New Work by The Art of Life Group, Rediscovered Ancestors, and Flora and Fauna II Show

Sarah's New Collage

I want to share some of the cool work from the ongoing Art of Life women's creativity group. They just keep doing this amazing stuff.

Sarah has just started doing art again after quite a while and she's taking off. Her collage was done with layers of tissue paper and a little paint. What a beautiful landscape.

Closeup of Sarah's Collage

Painter Cindy is branching out into collage and acrylic pieces. Her work always has a lot of movement and life.

Closeup of Cindy's newest

Cindy's dancing collage/painting. It's all musical in feel!

You never know what Emma is going to come up with. Neither does she, which makes for exciting work! She says she does something and then wonders, "What the h&% is that?" I read somewhere once a quotation by an artist who said that when you do a piece and wonder what the h%*( it is that means you're doing your own work, rather than something that looks like you think art is supposed to.

Emma's dramatic collage

I recently acquired some family photos of my paternal great-grandparents, the Bartons of Maine. All I knew about this family was that they had 14 children of which my grandfather was the oldest. This grandfather was not the most sterling character so I always assumed his family weren't very nice either. This assumption was challenged with the treasure trove of pictures I now have. They seem like quite friendly and caring folks from their pictures. I've made some of the images into old fashioned type postcards and I thought I'd share a few of the pictures.

Here are a couple of the younger children. The little girl looks like my father's oldest sister and kind of like me as a child.
I love this picture. Someone had a good eye.

Love this one, too. Shows these great-grandparents had a sense of humor.

Here they are as newlyweds.

Last Friday we had a special show at The Art of Your Life Studio. Julia Gardner, Katie Evans and I held Flora and Fauna II. Katie and Julia had some wonderful pieces and it was fun to have many guests come by and see the work. I've missed doing the First Friday shows, so this was a real treat!

Julia had a whole wall of large 3-D flower pieces. She incorporates painting, dyeing and sewing into her work.

A closeup of one of her flowers.


Another closeup

A trio of gorgeous red flowers. They almost jumped out of the wall, they seemed so alive.

One of Julia's exquisite collages encased in resin

A rich, mysterious piece

A bird in its own magic world

Thanks Julia and Katie for showing with me again! You can see more of Julia's work right now in the feature gallery of Guardino Gallery on Alberta Street.

One last thing today:One of my Wabi Sabi pieces

Wabi-Sabi Wonder, a new workshop, has been rescheduled for Sunday, November 2. There's still time to register! See my improved website for more information on what we'll be doing.

Oh, yes--Halloween is almost here. Here's Dexter last year. I couldn't resist.

My grandson the rat.