Oil Painting is so much brighter though

I created 5 new paintings in a day. I was really into it that day. Two oils and three acrylics. Trying acrylics was new for me, see the post below.

Here is one of the oil paintings, and you can see the paint is so much more vivid.

Acylics or Oil? My New Acrylic Paintings

Trying my hand at acrylics. Reason; well oil painting can be rather toxic from what I hear and read, and you know, I'm just getting along in years and not too anxious to gunk up my lungs and system. I also have read that Bob Ross designed his wet on wet paints and thinner not to be toxic, so maybe I'm safe to continue using those products. Adapting the wet on wet technique of oil painting to acrylic paints, which dry quickly and less the medium of the oil which permits the paint to blend and stick to paints already on the canvas. I'm at a disadvantage.

Three acrylics, and I really do not have the 'art' of photographing my paintings, so pardon my amateurish photography. Early efforts with acrylics;

Vintage Finds - Collectibles

Holidays are over and the 'Company's Coming' size dining room table not needed now, so shortened it and added lighter table dressing for that fresher summer look.



I think I got some pretty good thrift deals on these plates.

-- a dozen Anchor Hocking Peach Lustre plates. While I'm not collecting these, I see the peach lustre pieces everywhere I find a collectible shop. This time, the price was just too good for me to pass up. I don't need more dishes, but hey, this is how collections get started, eh?






-- seven Homer Laughlin plates - rose edge design. This was at an estate sale, owner passed, and I am told these were her favorite dishes. They show years of use, wear and tear. But I am a nostalgia, vintage buff, and again price was too good to pass up...but I don't need dishes!!

Handkerchiefs - my latest fun thing to do..

I don't have those lovely vintage type handkerchiefs, and am at the mercy of finding them at thrift stores, collectibles and such like. So I went and found some because I found a few fun ideas for how to use and wanted to give some of the projects a try.

In my painting/sewing room, the upstairs cupola, I used the handkerchiefs to create a window treatment. The view outside to peek views I have from the cuploa of Willapa Bay will inspire the paintings, while the breeze will softly blow the handkerchiefs, creating a lazy, billowy effect.





The back door, which leads out to a not so nice mud room, is an old fashioned French Door set up, that leaves a few things to be desired. For Summer look, I want to add handkerchief curtains. Can seam sew the handkerchiefs together, or hand sew the corners together, adding columns and rows of handkerchiefs. Can pin them together, ie safety pins. Can add lengths of string and clip on with cafe curtain clips, clothespins. Lots of different approaches. Right now I'm hand sewing the corners together and have one column on each window. Will add additional columns to fill the window spaces, depending on how many handkerchiefs I have available to use.

Dance-Off! What baseball players do when rained out

Fun video, College baseball, players from UConn and USF, filled in some of the time during a 5 hour rain delay with a Dance off Thursday, May 21, 2009. Enjoy and wow do I envy their ‘young’ energy!

On Kevin Thew Forrester; Bishop-Elect of Northern Michigan

We attend St John’s Episcopal Church, which is located in a small town in a sparsely populated county in a southwest corner of Washington state.  It is a tiny congregation, of sturdy people, with traditional values, and they have kept the fact of St John’s alive over the decades with their sheer determination and will.  I admire them for the values that have gotten them to where they are in keeping the parish viable despite many adversities.

I am not sure I have that kind of faith, yet I know I hold a deep faith that I continue to put through the test means of tearing it down to build it up. I am not ‘churched’ as the saying goes, certainly did not grow up as Episcopal or Episcopal churched.   My mother believed we should try different church settings and perhaps did not have the confidence to share her own brand of church faith with us, having her own doubts perhaps, and fearing she might pass those doubts along.  She was also, as a young new bride being exposed to a family who was steeped in fundamentalist type beliefs, and not shy in pronouncing judgments upon my mother and my father, who grew up in that judgmental environment.

I think my mother found safety in keeping her beliefs and faith to herself because outward examination with her new in-law family yielded her the negatives of damnation that are such a hallmark in  Pentecostal type religions.  The need for calling out condemnation and judgments seems as well to be a hallmark of and true today of the hybrid evangelical religion premises that evolved from some of the earlier pentecostal type religions.  For whatever reasons, my mother chose not to assert her own church preferences on her children, we were left to wander among the landscape of various church religions.   As a result, I’m not sure what we learned about faith as much as what we learned about different ways churches chose to practice faith in their own stylized versions built on their premise of an interpretation of the bible.

In my wanderings in the religious landscape, I found myself at Baptist churches, Methodist churches, Community non-denominational churches, and along the way got baptized a few times because I felt the pull of emotion wash over me when a pastor would call for the those who wish to be saved  to come forward.  Who wouldn’t want to be saved given that the other places supposedly prepared for the unsaved were highly unpalatable.  Thus, I came to ‘know Jesus’ as defined within these types of structures.

The dilemma for me was that in my very real inner world and my very real child life I did have a friend in the spiritual world that I knew to be as real as the real life and conditions I was living.  If the churches called this Jesus, then indeed, I had a friend in Jesus, uniquely my own friend and unique to me.  My church experiences were sporatic, because I was also the child of a military parent, and our moves were frequent, about every 2 years, and it often meant for me whatever was a convenient church.  You know, if a bus came and picked up the kids, that was the church I went to; or if the church was in a nearby location and I could get there by my own means, that was the church I went to; or sometimes no church at all. I did not consistently attend one church of one faith, so I got some rather mixed messages about the faith experience.  

By the time of adulthood and having my own children, I saw a need for some kind of churching as part of the parenting experience and responsibilities.  Not knowing really how a parent decides which is the right church, I was subject to a lot of evangelizing from people who were quite willing to tell me why their church or faith was the ‘right’ church for me and my children.   After some awkward experiences attending such churches, I decided that my mother’s way must be okay – let the kids decide for themselves, thus I abandoned my efforts to bring my children to church.

There is a fairly large flaw in that thinking, I fully recognize now in hindsight, in that there is an assumption that children can discern through the fog of religiondom and decide for themselves.  Since adults cannot do that easily, how can children be expected to escape the Babel that makes up faith and religion?  So my children are not churched either and they are adults now themselves, beautiful human beings,  raising children of their own. (Well, my daughters are raising children of their own, my son has chosen not yet to have children).

Along my adult years, I continue to study out religions, often times with a driving passion, looking for that ‘right’ church that most closely corresponds to my inner beliefs.  No such church exists, quite probably because my inner beliefs like many people’s inner beliefs are built on foundations of information as provided by the adults who surround them and they try to make their inner world fit the outer world they are being taught.  But maybe I project my perspectives as being the shared experience of others.   Along the decades of my life and search, I did come to a recognition there is no ‘right’ church or at least not a church that would match my inner world beliefs.  And I contented myself in trying to find a church home that at least would not offend my inner beliefs. 

Thus did we land in a historic hundred year old building, in the quiet space of an Episcopal church, knowing little about the Episcopal belief set, but having experienced an assortment of other church belief sets.  We being my husband, who has come out of the LDS faith, having been raised in it and having raised his own children in it, and myself with my hodgepodge assortment of church exposures.  And this is how we came to St John’s Episcopal Church, finding a welcome home, warm people and in time we became confirmed in the Episcopal Church.  Thusly, in the confirmation, did the Bishop remind us we were to remember our baptism.   Given neither his nor my baptism were done in the Episcopal manner, being called to remember our baptism evokes strong memories for both of us and so did we begin the process of ‘reconciliation’. 

Now I’m not entirely sure what is meant by that word within the Episcopal experience, but I play with the concept trying to understand it as it has meaning for me.  It seems to me that for Episcopalians and the Episcopal Church a large part of the experience is perpetually ‘reconciliation’, as the Church grapples with societal changes over the generations.  As the Church grapples, so then do the congregations and the people who make up those congregations.   Since life is a perpetual journey of learning and exploring, making mistakes and learning from those mistakes, and preparing to take the risks to make more mistakes, and curiosity drives the learning, the Episcopal experience makes sense to me.  Or at least the way in which I come to define what I think is the Episcopal experience makes sense to me. 

All this to lead up to what this post has to do with Kevin Thew Forrester.   I only learned of him yesterday, or rather learned that there was a bit of a dust storm being kicked up about his status as Bishop-Elect of Northern Michigan.  It seems he spent some time studying in the Buddhist religion and attained a lay status which he was able to bring with him into his Episcopal experience.  That, by itself, doesn’t kick up a dust storm.  But it seems he gave a sermon during Easter season that called into question the terms of baptism, resurrection and redemption as it is traditionally qualified by the Episcopal Church – an Easter Church – a Church that affirms in every worship service it’s collective belief in the Christ resurrection.

Well now, here is where I can begin to explore my own space of inner beliefs within the context of the Episcopal experience.   What if I can’t fully buy into a resurrected Jesus and the need for that whole experience as the redemption of humankind?  What if to make that concept work for me I have to realign the meaning of my outer words to be palatable to the ears of those who belief without question in the absoluteness of the concept, while the inner meaning suffers in silence at being unable to express or be heard on the matter.  What Forrester has done with this sermon, intentionally or inadvertantly, with it’s ensuing criticisms, has created a much needed space for me to explore aloud within the context of my church of choice one of the backbone foundations that make up the Christian experience.  

Going forward, I am not sure what will become of Thew Forrester’s Bishop-Elect status, and I’m fairly sure he has a full plate just now as most of the Bishops of the Episcopal Church line up to give a no vote to his election.  Bishop Greg Rickel of our own Diocese of Olympia has given what he explains as a thoughtfully considered no vote (see his blog).  But simply said, for this one person, for me, this Episcopalian in a small parish in a remote corner of the state, Forrester has thrown open for me the doors of constraint that will keep me remaining in the Episcopal Church at at time when I had about reconciled and resolved to make a decision to leave my Total Common Ministry circle and perhaps my parish as well. 

I wouldn’t leave in dissent or even disquiet,  as much as reconciliation to the fact that these elders who have kept this parish alive deserve the comfort of worship within a church structure they still recognize in their last years .  They have  fully embraced some of the changes that have come down the pike along their years, including permitting women priests (we have 2 priests in our parish, one male, one female, both studied in the TCM and were ordained priests by then presiding Bishop of our Diocese).  

Essentially my thinking is that if I find myself at odds with some of the beliefs , it is incumbent upon me to find the place of reconciliation within myself;it is not incumbent upon them to rework the settings to accommodate me.  I then get to choose patience and faith in that the belief will come or exercise my option to appreciate that the belief will never come because already there exists within me a belief set.  I have carved out my own space for faith and beliefs from amongst the offerings placed before me or that I have sought out and along the progression of my own years, I come to realize those inner belief sets within me have hardened, are less maleable and have place within the dialogue and experience.   Now I enter a new phase in trying to find words to articulate what has been a highly personal inner world of beliefs – how to put words around those beliefs, and how to withstand criticisms that may come as a result of articulating my beliefs. 

Amen. 

 

 

Win This Business - Cool Cow Coffee Company in Naselle, WA

Came across this information this morning from another blogger. An ad she found at Facebook and at YouTube. I wasn’t able to find what she found at the source on Facebook, so it is copy and paste with a shout- out to her blog.

In Naselle, Washington, just down the road from us, another local business person is having to close up shop. The why details are included in her offer (below) to win her business, and have it relocated to within 500 miles.

The Cool Cow Coffee Company

You Could Win This Business!!

Enter by May 31st 2009

Host: Natalie Morgan - Owner - The Cool Cow Coffee Company

Type: Other - Retail

Network: Global

Start Time: Friday, March 19, 2010 at 3:55am

End Time: Monday, May 31, 2010 at 6:55am

Location: Naselle, WA

Street: SR4 & SR401

City/Town: Naselle, WA

Email: nmorgan@wwest.net

Description

Business Owner
Offers Hope to One Lucky Entrepreneur
And It Could Be You!
Pacific County, Washington

Natalie Morgan, owner of The Cool Cow Coffee Company in Naselle, closed its doors for good, after the town’s most recent disaster. Ms. Morgan had owned the drive thru espresso and deli for eighteen months when she witnessed the rising water from the Naselle River engulf the entire neighborhood before encompassing her business. Now she is hoping to give the opportunity of ownership in a new location to one hopeful entrepreneur and create even more jobs in the process.

Natalie had spent almost two months on the remodel after purchasing the business from its previous owner in June of 2007. She painted it apple red, added cedar shingles to the base of both of the buildings and adorned the structures with all sorts of country details including a life size Holstein cow that had been shipped in from Texas and proudly displayed on a platform at the front of the building. The cow is such an eye catcher that people would often stop to take pictures of her. Natalie even held a contest to name the cow and then let her employees pick the winning name. She planted flowers and hanging baskets in the summer to make the space even more beautiful and painted the picnic tables outside to match the buildings. No detail was overlooked, from the black and white cow patterned tip cups which read “Cow Tipping Allowed” to the little chocolate cow cookies that were given out with each and every beverage and ice cream treat, it was apparent that the new owner had poured her heart into every detail and it did not go unnoticed.

On the day of the flood the water had already overwhelmed the local fire and rescue building located directly across the parking lot from her espresso stand when the phone call came in from the red cross warning people in the area to evacuate. Natalie and her husband quickly moved as much of the equipment as they could up off of the floor, and then they locked the door and drove out through the rising flood water now just inches from the base of their building.

The Cool Cow Coffee Company had already been struggling in it‘s present location and the weak economic condition of one of the poorest counties in the state was not helping the locals to afford the luxury of one of the treats from the towns best coffee kiosks and delicatessen. In December of 2007 Naselle, Nellie the life-size Holstein cow that is perched high above the drive through eatery withstood the one hundred mile an hour winds that had crumpled the metal roof of the fire department next door, but this December that cow would find herself abandoned due to heavy snow fall and an inaccessible mountain of snow and ice left at the entrance of the business by plows clearing the nearby highways.

By the time a local contractor was finally able to clear the two feet of snow surrounding the coffee stand, it had only been open for five struggling days when the flood waters surrounded the buildings causing a power outage to the storage unit and a complete loss of perishable inventory.

The shop has not been opened since that dreadful day, January 6, 2009. With revenue dwindling, cash flow almost nil, inventory gone, quarterlies and property taxes soon due, Natalie had no choice but to close her shop. She applied for assistance from the Small Business Administration’s Disaster Loan program, but was denied because of her inability to pay back the loan due to her recent loss of income.

Even before the flood, like so many other communities and businesses in and across the nation, Naselle’s economy has also been hit hard and with the impending threat to close one of the areas main employers, the Naselle Youth Camp, Ms. Morgan feels that there is simply no hope for her shop to prosper in its present location. Buyers in the area are far and few and even if a buyer were to come along and make an offer equivalent to her initial investment, she could not sell it with a clear conscience knowing full well that it will probably flood there again.

It’s become obvious that if this business is to prosper, than it needs to be moved to an area with improved economic demographics, but Natalie and her husband, Pete, have spent the past five years physically building their home in Naselle and they still have a great deal of work to complete before they could relocate, so moving the business and relocating themselves is not an option at present. With so many people out of work, so many layoffs and so many struggling financially right now, she hoped that somehow she would be able to turn this tragedy into a positive experience for someone whom lived in a more prosperous and populated area and maybe even create a few more jobs in the process.

So she logged onto the Washington State Gaming Commission’s website and while reading through the state gaming regulations, she came across something called an essay contest. In this type of contest the prize is awarded to a winner based on a skill not chance and in this case the skill that each person’s entry will be judged on will be a creative writing project where the subject matter is based on a desire as well as a need to become self employed.

Interested persons are asked to write an essay describing why they should be given her coffee shop and are to pay a $25 entry fee with their essay. The entry fee will help Natalie to recover her initial investment and pay for any sales tax due to Washington State, the cost of the structure(s) relocation including relocation permits and fees by the contractor, free consultation on new site selection and location, all of the business’s equipment by way of a U-Haul rental truck, one week of free training in the shop at it’s new location by the shop‘s previous owner, all signage, menus and $2,000.00 cash to aid with the business’s start up costs, plus a new floor and sub floor to be installed at the building(s) new location.

It’s a win-win for everyone involved. Especially in today‘s difficult economic times. Natalie gets her investment, not to mention her health, back, the state gets a healthy sum of revenue out of the deal, some lucky, possibly even presently unemployed person gets the chance at owning and running their own business and perhaps even creates a few jobs in the process.

Here’s how to enter…

Write an essay explaining your current economic struggles and why you would like to own The Cool Cow Coffee Company.
250 Words Minimum - 500 Words Maximum

Mail it to:
The Cool Cow Coffee Company Essay Contest
Attention: Natalie Morgan
PO Box 502
Naselle, WA 98638

Be sure to include your written essay with your name, address and telephone number printed on the top, include a self addressed stamped envelope and the $25 entry fee. Entries must be postmarked no later than May 31, 2009. We must have at least 2,500 entries in order to award the prize. If we do not receive enough entries by May 31, 2009, your entry fee will be mailed back in the SASE you provide.

If all goes well and we get enough entries to award new ownership, the winner will be notified by phone on June 6, 2009 at 7PM.

Please, due to the high cost of structure relocation we can only relocate this business within five hundred miles of its present location in Naselle, WA. If the business’ new location is to be outside of that five hundred mile radius you will be responsible for paying the difference in relocation costs at the time of signing. The winner must sign title of ownership within 5 days of acceptance of The Cool Cow Coffee Company and will have 30 days from the date of signing to find and prepare a new site for the business to be relocated upon.

A foundation for the main structure of 9‘X18“, all utility hookups, local permits, fees, lease contracts and/or rental agreements are the sole responsibility of the winner. All such arrangements should be made within 30 days of signing the title. The business structure(s) and their contents must be relocated within 30 days of new ownership, or no later than August 15, 2009. The $2,000.00 cash award will be given to the winner on the first day of training. However if financial assistance is needed to aid the new owner with utilities, rent/lease, fees and permits etc., arrangements can be made to draw off of the cash award in the form of checks written directly to these agencies and/or land owners, but not to exceed the total sum of $2,000.00. Training will begin on a date specified by the new owner and will not exceed a 7 day training period in succession.

If you have any questions you may e-mail Natalie at nmorgan@wwest.net. If you would like to see more pictures of The Cool Cow Coffee Company go to You-Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoDrEXR8PQA and view my video.

Flowers Arrived; doesn’t the gift of flowers just make you smile!

 

Daughter and son-in-law had flowers sent to my house; meant to arrive Easter weekend.  Since we live as far away as we do from urban centers, it takes UPS a bit longer to deliver, so the flowers arrived a couple days later than they planned, but the flowers did arrive. 

 

Came in a florist box that looked like long stemmed roses might be inside.    Opened the box to find fresh spring flowers, a hefty square glass vase and florist preservative packet, along with a happy greeting card from my daughter and son-in-law.

 

I learned later in talking to my daughter that she had chosen another arrangement, but where we are located there are no florists in close by vicinity that could accommodate the choice she made.    I am happy with what was sent – fresh spring flowers that are still looking fresh a week later.   Picture below.

 

 

Two new oil paintings - just finished and still Wet! Unoriginal title of 'Cabin by the Lake'

After a too long time away from my paints, brushes, and the messy operation that is oil painting, yesterday I completed two paintings! The paintings I've accomplished grow fewer and fewer over the years since 2006. Lots of reasons why, but I hope this change in momentum means 'I'm Back'!

I sought out the old painting clothes and found I've outgrown them (that means I weigh more now than I did when last I wore them). Time to set aside another set of painting attire, in larger size.

Painted this scene in 16 x 20 size. And then painted the scene again in 11 x 14 size, although it has variables from the larger size, making both 'originals'.
I took photo of the larger size and the paint is still Wet!

The house just doesn't have much accommodation room for paintings to dry. There is the cat who can jump up anywhere, so the paintings need to be in a room with a door that closes. And as I looked around the house, I see we don't have many 'roooms' that have doors that close. Then there is the odor of oil painting that can permeate the air. If I'm going to paint frequently, I need to figure out the logistics for these challenges.

So we put the Wet Painting on top of a wardrobe (a place the cat has not yet figured out how to climb) and I snapped a few photos ... not very good photos due to the angle of looking up at the painting, and the paint is still ..... well Wet!

 

Makes me smile….unexpected and joyful - video at Centraal Station Antwerpen