Zinneas for Marianne

I bought a pack of varied zinneas at the local nursery and they have finally bloomed!

I'm not crazy about the yellowish-white ones, but I'm happy there are a few vibrant ones in the bunch.

Because Marianne can't grow these, these are for her!

And the beautiful cloth they're on was a gift from her when she visited.

I think this would make a wonderful painting!

Okay...bye now :)

Intuitive Friends

There are certain people that come into our lives whom, I'm convinced, at first meeting already know us at the deepest, most personal level.

I am lucky to have encountered a few such friends already where some people wait a lifetime for just one. Your eyes and your heart must be wide open to notice them and let them in.

The friend I'm talking about today has just graced me with her presence for four unforgettable days. As a bonus she brought along her youngest son, Felix, A future Dalai Lama for sure. What an enlightened, delightful young man at the tender age of twelve.

Marianne has always been generous in heart and thoughtfulness. My mailbox has overflowed many times with cards and packages from her (and many other wonderful friends!) I'm very grateful.

The first night she arrived we sat in my studio sharing wine and she started handing me gold-wrapped gifts from a large bag. Oh my!!

  

These silk boxes hold something extraordinary because she had NO idea I was about to try a new art meduim brought to my attention by my most impressive artist friend and fellow Canadian, Neil Ornstein.

He was delighted when he stumbled upon this woman's wonderful etegami blog and shared the link with me. We both decided we must try this and agreed to exchange postcards one day. 

I went out and bought the sumi ink, the watercolor postcards and two basic sumi brushes.

No one at the art store knew what "special red" I was talking about and I had no idea how I was going to carve a signature stamp.

Here comes the magic part!

 

The longest silk box held three of the most beautiful sumi brushes with blue and white china handles. There is a dragon motif pot for holding the brushes, a blue and white bracelet with wonderful charms, a round blue and white pot that holds something, but what? And a little rectangle box, very curious.

I would have never, ever guessed in a million years that the round jar held that very special red or that the small rectangle box would be my very own hand-carved signature "Lolo" in both English and Chinese.

And remember, she had NO idea I was going to try etegami or that I was looking for these things. As I said, magic. Intuition. Knowing me as well as I know myself perhaps?

And last but not least is the blue spiral painting she did for me (up top) which now hangs in our bathroom (at her suggestion because it is sea-themed.) 

The circle of life, the knowing, the ebb and flow and the connection to everything.

Whew! Thank you Marianne, dear friend. I ask myself daily what I have done to have such special people enter my life.

You know who you are. My California girls, my blogging family, old friends who waited for me to come back home and new friends who have helped me feel safe. Thank you, all of you.

And thanks for hanging in for such a long post! 

But it was magical, no?

xoxo

Lolo 

A Special Four Days

Hello friends! Despite all the rumors, I have not fallen off the planet. I have been without my trusty old PC for five days now and I have no access to images from my laptop. It's times like these I wish I were a geek. Sort of.  Let's not get carried away!

I'm using this post to talk about the wonderful visit from Marianne and her unbelievably Buddah-esque son, Felix. Even my dog was charmed. Not one YIP or NIP or even a bark. That's a first!

Okay, so up top is a picture of my humble room. It's simple but I find solace there.
This is where Marianne and Felix stayed for the few days they were in Rhode Island.

 Every guest should be greeted by a welcome note and a box of sweet treats ;)

Brian took Felix to his first ever American baseball game!

Felix isn't smiling for the stranger that took this photo, but I can tell you that he said the game was the highlight of his trip!

ooops, kind of a small photo but here you can see the boys "in the home stretch" watching a Red Sox game. Felix even called a homerun before the guy hit the ball!!

He's a real natural already ;)

 

I borrowed these photos from Marianne. I don't have any way to resize them :(

But here you can see how Felix charmed Emma! She really missed him when he left.

Rumor has it she even sent him a card.

It looks like someone else charmed Emma as well! Emma is objecting to the ear comment!

Here's Marianne the day we arrived in Provincetown to see KJ and JB.

Marianne's camera was clicking 100 times per minute!

For some reason I blanked out on taking photographs of her and now I'm kicking myself.

KJ and JB bought a birthday cake for Mim, myself and KJ's belated birthday celebration.

It was some kind of coconut decadence from a famous bakery. I'm not big on desserts but this WAS delicious!! Felix did the honors of lighting the cake.

(The hand on the right belongs to KJ who insisted on being cropped out, the stinker!)

Marianne and Liz, an old friend of KJ's and a new friend of mine are on the couch.

And of course Miss Stella is part of the celebration!

Before the cake we had the most mouth watering, melt-in-your-mouth lobster!!

KJ and JB are always the hostesses with the mostess!

 

I love this photo of Marianne. The look says it all after such a satisfying day in P-town.

There's a walkway outside of the condo that KJ and JB own. People who live there and folks who visit often leave little mementos and tokens of their time there. 

Big-hearted felix bought this beautiful silver token of friendship and had us each hold it to our hearts before he gave it a place of honor.

He said, "We don't say goodbye. We just hug and say friendship."

I'm telling you he's one special kid. ♥

And this is Marianne on our last night together. This was taken in my back yard while we were enjoying a glass of wine and reminiscing about the week.

It was a whirlwind four days with a two-year build up!!

I will treasure my time with her and Felix forever.

♥♥♥♥♥

Stay tuned Thursday to see the birthday gifts she brought! I will also show a few others from my girls in California.

Thankful Thursday: Marianne and Frida

Most of you know that our dear friend Marianne came to visit me all the way from the Netherlands. I still can't believe she was here in my home, my studio!

And most of you know that I have been working on a painting for her for over a year now in exchange for the exquisite birth mandala she painted for me.

I have had such angst over what to paint!  And I have had a few starts and failures.

I knew I wanted to do a portrait of Frida Kahlo for her but I kept trying to make it look like the ones we've already seen painted by herself and other artists.

It never felt "right" to me. And then I knew why.

I was tired of seeing her torment and sadness.

I wanted to paint her in a soft way in my own style.

No thorns holding the signature sparrow around her neck. No scars or blood from the fateful accident that haunted her life and her paintings.

So here I present to Marianne and you, "Young Frida."

Calm, sure, beautiful, feminine and happy at La Casa Azul.

Thank you Marianne, kindrid spirit and sister across the miles.

I will never forget this visit.

♥ 

The last photo was taken by my other new and dear friend, Felix, Marianne's son. He is as magical as she is!

A Tardy Thankful Thursday

I can't believe how late I am in posting these wonderful gifts from the past few weeks. Forgive me!

This postcard was painted by Cris in Oregon and it arrived as a total surprise to me!

Most of you know that I'm a raving raven fanatic and I often feature them in my work. To receive one as a gift really touches me.
Thank you Cris. I love him!!

I'm afraid these next 2 photos are a bit blurry and yellow. I apologize. The lighting in here is bad sometimes and even worse with a flash!

Marianne sent this vinyl pouch made from recycled materials with pictures of world stamps. The envelope comes pre-addressed to "My Darling Planet Earth."

Imagine my surprise when I opened it to find 2 wonderful notecards and my gorgeous 'yoga' atc from our exchange, but also...

 

...the stamps she has been collecting from her mail from all over the world! She knows I use them in my collages so she sent them to me. How sweet! And there's also some money from Hong Kong in case I want to go shopping there ;)

Some of these stamps are unbelievable, like that huge one on top from Malaysia!

Thank you M...you spoil me rotten!!♥

And finally we have this beautiful package from Caroline in Malaysia.

Here is a close-up of the hand painted envelope...so pretty!!

We all know Caroline loves red poppies! I think these may be from some paper napkins I sent her, collaged on and then embellished.

And look at all this stuff!! A beautiful fabric fan, so much appreciated in this heat and humidity!!

She also sent me one of her lovely hand made sketchbooks which I plan to do something special in to share at a later date.

And there are some tiny gift tags to match the Asian theme and LOOK!!! She had the same idea and sent me postage stamps too. These are all birds. (I see a bird theme coming up in the sketchbook.) And this stunning feather~the irridescence is unbelievable. I tried to capture it but I failed.

She doesn't remember what or where the feather came from~possibly England, possibly a duck!!

What beautiful, thoughtful gifts from three special ladies.

Please be sure to visit them to see more of their work.

Thank you, my friends. ♥ I'm a lucky girl!