HOUSE UPDATE AND ART 

JANUARY 29, 2017 

Hello, dear family and friends! Hope this posting finds you in good health with a smile in your heart. I still feel pretty out of touch with reality as we continue organizing and arranging our home and our new life in it!

Our house is finally becoming a home as our personal touches are added, slowly but surely... pictures, art objects, pieces of furniture to fill in... We have a way to go, but it's coming along nicely! We don't really know any of our neighbors yet... those next door on either side of us are not in residence: one house is empty as the result of a divorce, and the other is under construction, waiting for the owners to sell their home in the city. The only friend I've made a big black and white sweet dog across the street from us...and that's okay with me!! :) 

I suspect that many of our neighbors are in Florida for a few months to escape extreme winter weather...weather that I love!!!

Our master bath had one long blank wall that I happily filled with this mural, painted by EVE TRONCONE, excellent artist and friend...

here's an artist's view of our very incomplete great room...we're working on it!

Now, on to the art challenges...

DIGITAL WHISPER issued the unusual request to create a piece about the early ice box (refrigerator, for those who are too young to know...)

The week before, the theme was snow....there's a running thread here...

Flicker's DIGITALMANIA has the monochrome theme for this week...

and finally, MIX IT MONTHLY asked artists to create art about pirates. I chose one of the few female pirates in history...a Chinese woman who terrorized the China Sea in the 1700's. A former prostitute, she took over when her pirate husband died, commanding over 300 junks (ships) manned by 20,000-40,000 men. CHING SHIH was the most powerful FEMALE pirate and the world's most successful pirate! WOW! Amazing...

Getting back to creating art little by little, as time allows. Thanks to BLOGGER for providing a forum for me and thousands of others to share what we love with anyone who's interested.

Sending big hugs until my next post. Stay well...

xox

abbyj 

ART and TRAVEL

ART and ANTARCTICA 
August 7, 2011 

My current Six-Word Memoir...

That done,  on to some quick art blog challenge responses:

SUNDAY POSTCARD ART requested art with pirates as the theme. When my grandson was younger, he loved anything with pirates...this is for Hunter...

THEME THURSDAY was dreaming about Paris. I'm ALWAYS dreaming about Paris... when I'm not dreaming of Africa  :o)

COLLAGE OBSESSION is continuing to ask for art based on the 7 Deadly Sins...this one's GREED...

Finally, THE THREE MUSES wanted some angelic art... I worked with a beautiful cemetery angel that I found in Umbria, Italy.

 On to the travel part of the posting...

Penguins are the superstars, but ice defines Antarctica!

I hope you're enjoying your summer (or current season, depending where you are in the universe!) It's been an exceptionally hot summer in Central New York, but it's been nicely mixed with rain, so a lush green blanket covers the land. The extreme heat and humidity have brought back memories of our trip to Antarctica several years ago. Our expedition to the White Continent, Antarctica (South Pole) started with a trip through Chile where we boarded our small ship with ice cutters for use as we approached the continent. Wandering Albatross followed our progress 

as we journeyed through the treacherous Drake Passage...one of the most severe bodies of water in the Southern Ocean, if not the world!

We met our first penguins and seals in the South Shetland Islands. The penguins were a raucous, pungent collection of CHINSTRAP and GENTOO penguins and their chicks....the seals were silent observers.

It was magical to walk and sit among these penguins who were as tall as my knees... to quietly observe their comical, curious ways and personalities. 

Our weather, throughout the expedition was generally cloudy or rainy and felt like winter in Central New York (although it was summer in Antarctica.) But, our spirits weren't dampened as we observed a variety of species of penguins, seals and whales on a daily basis. As we navigated further south, towards the White Continent, more and more ice appeared...much of it populated by our penguin characters. The natural ice sculptures were breathtaking...their azure-color almost dreamlike.

Packed ice and giant ice floes, icebergs and ice fields (defined by size) often made navigation difficult...

but we did well, even landing on some of the islands as well as on the continent of Antarctica. We loved kayaking with an audience of penguins observing!

Our trip was a once in a lifetime sojourn...but I'd return there in a heartbeat! The rivers of Antarctica will continue to flow and ice will continue to form as it has done forever, connecting the sea and sky. We have captured the colors of her depths, breathed her wild perfumes (some more pleasing than others,) we have walked across her spectacular contours and been shaped by her weather... Antarctica will  be part of us evermore!

Thanks for stopping by...see you next time?
xox,
abbyj