the fire weed is losing it's bloom which is very, very early.  The days are shortening and there is sometimes an early morning chill that feels like September.  Michael and I are busy preparing for our first joint show which is titled the Geometry of Nature:  Two Visions which will be held August 14th to September 3rd at the Mulholland Market Gallery which is part of Lubec Landmarks, a local non profit trying to preserve the smokehouses which are part of Lubec's heritage.  After that we will end our season on Campobello Island and Lubec.  During our show in Lubec, we will not have the Artists Retreat Studios and Gallery open so I can do some necessary outdoor painting on our Campobello Island home.

The Two Stop Studio Tour will be our end of the season grand finale.  On September 7th we will open both Friar's Bay Studio Gallery and the Artists Retreat Studios & Gallery for our final sales days of the season.  This will replace the Two Countries, One Bay Studio Tour which we used to do in September.  Next year we will begin another studio tour without the assistance of the Tides Institute since they are no longer promoting studio tours.  That studio tour will be called the Quoddy Artists Studio Tour.

We have been very busy lately, but we took time out before Michael's class the other morning to enjoy a sunrise over Roosevelt's dock.  There were so many colors in the sky that I just had to take a photo and make a few kaleidoscopes from that photo!

Geometry of Nature Show: 2 Visions in Lubec Maine

This week Michael Chesley Johnson and I are hanging a show which runs until September 3rd at the Mulholland Market Gallery in Lubec, Maine.  I took some photos of my fabric pieces which will be in the show, but am not satisfied with the photographs.  However, for those of you who cannot attend in person, you can vicariously see poor reproductions of the originals which I photographed on my kitchen floor!  I also have a selection of metal prints and photographs on paper, but the images below are made entirely of fabric.

Michael is including 21 paintings, mostly ones done this season, including a first showing of his natural divider diptychs.

The Dancing Daylillies

Every week here in the Maritimes some plant in my garden is at it's peak bloom.  My smokebush is still amazing and everyone who comes to our Gallery seems to take a picture of it.  My parents next door plant beds of different color daylillies and they are at their peak this week.  I am working hard on finishing my preparations for our show at the Mulholland Market Gallery beginning August 14th.

So without further ado, this weeks images are:

Smoking Smokebush!

This is my smoking smokebush.  It is particularly beautiful this year.  It is a bone of contention with my parents as their smokebush next door froze over the winter so that we had to cut most of it down this year, but mine seem to thrive!  In the morning with the dew and the sunshine it seems to be truly smoking.

Lots of great colors in one bush!

5 Kaleidoscopes, One Picture, and One Shape

This week I finally finished the landscaping, gallery setup and furnishing of our new venture:  http://artistsretreatmaine.com/ so was able to do a little creative work.  This blog post is scheduled to post at the time we are opening our new gallery for the first time!  Michael began teaching again this week until the end of summer so our slightly relaxed schedule is about to fill up again.  Michael will be going to Castine for a plein air festival immediately after finishing teaching this Friday:  http://www.castinearts.org/2013-castine-plein-air-festival/.  Come and buy one of his paintings if you are in the area.  He was a featured artist in the September issue of the http://www.artistsnetwork.com/the-artists-magazine which is just being mailed out now!  It has a circulation of 60,000 so hopefully he will get lots of new attention!

I decided to do five kaleidoscopes this week based on one photo Michael took when he did a retreat on Pemaquid Point, Maine earlier this summer.  I used the same kaleidoscope shape for each one.  The original photo is first, then the five variations.  The variations are endless even with one photo and one shape!  I have decided that the best kaleidoscopes are created from fairly monochromatic images!  If you take a photo with too many colors, the resulting kaleidoscope can be "too busy" drawing the eye in too many directions.

A Vacation Day on the Blue Ferry...Blue, Blue and More Blue!

My siblings and my nieces and nephews were visiting my parents this week and we got a chance to take a ferry boat ride to Eastport.  Mondays is our free day from our other obligations but unfortunately nearly all the galleries and the museum in Eastport were closed.  We still had a nice ferry ride and lunch.  We still plan to open our new Gallery in Lubec on July 24th.  http://artistsretreatmaine.com/   I will be bringing my work into the Gallery in the next few days.

Campobello Island Ferry 2 views

Land and Sea

3 Masted Schooners and a Historic Lighthouse at head Harbour

The pictures speak for themselves this week.  We are working hard to get our other Gallery ready for the Grand Opening in about 10 days!  http://artistsretreatstudiosandgallery.blogspot.com

Boats and More Boats!

I took a break from the renovation of  http://artistsretreatstudiosandgallery.blogspot.com which is winding down and preparing for the http://pleinairfundy.org/ evening event to take my friend Brian out to see Head Harbour Lighthouse (East Quoddy) and the working wharf at Head Harbour.  We took lots of photographs and I will be featuring them in my kaleidoscopes for several weeks!

boat in the "trees"

turquoise boat with water reflections

red and white boats

2 blue boats

Lobster traps being stored on floating platforms in Head Harbour

The boat colors and the water reflections were amazing.