They Wait

I finished another artwork. Actually this is the second one, I did another one with a different focus, and I really disliked it after it was finished. But I learned some things and a good coat of gesso over the canvas and it can start anew. No, I won't show it! (I know just who would say that!) So, here is the second one.

They Wait

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On a 12 x 12 wrapped canvas, this is a collage/mixed media piece. The tree and photo were transferred; the tree was a bit tricky for transferring and I ended up painting most of it in. There's some soft texture and running and pooling of paint. I also used oil pastels.

Come see my latest postcards I've received on Postcards Buffet!

Birthday Gifts

If you were looking for the Tuesday Story series yesterday, I apologize, I just couldn't do it. This morning I went to my twice a month acupuncture appointment, with a 1/2 hour massage afterward, and it seems to have freed me up a little bit and taken the pressure off. Usually I will feel better for about a week and a half and then start going downhill days before my next appointment. With acupuncture, it seems to help temporarily, and although I may still be in a flare, it doesn't seem quite so bad.

Anyway, I thought I'd share a great gift I received for my birthday, which was a little over 2 weeks ago. My sweet husband went to Etsy, and purchased vintage papers and images for my art work. He didn't realize it at the time, but he ordered it from a seller in Holland, and was a little perturbed when it didn't show up in time for my birthday. Once it arrived, we figured out why it hadn't - it had to come further than John realized. He looked at the package and murmured "Well, I wondered why the shipping seemed high, now I know!"

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The seller had everything wrapped in bundles with pink satin ribbon, and enclosed in an old wallpaper remnant tied with an old piece of lace.

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There were old playing cards, small old photos and vintage images.

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Even old hand colored postcards and school flashcards!

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Old French dictionary pages, a turn of the century French magazine, and several other large images, some in color and some in black and white.

I look forward to using all of these in my art and told my husband that this was one of the best gifts ever!

Come see my latest postcards I've received on Postcards Buffet!

Dance My Child

Another journal page, playing with gesso, scraps, acrylic paints, oil pastels, old image, ribbon and Stabilo pencils in a collage. This may or may not be finished, I'm not sure!

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Weather is much more humid today, and I guess that it should be expected - after all we are in the South! I will be glad when the Grackles stop overpowering the bird feeders - I know they are feeding babies, but they are such bullies and take so much! The Bluebird eggs have hatched in the standing birdhouse and they look so helpless. The parents are very protective of them. We have a chipmunk living in the rock pile near the birdhouse and when the chipmunk scampered out, the Bluebird parents started dive bombing the poor thing, even though he is not the least interested in the babies! 

And life goes on!

Come see my latest postcards I've received on Postcards Buffet!

Mixed Media Painting

I finished this piece, which had been started a while back, then put aside:

This ....

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.....became this.

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Painted on a 9 X 12 canvas panel, the base is acrylic paints. I then painted some areas again, attached a scrap of paper, a large scrap of patterned tissue paper and an old photo I had in my stash. I don't know who it is, and it looks like an old high school photo from the 1960's. I stenciled, and did some writing and did some rubber stamping. I also used some water soluble oil pastels and attached a 3D fabric flower. 

I know that I haven't published any Tuesday Stories lately. My health has been up and down, and I find my energy is severely limited. Then again, maybe no one reads it and it's not a big loss. I do have more stories in my head, if anyone is interested in reading them. Let me know in the comment section!

Come see my latest postcards I've received on Postcards Buffet!

Tattered Romance Tag; and A Story -A Home For Jennie Mae

Today's tag was Tattered Romance 

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For details on how I made this, or to join in on the challenge, please go to 

Blog Challenge Garden. 

A Home For Jennie Mae 

34th in the Tuesday Story Series

When John would travel in his former job, I would usually accompany him. As I owned an antiques business at the time, I would often haunt the local antique and junk stores to find hidden treasures. Many times I would find photos of people, priced relatively inexpensively, and I would pick up some that looked interesting. Sometimes the names of the people are on the front or back, and I often tried to locate their families when I could by posting on different genealogy websites. But the majority of the time, there wasn't enough information on the picture to make finding a family possible. In fact, usually there was nothing. And each picture was a snapshot of a person who existed, who was important to someone, and it sadden me to see them all just tossed out at an auction. I guess no one in the family cared about them, once they were dead and gone. And that is sad. Many of them now show up in mixed media art work, I've done it myself, and it at least gives them another chance to be seen by the world as important.

This story involves one such photo, which had a happier ending. While rooting through things in an antiques store in small town in Oklahoma, I came across a lovely photo of a young woman, dressed in a World War ll era Navy uniform. It read "Loads of love always, Jennie Mae ______ (last name omitted for privacy). It also said "To Mom on Mother's Day" and her initials, and the place and date where it was taken. I belong to the genealogy website, ancestry.com and when I returned home, I logged in and began making a search for this woman. I found the name in a family tree and contacted the tree's author. I described the picture and asked for her address to send it to her. She was thankful and asked me how much postage would be, but I told her all that I asked was that if she found other photos from time to time, she would try to find their rightful owners.

Once she received the picture, she contacted me and told me that Jennie Mae's mother had passed away in 1934, and Jennie Mae had then started calling this lady's great grandmother "Mom" and the picture was for her. The new owner of the picture lived in California, and asked me if I knew how the picture came to be in South Carolina, since her great grandma and Jennie Mae lived in Oklahoma. I told her about my visit to Oklahoma, and we both felt that someone evidently sold the household goods at auction once great grandma died. 

It was a good feeling to be able to connect a special photo with family, and the recipient was thrilled to find a photo of a relative. Of course it's just a drop in the bucket, and most of these old photos will never find a home. 

Here's just two of my collection of old photos, and I would love to see them returned to their descendants:

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What a beautiful wedding party! And the only information I have is that this large photo was taken at a studio in Indiana.

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This is a gorgeous family! At the bottom of the photo is written the 1st names of the individuals beneath their places in the photo, but the man and woman are only know as Daddy and Mother - no last names. Nine beautiful healthy children and all I know other than their first names is the name of the studio is located in Hampstead N.W., not even the name of  state.

If you have old photos, label them! Your grandchildren will thank you!

Be sure and see my latest postcards I've received on Postcards Buffet!

Art and Cleanliness - Compatible?

Arrrgghghh ............. I did it again! Working on something and getting it messy in my exuberance. This time I was making a postcard out of foam core board and stamped tissue which I had torn into pieces. I don't think I have ever created a postcard where I didn't get smudges or worse on the back where one is supposed to write a message. In this case, I was adhering the tissue strips with polymer medium, and some of the tissue ran so my fingers became stained and before I knew what was happening, I found smudges all over the back. It was a new process for me and I was having quite a bit of fun. The instructions called for doing it on mat board, but I only had foam core board, so that's what I used.

Not that it would have made any difference to use what it called for- I would have smudged whatever I used. I have a painting I'm working on right now, and there are spatters where I don't want them, and other things, but I can correct them with patience and more paint. But a postcard back ............. well, that rather defeats the purpose of creating something fairly quickly which you can then send off to a friend, if you have to stop and paint the back to make it look decent! Bah!

Well, anyway, here is the piece. The girl's face image was already a bit disfigured on the photo, and it's kind of hard to get the true color when you have used Gloss Polymer Medium.

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Hope you had a nice Saturday!

Tag Tuesday - Vintage Photo, and a Story: In Good Hands

The challenge today was to use a vintage photo on our tag:

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For details on how I made this, or to join in on the challenge, please go to 

Blog Challenge Garden.

IN GOOD HANDS

28th in the Tuesday Story Series

My husband John traveled several times a year in his previous job and always wanted me to join him on these trips. I usually went, and in the days Tabitha was too young to travel, she stayed with friends while we were gone. I remember in 1987 a trip we made to Washington DC at the beginning of Thanksgiving week. We stayed at the L'Enfant Plaza, which is on the Mall and I had a wonderful time in our nation's capital. The weather was gorgeous and I visited everything I could while John was in meetings all day. We were to return home the day before Thanksgiving. 

When Wednesday arrived, we woke up to a very dreary and dismal day. By the time we got to the National airport, right across the Potomac Basin from Washington, the weather was completely foul, and we found out that on this, the busiest travel day of the year, all of the planes were running a couple of hours behind. Once we boarded the plane and I looked out of the window, I could barely make out the Washington Monument which was just across the water. We were exhausted and John promptly fell asleep in the seat next to me. I wondered how in the world the pilots would know how to get us safely into the air on the short runway and in such poor visibility. I hadn't realized I voiced my concerns out loud until the passenger in the seat on the other side of John spoke up in reply. He assured me that the pilots were very experienced in flying by instruments and that all would be well. 

I leaned around John and saw a tall, thin, nice looking man about our age, with a reassuring smile. I thanked him, but I had to ask him just how he knew about instrument flying (I was still somewhat nervous about it). He then introduced himself to me:

"My name is Steven Nagel and I'm an astronaut. I've piloted the Space Shuttle three times."

Well, that was reassuring!

The plane began its takeoff and soon we were above the storm clouds and in a clear sky. All the way to Atlanta, he and I chatted. During the conversation we talked about what it was like to see the world from such a different perspective and he also told me that he was a Christian. He shared with me about how important God was in his life and that he led a Bible study for fellow astronauts in Houston. Such a rare glimpse of God's creation he had been able to have, and it was very clear that he savored every moment of it. I told him about our daughter Tabitha and he asked for our address, so that he could send some materials to her. 

As we approached Atlanta, John finally woke up. I introduced him to our traveling companion as the wheels touched the ground. We all shook hands and he went off to his connecting flight to Houston and we headed to our flight to Charleston. 

Col. Nagel was good on his word and soon we received a photo of him, which he signed for Tabitha, and a photo of the Space Shuttle taking off on a night launch and I put them both in a scrapbook I was making at the time. He is retired now from the Air Force and lives in Canton IL. I was sorry to see the Shuttle Program end recently, and I'm sure he was too. For further information about Col. Nagel, see this link.

It was a wonderful experience to have my fears quieted by a fellow Christian who knew we were indeed in very good hands!

Have a great Tuesday!

Happy Birthday Kikie!

My friend Kikie is a very nice young man I met through Postcrossing. We have become Pen Pals, although I confess he is much more punctual about writing than I am. Although he lives out west, 6 states away from me, it turns out that we even have a mutual friend whom we had met years ago in Charleston! He is a super nice guy and I hope that someday we can meet in person. For right now though, I sent him a handmade Birthday Greeting:

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Inside it reads:

happy birthday

now go have a piece of cake

real slow-like. 

I had fun making the card and I hope he enjoys his birthday greetings from the South!

Tag Tuesday - Soft Pink and Green; And a Story: THE WILD EAST

Today's challenge is using soft pinks and greens. I actually made the background sometime ago when the challenge was simply to make a background tag. Now it's completed and has a new life!

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If you would like to play along, please visit Tag Tuesday Blog Challenge Garden.

The Wild East

20th in the Tuesday Story Series

Kicking aside clumps of newly plowed ground, eyes kept downward as he walked slowly in the hot sun, the young boy spied a small point thrusting though the soil. Reaching down and brushing it off as he straightened his back, he studied his prize - another arrowhead for his collection. Painstakingly finding them in plowed fields, creek beds and areas newly washed out by rain, he had a small but growing collection of artifacts used daily in a time long before his own life had begun. 

When the Europeans settled along the South Carolina coast, there were many Native American tribes in the area claimed and named by the English settlers as Carolina, and later divided into North Carolina and South Carolina. From the Cherokee in the northwest section of SC to the Waccamaw and Waxhaw at the coast, there were many different tribes and communities. Most of us grew up thinking of the Wild West as the place of cowboys and Indians, buffalo and wolves, but before Colonial times buffalo (or bison) and wolves were indigenous to the Carolinas and the Wild West was located right here. As far as the human characters in the drama, the trapper and Indian trader stood in for the cowboy, but the Indians were plentiful. As Charleston grew and pushed into Native American territory, there were major concerns of an attack which could wipe out most of the colonists in the town and on the farms in the surrounding area.

Around that same time, petitions promising land to new settlers were being sent around Europe, bringing German Lutherans to the center of South Carolina, where many of them entered through the port in Charleston. The officials of Charleston were glad to see it, thinking that they would provide a buffer between themselves and any Native American uprising. So gradually, as more settlers came, the tribal lands shrunk and buffalo and wolves diminished until there were no more. The Wild East became the Colonial East.

Some of John's collection.

The young boy above used to wonder about the people who had used the arrowheads, their day to day lives and how they looked and what they accomplished. Each artifact he held had been shaped by hand and used for bringing in food or for protection. Chips and breaks indicated usage, chiseled points and symmetry showed an artisan's care. He held on to his small collection as he grew up, and when we married they moved to a new home.

Thanks for reading!

Rebecca