Deep in the Thick of It

It's not all about the shi-chi puppies (but since I mentioned them, 3 week old puppy pics will be coming in a day or two)....we do still make and sell art....though I must admit that the last week has been very rich in living life and enjoying family and friends. It has been a beautiful couple of days. Memorial Day in Michigan arrived after two dark, contemplative, rain-filled, incubative days as a spectacularly bright, sunny, shiny day. I must admit that the dark days were lovely in their own right and oh, how all of the new gardens desparately needed the rain.

Ann Arbor, a great city for families and people in general, has a fabulous string of community pools and parks that all opened this last weekend. My daughter and two grandchildren and I walked the 10 minute walk from their new house, to their neighborhood pool at Buhr Park, where other family members joined us. Our extended family spent most of Monday afternoon up to our necks in cool, beautiful water and then we topped off the day with a barbecue in the evening.

We discovered that my almost 2-year old grand-daughter Juniper most likely has mermaid roots. Being a Michigan baby she hasn't been exposed to much swimming time, but she took to the water with enthusiasm. Michael, her older brother is already a fish. He was a Key West boy for the first 5 years of his life, where swimming in crystal clear, white sandy-bottom, carribean waters is a daily event so it was hard for him not to grow fins.

The day was ideal....there was literally nothing wrong with it from start to finish. Winter is officially over.

Back to work on Tuesday, which is always really, really nice after a fun-filled, work-free, few days. I'm always ready to get back into it. We have a full schedule of orders on the bulletin board, including an order from Somerset Jewelers Gallery, who we have sold to for the past 4-5 years, in Ocean City, Maryland. I'd love to include a link to their store but they don't keep a website. We're pulling everything together, working simultaneously on cats, flamingoes, suns, fish, flowers.

The photos above show a cat before it's features have been added and a fish in the early stages.

Flamingoes with their base coat, waiting for glass, eyes, wings.

Large Flower tops primed and ready for action.

Flowers in progress with cat eyes on the table too.

I haven't been getting to my paintings as much I would like. The arrival of summer is directing any extra time that I have, outside to dig in the garden, fill my front porch flower boxes with new soil and flowers, spray paint the wicker furniture I picked up on craigslist, have cook-outs with the whole family at our friend (and my daughter's mother-in-law) Yvonne's house (we share grandchildren).......plus the less exciting tasks of renewing licenses (YAY- Michigan driver's licenses mean we can start using the library), going to doctor's appointments, shopping for art materials, and all of that other necessary and very time consuming stuff that we have to do to keep everything working. Don't even ask me how the inside of my house looks today. Total disaster zone.

Life has gotten speedy all of a sudden, but I keep telling myself it's all a matter of balance. I'm with you Catherine....my new friend who carries our work at The Red Shoes in Ann Arbor was just talking about the busy-ness of her life the other day, and how easy it is to feel hectic. Indeed, and in spite of how crazy it can make you feel trying to figure out the way to get it all done, it's much better than feeling bored. No boredom here. Too, too busy making life happen.

studies for a new painting and design work in progress

In the midst of making the design work going to galleries, I'm about to start another painting and have taken some preliminary photos to get started.....more original work here

I have been drawn to fruit bowls as a subject for a long time now. When I paint them, they symbolize to me, abundance, beauty, health, the whole idea that the most important things are simple, that we can be fulfilled without needing/having a lot of stuff....good friends, good food, books, a good garage sale, dance, art, learning, music, conversation, family-this is what we need more of, what we can't have enough of.

Have you noticed how hard it is for human beings to share fairly? We have so much on this earth, in this country, and yet so many people are starving, don't have what they need, even in my own town, right here in Ann Arbor. Then other individuals are so rich, with so much more than they need, and they crave more, can't have enough. The people who are really puzzling are those who, even though they have so much, don't want anyone else to have as much as them, or anything at all. Some human beings can be a little over-rated I think.

Still, I think I see more of an awareness growing and I hope that I am seeing an expanding consciousness. Certainly, we can't all truly be happy till everyone is taken care of. Giving up hope that human beings will evolve into a kinder species isn't worth the pain.

If we were logical, the future would be bleak indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work. -Jacques Cousteau

"Wait'll next year" is the favorite cry of baseball fans, football fans, hockey fans, and gardeners.
-Robert Orben

Coming along slowly

This is the progression on the painting, "They Had The Feeling That They Were Surrounded". Along with the design work that we have been making for galleries I have been working on this painting, which is really a love letter to my mother Phyllis, and her two sisters, June and Margaret.

It really is true that artists dream in front of their work. I didn't set out to make this about my mother and my aunts. It just happened that the figures began to feel like them and I found myself thinking of them, which then compounded their existence in the painting.

My mother and her two sisters have always been very close and still are in a way that is impressive and profound. These sisters are drawing strength from one another, like my mother and her two sisters protect and enliven one another. The souls of their guardian angels, parents, relatives, friends hover around them.

Though I seem to most prominently feel my mother and my aunts in this painting, my sisters, my daughters, my grand-daughter are in this painting too. In each face I can see little bits of each of them. They take turns in my thoughts as the paintbrush continues to define the figures, fleshing them out. We are all so connected of course.

The youngest girl is my mother, but she is also my sister Lynne, my daughter Liz, and my grand-daughter June. The eldest daughter is my Aunt June, but she is also my cousin Carol and me. The middle sister is my Aunt Margie, but she is also my daughter Eva and my sister Mary. My grandmother and grandfather, guardian angels and others who love us, who have died, hover around us all, caressing, whispering and guiding.

Leslie Victoria Leland paintings- February 2007

Coloring I
See the World: Receive and Give
Coloring II

Fall-Winter (2006-2007) Work by Markel and Leslie

markel sculpture

leslie's paintings

markel's new sculpture

leslie's faces on metal

new painting

work on the painting that I started in the Keys is progressing slowly in between working on the design line.

purplebabydaddies: painting and talking to Lynne

I stayed up till 3:30 am last night with my paint brush in one hand, and the telephone in the other, talking to my sister Lynne.....about- a half of a million sister type things.

I think the painting is done....This has many, many layers of paint, which I like, because it gives the surface a very rich, luscious texture. It's small, 10in.x8in.
It feels so good to be painting.

purplebabydaddies: on e-bay?

An enterprising seller has decided to give selling our work on ebay a whirl, with a couple of my pieces. We know nothing about Ebay so we're glad she is trying, and we are happy to provide her with the work to sell.

This is one of my pieces that she has listed. The face is painted on primed, galvanized steel, attached to a copper stem, which is anchored in a hand-made mosaic base embedded with hand-painted glass
and a painted border.

It is 15 inches tall and the widest part of the base is 10 inches.
Like most of our pieces it is treated with laquer so that it could placed outside on a deck, or garden table, or used inside, anywhere....

It is ebay item number-7417372233 in case you're interested in seeing how it's doing.

There is also a small panting of mine and a very nice small Markel sculpture.

We enjoy making the art, and other people enjoy selling it. Perfect combination.
Something new, purplebabydaddies adventures in e-bay land.