Purplebabydaddies at the Ann Arbor Art Fair

We're back, amazingly enough, in the exact spot where Markel and I met 15 years ago today! For anyone who doesn't know, the Ann Arbor Fairs are an extravaganza, the largest art fair in the country, the world, as a matter of fact. There are 4 major fairs and 3 or 4 unofficial fairs, plus every merchant in town either rents out their sidewalk space or exhibits their wares, outside, themselves.

We have been busy with our store(s) for the past 8 years (one on Liberty Street in Ann Arbor and then two subsequent locations in Key West), but now that we have closed all of the stores we are back to doing art fairs. Hal Stevens, who used to run the Ohio Designer Shows and knows us from there, called us and offered us an exhibit spot last winter. Of all of the thousands of spaces in this whole town that we could have been offered it just so happened that he offered us the spot where Markel and I first met and fell in love.

We have been back in Ann Arbor since last Fall. We have been wrapped in a cocoon of our own making, rejuvenating, recuperating from the devastating loss of our beloved store. What can you do but pick up the pieces, reassemble them, learn, and make something of equal or surpassing beauty.

We have been selling wholesale for the past 11 months to the wonderful galleries from around the country who loyally buy from us again and again. This was the official beginning of our return to doing art fairs, made more auspiciously special by magically occuring in the exact space where Markel and I first met and began our lives together as a family and as collaborating artists for the first time exactly 15 years ago today.

In spite of the fact that we didn't advertise, we were amazed and flattered by how many of our loyal and enthusiastic collectors found us. Scary clouds filled with tornadoes swirled around us on Thursday causing damage in nearby towns, and a very shaky Michigan economy dampened overall sales somewhat, but all in all we had a good show. It was like a 4 day reunion party, running into our friends who stopped by to visit and sit in our extra chairs, friends who didn't know we were back in town who were surprised to find us, and customers who have been collecting our work for years, some since we first began showing, came and added pieces to their collections . Thank you so much everyone who came and said hello and bought from us. We are truly glad to be back in our beloved and bustlingly thriving, Ann Arbor.
Is there anything lovelier than an art fair morning, strolling with coffees and a bagel. The weather was gorgeous after the storms passed by on Thursday.
You can see our work in the background. We were beside a lovely display of fountains by artists from Arizona.
Everything was a big hit.....Now on to Charlevoix Waterfront Fair on August 11th. In closing, a couple of little quotes that have helped me through the hard times.

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you're a vegetarian. -Dennis Wholey

...and

Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness. -Jean Vanier

Letting it Happen

Can I really be 52 years old? It doesn't seem possible to me to be at an age that I considered as a child, even as a young adult, to be so old. I wince at the thought of how I projected my idea of someone as being old on others as recently as last year....I don't feel any different than I did at 32 , or 28. Now I know that even my mother and her sisters in their 70's and 80's feel that way too. Our bodies age but our spirits continue to renew and transform.

Has the counter-culture generation decided to age differently, to redefine aging? Probably so, it has redefined everything else. I am encouraged and excited to see alternatively minded communities forming for aging hippies, baby-boomers, particularly artists who haven't got much of a retirement plan in place....who, "if it felt good, did it"

The mother of invention is leading people to form back to the land, communal type, living arrangements. Shared land, studios, gardens, meals, yoga, exercise, swimming pools, pool halls. We are all so much better off as a community. We can do so much more when we put money, ideas, entertainment, information together. Stripped of convention, the baby boomers are going to figure it out.

I am trying out letting my hair go grey. It's a big step and I reconsider it often, but so far I'm liking it. My hair grows so quickly that I was having to recover the grey every 4 weeks. I can't afford the time or the money that it takes to go to the salon and have it done professionally and I hated how it turned out when I tried to do it myself. Unfortunately, you can't go get your hair died grey to make growing out the color easier and the other the other option to cut it all off and start over isn't much better. I'm just winging it, letting it grow out, multi-colored as it is. My inspiration are the beautiful women who I encounter everywhere I go with beautiful grey hair.

I'm inspired by Kiki Smith, top photo. Gorgeous, isn't she?......And also one of the most influential women artists in the world today. Her sculptures and prints present life, women, nature with all of it's grittiness, beauty, mess. She doesn't idealize it, she shows the truth.....the woman in her painting, sitting prettily in the garden has grass stains on her knees, mud on her elbows.

Another subject for her is art about the holy spirit, magic, spirituality, the big mystery that's so hard to pin down, yet so lovely to consider. She is known to be a big collaborator, loving to share studio/work space, working with people who know techniques that she utilizes to create her work
....and then there is this glowing, ethereal, lovely woman. This is a photograph of Betty Silverstein from the book, Wise Women: A Celebration of Their Insights, Courage, and Beauty, by the renowned photographer Joyce Tennyson. Betty is quoted in the book as saying, "People often stop me now and tell me I'm beautiful. I never had this happen when I was younger. So for me aging has, at least on the surface, made others more interested in me and who I am".
.....then there is this wild woman, an artist/designer who dies her hair yellow-orange. I can't promise that I won't go there too. I'll do whatever I feel like doing at the time. No rules of the hair color kind bind me. I have other rules: to be kind, do my best to do the right thing, keep growing, expanding, learning, creating and thinking outside of the box....big rules, no matter what color my hair is.

Shichi's:4.5 weeks old

I'm a little behind in the 4 week old pics of these little guys. They become more fun by the minute. They are really starting to play now, rolling and biting each others tails and barking these little miniature barks that are adorable.

I have introduced puppy food this week, moistened with lots of water, which they have been very interested in. They sniff it and then back up and jump a little, then come back and sniff again, tossing themselves sideways comically. They seem delighted with this new event, a little confused, but figuring it out. As usual the last born, Angel, the trail blazer was the first to actually spend a significant amount of time eating.

Lucy, their Mom, even though I have continued to cook a hearty mash consisting of chicken, brown rice, peas and corn which I feed her three times a day, climbs into the wading pool, the puppies' daytime home, and promptly polishes off all of the moistened puppy chow that I have set out for them, on top of all of the food she has been getting. Eating is her favorite thing in the whole wide world. I'm going to have to separate Mom from pups at meal times. She is still nursing them of course, but not as much as she had been.
Corky is completely sweet, very mellow and cuddly.
My husband Markel with Peanut....this really gives a good perspective on how tiny they really are. I'm guessing that they will be between 5-8 pounds full grown.
This is Angel, the trail blazer and the one that we will keep.....I think. I love them all and can't imagine saying good-bye to any of them. This week we will start on their shots.

I will list them for sale in the classified section of the Ann Arbor News with greater intention when they are 6 weeks old, but not let them go till they are 8 weeks old, which will be the 1oth of July. If anyone is interested, Corky and Peanut will be for sale (it freaks me out to even talk about them being for sale....they are still very much my babies and I am going to carefully screen potential buyers).

We are charging $600 each. For more information on designer ShiChi's, a recognized hybrid breed, click on shichi

.....Get in touch if you think you might like to have one of these babies for your own. They are going to be mellow, smart, tiny dogs who will be completely devoted to whoever decides to adopt them. leslievictorialeland@hotmail.com for inquiries about buying a pup.

Fireworks for Miss Junie

Purplebabydaddies is not only involved in the making of art, we also are involved in producing fabulous people and puppies (4 week old shi-chi pics in a day or two)....

So yes, we've been working hard making artwork, but the big news is that, Oh my, Miss June has turned two this week!

I swear to you, one day they are newborns and the next day they are 25. It happens faster than you think, all of you young families out there. I remember how grueling being a young parent can be, the sleeplessness, the tantrums, the endless laundry, so trust me, I'm not here lecturing.

Being a parent is one of the most rewarding and yet hardest things you will ever do, but the amazing thing is that, one day, they are newborns, and then the next day, they are all grown up, with newborns of their own. I'm not kidding, life may be long, but it can also go very fast.....Advice to take or leave: listen to the grandparents in your life, when they suggest that you savor these years and realize that parenting your children will be the most important thing that you ever do (along with all of the other very important things that you do).

But I digress, what is this grand-parenting phenomenom? I mean we love our kids but then our grandchildren come along and you LOVE them, just like that, in CAPITOL LETTERS and it's not just me, this is a "thing", a "condition". My fellow grand-parent friends are infected too, so I know it's not just Markel and I. A common explanation that I hear is that grand-parents go ga-ga because they don't have the same responsibility for the kids that they once had with their own children so they enjoy them more, but I don't think that's all of it, maybe a part, but not the big important reason.

I think the love and connection is heightened also because of the gained perspective of the time factor; you realize how fleeting and precious these years of littleness are, and how important they are in building self-esteem, sense of self, all of the things that make the foundations for a healthy adult....and you don't get those years back. Speaking for myself and some of my friends we've realized some things that we would have liked to have done better with our own children, from that birds-eye-view perspective. One thing I know for certain is that you want to be sure to arm these precious babies with as much strength of character, kindness, and integrity as you can, as they go out into this complicated world we live in as independant adults.

Grandparents have seen that those teeming little bundles of emotion, willfullness, and desire that you alternately wrangle and are enchanted by on a daily basis, do grow up and become adults, who you can actually enjoy as fellow adult people, even when they are still your children ....or your own parents for that matter, the great-grand-parents. My parents are still the life of every party, cracking jokes, singing songs, talking politics. I remember watching their parties from the bannister. Now we are at the parties all together. How wonderful to appreciate them as parents, children, and as peers.

Amazing to think that, god willing and a firm knock on wood, Markel and I will have the pleasure of enjoying our grandchildren as adults some day as well. Right now though, I am delighted with their delightful and delicious, 2-year and 8 year-old-ishness.

We have two other daughters who haven't even gotten started on this whole baby thing and when they do we'll want to go and be with them....that will be a juggle because one is in New Hampshire and the other one is in Manhattan (they are both talking about having babies in the next few years)and then we have these darlings in Michigan.....

My opinionated opinion is that this country is just too big and in our culture we all go apart way too easily. I like the idea of families doing the best that they can to stay in the same vicinity, though I know it isn't always possible, and breaks a lot of hearts. As artists we are lucky; we can make our art work anywhere.....and voila, here we are back at art.
this is our darling Michael, who will always be our first grandchild......and who likes to be assured that we remember that.
diligently waiting for birthday dinner (which was well worth the wait)....
my darling birthday girl with her new Dora the explorer doll, and moi.

oh and psssssst: If you came here looking for art, not my musings on being a grand-parent, click on design line on the list of labels or click on this- leslie and markel's original art.....that will at least get you started.
Ciao!

Shi-Chi's Week Two: Introducing Corky

Here's the big boy who I had to encourage to come out and play.....the puppy boy, not the human boy (the human boy, our grandson Michael, always wants to play).

After laboring for longer than his mother Lucy should have had to, it was clear I was going to have to go in after him. The only part of Corky that was out were a pair of teeny, darling feet still encased in his placental sac.

My puppy delivery (whelping....if you want to be technical) references told me that after the length of time that Lucy had been straining to deliver the puppy, if I didn't go in and try to pull him out manually, his mother Lucy might die. I've whelped three litters of pups but this is the first time of having to face this dilemma....... and chihuahua's are so little. It also said that the puppy might die in the process. Naturally, our dog Lucy was giving birth at 3:00 a.m. so we were on our own. My poor husband Markel, sat by me the whole time, helplessly, but helpfully supportive.

Trembling with panic and fear I put my gloves on and managed to slip my hand around his little body and pull him out. Lucy was not happy. In shih-tzu/chihuahua terms he seemed huge and as I slid him out he kept on coming and coming and coming out of his mother. There is no way he would have come out by himself. He was tightly wedged in there. I really had to pull and Lucy was so exhausted by her efforts. I am so grateful that it was a success.

I was worried that I had hurt her or introduced infection until the next day when we took the whole litter and mama into the the vet who pronounced mother Lucy and her babies healthy and having come through the birthing process with flying colors, in spite of the initially tenuous situation.

I have decided to name the little guys for the time that we have them, until they go with their new families at age 8-10 weeks.....puppy one, puppy two, puppy three just wasn't cutting it anymore.

We call this little guy, (puppy number one), Corky, because after the cork (him) was out of the bottle, the rest of the puppies were born with ease. He is very calm and cuddly. I'm thinking that he will actually lighten up and be blond or taffy colored like his mother Lucy, or he might be a little like Lucy's father, who was a beautiful dark brown with gold tips, a long-haired chihuahua named Winslow, who we knew in Key West and who fathered Lucy and her brother Pippin.

....and Peanut- the champion nurser

Peanut was born second, soon after I pulled out or should I say freed his brother Corky. Peanut was born face first , very easily, with no trouble. He immediately, after being licked clean by his mother, began nursing and has been enthusiastic about his favorite pastime, eating, ever since. He has inherited his father's coloring. He will grow lighter in all of the areas that are brown . He is a complete dear, the last one to open his eyes.

....and Angel- The last one born, the littlest of the three

Here he is. Outside on the front porch for the first time in his short little life. Looking at his face in the photo I am noticing the striking white marking on his forehead.
So sweet. He has a very laid back personality so far, and was the first of the three to open his eyes. I must admit that he is the one I have been leaning toward if we decide to keep one, but who knows, I am in love with all of them.

Below is a photo taken immediately after birth, and here we are today, at exactly 2 weeks old. Now it's going to get fun. They grow rapidly in the next three weeks. Lucy remains an attentive and devoted mother. Their coats reminded me of little seals when they were born.

Room to grow

The big news of the day is the house that my daughter Liz is moving into. I got to go with her to pick up her keys and share in her first moments of life in the house. We walked through, examining every nook and cranny, musing and dreaming of designing those rooms. I could see the wheels turning in my daughter's mind as we studied the rooms. This is her family's first house, as opposed to an apartment or duplex. That means a fenced in yard of their own, a bedroom for each of the kids, a finished playroom in the basement and her own washer and dryer right at the bottom of the stairs. Big stuff for a hard working girl. They will probably be here for a long time to come.

Beautiful, green Ann Arbor in May. This is their new street from their new front yard.....
....and the backyard, complete with a sturdy play structure. During our exploration of the yard we found among other things, peonies, lilac bushes of every color, and a generous patch of lily of the valley.....
Inside there are sweet rooms, lots of windows and gorgeous wood floors. Oh boy, now the work of moving (with a 2 year old and 7 year old) begins.

mother's day

Happy Mother's Day to all! Back to work this morning, but we had a lovely weekend with puppies, parties, kids, food. Our front porch is ready for action- the more the merrier. Come on over!

purplebabydaddies studios- fall/winter 2007

Big contrast going from the Keys to Michigan. It has been a weird winter, 40's- high 50's and am I remembering 60's (?......pacific northwest weather). In any case, then it plunged into the subzero's.
Note the wild fluctuations in the weather. Very weird, and how very monumental and impressive, this earth's reaction is, to what is hurting it.
Winter has really put me into a reflective state. It is so cocoon-like. There is a real drawing in which I must say I have enjoyed, but oh the weather. It has been extreme.
I am here for a very good reason though and would rather be absolutely nowhere else...(for now, most likely a fairly long now).
In any case, Markel and I have continued to do our work for our galleries (listed below) and we are slowly storing up work for art fairs and a gallery showing at some point, we haven't even started looking for galleries yet. We're still reacquainting ourselves with stretching our wings. It's a balance that we're always striving to accomplish.

We actually notice feeling guilty when we take time out of the design work to do our originals. Frustrating when you can't take the time to really be creative, but the sculpture and paintings are a future sale, while the design work remains popular and instant money ( and here's where I have to say thank goodness, so fortunate that we have work that sells so well). In any case, I think we've been doing a lot better with our balancing act, slow and steady go the turtles.

I've added a lot so don't forget to scroll down.

We will be showing at the Ann Arbor Art Fairs in July. More information coming,

or call 1-734-883-5797

email: leslievictorialeland@hotmail.com

purplebabydaddies: Hurricane Wilma- October 2005

Top picture: Our god-daughter, Marisa, pointing to how high the water came up during the flood.

Middle: My friend Martha's (Marisa's mother's) house where we weathered the storm

Bottom: Leslie, photo taken on May 10, 2006

We were very lucky.
Markel and I had evacuated to that house, my friend Martha's house, after putting our cars up on high ground at the local middle school. We didn't want to leave because if the storm bypassed us, as they often do, we needed to be able to open the store right away. We had already lost so much money with the 3 other storms that had hit the Keys before Wilma last summer.

We had weathered the whole night of the storm,wide awake and finally fallen asleep when Eva woke me up at 9am to ask how we were doing-
When I opened the front door to look outside, that's when I saw the floodwaters, which were still rising! What a sight; I couldn't believe it.

The houses on either sides of Martha's house are at ground level and they were full of seawater, boats driven by teen-age boys were going down the middle of the street trying to help people in trouble, and cars still parked out front were filled with water. We had no idea how much higher the water was going to go, but fortunately it stopped rising where Marisa is pointing.

Martha (who evacuated to Michigan with her family) had a storage shed in her backyard which had come loose and impaled itself on the fence leading to the back. All of the contents of her shed were ruined and belongings were floating all over the back, bobbing in the water.......all of her stored antique and new Christmas ornaments, books, artwork by her parents, photographs, paperwork....it was heartbreaking to see.

Our own house on Ramrod Key is also at ground level and we just assumed that it had been flooded. When the flood waters receded later on that day, we managed to drive to our house to survey the damage we were amazed to find that our house hadn't flooded. Apparently our property is on one of the highest parts of Ramrod Key. The water rose two inches according to our next door neighbor. Our storage place was also dry and our cars were safe. Our store didn't flood either. We were very lucky! Some people lost everything, cars, furniture, photos.....you name it. We were very lucky, because like many others down here we have no insurance.....for those who did, there are a lot of car dealers and furniture store owners who had a very good year.

purplebabydaddies: Markel Leland New Work

3-D sculpture before painting it
Leslie and Markel- May 2006