As always, summer was a blink of the eye...
I must start my catch-up with a follow-up...
Bradley Allen and the whole 4K team made it the full 4000 miles from Baltimore to Seattle.
Below is a photo of Bradley - with Bret - standing in the Pacific Ocean at the culmination of the journey.
I am eternally grateful to Bradley - and all his teammates - for honoring Bret in this way. Thank you...thank you...
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Summer art...
(As always. It's all over the map!)
I started the season with a drawing that has been on my back burner for...ten years?...maybe longer...? My good friend and talented potter, Mark Peace, and I did a trade many years ago. He gave me a beautiful vessel and I did a watercolor of it. But in addition, he loaned me several of his pitchers which I intended to incorporate in a drawing. It finally happened...
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Next were a series of projects for donations to really important projects...
- a mixed media piece - helping to raise funds for a school in Kenya...
The chair that I mentioned previously went to "Rockin' The Arts" for Livingston Arts and Kid Start
...and a necklace to support fund-raising for three colleagues doing the The Susan Komen Walk for Breast Cancer ...
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Colored pencil is a great "Take-me-along" medium for summer and I did just that. I decided to do some drawings to pay homage to my favorite places and memories of our years in Springwater. I'm not through by a long shot! But here are a few that gave me a start...
Nick's Woods
The Locust Tree
Lillies
Our road
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Another project which dominated much of my creative energy for a good portion of the summer was a conference room renovation for the Orthopaedic Department at Strong. Jim invited me to sit in as a design consultant with a couple other people in the department. I was flattered and it was a fun project and a great team. The best part was the opportunity to culminate the renovation with photos by Ryan and Betsy Hoefen! Ryan is an amazing photographer and has been giving me lessons...one new trick at a time! We did a few photo shoots together...(a dream for any parent) ...The team selected twelve photos for the room. We had them enlarged to 23 x 30 with matting. I did the matting and framing...then Jim and I hung them last weekend with Ryan's input for placement. What a great feeling when it was finished!
Below are the before and after photos...
BEFORE
AFTER
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Now I look forward to Autumn and finishing some more things from my back burner...
_ A mixed media piece I started last spring...
...and a sculpture I stated a long time ago...
The sculpture and model - phase 1
Ready for firing
Current state
Thanks for visiting! I hope you had a great summer!
I'll finish this post with a few favorite summer photos: