So, Here We Are….
As I sit and try to type the perfect “first” blog post that tells you all about who I am and what I do and how you much you will enjoy it there is a warring of the left-brained and right-brained me. Do I do bullet points or should I try to be humorous and witty? Should I make it artsy fartsy and free flowing or set up an outline? ACK! You know, you can google “first blog post” and there are a multitude of websites that tell you exactly what you should and shouldn’t do and, to be quite frank, many of them tell you just the opposite of what the one before said and, well, this girl is a bit confused and full of some nasty old trepidation! So, I’m winging it and hoping that somewhere in here you will find out who I am, why in the world I am here and why you may want to come back and check in again.
First, I’m Southern, Texas born, Louisiana raised and currently living in Virginia, so I say y’all, a lot. If you aren’t from the South, I will just say that y’all can be singular or plural and for those of us raised as part of “y’all” it makes some type of weird sense. Kind of like “I’m fixing to”, “making groceries” and “momma and them”. To be very honest here, I’ve never used the term “making groceries” because I’ve always felt like if I could make them I would and I would spend that grocery money on art supplies or things for our home instead, but that’s just me.
Our family is a wonderful mix of me, my hubby (Tom), two miniature schnauzers (Bennie and Tallulah) and one Doxie (Lilly Lee). Bennie, short for Beignet, and Lilly Lee are rescues and Tallulah came to us from Georgia. Not to be cliché but we truly don’t know who rescued who and, as we pile up in a heap as a family, we don’t really care. We are content and our little family is full of love. We all have creative talents though and the pups seem to be happy just focusing on the art of being cute and you can occasionally find them honing the sad puppy dog look that they can utilize as required (as an FYI, it isn’t needed very often and is effective when used).
As for me, I am a mixed media artist with three main loves, altered art/assemblage, collage/mixed media and painting. I was raised by a mother, who was a very traditional artist, and her talents were magnificent in oils, acrylics and watercolors. What I learned is that while I could appreciate the beauty of her works and the pieces lining the museum walls it wasn’t what I wanted to create. I’m more of a color outside of the lines kind of girl (not literally but figuratively) and I didn’t want to be constrained by simply putting paint to canvas; however, it took a while for me to let my artist out. In fact, it took 17 years, 16 years in a marriage where my every hope and dream was squelched and one year of some pretty strong healing. Basically, it took a failed first marriage and all that was endured in it for me to realize that I was good enough, strong enough and lovable enough. Then, a friend loaned me a book about ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) and I was off to the races! These little pieces of art were a perfect way, and size, to test techniques and colors and a way for me to see that even if a technique didn’t work (i.e. I messed up) the sky didn’t come crashing down, the world didn’t shake and the heavens didn’t groan. Creating these little works of art really built my creative confidence and now I am pretty fearless when it comes to testing out ideas. Over the years I have taught at many national retreats across the country, at private studios in North Carolina, Louisiana and Virginia and I’ve been published in a number of the Somerset publications. I can say I am pretty impressed with all I have done with this part of my creative life, but more than that I am so happy that I have had the opportunity to spend time in studios and retreat classrooms to share what I know and to be a part of someone else’s creative journey. I know, I know, that sounds all gushy and mushy but I swear I love the sharing and teaching. It is the most amazing part of it all!
While I could say that I’m the creative force of the family it simply wouldn’t be true. Tom and I both love to cook and while my focus is on Southern comfort foods and the Louisiana dishes I was raised on, Tom is the one that can take any recipe and make magic! He is our home’s bread baker, dessert maker and the taker on of those complex recipes that cover four pages in the cookbook and take five days from start to finish. We complement each other in that way, my recipes are in my head and my heart and I do no measuring, when Tom makes cloverleaf rolls each of the dough balls must weigh exactly the same. I use measuring cups, Tom weighs ingredients. I’m okay with a cake mix, Tom thinks cake mixes are the devil’s work (not really, but you get what I am saying). Our cooking is one of our favorite ways to show the people in our life that we love them and that they are important to us. Because of this we like to have what I will fancily refer to as dinner parties but, just to be clear, it’s truly just a bunch of folks we love hanging out with surrounding our dining room table. With a few exceptions, these little get togethers will find Tom basking in the glory of his well-honed culinary skills amidst compliments to the chef. He and I can share many laughs at these compliments because we have eaten the test rounds where things didn’t go so perfectly. You know, where the rice didn’t cook and it sounds like we are eating gravel rather than a beautiful pecan crusted rice log or the homemade beignet’s that sit in your stomach like a stone for days and you try to figure out a way for him to duplicate the recipe because it would make a great diet (eat one beignet and don’t feel hungry for three days)! I would love to say that we laugh through the kitchen mishaps but, being honest here, there are times you just want to cry or scream or cuss (and we sometimes do). There is one particular coconut cake that he makes that, while delicious, I hate the process of putting it together and, in addition to many expletives and heavy sighing, there have been times I have wanted to toss the entire thing into the yard or at someone’s face.
My creativity comes out in our home as well, I love setting up vignettes of special collections or taking the odd vintage finds and decorating with them. I’ve been told I have an eye for seeing how things will work in a home aesthetic and, I guess, that’s part of the right-handed me. It’s also part of the collector of the discarded me which we will get into in another post as that in and of itself is a blessing and a curse and, more than likely, too much for a first blog post (going by experience of Tom’s glazed over eyes at the mere mention of the “collections”). I will say that our home is not overly large and new with all of the shining things that modern homes contain but it is a welcoming nest and it is perfectly sized for us and to gather our friends and family. I will also say that sometimes I dream of one of those newer homes with all of those shining things but I am content and blessed to have a home of our own. I believe this contentment is one of the reasons I spend time making it ours, surrounding us with things we love and that hold meaning to us. The holidays are an especially wonderful time and I do tend to go just a little overboard, a tree of some sort, shape and size in every room, pieces of my Santa collection scattered throughout the house and every corner filled with a holiday surprise. I do believe that there are times where I use our home as a canvas and that my creative energy is spent there instead of at a studio table. I welcome those times because I know that the home I create doesn’t just affect me, it affects everyone that enters through the doors and there is no greater satisfaction than to know someone feels comfortable in your space.
Another love is travel, we love road trips (long or short) and have spent many hours and many miles driving across this beautiful country. Our favorite locations are the beaches of North Carolina where you are surrounded by the serenity of nature and Louisiana where you are immersed in the music and culinary history; however, we have traveled to and through many places that are beautiful and welcoming. So, you may be asking why we drive to these far off locations, and some of them have been pretty far, versus flying. Well, I would love to say the only reason is that we love traveling with our pets, which is true, but a huge factor in not flying is that it kind of creeps me out and the older I get the stronger the urge to not fly gets. I used to love to fly, loved looking out of the window at the far below landscape and then we had a flight through a horrible thunderstorm on the way to my Daddy’s funeral and then 9/11 happened and then a switch got flipped in my brain and the love of flying disappeared. While I know the odds are far in our favor flying, it is a true fear that I just cannot seem to shake and, I tell myself sheepishly, we would miss visiting all of these awesome places on our drives if we flew. Oh well, France and Italy are on my bucket list so I suppose it will be a fear that will have to be conquered.
I guess that is us in a nutshell, we are creative souls whether in the studio, kitchen or home and that creativity, in all of its wonderful, sometimes misguided, forms brings us happiness as a family. That’s what this space is all about, sharing life in the form of art, recipes and all the culinary doings and feathering this place we call home. I hope you will come along to see what we are up to, to shop for original artwork, take one of our eBook courses or peruse the vintage items I’ve found on my flea market jaunts.
Until next time…..
