Erica in France

I can't resist posting these photos of my sister Erica in France with our cousins and favorite Aunt Francoise!

My brother and I are living vicariously from her big adventure.

And here she is in Paris for one last night.

We wish you a Merry Christmas

Christmas Cards from Zoeland

Christmas from my world to yours

Are you your biggest fan?

Why should I be my biggest fan?

Because I am worth it.

If I don’t put myself first, other people will hear the following message. “Don't put yourself first.” And this is a huge problem. Without yourself as a best friend, you will join the masses. Masses of people that don’t take care for themselves. I can’t speak to all the problems in the world but this one is huge. We would have to be blind not to notice the unhealthy lifestyles that plague our humanity. Physically, Emotionally and Spiritually.

Putting yourself first doesn’t mean you think you are the best. It means that you acknowledge that you are the best person to know your needs. And that you are also the best person to fulfill those needs.

I am an artist. I know I need to do art. And that is why I am my biggest fan. And I dare to say that when I take care of my needs first, I can do a hella better job helping others next

Simone we forever love

Thinking of my mom who would be 91 years old this month. I have painted these Ginkgo Biloba leaves in her honor as they are symbols of longevity and endurance, so much like her love she had for all of humanity.

Sealing the Seal

Back home Zoey allowed her precious memories to steal her heart. So she set to work making a new weathervane for the Bjorn Museum.   Izzy gives her seals of approval.

Five days of museum hopping in NYC

So I had the opportunity last week to visit 5 Museums from the NY,NY area.
The Brooklyn Museum, The Morgan, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Natural History, The Rose Pavillon, The Breuer Museum .

Here are a few highlights.

  

Jean-Honore Fragonard 

Portrait of a Neapolitan 1774

Casper David Friedrich

Moonlit landscape  1774

The artist says "The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself. If he sees nothing within, then he should stop painting what is in front of him."

Samuel Palmer 

Oak Tree and Beech 1828

Honore Daumier 

Two lawyers Conversing 1862

Georges Seurat   

The Black Horse 1882

Fernard Leger

Composition 1918

Giorgio de Chirco

The Poet and the Philosopher 1913

Here is a poem by Andre Breton who inspired Giorgio de Chirco create this painting.

Five Ways To Kill A Man

 There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.

You can make him carry a plank of wood
to the top of a hill and nail him to it.
 To do this
properly you require a crowd of people
wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
man to hammer the nails home.


Or you can take a length of steel,
shaped and chased in a traditional way,
and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.

But for this you need white horses,
English trees, men with bows and arrows,
at least two flags, a prince, and a
castle to hold your banquet in.


Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind
allows, blow gas at him.
 But then you need
a mile of mud sliced through with ditches,
not to mention black boots, bomb craters,
more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs
and some round hats made of steel.


In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly
miles above your victim and dispose of him by
pressing one small switch.
 All you then
require is an ocean to separate you, two
systems of government, a nation's scientists,
several factories, a psychopath and
land that no-one needs for several years.


These are, as I began, cumbersome ways
to kill a man.
 Simpler, direct, and much more neat
is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle
of the twentieth century, and leave him there.

inspired by Nietzshe, Andre Breton and Paul Elvard

Luca Signorelli 

Man in Profile 1490

Maurice de Vlaminck

Sails to Chatou 1906

Sir Henry Raeburn

William Faser of Reelig

And here is the write up I found particularly interesting

In late March and early April 1801, the seventeen-year old son of Edward Satchwell Fraser and Jane Fraser of Reelig traveled to Edinburgh from his family home in Inverness-shire en route to London. It was the first of William Fraser’s numerous visits to the studio of Sir Henry Raeburn, where this dashing portrait was painted. The finished portrait was dispatched to the family dining room in northern Scotland while its sitter was relocated to Delhi as a colonial servant of the East India Company. William fell under the Mughal spell, fathering numerous children from his harem of five or six Muslim and Hindu wives. He never returned to Scotland, for he was assassinated while commissioner of Delhi in 1835.

Giovanni di Paolo

The Creation and the Expulsion from the Paradise 1445

Funny how his motif has been popularized in this pair of shoes by Doc Marten

From the film titled  Chair Anxiety - I'm not sure of the author but it is from 

an exhibit called Delirium

There was more, much much more and that is the way it is in NYC. I will be influenced both on and off art table by this visit for a long time.