Assisted, But Not Assistive

The other day I rode in my friend’s self-driving Tesla and was surprisingly impressed. Because he has some impaired side vision, I realized the car is, in a way, an assisted device. It gives him more time, more confidence, and gives his wife more confidence in his driving. But it doesn’t look remotely like an assistive device. That got me thinking: maybe pickleball is an assisted sport. An e-bike is an assisted bicycle. A robot vacuum is an assisted housekeeper. Voice-to-text is an assisted secretary. And perhaps that’s the trick: the best assistance is the kind that doesn’t make you feel assisted. 

My London Adventure 9/19/22

Sep 19, 2022

It’s been two weeks since I landed in London and it’s been a whirlwind since. Becoming a student again is one challenge, learning the City, transportation, figuring out meals and the washing machine another. After the Queen’s funeral is today, I imagine the city will find a new sense of normal in the the coming days. Just increased the volume to be able to hear the funeral on tv, because of helicopters ruckus. I live within a close enough distance that I’m imagining press and security/military are circling. We walked a street yesterday, where we saw police dressed in many different uniforms from locations of my favorite Brit detective shows.

Sotheby’s is providing a great learning experience. They dedicate Tues and Wed to art business led by Jeffrey Boloton, and Thurs and Fri to art history led by Rachel Barnes. Both sections have specialists come in for lectures or tours, though Jeffery and Rachel are positively able to give all the lectures, I’m so impressed with both of them and their credentials. In the two weeks, we’ve been to 4 museums, one commercial gallery which was followed by a “reception” at the pub next door. Rachel led three of the museum tours. She obviously knows her audience. She stops in front of a painting or sculpture, speaks for no more than two minutes, and takes off like being chased by the group and goes to the next. After a couple stops, she gives the group time to look around at our own pace. 

Last Thursday, we were to meet at 10:30 am by the columns of the British Museum just after the security check. Rachel and one of the other instructors split the group. Luckily, with Rachel we saw objects in the Egyptian, Japanese and African exhibits, had a quick look around, grabbed a coffee and were back in the classroom at Sotheby’s by 11:45 for a lecture on how the pieces influenced Van Gogh and peers. 

On the art business side, we had the Head of Bidding from Sotheby’s Auction House, which the School of Art was spun from. She spoke and answered all kinds of questions about behind the scenes and strategies for bidding. Whoa, if I only had an extra million. In the next couple weeks, we will go to the auction house and watch an auction via video streaming- only bidders already vetted with the money to buy objects can be in the room. The visit to that specific gallery is still a mystery to me. I’m guessing the owner a friend to someone, or the proximity to the pub, because the art was not special, IMHO. It might have been because the gallery was targeting millennials, not my gen. 

The class is great. Really like the people. Very smart. Jeffery commented on the engagement of the group. I’ve made a couple friends. Took a sigh of relief when I was invited to hang on Saturday. Had to decline to get my first paper done before company from the States arrived, but knowing I’d be the oldest, (and am)  was a worry that’s gone.

Last Monday, on my day off, made it out to Kew Gardens. Wanted to see the exhibit of Marianne North’s botanical paintings. In the mid 1800s she traveled all over the world exploring and documenting new species. I was surprised by the quantity and quality of the paintings. 

Cheers!

Best Paleo Chicken Soup... So Far

The original recipe came from a magazine that’s long gone.  I start the recipe the same way each time with the olive oil, onion, garlic, rosemary, chicken and sweet potatoes. Those ingredients give the basic flavor palette. I add other vegetables based on who's coming for dinner, what's in the fridge, the quantity I want, how much time I want to put into prep, and if I have a taste for something. Basically, it’s rarely the same twice, and it’s always good.  I always add a dark green leafy vegetable like spinach just before serving company, not only for the nutrients, but for the color contrast as well. It just looks more appetizing with bright green against the orange and browns. If you want this vegetarian, omit the chicken and chicken stock, vegetable broth or water instead.)

 

Ingredients: 

2 T olive oil

1 Large or 2 med onions

4 -6 Garlic cloves

2 T Rosemary -  Minced - fresh is best

2 chicken breasts or 4 thighs cut into bite size pieces – no knives needed

3 stalks of celery chopped into half inch pieces

2 large or 5 small Parsnips – peeled and chopped into half inch pieces (they are the vegetables that look like albino carrots)

1 large or 2 small Turnips - peeled, chopped into half inch pieces (its a round white snowball with purple icing)

2 Sweet Potatoes - 1 of them peeled and chopped into  1/2" pieces. The second Sweet potato peeled, chopped into 1 1/2" pieces  

1 Can White beans - Northern (black beans are good too) 

2 C Mushrooms

1 Zuchini - chopped into 1/2" pieces or green beans 

2 C Broccoli chopped bite size

2 C Spinach chopped

Salt and Pepper

32 ounces chicken broth (Strengthens the flavor)

2 Cups water 

 

Instructions

 

·      Saute the onions in the olive oil, once they are translucent,

·      Add the garlic, and rosemary, then add and brown the chicken.

·      Pour in a bit of the chicken broth into the pan to make sure you get all the onion, garlic and chicken. This will be transferred to a pot.

·      Pour the remaining liquid into the soup pot and add the sweet potatoes, celery, parsnips, turnips, then add in the ingredients from the sauté pan. The ingredients call for a generous amount of liquid. Start with the chicken broth and add some of the water here.

·      When the large sweet potato chunks are soft, mash them with a fork or a wand, they will blend and thicken the broth. Mashing the sweet potatoes thickens almost creams the soup. Leave the little sweet potato chunks for texture.

·      Toss in the mushrooms and beans– which basically soak up the flavor and stretch the soup, not really add much flavor. Good for if you want to make a large batch. Add more of the water if it seems to thick. This is not a clear broth soup, so don’t add much, but it will cook down. Let it simmer about 20 minutes.

·      Ten minutes out from serving add the broccoli.

·      Taste it (no double dips with same spoon.) Add salt or pepper. It often doesn’t need it.

·      Call people to the table (Someone always has to “wash their hands.”

·      Toss in the spinach, have someone pour the wine and serve the bowls. The spinach should look bright green contrasting against the orange.

·      WINE: If it’s lunch or warm out, I like serving a Portuguese Vino Verde – it’s crisp and just this side of sparkling – a great contrast to the potatoes. Or I serve a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

·      SIDES: For texture and for contrast in flavors, I usually serve this with rustic bread, fruit bread or vegetable chips and sliced apples or small bunches of grapes.  I like that there is finger food along with using the spoon.

 

 

Guest Artists - Reminders of Painting What You See

Visitors while painting is part of the pleasure and annoyances of painting in public. When you're in the zone and someone whispers, "what are yodoing?' just over your shoulder is an annoyance, and has caused my heart to stop and my brush to paint an extra long limb. For the most part, I appreciate the visitors. It allows a random moment to step away from my work and look at it from their eyes. I always see something I need to fix. 

Having children as visitors is my favorite. I usually carry a hard cover sketchbook and a marker, and offer them an opportunity to make their own artwork on a page. The deal is, their parent can take a photo of the art, (usually they want the artist and my painting too) and I keep the book.

Some arrive with their own coloring implements, on their way to somewhere their time needs to be occupied. I'm amazed at how much elementary-age kids know about art and color. I don't think I got any of that from Captain Kangaroo or Mr. Green Jeans. They know what the primary colors are, and even more impressive, how to make green, purple and orange - the secondary colors.  

Parents have asked me for my painting schedule, which I don't provide, mainly because I don't have one. I've had parents return with their kids to watch the progress of my painting or to bring me a painting the child has made in the meantime. 

I've worked with children since I had a robust babysitting business, starting as a mother's helper for a neighbor when I was around 10. In high school, I brought flowers with a note, "thanks for the new business", to my favorite families with newborns. Though my credential from college was as a health educator, my first job was as a health coordinator for a poverty agency in Jackson, MI, connected to a family-related Head Start Program. THe focus of my work was to knock away any challenges that prevented preschool children from attending and getting their Head Start. 

Cumpulsory staff training happened every Friday. Employees received GEDs or credits toward bachelor or masters degrees with professors from Michigan State University and the local Community College. My on the job trainging allowed me to observe and interact with the kids intentionally. When I left that position, I was well on my way to a graduate degree and forever respectful and awed by preschoolers. Later jobs took my out the realm of kids, but their visits are always a joy, a reconnection to a much younger me, and a reminder to paint the way I see things... 

Art Collectors - Why They Do or Don't Collect Plein Air

For the last few months, in preparation for the Plein Air Painters Chicago fifth I Heart Plein Air Conference, I have interviewed seven individuals who represent, collect or acquire art. The inteviews have taught me that every person and organization that collects art, has a different reason and aesthetic, and that I, as an artist, can't paint for them. As artists we can paint for ourselves and find kindred spirits. I am honored to say that some of these collectors are my kindred spirits.

Here are links to those video interviews.  

Mary Longe overview of the interviews: https://youtu.be/17eHy45HZBQ

Michelle Strassburger https://youtu.be/TcLSTf9BD3E

Chicago designer Michelle Strassburger has been collecting since the mid-eighties and has amassed collections-of-collections of outsider art, musical instruments, dolls, furniture, crosses and figurative, still life and plein air paintings – 3000 pieces, at least. She sees the Palette & Chisel as the place to find emerging artists and has several pieces by PAPC artists represented. She describes what inspires her, her process for going through exhibits and choosing paintings, and what she plans for the future of her collection. Mary Longe interviews Michelle Strassburger in her Chicago home.

Samantha Michalski https://youtu.be/hHo9cHQ1-h4

A prize for winning best in show at the Cedarburg Plein Air Festival is to have your painting purchased by the Cedarburg Art Museum. The organization’s mission reflects its connection to the community and surrounding areas. Museum Director, Samantha Michalski reflects on the role of museums, and their connection to the community and to artists. She explains why the CAM and other regional museums are partial to plein air paintings. Mary Longe talks with Samantha Michalski via Zoom.

Rick Reinert https://youtu.be/1ScPAq3zpzw

Rick and Ann Reinert founded Reinert Fine Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Charleston, SC, and they understand artists, and after years as a gallery owner they understand the people who purchase art. In this conversation, Rick helps us understand the role and the opportunity of a gallery for an artist. He explains what artists should do if they’d like to be represented, the opportunity for them, and the responsibilities in the relationship between artist and gallery. Reinert Fine Art Gallery represents locals, Errol Jacobson, Mary Qian, and William Schneider. Mary Longe talks with Rick Reinert via Zoom.

Barbara Van Driel https://youtu.be/cR_KO97w3i8

Barbara Van Driel’s three residences have different genres of art. What they share is her love for hanging multiple pieces from masters in the genres. In Chicago, her home has more than twenty paintings by PAPC Master Artist, Nancy King Mertz. Barbara tells us why she collects in that fashion, her relationship to the artists, and to the art. Mary Longe interviews Barbara Van Driel in her Chicago home.

Canice Prendergast https://youtu.be/JaYLZV3YWEw

Canice Prendergast manages acquisitions of art work for the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business along with a team of students, faculty and alums. Here he brings his experience with the global art market and his expertise as an economics professor to explain how and why the UC acquires items for its collection. You;ll be surprised by some responses. Mary Longe talks with Canice Prendergast via Zoom.

Jose Santillan https://youtu.be/0Ul0xgpi_lE

Jose Santillan has favorite types of art and favorite artists but likes to find new ones. He establishes an annual budget and sometimes buys a painting from a recognized artist or decides it’s the year for serendipitous buying. He tells us what moves him to make purchases. Mary Longe talks with Jose Santillan via Zoom.

Elizabeth Murphy https://youtu.be/3Iv1oaLymCk

Collecting Art: Buying Plein Air Online, A Conversation with Elizabeth Murphy, Chicago, IL Beth Murphy combs the internet for art and buys from all over the world. She wanders through craft and fine art fairs, and even renaissance festivals searching out emerging artists. She rarely pays more than $100 and has more paintings than she can frame or hang. She knows what she likes, what’s worth the money, and tells us why. Mary Longe talks with Beth Murphy via Zoom.

The Gangster, the Guest Artist and the Couple Who Cleaned Up

This is Jazzy. She used my sketchbook to draw a statue across the street in Humbolt Park. My deal with my "Guest Artists" is that I get to keep the picture and they may draw in my book while I paint. Parents are invited to take a photo of the Guest Artist with their art. None have refused. As the daughter and mother walked away, Jazzy decided she didn’t like the deal, turned back to me and wanted the book. I told her I needed it. She surprisingly didn’t negotiate and they went on their way.. 

She and her mom arrived just after Jose left. Jose stood and visited with me for more than two hours… that’s long for the usual plein air bystander. He seemed fascinated with the painting process, asked good questions, made comments about the composition and showed me his bullet wounds from a gang fight, that he apparently lost. Painter friends stopped by while he was there and he’d step back while we chatted and stepped closer when they left. Later, I learned that they thought he and I were friends. I suppose we were- for a few minutes. As I finished the painting, I offered it to him. He said, “No, I’m good.” A bit of a blow.

Just as I packed the last bit of equipment in my backpack, a couple stopped and asked to see the painting I'd done. Lucky me. They love art, said that they hadn’t bought anything local since moving to Chicago three years ago, and purchased my painting. 

It was a rich and interesting day to paint.

When A Scene Turns to Love

This is my happy place, Ft. Sheridan, near Highland Park, IL on September 5th, 2021. General Patton lived here for a time, I've heard, it's probably true; a street bears his name. I paint here frequently enough to actually recognize people who also come here regularly. It is a place to appreciate the Lake. You can’t officially swim here because, there might be unexploded ordinants in the water. I always thought that was an urban legend but, only waded a few time, not wanting to tempt fate. Earlier this year, a grenade from a war a long time ago was found a few hundred yards away.

One couple stopped by my easel and commented on my painting. Out of the blue the man said- We are all connected by love. A few hours before, I had found the obit of someone I once loved. With that, this scene, this painting reminds me of that love. (Painting - sold.)

Old Music Heard a New Way

 After a stroke, my dad started using the phrase, “that was the best…  I ever had, or, I’ve never …” While his certaintude made me smile, it also gave me hope that maybe a brain blown, didn’t have to be a complete calamity. Finding new joy in old things sounded okay. While watching Tick Tick Boom last night, I wondered why I didn’t share the love of theater that many friends have. Reading the memories and hearing soundbites of lyrics by Stephen Sondheim after his death and learning he inspired Jonathan Larson who wrote the lyrics and score for Tick Tick and Rent, challenged that thought more.

Lately, I’ve found myself listening to different radio stations when I drive. WXRT for one. I realized I liked it when I was painting a portrait at the Palette & Chisel. It was in the background, but for me background sound is often front and center and I can’t not hear it. The sniffle in a Zoom program, the voice on the other end of a cell call in a hardware store with Silent Night playing, talking about the disappointment in a center piece at Thanksgiving, for instance. Painting usually puts me into a zone where pretty much I have virtual blinders and noise cancelling earmuffs, but that morning up on the third floor with the north light, I found myself making brushstrokes to Peter Gabriel’s Your Eyes and liked the results. Not in the painting but in the feeling that I wasn’t second guessing my strokes, the music nudged a rhythm. I wondered why I didn’t listen to XRT back in the days of a beer after work that accompanied conversations of bands I’d never heard of, that now are oldies.

Once home, I asked Alexa to play XRT. During my visit to Seattle, we listened to KMHD, a Portland jazz station. I’ve never heard so much xylophone or saxophone… and liked it. Alexa has been playing that too. As far as I know, I haven’t had a stroke, but something has happened to nudge me from a rut I didn’t know I was navigating. I feel less hunkered down, like I could tap into courage to do something else new… something bigger than a radio station. Move? Take a long trip alone. Write a novel? Create some other adventure. Now, I wonder if it really was the stroke that caused my dad’s reframing his experience of the world. He may have just heard old music in a new way.

A Child in Isolation and How A Mystery Made it Easier

My ears still hurt from wearing earrings I wear all day on Halloween. The metal finding is cheap and makes my skin black around the piercing, but the black spiderweb and silver tarantula make me smile. It’s worth the suffering. 

During the rest of the year the earrings rest in an antique porcelain box that once sat on the table where my mother stood her magnifying mirror and pull tweezers from the drawer to shape her eyebrows. It was hers, but given that it was likely made before she was born, it may have belonged to someone else, but I never asked. The box holds my treasures now, though most the same monetary value as the plastic earrings, a resin vampire pin, a puzzle-piece Christmas tree my son made with safety pins glued to the back, a coin pressed at Greenfield Village, another in the Caribbean, and a teddy-bear barrette that felt like velvet when I wore it with the Easter dress the first year I rode a two-wheeler; the flocking now worn away but the pink eyes remain as bright as I remember.

While sorting through the box for the spiderwebs, I noticed envelopes trapped in the lid of the box, the kind attached to coats or dresses with extra buttons. Two had buttons as marked, and one held a tiny china dog. I don’t remember putting it there, but I do remember the dog, a good replica of beagle brown and long flopped black ears, and how it sat atop a mirror on a bookshelf, with beagles in other poses, and other breeds of dogs and many other tiny bone China animals that eventually filled three shelves.

 

I don’t remember how my collection started. I believe there was a cocker spaniel that was my mother's and, maybe a couple other dogs belonged to my sister until she lost interest in them as a teenager. My memory is hazy on that part, but I remember amassing money I made from extra chores and gifts to ride my bike to the Village, the shopping district, to a gift store where they had a display of what seemed like hundreds of bone China animals. I bought other beagles that made a family for the one in the envelope. I bought a Siamese kitty that lapped milk from a separate pale of spilt milk- a cost of two animals, plus it’s mother with a fragile serpentine tail, that miraculously never broke. I remember buying a frog, a hippo, mother and calf elephants, brown, black and white cows, pigs with a momma and two babies, a skunk that held onto a separate tree-the cost of two animals, a squirrel the very same body as the skunk that reached out to a separate tree trunk, chipmunks, a ewe with two white and one black lamb- a little like me, a deer family, chickens, roosters, and horses of different breeds and coloring.

 

Farm animals were separated from the domestics, neighborhood wildlife from the wild animals. Word got around the family of my collection, and, like Beanie Boos and Beanie Babies now were a pretty much guaranteed hit as a gift. I admit that I was disappointed when they showed up in glass, or carved stone. I liked the smooth shiny bone china, others would be found on the lower shelves.

 

On the fourth to last day of third grade, when my collection of animals easily fit on a single mirrored tray on top of my dresser, I was diagnosed with an illness that meant I had to stay in a darkened room until my blood tests were normal… weeks, the doctor told my mother. And, I was contagious. No Field Day at school or final good byes, no biking, no swimming, no hide and seek on the block, nor visits from friends. Except for weekly trips to the doctor to draw blood to monitor the illness, I wasn’t allowed out. Since light was an issue, I was relegated to the basement where we had a tv and my bed room. 

 

Luckily, I was a reader. Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, the Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, and the buccaneers of Treasure Island kept me company, as well as Annette, Jimmy, Cubby and Bobby of the Mickey Mouse Club, Beaver, Kathy Anderson on Father Knows Best, and Soupy Sales, White Fang and Blacktooth on tv. It’s funny, I don’t remember being frustrated or bored or lonely or scared. I don’t remember getting special attention, but I likely did... someone went to the library to get me the books, and someone brought me Faygo Rock and Rye. 

 

I was five when we moved to that Cape Cod house. My siblings each had a room upstairs, my bedroom was on the first floor along with my parent’s. I remember the heavy book of wallpaper samples, larger than any photo album, that my mother brought home to pick out wallpaper. I chose black and white puppies with a green background, the other choice I had, was a pink background. My mother hung lined curtains to match.

 

One window of my room faced south toward downtown Detroit, and the other, west toward the next-door neighbors. No fence in between, only a few box shrubs and lawn on our property, and the neighbor’s wide driveway. In the mornings that summer, I was allowed to open my curtains to let in the west light but had to close them before noon when the sun peeked in. One morning, when I drew back the curtains a grey wolf sat, ready to howl on the window ledge. No box nor note. He was different from every one that I had. They were shiny and smooth. The wolf’s coat was rough and matte. No one fessed up to giving me the wolf. And Though I was learning great detective skills in the books I was reading, I could Barely leave my room, let alone the house to Interrogate my suspects.

 

Three days later a collie, standing majestic like Lassie, stood on my window ledge,  then a German Shepherd. Every eight or ten days over the course of June, July and August more animals appeared. A couple had little nicks, as though someone else may have owned them.

 

It became so much easier to go to sleep at night in hopes I have a surprise. You want to know who orchestrated this multi week campaign of China animals? So do I, I never found out. That window was always open, though the curtains drawn from noon to dawn, it was summer and we didn’t have air-conditioning, but I never heard a sound. They stopped appearing once I received an all clear from Doctor Kennary. Even once I was able to ask people face-to-face no one confessed. I suspect it was my next-door neighbors who’s kitchen faced my bedroom window but, they never let on.

  

In this time of Covid and thinking about people who are sick, I’m reminded of the kindness that someone bestowed on me to make my life easier, and never let on.

Finding A Model - One Foot in Front of the Other

I spent part of yesterday looking for a model to pose outside during the Plein Air Painters Chjcago Saturday paint  out in Washington Square Park. With the generous help from the folks at the Palette and Chisel Emily will join us and Bill Schneider, a renown portrait artist and plein air painter will provide a demo focusing on how to paint people en plein air. Unfortunately, though this was my idea, and I love painting outside and I am learning to love painting someone inside without the extra challenge of wind and gnats, I wont be there. Though I’m disappointed, I found a nugget in all of this. One of the model’s “out of office” message was “I’m off the grid.”

And she called me anyway.

From the porch of an all you can eat buffet in Oregon, after refueling for another five, ten, twenty miles on the Pacific Northwest Trail today. She started walking in Canada, one foot in front of the other. Sounds easy enough. A friend joined her for a week and left the trail a couple days ago to get back to her life. For me, that might make the one foot in front of the other a bit lonelier. The model doesn’t sound lonely

.

She said there is a community of hikers. A lot go at the same pace, alone but together. She sees familiar faces sometimes on the trail, or in restaurants near the trail. She says they are all ages, a lot of retirees, all different body types. Hers is tall, lithe, and muscular. I asked if she posted her travels, she said no. She’s not on social media, a reason I didn’t want to use her name. She told me that she takes a photo of herself nude in the wild every day, to document her body changing, her hair growing, her city look melting into something else. She’s not posting them. She said it would probably be illegal anyway. They’re for now, for herself. 

The day before I set out trying to find a model, I talked with a friend about camping and painting, camping and painting all the way to Alaska. I’ve been talking about an RV for awhile. I’ve talked about walking the camino. Instead I hang with my cat and paint around town. I find her adventure an adventure. She courageous and probably doesn’t need PT for a knee that’s been bent in sitting too long. 

I can make calls for a model or I can adventure. Hmmm, one foot in front of the other. 

What Does My Solo Show Mean? Consciously Counting the Beats to My Next Cymbal Clang

If you've followed my posts, you've read about my path, development and process of becoming an artist. I refer to myself as that now, though it still feels a bit clumsy or maybe pretentious as it rolls out, but it's incorporated into my life in so many ways. It's how I spend my time, my vacations, my money; it's in my clothes, those with and without paint. It shows in the special but ugly light fixtures in my "studio"  and, the renovations that created better storage for equipment, supplies and paintings that haven't found a home. I bristle at the word "hobby", yet the IRS has a definition I can't deny, but I'm still an artist, even if leaning toward starving in the metaphoric sense.

Up until now, I've referred to myself as a beginner painter. I've been aware that I've moved through phases used in the training industry. I showed unconscious incompetence, when I asked an early teacher, "why?" when he told me I needed to learn to draw. I approached conscious incompetence as I struggled with making landscapes recede or shadows lengthen correctly,  to conscious competence where I seem to reside most now as I struggle with consistency in my painting processes and intentionality with each brushstroke, it's like the percussionist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra who moves his lips and counts the beats preparing for the next cymbal clang or drum bang.  And, sometimes, there are inklings of the next and last phase, unconscious competence, when I put down a stroke and it's right and I know it, and I leave it.

This show marks the end of the beginning. No doubt, I will continue to move through consciousness and competence as I continue to paint and improve my painting. This end allows me to forge a new path and direction, not letting go of what brought me here, but building on it.

My Art Dish, a video chat with Guest Artist Stephanie Weidner

My Art Dish, A Video Chat with Artist Lee Radtke

Invitation to The Buzz – Bees and Beekeepers An Exhibit of Paintings by Mary Longe

Invitation to The Buzz – Bees and Beekeepers 

An Exhibit of Paintings by Mary Longe

Artist Reception Saturday June 29, 5:30 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Evanston, IL: The public is cordially invited to an exhibit of paintings in honor of bees and the people who tend them. Meet Deerfield, IL artist Mary Longe and see her art, Saturday June 29, 5:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. Chimera Loft, 2948 Central Street, Evanston, IL In keeping with the theme, Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery will provide tastings of mead, an alcoholic beverage created by fermenting honey with water, sometimes with various fruits, spices, grains, or hops. 

More than forty paintings are on display showing urban and rural settings with portraits of beekeepers actively tending hives, equipment, and bees. The paintings are done primarily en plein air (on site) with some painted from a photo source. Longe uses oils or watercolors.

The Buzz – Bees and Beekeepers Paintings by Mary Longe was conceived in counterpoint to the reports of the decline of bee populations and intensifying world hunger. “I like to eat, and I like to paint,” Longe Says. “Bringing awareness to the joy found in bees, what they provide, and the people who tend them is one way I use my art to inspire others to care too. I often paint outside. “En plein air” it’s called, like the French impressionists. Focusing on scenes of nature for hours helps me better understand and be grateful for gardens, flowers, trees and the energy in that moment. I realize that what looks green at a glance is so much more… like people, like life, like bees. Painting is creating a new perspective, conveying an atmosphere, telling a story and inviting the viewer to become its main character. I hope through The Buzz, viewers will find themselves appreciating the bees and their care takers and becoming part of the picture.“

Mary Longe is a visual artist working in oil and watercolor paints. Her works have been exhibited at the Palette and Chisel, Academy of Fine Arts, Chicago, as well as programs in Wilmette and Skokie, IL. For, 2018, two of Longe’s paintings hung as part of the Public Works of Art program in Deerfield, IL. Mary Longe manages the Plein Air Painters Chicago, and, produces a YouTube Chanel, My Art Dish, video chats with artists. 

Chimera Loft, LLCin Evanston, offers a performance space, art gallery, art exhibits, music and arts, spoken word, craft shows, and event space. Upcoming events can be found at their website. http://www.2948central.com

For more than two decades, Wild Blossom Meadery & Wineryhas been a fixture in Chicago, creating wine and mead using locally produced ingredients.  The meads produced at Wild Blossom Meadery & Winery are among the most sustainably produced beverages in the world. With more than 30 years of winemaking experience, Wild Blossom Meadery & Winery is the first winery in Chicago and the only producer of mead on the Northern Illinois Wine Trail. Being a mead producer, at Wild Blossom Meadery & Winery raises its own bees and collect its own honey. Wild Blossom Meadery/ Bev Art is also a source of education about wine and beer making. More information can be found on their website, http://www.wildblossommeadery.com

CONTACT: 

Mary Longe

Deerfield, IL

Mary.longe@gmail.com

http://marylonge.com

847.727.9279

Wild Blossom Meadery, Winery and Brewery 

9030 S Hermitage Ave, Chicago, IL 60620

Greg Fischer

greg@bev-art.com

(773) 840-4642

http://www.wildblossommeadery.com

Chimera Loft

Mel Winer

hwg2948@comcast.net 

http://www.2948central.com

Paintings and Synchronicity

Who loves synchronicity? Me too. 

So, there I was at the Chicago Flower and Garden Show looking for something to paint. Nothing spoke to me, till I found a large display that included farm implements, a bee keeping suit, bee hives and a farm stand with honey. Turns out the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences sponsored the booth. I painted the faux farmer’s market scene and bought honey at their trailer where they sold that and other products they produced. I was inspired after talking to the kids and teachers and learning about the cool programs they had, and wanted to connect again. Unfortunately, I didn’t get names. Ha… until synchronicity stepped in. Guess who the lead beekeeper/teacher is at the school? Greg Fischer, the beekeeper and owner of Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery, who will be offering mead tastings at the Buzz – Bees and Beekeepers, paintings by Mary Longe at Chimera Loft, 6/29 5:30-8.  

Oh, and who doesn’t love a good pun?  The Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences is outstanding in it’s field. 

The other odd thing that happened at the Garden show while I was painting  that picture… I had tucked myself in a corner so I’d be out of the way. Nearly done, I heard, Mary Longe? It was the daughter of dear friends who live in Asheville who’d moved from the south a couple weeks prior. I had a painting I’d done of her playhouse in TN a couple months before that, to give her as a house warming. Honestly, I don’t love the painting of the faux farmers market, but I love all the connections that day.

A Quick Trip To England - A few impressions

Yesterday, I returned from ten day holiday in England and brought home too little to declare to customs but so much to unpack in impressions.

Here in no particular order, are some of those thoughts.

• England has so much history. A Christmas Carol, The Favourite, The Crown, Robinhood, Downton Abbey, anything on BBC fuels our sense of it. But I didn’t really get it until I saw foot-wide window seats that meant foot-wide walls, buildings in rows like teeth with new ones ghastly shiny among worn ones that represent bombed homes versus the saved, and foot paths through fields, and hedges like barbed wire, and, Downton Abbey like or bigger or burnt down homes, let alone so many buildings with art. 

• There was hardly a road or town there that we haven’t copied here. 

• The Brits are way ahead of our actions and concerns for the climate crisis. They know their next electric tea kettle won’t be as fast in heating water for tea because it wont pull as much electricity. And, they are thinking about how every citizen should be growing their own food to reduce transport, so have more gardens. They think our cars are too big and that lorrys (trucks) need to get off the road. What’s more is that they are getting their stiff upper lip ready to endure it.

• Cats are out on the street and dogs are everywhere most are on leash.

• Food is good. Take out is the exception. People eat at home more. 

• Wine and beer seem more a part of meals. It seems like better quality but it doesn’t seem to be as expensive for good bottles of wine. 

• Parking is difficult. Everybody walks. I was thinking of driving a mile to pick up some eggs, maybe I would reconsider.

• Brexit is worrisome and causing businesses to make decisions that are making the economy shaky and worrisome for all. 

• The people are warm. Class is still a big thing and I think I witnessed a duel of Queen’s English upsmanship at one point. Not sure though. I had trouble understanding idioms and began to question my hearing as I was asking people to repeat themselves so frequently. 

• At a dinner party, I was told that we were crazy to elect Trump. One man who sat down next to me while I painted the sailboat scene, asked me about Trump. I wasn’t complementary and he told me to be respectful, he is your president. He’s right, but it’s hard.  

The Sketches – My literal impressions…

Though I wasn’t traveling with an artist, I was with someone who supported my desire to paint what I saw. I packed watercolors and white gouache, brushes, a sketchbook and several small pieces of 5x7” or 4x10# watercolor board. Thinking I wouldn’t have a lot of time to paint and knowing that my luggage needed to be minimal, I decided my paintings would be sketches, perhaps to be used for reference later, and left home my typical oils, plein air easel, tripod, wet canvas carriers, umbrella and other gear I typically take for plein air painting. 

Over the eight days of touring, I had time to complete five sketches. There was so much more I wanted to paint, but my photos and memories must suffice. Actually, I painted two inside, one, while waiting for my friend to pack for our excursion, of an exquisite flower arrangement on a highboy dresser in a soft window light.  Another, I painted in the airport hotel after my last night, from a photo I took earlier in the day as we drove through farmland. The cadmium lemon yellow rapeseed fields were in full bloom throughout our days on the road, it’s a perfect reminder of our touring.   

 

Very early our last day, I painted a scene from a couch inside our Thomas Kinkade-perfect Air B&B cottage, of a clothesline of billowing family laundry across the garden. It stood outside the back door of another couple cottage that was equally a couple hundred years old in the village of Stretton. The freshness of the clean clothes juxtaposed against the history of the architecture and gardens caught my eye.  It will help me remember the glorious bird song outside our windows and baaing of lambs loud enough to hear from a nearby field. The day before, I took a few minutes to capture the front of our cottage with its sign that reads “Daphne’s Cottage”; just one of the many who’d lived there before.

I had time to paint two in my friend’s village of Deal on the English Channel. One with sailboats darting up and down and the other of fishing boats tucked in the sand, near the town pier and where I stayed. If you saw the movie, Mr. Turner, you’ve got a sense of the area where I was. He spent a great deal of time in a town called Margate where today there is an art museum, the Turner Contemporary named for him, about a twenty five minute drive from Deal. (BTW, in prowling around, we found an art supply store on the main drag of Margate, called Lovely’s. It wasn’t large but painters and sketchers can find what they needed.)

Ten days is so short. I probably could’ve spent half that time just in the art galleries, and the whole time seeing villages, and half the time finding more pubs, and another half the time just riding bus lines. There are so many more impressions to gain.