Meret Oppenheim and friends

I created a new group on facebook called Meret Oppenheim and friends
.
It is a set-up for appreciation and sharing about MO and other artists. Connecting people whose work takes inspiration from the very real surreal.
Please join if you feel so inclined.

Here and Now Then and There

Last year several very dear friends died and I want to honour them in this post.
Firstly a painter and educator Tony Vevers on Cape Cod. He was vital in Provincetown and the art scene there for decades as well as wherever he taught. He was a great inspiration and a lovely presence. I am glad I have contact with his daughter Tabitha still, who is also a very interesting painter.
Later and very suddenly a friend Eugenia Butler died in Northern California. Eugenia was a unique human being, with a curious and inquisitive mind like I have never met before.To say that she was an artist does not fully satisfy. Life was her palette and all the people she met. Her daughter Corazon del Sol was very brave and courageous as she contacted all of her mothers friends around the world with the sad news while she herself was mourning and organising everything. I think of her very often.Corazon do get in touch if you wish.
Come April Arturo Vivante died, also on Cape Cod. He had been ill for a while but still the news brought a great sense of loss and a void. Arturo a writer and teacher but mostly a very dear friend, a very kind and gentle man.
He introduced Italy to me and for this I am so grateful. He taught me Italian words and exactly how to pronounce them. Those beautiful sounds. When I finally went to Italy to start another phase of my life, it is also where I fell in love. Grazie mille Arturo!
So with these losses and the void felt, I have also found that I appreciate my living friends and family so much more. Does it take loss to know what you have? Despair to know joy? I think I take far too much for granted and simply forget how precarious our time is here. Say the positive and vital things out loud in the here and now.
That is what I have learned. Thank you friends.

Breathe and be present

The beginning of every year offers an opportunity to re-evaluate and examine our lives so far. We can set new goals, repair mistakes or regrets, make contact with long lost friends and family, forgive and ask forgiveness.
We can also breathe and be present to the here and now.

Gott Nytt Aar 2009!

Tapas Tree

For a new beginning at this turn of the year in the garden I have erected a so called bird feeding station! I call it a Tapas Tree! What with a fruit tray, sangria bowl, bread, seeds, fatty balls, peanuts ... just a couple of olives and garlic missing!
Already blue tits, a nuthatch who eats upside down, robins, black birds and chaffinches have visited! I just LOVE it! I sit and watch from indoors at the table while having hot caffeinated beverages and identify them as they stop by the TB!
Fun and food for everyone, come on by!

Cinders in boots

This piglet Cinders lives in Thirsk, North Yorkshire and dislikes mud! I love pigs!

Eartha Kitt

Eartha with daughter Kitt and grand-daughter Rachel.

Eartha Kitt died this Christmas Day in Connecticut also from cancer. This Christmas has been one of loss and also of a reckoning of what is important in our lives. I find I value more what I have when loss is there too.
Adrian Mitchell, Harold Pinter and Eartha Kitt passed away leaving huge voids and yet we can keep them alive by continuing their work and letting them inspire us to do more. Thank you for living your lives the way you did.