This has been a year of losses.  Smart, witty, laughing female friends have died unexpectedly.  It has been to hard accept. 

Sue has been a part of my life since childhood.  Our parents were good friends and we grew up knowing each other.  I still remember the day at age nine she confided that her parents were getting a divorce.   Divorce is a big deal, but particularly back then.  She drove a muscle car as a teen and could drive a stick.  She read Architectural Digest and Rolling Stone.  She liked Stanley Tigerman and Poco. We were maid-of-honor for one another.  We once said we would be cruising in a muscle car together well into our eighties.  It did not work out that way.

I had the privilege of calling artist Joella Mahoney my friend. We met years ago when staying near her studio in Sedona.  On Christmas Day she stopped while walking her dog and invited us to join her that evening.  She had an energy and laugh that would light up a room.  We return to Arizona often and Joella was part of the reason.  This past January I watched her inform and entertain a room packed with admirers.  She said art should depict what a photograph cannot.  I will not see her again.

Yesterday I found a blog written by a young woman from Missouri who moved to Saudia Arabia.  Her posts are well written and insightful.  She shares her thoughts and observations on living in a culture very different than the one she grew up in.  Her interviews with her Saudi husband and his family are endearing.  I learned and laughed reading her words. There will be no more. 

It would be so nice if their stories had lasted longer.

 We had a visitor last week.  Our 5lb. Yorkie guest took a liking to the DIY cat tent discussed in my previous post. Despite numerous washings, the cat hasn't stepped one paw into the tent since.

St. Louis Old Courthouse rotundra

 This holiday weekend we took the opportunity to explore the renovations on the Arch grounds.  Nearby is the Old Courthouse where the Dred Scott case was heard.  The rotundra was decorated for the naturalization ceremonies that take place there. It is a beautiful historic building and I hope you get a chance to visit.  Happy Fourth of July!

Not my cat but a very loved and sweet impostor.

I always considered myself a dog person until I got a cat. Now I am a dog and cat person. Cats are pretty special beings and there is no better stress reliever than a cat on your chest. I speak from experience.

With Spring cleaning this year came purging. An XL t-shirt that fit no one had to go. But no self-respecting artist could part with a tee featuring a Ralph Steadman illustration. NO, so I made a cat tent. 

A t-shirt, safety pins, cardboard, tape, hangers, a cat bed and viola!

This no-sew design featured here was relatively easy to do. My tent did not turn out as neat as the final product shown in the video but my cat likes it just fine. Advanced in years, I thought she might be a bit wary of this new contraption. Instead, she was curled up in it in no time. 

Since I have touched on the subject of recycling in this post, I would like share a tip. Friends recently turned me on to a convenient opportunity at our local Schnucks grocery stores. (I once heard a spectator behind me at a Cardinals game, after seeing an advertisement, ask "What is a Schnuck?")  At each store entrance is a Trex recycling bin for all kinds of hard to recycle plastics including those cat and dog treat zip closure bags. For a complete list of items they will take, see their website.

         Plastic now recyclable.     My cat asking for what she wants.

We love our pets and will do anything for them. In return they give us so much more. One special gift is their sly ability to expand our horizons.

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm 

to ask for what you want.

--JOSEPH WOOD KRUTCH
 

Have an egg-stra special day.

Young Girl with Cage  by Berthe Morisot

Edgar Degas

Hats off to the current exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum.  Degas, Impressionism, and the Paris Millinery Trade (a collaboration with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) features works by Degas and contemporaries including Manet, Renoir, Mary Cassatt, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The show assembles treasures from collections around the world and takes you back to early twentieth century Paris.  Hats abound in garden, shop, and street scenes.  Displayed within the works of art are creations by great milliners of the period.

A small sample of hats on exhibit.

A side exhibit offers you the opportunity to design your own hat.  I declined, but in 2001, our Muny Theater sponsored a contest to promote an upcoming production of My Fair Lady.  You were asked to draw a hat Eliza Doolittle might have worn.  One of my designs (shown on the left below) placed third in a category.  The prize was two free tickets to the production. (Third placed us a few rows below the free section.) The Muny, a respected outdoor venue, operates during the summer months.  We were warm in our seats that hot, humid night but it did not come close to what the performers experienced in their head-to-toe Edwardian Era costumes.  I tip my hat to them.

  

My 2001 hat design entries.

Milliners, typically female shopkeepers, not only constructed hats, they choose lace, trimmings and accessories to complete an outfit.  They were artists with attention to detail down to the hat pin.  Their creations in the exhibition serve as a reminder that the life depicted in the paintings and drawings, while idealized, was real.  I encourage you to attend this exquisite show before it closes on May 7 if you can. 

May your troubles be less, 

and your blessings be more, 

and nothing but happiness 

come through your door.

IRISH BLESSING

 

The St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) recently held their annual Art in Bloom exhibition.  On this weekend, floral arrangements by local designers are displayed near the works of art that have been assigned as inspiration.  The flowers this year were as vivid and varied as the art throughout the museum.  The designers successfully conveyed the colors, composition and even chaos found in the paintings, sculptures, quilts and stained glass windows with which they were paired.  In one instance a floral still life was perfectly replicated in real life. 

Other museums offer this special exhibition and I encourage you to check it out when available.  Below is a small example of the work that was featured at SLAM.  Enjoy.

Floral design inspired by Bathers with a Turtle by Henri Matisse

Floral design inspired by Dark Abstraction by Georgia O'Keeffe