Fostering a new renaissance through creativity, authenticity, spirituality, and art
Polly Castor 
To me plein air painting is about fusing all the sights and sounds and smells in an approximated image. I look at my painting from that day (done in pastel) and I smell again the pungent pine trees and the mud stirred up by many rubber boots…
The peonies this year have been exceptional as you can see by the volume of photos in this post. The weather stayed cool for quite a while allowing these beauties to linger until now that it has finally gotten hot.
It pleases me beyond reason that I actually know the person that had enough vision, faith, and fun to put the smiles on those fish!
My piece is about how the shards of violence are very dramatic and demanding, in our face and catching our attention, but that hope is ever glowing, and reassuringly beckoning.
Putting church over community.
Putting orthodoxy over love.
Putting certainty over wonder.
Putting teaching over conversation…
These rhododendrons are fireworks of beauty. I love them! I am so grateful to live in such a beautiful place.
There aren’t too many contemporary pastel artists doing terrific abstract work, so I have been delighted to come upon Diana Sanford.
People are always glad to see you arrive with them and they are the first things on a groaning table to be gobbled up.
Deviled eggs have a reputation for being tedious or hard to make, but they don’t have to be.
Here were some of the lessons from this story we discussed in Sunday School:
I love the metaphor both of these pieces utilize. Indeed, take heart! “The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
I have six landscape paintings done in pastel in this Invitational Art Show at New Pond Farm. Stop by soon if you are local!
This entertaining novel would make a perfect beach read. I’m glad to have started my summer off with it!
Over Memorial Day Weekend I completed these two new landscape paintings of New Pond Farm done in Pastel.
This post shows a bit of life around here on a holiday weekend. Nothing special in one way, but everything wonderful in another.
On Saturday night over Memorial Day Weekend, I went to “Chihuly Nights” at the New York Botanical Gardens. We had a wonderful time and I recommend going.
I hope you find something in the links below that is inspiring, transformational, intriguing, educational, beautiful, yummy, or motivating in some way:
I believe in a good strong cup of ginger tea
And all these shoots and roots will become a tree