Archive for June, 2007
Wildflowers & Romantic Settings
Cedar June 19th, 2007
I did promise you new paintings…This is all new work from the past couple of weeks.
I have been painting mountains, rolling hills, and waves of intensely vibrant wildflowers.
High Elevation
Oil on Canvas 16″ x 20″
Crimson Wildflowers
Oil on Canvas 16″ x 20″
Blossoming Hills
Oil on Canvas 16″ x 20″
Virginia Wildflowers
Oil on Canvas 18″ x 36″
Then there is Glowing Water, a continuation of my sun/ocean series:
Oil on Canvas 24″ x 36″
And finally, Moonrise (which you saw the video of me making):
Oil on Canvas 30″ x 20″
Rosalie Sophia
Cedar June 12th, 2007
My mom’s sister Wendy and her husband Aurelio live in Italy. They have been trying to adopt a child for many years, but in Italy, adoptions are very difficult, with literally years of red tape and extensive background checks. So the whole family has been waiting and waiting for a really long time. Yesterday, Wendy and Aurelio finally got the news that they have been waiting for: they will be adopting a 2-year-old girl from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. She is currently living in a children’s home run by French nuns.
Her name is Rosalie Sophia, and she has beautiful big eyes and looks like a sweetie. Wendy describes her as a “regal princess.”
They won’t be able to go to Africa and bring her home until December (more red tape), and it will be hard for them to wait, but they’re going to spend the next 6 months preparing for her arrival. They are going to start the process of collecting clothes and toys for their little girl. Wendy is going to learn how to do cornrows so she can braid her daughter’s hair. It is all so very exciting!
I won’t get to meet my new little cousin until the summer of 2008. They are all coming to the U.S. then for a family reunion!
I have been painting a lot this week and will have new pictures up soon.
The beauty of a good kitchen
Cedar June 10th, 2007
I’ve finally taken some photos of our new kitchen to share with you. Sorry it’s taken me so long!
The last 5 pictures on the Kitchen Progress page (you’ll have to scroll down) show the finished kitchen:
I wish I had taken “before” pictures of what our old kitchen looked like, so you could see what a drastic improvement this is…but alas, I didn’t start recording this project till after we had done all the demolition.
I did find one picture while looking through my photo archives. It’s a picture of me on Halloween a few years back (check it out, I’m dressed as a Bic ballpoint pen!) and you can kind of see the old kitchen in the background…a busy patterned brown and yellow linoleum floor, small tiles on the walls (note, in yet a different, non-matching shade of brown), dark brown appliances (you can see a piece of the stove on the right), a marble-looking countertop, which had yellow and…seriously, pink blotches in it, which you can’t really see in this photo, and very dark cabinets. Also, the lighting was a huge square fixture on the ceiling with fluorescent tubes in it…it was a very dingy atmosphere. And inside some of the cabinets and in the pantry, you could see the walls that were still painted Pepto-Bismol-pink by a former occupant with extremely bad taste.
Even worse than these aesthetic horrors, the old kitchen was terribly inefficient. The old pantry had a wall in front of it with a very narrow doorway in it, so that the shelves were very inaccessible. There was tons of wasted space, unusable corners, etc. The new design is open and spacious while still giving us almost twice the storage space as before and more than twice the usable counter space.
In the short time we’ve had our kitchen finished, we have gotten so much enjoyment out of it. It’s now a bright, sunny room with a place for everything and everything in its place. I love the new counters…an elegant, deep blue, our new modern light fixtures with aim-able spotlights, and I love how the tiling pulls everything together.
Of course, 15 years from now, a young couple will move into our house and disdainfully rip everything out of the kitchen and start over, ranting about the previous generation’s horrifically tasteless design choices.
In art-related news, I have another solo show coming up! I will be displaying paintings, some old, some new, at the Mayorga Coffee Factory in Silver Spring, MD for the entire month of July. If you are in the DC/Baltimore area, I’d love to see you at the opening. More details to come.
Moonrise
Cedar June 7th, 2007
Dum dum dum, DUM dum dee dum….
III’m gonna love you, till the heavens stop the rain…
I’m gonna looove you, till the stars fall from the skyyyyy….
FOR YOU AND I!
…dum dum dum, DUM dum dee dum…
Got a new video for you: Moonrise
YouTube link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=caOeKmSO4vA
I was in a romantic mood today.
Cedar’s Story
Cedar June 5th, 2007
So, I’ve added a section to my website entitled “Story.” It is basically the story of my life, and it’s obviously very abbreviated, but I think it includes most of the important things. The story is illustrated with photos from every phase of my life.
Of course I wouldn’t go so far as to presume that you are interested in reading my life story, but just in case you are, check it out:
Overdue Video
Cedar June 4th, 2007
This video was supposed to be released sometime around Mothers’ Day, but the video editing got put on the back burner and didn’t end up happening until just now. I hope you enjoy it, all the same!
The YouTube link, to share with friends if you wish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc98XVGeBAE
After more than a week of stifling heat with not a drop of rain, it is finally pouring here. My garden is very happy.
I’ve been baby-sitting a little girl named Remy, the two-year-old daughter of one of my former painting professors, while her mom is out of town on a business trip. Hanging out with a two-year-old has reminded me that certain little things are good for my health, and I should do them more often; for example, getting excited about what I’m going to have for lunch, spending time watching a squirrel run around, jumping in puddles, making up ridiculous songs, and drawing on the sidewalk with chalk. In the past few days I’ve gotten re-acquainted with Mary Poppins, Pinocchio, Mickey Mouse, Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street.
New artwork, as always, is a-brewing.
