Wednesday, November 18, 2015

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday November 9th - Sunday November 15th, 2015

1.  Helen Opie's new paintings.  Helen painted 4 small paintings: 3 pears and an orange, for the Christmas show at Going Coastal Fine Art and Furnishings in Chester.  The pear on the red background is my favourite.  

Helen had stopped in on the way to Chester to give the edges another coat of gold paint, and sign them, so I took a pic of them on our kitchen table.  This photo isn't the best and doesn't capture the juiciness of the paint, but the paintings are lovely and you can tell Helen has been painting for decades and enjoys it very much.  They're $95 each.  Going Coastal also has a few of her landscapes, and the gallery owners make really nice furniture which are used as display pieces throughout their space.




Here's a pic of Helen signing her paintings.  She's in her early 80's - I think at that point one's age becomes something to brag about - and is still super active.  Helen just bought a nifty camper van for road trips now that her puddle duck sailboat she built is finished.  Inspiring!


While Helen was doing this we had a great art chat during which I mentioned I feel a real stubbornness about not wanting to use molds eventhough some of my sculptures may look similar when I work in series.  She pointed out that photos of art, and cast objects may be more affordable for customers and quicker to produce, but 'lack the hand of the maker' so may not have the same energy.  Good food for thought, and probably why she's made black and white cards in the past that she then coloured by hand

 2.  This new Lunenburg winter scene by Evgenia Makogon, available as cards (great for Christmas!) at Jenny Jib in Lunenburg.   After dropping off Helen's paintings we visited the shop, which is looking mighty fine and is always cozily displayed with lots to see, from fine art to home decor to body care and jewelry.   The original painting is also available of course, pictured below.  My pics of her work are a little blurry though, and once again don't capture the liveliness of the paint.  Best to go see the real thing!


Here's another shot with more of Evgenia's paintings, except the top middle boat, though she has others in the shop   The larger boat painting is the Eastern Star and the glare in the photo is from varnish.  The lamp and shelving in the photo give a little taste of how homelike the layout of the store is.



Since I published this post, Evgenia did her own really nice blog post about Lunenburg and her latest pieces there, her pics are much better!


3.  Strolling.  Lunenburg is a strollable town I've noticed, after strolling around after the most excellent Thursday morning Farmer's Market there.  It's nice!

4.  Gali's Healthy Kitchen.  Gali, Evgenia's mom, makes and sells really great raw vegan, glutenfree food at the Halifax Seaport Market on Saturdays.  They brought down an order for me on Thursday when we met up: homemade sauerkraut (fermented foods are full of probiotics), seed crackers full of turmeric and kale, and seed cookies and bars.  

Gali uses top end organic ingredients that she orders in by mail, and soaks all the nuts and seeds to remove the enzyme inhibitors.  She has been studying nutrition for years, really cares about her customers health, and has lots of great information for anyone looking to clean up their diet.  Her new bars with raw pistachios and goji berries are seriously delicious.  

5 Lexicon Books.  This is a cool new Independent bookshop in Lunenburg that opened this year where the Spotted Frog Folk Art gallery was - that owner retired.  It's really nice with a great assortment of books in a variety of subjects, the children's books section looks especially fun.  The shop hosts a book club and events such as readings.

6Bob Dylan on the Mystery of Creativity by David McDonald.  This is a very short youtube video, narrated by Bob Dylan, on the writing of the song 'Stardust' by Hoagy Carmichael.

7.  More about aliens.   This past week while working on more ornaments I listened to a bunch of video blogs on this youtube channel: Rich2150x.  He swears a lot and a lot of people will pass this all of this off as crazy, and maybe it is, but he says some stuff that explains a few experiences I had decades ago, so, hey.  Here are a couple of favourites:
Entities.  How to detect and remove
How to hack your life, your mind, and the game of life



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