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Last Friday I went over to Mimi's house for a cup of tea and a lovely time of conversation. There are so many interesting people we meet in life and I am thankful to have met Mimi! We met at the Hermitage Fall Fest where she was selling her amazing enamel art and I my oil paintings. Several health challenges have changed Mimi's life the past couple of years, limiting her mobility and even leading to her moving into an independent living facility. She has a very sweet cottage and totally converted her unneeded garage into the most organized studio I've ever seen! I love listening to Mimi's story in her thick Belgium accent and I love visiting her in her home filled with so many treasures of art and beauty. Everywhere you look in her cottage there is loveliness! You can tell she has the artist eye. Even with her physical limits, she is still motivated to keep creating art in her studio. Below is a little taste of her life's story that she wrote to preface an art piece she had made: 
Her story continues with a move to the US a few years later and the challenges she faced with language and education. Art became her language and life and she developed master skills in enameling that allowed her to travel extensively. Doesn't this give you a glimpse of the interesting artist and woman Mimi is and why it is so nice to visit over a cup of tea? The sweet deal is that she lives only a few blocks from my son & daughter in law and very-soon-to-be-born first grandchild! I feel certain that we will have many cups of tea together.
You can see her website here: http://www.enamelsbymimi.com Most of her work was sold at a recent show, but she is starting a series of jewelry pieces and small enameled shapes. She wants me to learn her art, but I told her I need to learn oil painting first! 
Hey! Happy New Year! There is a new wall in my art room…that's what's new! We moved the murphy bed to the guest room, making way for a big beautiful wall of art and paper crafting supplies. I love making cards and now I don't have to drag all the odds and ends downstairs to the dining table. Speaking of tables, check this one out! It is Awesomeness. A Nashville Flea Market find; must have come out of an old barn or garage for the encrusted mud and ?? that I dug out of the wheels. The wheels! My goodness! They defy explanation, made out of some kind of curved metal that allows them to swivel easily on a slant. Go figure. The frame is steel and the table top is an enameled metal with retro red striping, like the kitchen tables of yore. How I love this table! I got all creative and repurposed the two shadow boxes on the left to hold spooled ribbon (top) and put shelves in the other one to hold adhesives, embossing powders, and embellishments (bottom). The brown cabinet was a find at Bella Grace (new local shop), with cubbies and drawers for inks, tapes, etc. And the rack on the right, using my New Year's Joss & Main coupon, holds inspiration galore. Of course, you only get to see this side of the room for good reasons…which will go unsaid and may or may not mean clutter/chaos. The obvious question now is….besides decorating walls with stuff... Do I paint? Well, yes. Yes I do. I am currently adding 2 new pages to my website, one for the newest paintings and the other for little guys I started doing this fall. I call that page "Little Darlings". Once I get all the labels and links done I will publish and you can check it out. I'm also working on 3 commissions that I can't let you see because they must first be seen by their owners…I'm pretty happy about these; they are coming out so well and have been so much fun to do. I can tell you that one of them is of a mid-century house and the other is of an Aston Martin, as in the automobile!  Here's a sneak peak at some of the Little Darlings….most are 4x4 or smaller and sell for $20. The Piggies (from my Vermont brother's homestead) are 6x6 ($40), all are hand painted, original oils. Shipping is free and the price is right, so don't hesitate! (btw, check out the red stripes on my retro table…sweet!) |
