Dream Car

Can you guess what this is?

When I was a little girl, Mailbu Barbie's dream car was THE BOMB. 
It's as true today as it was back in the day, as evidenced by this scene (and others) from the "Toy Story" series of movies:

"Tour Guide" Barbie gets all the guys AND Ken, yo!

I had other cars I really liked, like the one described in a Nancy Drew series of green cloth-bound books that my mom borrowed from her cousin Nina, so I could read them all. Nancy Drew had a little red Miata that she tooled around in, solving crimes and beating traffic (and criminals) with her boyfriend Ted, going from book form to movies, and groovy 70s t.v. shows:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/belongings-nancy-drew-author-auctioned-sunday-toledo-article-1.1540850

I also liked "Herbie, The Love Bug" as a kid, but in real life nothing beat the good ole sex appeal of an American-made Mustang, because it's hot and cool at the same time. Like so much in my life, it was no surprise when I saw one parked in the lot next door, colored a light yellow that almost matches a certain Dutch farmhouse on a street named after a boy named Henry. It's perfect for me, n'est-ce pas? 

It's got a cute lil' nose, right? Such nice personality for a car!

Happy motoring out there today, friends. It's finally warm enough to take the top down and drive around, in beautiful New York state. Enjoy the ride!

What else, but a Mustang in pale yellow with removable hard top?

Mr. Squirrel

"Hi! I'm Mr. Squirrel!"  Hello to you, squirrel!

Last week I had an intense, cheerful, and also deeply meaningful experience with the small squirrel that lives in a spectacular tree on the front lawn of "National Frat Boy Headquarters", which is across the street from the big yellow Dutch farmhouse where I currently reside. 

As I watched him comfortably groom his cutely small body parts high above my head (where he's smartly safe and sound), I thought it a great sign that squirrels are living and thriving in direct community with a group that's well-known for hazing, poor drinking habits, and other life-hindering skills like independent thought, because at the end of any given day, my new friend "Mr. Squirrel" does way more for the planet than those shaky, flabby rich kids will ever do, with much less harmful results. Boo! at you: http://genius.com/De-la-soul-tread-water-lyrics* (* https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=allegory).

A big "thumbs up" goes out today to all the happily productive squirrels in the 'hood: http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2015/02/nut-job.html. 

I'm your "Number One Fan" for life (!), as well as:  

• wily woodchucks with cheeks full of young grass shoots 
   http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2015/04/woodchuck-lives.html, 

• young bear cubs wrestling unmolested on their Bear Mountain
   http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/ramapo/2015/04/22/ramapo-police-bear-video/26176665/, 

• wild city coyotes on the move for game 
  http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/coyotes-deserve-warmer-wildlife-biologist-article-1.2199378, 

and all of the thriving, healthy bird life throughout the tri-state are also always happily included.

A highly alert and intelligent life form does his thing undisturbed. Yes!

It's all connected, peeps. 

Get with it, and get in step with the universe! 

Green Day (April 2015)

Join us.

http://www.keeprocklandbeautiful.org/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/40602834114953843/

Linden's

Me and my lunch: a meatball sub and Linden's cookies (with "hat head").

Growing up in New York is really, really weird. I knew the food was great, my grandparents were really fun and cool, and my parents very well-educated. I also knew that our culture is pervasive among t.v., movies, and the radio, but... isn't yours, too? No?! Oh, sorry 'bout that.

My journey has taken me many places, and the more I travel, the more I notice people's reactions to me and my hometown, my unique last name and distinctive looks, my marked speech patterns and my wealth (and breadth) of knowledge. It's a gap that continues to widen out there in the world which is why, like so many of my childhood classmates, we find ourselves drawn back to what is possibly the most famous place on the planet.

Same deal with our food here, and my kind of cooking: the only thing I knew about Linden's cookies as a kid was that we got them for lunch, or as after-school snacks with whole milk, not that it was a small, local, world-power that began at the same time as their friends, the fine makers of "Hellman's Mayonnaise"*, which is the best mayonnaise on Earth. It's so good, I used to eat mayo sandwiches for lunch or right before dinner, if I was starving and the food smelled delicious. 

We can't wait to finally meet you. Bonjour, les amis!

http://www.lindencookies.com/pages/about-lindens

The key to coolness is in the ingredients: no bullshit necessary!

*http://www.hellmanns.com/home/about

Trinity

An old tree stump is rife with mushroom life,

as a forsythia bush mixes with the trees, roofs and sky,

and "The Great Tree*" opens up to the world with many arms.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9tis_people_%28Canada%29

( Welcome home, "Mes Gens" )

It Came From Beneath the Earth

Life, growing in different directions.

Like a sci-fi movie from the 50s, sometimes nature is a trip to behold. Take a look at this odd assortment of roots and bulbs that I walked past a week or so ago, growing out in tremendously interesting ways. 
I couldn't have conceived of it as a piece of fiction if I tried!  
Wild, America.

Springing up and out.

Profuse root system at work. Does that look like a bear claw to you, too?

The Bronze Age

My bronze sculpture.

Years ago one of my part-time jobs was "pizza-maker" at a small place in Providence. It was boomin' when I applied for a job that first summer in town, but it went down quickly from the owner's neglect. He was all about money, which pretty much guarantees that you lose the soul you have for your food like <snaps fingers> this!

It was actually the perfect lesson for master "Artists-in-Training", and there were three of us who worked there: Crystal, a beautiful girl with perfectly straight, long brown hair with a sweet attitude, Greg Van Zandt, a disturbingly talented sculptor in love with Crystal the photographer, in a relationship that didn't quite work because it felt forced, and then there was me, awkwardly stuck into their love triangle at the restaurant. The other worker was an Italian-American lady from East Providence, working class like our boss, and friends with all the native-born security guys who worked at the school.

Close-up of the casts' cutting.

Gradually we quit the joint, one by one, leaving us with less people, and then less customers, as he took the heart out of the business and walked away. People could feel it, and his longer-term staff tried to talk to him about it, but at that point, he was all about the "Benjamins", which culminated in me working the counter and the ovens one night solo, and you all knew what happened to me from that scenario. 

We were fleeing a sinking ship, and we knew it. The food had no more soul, which is a major shame because we served a deep dish, Chicago-style pizza that's still rather unique for the East Coast, and a Providence version of a subway sandwich that they call "grindah's" which is "a grinder" in English. Oh. Yeah, I never heard of it either. 
It's a food word that exists only in Rhode Island.

The details of the shoots that grew out of the potato.

Anyway, one night when the work was slow, Greg was in the back with me talking about, well, work. It was pretty much all we thought about, because that's the way they want it, "they" being the Master Educators/Artists who trained us. But crossover was always there, as our worlds collided between the kitchen and the studio. Greg was a handsome boy with brown curls and light eyes who reminded me of my Irish twin brother, driven mad with work. 

He started having "hauntings" at the old house he lived in, that he said he captured in his black and white photos (or so he told me about his crit, but you couldn't really trust a fellow students' word because competition starts to eat at them badly, making them do rotten things to one another), so I took his mental degrading with a grain of salt, thinking it would ease with time upon his graduation, not knowing then that our teachers' built into us a type of post-RISD "PTSD" that's part of our artistic journey home.

Such intricacies in nature captured in metal that has cooled.

He was walking, eating, breathing stress. As he stood in the back, chain smoking and leaning against a stainless steel kitchen fridge, he told me about some of his background, none of which I can verify to you today; that he was related to the musician/actor Little Stevie, and that he got into Cooper Union by crumpling up his cigarette package into art (the only object he had on him) to complete the 3D portion of the exam in the prof's office, which immediately got him in and which he turned down, even though it was a free ride. That's how exalted our school was then, as it is now, and as it will be forever.

A bronze patina over time.

He began a series of castings in the same way, taking an old potato growing in the fridge and dipping it expensively into liquid bronze. 
It was experimental, extremely hard to do with unstable materials that made it completely risky, and also very brilliant. It was beautiful. 
He had one in his backpack that he tossed to me. Whoa... It had the heft and surprising weight of a much denser object, and it was art. He told me diffidently that I could have it, which astonished me. We were so broke, we depended on the food we made for our customers because we ate it at home, too. 

A sweeping motion captured in its' curved lines.

I fed my housemates with the stuff we made, as well. He shrugged his shoulders, and explained to me that the first castings were practice. See how he cut it here after it cooled? It didn't stand right, and at RISD we study "The Art of Perfection". It just didn't make the cut for a class critique. I understood, but I also realized that I would never get an objet d'art like this again. After each and every wandering gypsy move I have ever made, I have kept it with me, and here it is, photographed in my kitchen: with objects both precious and plastic, light-hearted and serious, expensive and expansive. Thanks, Greg.

Atop the kitchen fridge: it doesn't sit right, so it topples over. I love it!

Woodchuck Lives!

I had a piece about botany scheduled for today, but in the miracle that is "life", I opened my door this morning to the little girl woodchuck* eating shoots on the front lawn. OH, YAY! As soon as I saw her, she smartly bolted to safety underneath the porch. It was great to see that she made it through the long cold winter. She has a rich, glossy, golden-brown pelt and a cute button tail on her round bottom.  
So healthy!

The woodchucks made it through winter! Oh, good. I love them :)

When I started getting ready to leave, making my bed and throwing out some trash, I opened the door for a second time to "Mr. Woodchuck". Yeah! He made it, too! He's bigger and browner, with a long, showily furry tail, and he's also a lot bolder, as is natural for most males of Mammalian species. I played a short game of hide-and-seek with him, as I went to the other room and back for my iPhone, deciding on whether or not to open the door, which had chased "Mrs. Woodchuck" away. I don't want to scare my home-base animals. I want them to feel safe with me, because they are.

Once outside, I was struck by how rodent-like its' side profile is, yet the full front face more closely resembles the chubby-cheek cuteness of a beaver. Awesome! Both Mommy and Daddy groundhogs stuffed their cheeks with the brand new sweet grass and wild onion shoots now growing in abundance throughout the Northeast. I spoke softly to the male that remained outdoors, opened out the door quietly while gently padding towards him on the porch, and I was rewarded for my good behavior with this killer shot:

Posing for the camera like a pro. Thanks, Mr. Woodchuck. I'm a big fan!

It's important to that we respect all life on this planet we share, 
which includes animal life. We've made it through the winter, folks! Let's celebrate the glory that is Spring 2015. There won't ever be another one like it, and that's the unique gift of each season we have to enjoy. To share our appreciation of the glory of G-d's gifts that expresses His love for us, try showing some support for His good, natural works through any number of the many available networks we have in place. 

I joined the one that you see as a link below when I was a kid in the 70s by saving my weekly allowances. I still have the poster they sent me of beautiful line drawings. My "Moo Moo" mom was not exactly happy with my choice for fund allocation, but I did it anyway and I've never regretted it. Best of luck to you during your animal adventures (and all your other adventures) today.

http://friendsofanimals.org/about_us/who_we_are

 

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog

Gold Leaf

Gold Leaf (nature's walk home) - Pearl River, N.Y. (April 2015)

Many years ago, when I was an apprenticed hopeful seeking enlightenment at the real-life "Hogwart's" that is the Rhode Island School of Design, I remember taking an art history class for relief. Why, you ask? Well, long before there were things like dual Liberal Arts/Illustration majors existing concurrently between Brown and RISD, this young Illuminator took a full major of liberal arts classes at a SUNY school cheaply before specializing at one of the hardest schools on the planet, in the studio classes needed to enter our hallowed halls of publishing. 

I got a lot of ribbing for being on the "5 year" plan because I lost all of my SUNY studio art credits (RISD does not accept other school's ideas about "studio" and "art"), though I could have earned two degrees in four years if I remained in the 2:1 program that Oneonta had back then with F.I.T., but it was far too late for that: I saw the Chi Ro* page in a darkened SUNY art history class and I was done, especially after me and my college boyfriend took a trip to Dublin in the 90's. Gutenberg bibles in the real at Trinity? Done! I knew it, so I took the snide comments in stride, just like I always have and I always will.

Detail from the Book of Kells "Chi Ro" page.

And so, I found myself with three part-time jobs and a fully loaded studio curriculum (with the odd house painting job or two me and my fellow Yankee housemate Riddell put into the mix during one summer session in Providence), something which I think remains untouched as a feat, or at least I hope so. It was insane. You see, during the school's calendar year, studio classes are full 3-4 hour long labs that do not include the required out of class homework assignments. Oh. It was rad and intense and sometimes I had night sweats with baby freak outs (I'm still convinced the historic house we rented back then is totally haunted, stressful breakouts aside), but I regret it not one bit. 

Anywho, when I wanted an easy "A" coupled with the blissful ease of a simple mutiple-choice exam and an essay composed of my thoughts, I sometimes took a liberal arts class just for the relief of it, and like everything else in my good life, I am so glad that I did. It was there in another dark classroom filled with the bright slides of art that I learned about the concept of "intrinsic value" attached the the highly valued pigments from illuminators of yore, and why a leaf so golden it looks unreal stopped me cold on one of my walks home from this small public library in New York that I now write to you from. Because it's all connected, dudes, and that totally blows my mind. Time travel is a real thing, man! Join me in my quest, the quest for truth and knowledge.  
Seekers, welcome: http://www.risd.edu/academics/havc/courses/.

http://www.museumsassociation.org/collections/16022015-research-and-conservation-of-illuminated-manuscripts

*https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Chi+Ro

Dormant seed pods, and other cool things.

Here's a seed pod in its' "latent" phase.

I will always love all things botanical, as today I give special "thanks" to my mom for being there with me, at home in her gardens, speaking their names to me in Latin or French whenever I wanted, (because she wrote her Master's dissertation in French way back in the early 60s, as one of the few women at her university to major in science), and for my deep, abiding love of all plant life. I think Springtime is so exciting, while we wait for life that was once dormant to burst back into riotous life. I know can't wait to see the show. Here we go again!

Up close and personal with nature!

Two seed pods are better than one!

A different view reveals a nautilus shape. Cool!

Can't wait for the "big show" to start! Gotta love Springtime.

P.S. - For a special bonus round of "good clean fun", try reading the photo captions aloud to yourself in a strong "New Yawk mutha's" type of accent. 
I dare you to not laugh while you do it!

Early Spring (April 2015)

Wow! It's actually warm this early in the day. Nice.

We've had some significant temperature drops this week: one day it's sunny and warm, the next day it's a frigid return to winter. It can be hard to retain your faith about better days ahead (not that I view weather or seasons as inherently "bad", but it is a useful metaphor for feelings), but on one gloriously early morning last week, I felt more alive than I had in awhile.  

While I walked to the corner store for a cup of coffee, the sun rose to full effect, coloring the trees and buildings a golden shade of pink, as a chorus of lively birds flew around quickly, like a safari scene staged just for me. It felt great! I breathed it all in, that sweetness and magic, as I hope now that my pictures here give you a bit of the feeling that I have. It's my natural joie de vive and it endures, just like my faith. Have fun today!

Here comes the sun.

Absolutely gorgeous light today.

Look at all these crisscross lines in the sky!

A gentle subtle pink turns to light blue and then some.

What a sky today! Glad I ran out of coffee so I can see this.

A dividing line in the sky.

The dictionary definition of "chiaroscuro" on a humble electrical pole.

A riot of colors shot through the sky.

Trees lining up to spectacular effect.

A big old yellow house on the hill meets the morning sky.

Do you see what I see?

A stand of trees against the sky.

Silhouette of trees against morning light.

Three crows perched on a tree.

Two clouds side by side, gliding through the sky.