Home is Where the Heart is and the Twins Baseball Team!

(Son-in-law's beautiful backyard)

I told you I was heading for Northern climes, and here we are in Minnesota waiting for my husband’s first Great Grandson’s birth. 

The temperature’s are in the 80s with blue skies. Thrilled and delighted to be here. As a result, there’s not much going on in my art life except some incredible photos and “would be” paintings. I hope you enjoy!

Here is Katie with her soon-to-be-born son.

This is "Clarke" an Australian Collie with Katie.

I took some photos while I played with Clarke until the others returned. He's an absolute doll!

"I'll be really good if you give me a taste."

"Oh, come on -- I'm begging here!"

"See how patient I am?"

Tomorrow night we're going to a Twins game and so looking forward to it! There's nothing like an outdoor baseball game in the new stadium!

See the weather isn't too shabby in Minnesota, especially in June. 

On Thursday, we're heading out for Seattle to see my oldest daughter and her family whom I haven't seen in 6-7 years. So many new kiddies to hug.

"Fuchsia"

Here are some additional photos of "potential" paintings. Although I must do a painting of Clarke (above) who captured my heart.

My next blog will be written from Seattle with some brand new scenes. Stay tuned!

(Another scene from son-in-law's backyard)

"Begonia's in a planter"

Old Photographs – Instant Replay

My grandmother

I did a blog some time ago with this title: "Photographs -- Instant Replay" that included many old photos. To date, it is still my most popular blog, and people continue to find it on search engines. I decided to repeat that blog for those who remember and may enjoy reading it again.

The text was written following a tragic divorce and came to me as I sorted through old photographs. Enjoy!

Surrounded by old photographs, my past envelops me with a sudden rush of remembrance. Here we are family and friends captured in a brief, fleeting moment singled out from the countless hours, days, and weeks that make up our lives.

How happy we look smiling for the camera. How hopeful for the future as we pose here together, frozen for eternity in a fraction of a second and the flash of a camera. One click and an infinitesimal moment is recorded for posterity. Tomorrow’s pain and unfulfilled promises are unforeseen, unanticipated.

Photographs are given far more importance than they deserve. We use them to document our lives; perhaps even to define us. Then when relationships crumble and children move on into adulthood with their own lives and preoccupations, the frozen images smile back mocking the reality of what is now – what is today.

The life we once had -- was it dream or illusion? Who are these people smiling at us now – these people caught in a millisecond of time?

Photographs wear with age, their brightness fades and their corners become tattered and yellowed; but the images continue to smile at us as they did long ago when the shutter closed and captured one shared smile, one shared space, and one microcosmic second in a lifetime.

We have all changed since those first pictures were taken. We are older, and perhaps wiser. Photographs provide proof that we have lived, but they can never tell others who we really are. Photographs are, after all, only superficial shards of the life we leave behind.