AS PROMISED

Here are more photos of our Christmas Window Display.

It also includes some Comfort Dolls.

My handmade ornaments look pretty on the tree

My collages both large and small

Good Friends

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with friends Brenda and John Salzano
We snacked on roasted peanuts, crackers, cheese before we sat down for dinner
John Salzano is a well known musician both locally with the "Young Bucks" and in Las Vegas where he performs with numerous bands. We had the pleasure of listening to him play Christmas Carols on Thanksgiving.
The table was set for four
The menu was turkey breast, dressing, mashed potatoes with gravy, yams, green casrole, deviled eggs, whole wheat dinner rolls and Depot Bay cranberry wine with peach and pumpkin pie for dessert
Dinner was served as a buffet
The infamous green bean casrole was a big hit

Brenda made a yummy peach pie and we also had pumpkin pie

I couldn't leave out the yams with marshmellows just like my Mother served at all of her holiday dinners

Etsy Team Update.....

This has been a busy month for our Etsy Team with both a Thanksgiving and Christmas window display

My Etsy Team Buddies. Nadine, Me, Lynn, Brenda, Jann and Kathleen

Kathleen, Brenda and I at one of our coffee meetings.

Kathleen and the wreath she made for the Christmas display
She is so talented and funny too!

We completed our Christmas window display today and I will have more pictures of that for you all to see next week. Nadine went by and got this one after dark. This is only part of the display. Can you see the little room in the background and the wreath hanging on the window? I will get better shots of that. It has a fireplace that Brenda made out of cardboard and a mantel with stockings hanging above. It turned out so pretty.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Here is wishing all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for so much this year.
God has blessed me with a wonderful family and good friends.

Our news of my husbands lymphoma and leukemia being at the watch and wait stage is our biggest blessing this year.
I hope you all stuff yourselves and enjoy your company on this Thanksgiving 2009.

We will be missing my family this day but we will have friends here to share dinner.
Hugs to all of you.

RECYCLING IS A GOOD THING!

This year our Etsy Team is making handmade Christmas Ornaments for our tree in the window display at the Green Spot downtown Coos Bay.

Little houses made from card stock, glitter and glue

I surprise myself sometimes!

I made handmade garland out of paper stock and vintage images and strung a silver beaded garland through them.

I also made my stocking with parts from this lampshade that I had just lying around gathering dust and turned it to something happy and festive!

Here are the parts I recycled from that shade.
Yep, I just ripped them apart.

Here is my stocking made using some of those parts.

Well this was fun! What are you doing to create for Christmas?

I love Christmas!!

LADY HEATHER

This is my latest collage. It was made using an old vanity mirror frame. Click on the image to see the detail.

I call her Lady Heather

It is available on my Etsy Shop today. Click on my Etsy Shop here on my side bar if you are interested. She would make a great Christmas gift!

The Art of Collage is Older Than We Think

I recently received an email with the following information. Interesting.
Wanted to share with all of you.



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 26, 2009
MEDIA CONTACTS: Erin Hogan Chai Lee
(312) 443-3664 (312) 443-3625
ehogan@artic.edu clee4@artic.edu
NEW ART INSTITUTE EXHIBITION PIECES TOGETHER RARELY SEEN
PHOTOCOLLAGE ALBUMS
Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage
Premieres at the Art Institute October 10, 2009
First Exhibition of its Kind Will Travel to the Met and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto


Although collage is commonly thought of
as a modern art form, the act of “playing
with pictures” has a long, rich, and
surprising history. Its roots are on full
display in the unique exhibition Playing
with Pictures: The Art of Victorian
Photocollage, on view from October
10, 2009 through January 3, 2010, in
Photography Galleries 1 and 2 at the Art
Institute of Chicago.



This exhibition is the first to comprehensively examine the little-known
phenomenon of Victorian photocollage, presenting many eye-opening works that have rarely—
and in many cases never—before been displayed or reproduced. Playing with Pictures will
receive its world premiere at the Art Institute before traveling to the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in New York and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.
A full 60 years ahead of the avant-garde—and more than a century before Photoshop—
aristocratic Victorian women were already making radical experiments with photocollage.
During the Victorian era, photography became remarkably popular and accessible, as people
posed for studio portraits and exchanged these pictures on a vast scale. The makers of the
collages shown here cut up these portraits and placed them in elaborate watercolor designs in
albums. With their sharp wit, absurd senses of humor, and dramatic shifts of scale akin to
those Alice experienced in Wonderland, these photocollages stand the rather serious
conventions of photography in the 1860s and 1870s on their heads, debunking stuffy Victorian
clichés with surreal, subversive, and funny
images.



Oftentimes, the combination of
photographic portraits with painted settings
inspired dreamlike and even bizarre results:
placing human heads on animal bodies; situating
people in imaginary landscapes; and morphing
faces into common household objects. Such
images reveal the educated minds as well as
accomplished hands of their makers, as they take
on new theories of evolution, the changing role of
photography, and the strict boundaries of aristocratic society. Together they provide a
fascinating window into the creative possibilities of photography in the Victorian era and
enduring inspiration for photographic experimentation today.
Playing with Pictures showcases the best of these albums and loose pages from collections
across the United States, Europe, and Australia; 40 pages are shown in frames on the wall,
while 11 separate albums are displayed in cases, accompanied by “virtual albums” on
computer monitors for visitor interaction. One of the highlights of the exhibition is an exciting
addition to the Art Institute’s permanent collection: the Madame B Album, a fascinating album
of more than 140 pages of photographs and watercolor designs, which was acquired in 2005
and is on public display for the first time. “Madame B” has been identified as Blanche Fournier,
the wife of a French diplomat. In her clever, whimsical, and surreal world, photographic
portraits dot the tail feathers of a turkey, faces decorate the wings of a colorful butterfly, and a
secret language of flowers communicates hidden meanings.
Two catalogues, Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage by Elizabeth Siegel
and The Marvelous Album of Madame B: Being the Handiwork of a Victorian Lady of
Considerable Talent by Elizabeth Siegel and Martha Packer, will accompany this exhibition.
The Art of Victorian Photocollage constitutes the first full-length scholarly examination of the
phenomenon of photocollage in the Victorian era, focusing on the themes and social meanings
of photocollage as well as the avant-garde character of the art form. Published by Yale
University Press for the Art Institute, the book reproduces 140 illustrations, most of which have
never been printed before, and features essays by Elizabeth Siegel, Patrizia Di Bello, and
Marta Weiss, and contributions by Miranda Hofelt. The Marvelous Album of Madame B reflects
on both the experiences of the album’s creator, Blanche Fournier, as well as the history behind
the photocollage album. With more than 55 pages filled with photographs, collages, and
watercolor designs, the book features repeating pictorial themes such as pattern, the animal
kingdom, and keepsakes. The Marvelous Album of Madame B is published by Scala
Publishers for the Art Institute. Both volumes can be purchased at the Museum Shop of the Art
Institute.
Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage is curated by Elizabeth Siegel,
Associate Curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition will be on view
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from February 2 to May 9, 2010, and at the Art
Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto from June 5 to September 5, 2010.
Major funding for Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage is generously
provided by ART MENTOR FOUNDATION LUCERNE, the Smart Family Foundation, and
Brenda Shapiro in memory of Earl Shapiro. Additional support provided by The Hite
Foundation in memory of Sybil Hite and by Barbara Bluhm-Kaul and Don Kaul.
IMAGES:
Mary Georgiana Caroline, Lady Filmer (English, 1838-1903), Untitled, loose page from the Filmer Album, mid-1860s, Collage of
watercolor and albumen prints, Paul F. Walter.
Kate Edith Gough (English, 1856–1948). Untitled page from the Gough Album, late 1870s. Collage of watercolor and albumen
prints. V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum, London. G31910
# # # #
Web: www.artinstituteofchicago.org
Twitter: @artinstitutechi
Become a Facebook fan
MUSEUM HOURS
10:30 am–5:00 pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday
10:30 am–8:00 pm Thursday
10:00 am–5:00 pm Saturday, Sunday
TARGET FREE THURSDAY EVENINGS AFTER 5:00 pm
SUMMER HOURS (from Memorial Day to Labor Day)
10:30 am–5:00 pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
10:30 am–9:00 pm Thursday, Friday
10:00 am–5:00 pm Saturday, Sunday
TARGET FREE SUMMER EVENINGS THURSDAY AND FRIDAY AFTER 5:00 pm
FREE FEBRUARY 1 TO 28
Closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day.
ADMISSION
Adults $18.00 Includes all special exhibitions and coat check
Children 14 and over, students, and seniors $12.00 Includes all special exhibitions and coat check
Chicago residents receive a $2.00 discount with proof of residency
Children under 14 always free
Members always free
Free Evenings are free to all. City of Chicago residents with Chicago Public Library cards can borrow a "Museum
Passport" card from any library branch for free general admission to the nine members of Museums in the Park,
including the Art Institute of Chicago.
The Art Institute of Chicago is a museum in Chicago’s Grant Park, located across from Millennium Park.
Visitors can enter the museum via the Michigan Avenue entrance or the Millennium Park entrance on Monroe
Street.

Happy Veteran's Day

My Daddy was a Veteran of World War II. I honor him today. A Marine, he was in 5 major battles and missing in action for 15 months. He was only 18 years old.He served for 3 years. He survived and made it home and passed away at the age of 34 from heart failure caused by meningitis he contacted during his time overseas

What is a Veteran?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.

Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together or a piece of shrapnel in the leg .

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.

You can't tell a vet just by looking.


What is a vet?

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.


He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back at all.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-accounts and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU".

Profits of the Sea

A table set for four.

My hubby Alan went crabbing and he brought home 12 big crabs.

We also cooked up some of that salmon that Alan caught .

I hate seafood so we invited Brenda Salzano, my Etsy Team founder and her husband John to share.


We had crab, and salmon with yams, cole slaw and corn on the cob from my neighbors garden and of course aseago cheese bread and wine. We toasted to the profits of the sea with a red wine from Depot Bay Cranberry wine. We had pumpkin bread pudding with coffee for dessert and had a really good visit.

It was a pleasant evening and now we are all full and sleepy!

Turkey Hands

Remember when you were a kid and you made a turkey by tracing around you hand?
This was a challenge by one of our Etsy Team members. We are all to do one in what ever style we wish. I did mine of course in the collage style using tiny images mostly from Art Chix Studio.
We will also be asking some of the local grade schools to participate. These Turkey Hands will be in our Fall window display down town Coos Bay.

Go ahead...try it, you know you want to!