DRAWN TO MAINE

I am "drawn" to Maine. I am" hooked" on Maine. Call it what you will. I enjoyed EVERY beautiful minute of my visit.

My husband and I planned to visit good friends and I discovered that an artist that I greatly admire, John Whalley (check out his incredible paintings and drawings), was teaching a class at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland while I was there. I signed up. I also arranged to meet up with the beautiful , inside and out, Susan Tuttle (check out her amazing photography and art).

Maine is about-

PEOPLE

Susan and I had lunch, checked out the beautiful town of Damariscotta.


I attended two days of a four day intensive drawing class with John. Not only is he an amazing artist he is a great teacher. Here he is explaining the golden mean.

Below is an example of Johns' work, a graphite drawing of my friend Walter. It is available at the Vose Gallery in Boston.

Dear friends, Walter and Arlene. Notice the resemblance. Pretty incredible, huh?


Maine is about-

ART

If you are in Maine , don't miss the Jamie Wyeth exhibit "The Seven Deadly Sins" at the Farnsworth . He uses seagulls to illustrate each one. Fantastic!! The show will be coming to Delaware in the fall.

Maine is about-

LOBSTER


Maine is about-

WATER









Maine is about-

FLEA MARKETS AND TEXTURE

WASTE NOT

Hey all of you savers, junk finders, flea market junkies and whatever else we call ourselves. Just saw this article in the NY Times about an exhibit currently at MOMA (that's the Museum of Modern Art in case you don't know, though you should). It's an amazing installation.

Check out the slideshow here.

KEEPING MYSELF ARTFULLY BUSY

I've been working on a few projects in my studio. I can only show glimpses at this time.......yeah sure. Some people hate that. Me? I think the small sections of work that people sometimes show are little GEMS in themselves.

I have also returned to my roots by going back to sketching. I can thank Barron Storey for that. I returned yet again to see his sketchbooks at the Society of Illustrators and spent a few more hours checking out the magic of his mark making.

Below you will find an "artsortment" of my"glimpses", PLUS my garden, that because of all of the rain we have been having, is looking better than it ever has. Also, when I was in NYC to see the Barron show again, I also went to The Met to see the incredible Medieval drawings. They will be on exhibit through the end of the summer.








Garden glimpses-






Hey Judy, check out the Prato Haggadah circa 1300. Have you guys read People of the Book? It's a wonderful story. Below images from The Metropolitan Medieval drawing exhibit.

A NEW YORK........."STOREY"

The above is a study for a project that is currently "all over my studio" . Just thought I'd let you know that I am still around, even though I haven't been visiting or posting much lately.

I spent a great day in New York yesterday. RUN.....do not walk, to the Barron Storey (he has both a blog and a website) show at the Society of Illustrators on 63rd, between Lexington and Park. It is a collection of his journals and sketchbooks that you can actually pick up , touch and feel, an amazing thing to be able to do in this day and age. It is there until the end of July and it's FREE. Be prepared to stay for awhile. I plan to go again.

"T" FOR THANK YOU AND THERAPY

"I found that I could say things with color and shape that I couldn't say another way- things I had no words for." -Georgia O'Keeffe

The "T" above, done with dye and leaves at a wonderfully zen workshop with LK Ludwig this past weekend, stands for a huge THANK YOU to all of you that sent your thoughts and loving wishes my way after the death of my mother. As the quote above states, I have no words that could possible express my gratitude.


The workshop was held at the beautiful studio of Bee Shay and I was surrounded with dear friends Jerri, Joy, Kathryn and Leslie.

LK taught us an array of her techniques including nature printing with dyes, mesh printing with patinas, painted pages, and her book binding techniques.

Below are some of my pages, an assortment of hands busy at work and my book cover (a VERY old school book cover) followed by some of my painted pages.















Thank you again!!

BUTTERFLY OF THE UNIVERSE

It is with great sadness that I tell you of the passing of my dear mother. She died on Wednesday night in the arms of myself, my husband and daughter. With peace and dignity.

"The caterpillar dies so the butterfly could be born and yet, the caterpillar lives in the butterfly and they are but one. So when I die, it will be that I have been transformed from the caterpillar of the earth to the butterfly of the universe."
-John Harricharan


Helen Dorner Shechtman
June 28, 1914 - May 20, 2009