Eight Days in ParadOZ!

Eight Days In ParadOZ

 

Riding to the airport

On ice-covered roads

Where the trees and snow

Look like UPC codes

 

In a white metal tube

I took to the sky

And dreamt of a rainbow

Where bluebirds could fly

 

What I found was amazing

A land of Oz to the south

A Paradise of sunshine

That put a smile in my mouth

 

 

Peaceful Artist!!

 

For the first time in 12 years - I took more than three vacation days in a row from both my day and evening jobs - and escaped to Florida to spend a week with my sister, Roxi, who now lives there with her husband, David. Arriving at the airport on March 2nd, I felt as if I were Dorothy, slowly opening the door of her transported home to find she was in a strange sensory-overload world!

The palette, the fragrance, the overall Vitamin D-rich attitude of the place was so alien from the Polar Vortex world I had left behind. Florida escaped the horrible winter that relentlessly stalked most of the United States - so everything was ripe and verdant.   I unplugged myself from snow, work and stress for 8 days and returned home feeling refreshed with a demeanor scrubbed clean by sunshine and total relaxation.

 

While there, my sister, who is also an artist, and I created a special piece that we donated to the local Humane Society (The Humane Society of Manatee County) http://www.humanemanatee.org/#

 to be used as a tropical-themed backdrop for photos of animals seeking adoption to loving homes. Here I am posed in front of it

(No, I am not up for adoption!!) 

 

 and here is GIZMO!!

 What a handsome kitty!  My sister volunteers at the HSMC as a "cat cuddler" and the folks there were so very appreciative of our little gift.  I sure hope it helps these fantastic animals find great homes.

 

So, Foamfriends is back home and READY for SPRING!

 

Soon it will be time to take down those unique FOAMFRIENDS window panels  - made to fit right inside your window frames and painted to look from the outside as if the blinds were pulled half way down and a kitty is perched on the sill to gaze out into the world while keeping your house cozy and heating bills low. 
 

What?  You don't know about these??!!

Time to email Nita at foamfriends4u@gmail.com and find out MORE!!

TO THE PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE OF REO TOWN

I just delivered a very special commissioned piece that is both a tribute to the legacy of R.E. Olds in Lansing and to the renowned Michigan artist, Tony Hendrick.  http://www.tonyhendrick.com/styled/styled-2/

I first met Mr. Hendrick at his very successful 2010 gallery showing at Art Alley in Reo Town but, unbeknownst to me at the time, I had already been introduced to his art through the huge REO  mural on Washington Avenue that was commissioned as part of the R.E. Olds Centennial Celebration and was unveiled in November of 2003. (See excerpt below from CITY PULSE: 01-14-04)

“Among the proudest achievements of the centennial organizers…, is the commissioning of an enormous public mural depicting the old Reo factory, unveiled last November. In keeping with the open-eyed historicism of Reo Town, the mural makes a dramatic, surprisingly ambiguous statement as it stretches across the old Diamond Reo showroom on South Washington (now the Quality Dairy dispatch building).

At first glance, the mural vibrates colorfully like a confetti-and-lacquer Chamber of Commerce idyll. Dominating the frame, in bright colors and forced perspective, is the Reo factory’s elegant administration building, decked out in crisp red-and-white awnings. Two figures, representing the “square-deal” bargain between management and labor for which the factory was famous, stand folksily at eye level.

Upon closer inspection, however, layers of deeper meaning ooze from the surface. Just behind the cheery facade, in a murky perspective of brown and grey, the “Reo” logo looms in an ominous reverse image. To the left, an enormous plume of industrial effluent blossoms over the scene like a mushroom cloud. Given such surroundings, the shaky bond between the two men — the only figures in the mural — takes on great weight and poignancy. All in all, the mural captures both the rosy nostalgia and gritty reality of life in the shadow of the factory gates.”

 

Unfortunately, the canvas mural was vandalized and eventually had to be taken down, but after some loving restoration and a new coat of varnish, it was recently put on display inside  Lansing’s REO Museum.

 

Luckily, Mr. James Neal, Historian for the REO Club of America, had the presence of mind to salvage the pieces of the mural canvas that were safe-guarded from the weather, vandalism and fading by being under the frame and commissioned me to create a piece of FOAM art that would incorporate the fragments of Mr. Hendrick’s piece. Wanting to pay tribute to both the history of REO in Lansing and to the talents of fellow Michigan artist, Mr. Hendrick, I created “REO Mosaic.”

Thank you Mr. Neal and Mr. Hendrick for allowing me this privilege.

 

"Akron is NOT in the NORTH!"

Here at the start of 2014 I have come to the realization that I have raised a climatically-conditional snob!  Believing, as Calvin's father does, that cold weather, does indeed, build character...

my son has taken issue with the recent car commercial featuring a Santaesque salesman who, when asked about where he goes up north, kindly and matter-of-factly replies, "Akron". To that my son vehemently responds to the television, "Akron is NOT in the NORTH.  Michigan is The North!"
To honor his dedication to The North and the State of Michigan and to present my mother with a keepsake gift this Christmas, I took inspiration from an old map I found up at the cottage of Houghton Lake and translated it through Foam.

 The finished piece is 12"x12" and fits nicely into a collectible t-shirt frame.  I can't wait to present it to my mom, who still lives in the cottage on the East Bay of Houghton Lake (the REAL NORTH!) that her father and mother built by hand in the 1940's, but the weather and distance have kept us apart this Holiday Season. 

To you and yours...a very HAPPY and SAFE NEW YEAR!!

A light from the shadows shall spring

It is not often that we are provided with an opportunity to "see" the world in which we live from a different perspective.  But just such an opportunity was recently provided to the inhabitants of my hometown - Lansing - when the electrical power, on which we so humbly depend, was removed from our lives.  Some took it in stride. Others, like myself, did not.  You see, my art which is my therapy and passion, requires electricity.  Unable to finish the projects I had recently started - I donned my headlamp and turned instead to reading aloud - another one of my passions - from a wonderful book on Great Stories of Shipwrecks and Survival in the Great Lakes.  With the power restored after 108 hours - I returned to my basement studio and put the finishing touches on my latest commission.

A comfortable place!

Dangerous Business

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

 

 

 

 

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell,
nor yet a dry, bare sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat:
it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

 

 

Ahhhh, comfort. 

Hard to find when the temperatures barely register on the thermometer even during the peak of the day. But as the Holidays approach we are warmed by the memories of what was and the anticipation of what will be.  How I long for the sound of the backdoor at my childhood home on Stockman Court.  To hear once again the stomping of neighbors and family as they clomp about in the doorway to remove a layer of snow from their hefty boots.  Calling out welcomes as they shake off the cold and enter the kitchen where the smells of the morning's Christmas feast still linger mixed with the fragrance of the delicious meal yet to come. Gifts piled high about the pine, stocking gifts scattered about, traditional songs on the stereo...smiles and stories and sharing and...

love.

 

It is a time to remember. A time to dream. A time to enjoy.

A time to give.

Dream awhile with me and imagine giving THAT gift. 

That unique, one-of-a-kind, custom made gift.

I can help you be the "Gift Whisperer" this Holiday

or anytime!!

To Your Pride Be True!

The Winter Solstice may still be a few days off, but the Holly Way backyard is already dressed for the Holiday Season.  The temperatures are frigid but the beautiful cardinals, frisky little red squirrels, playful fox and grey squirrels, charming little birdies and the majestic and fearsome red-tailed hawk, provide us, and our house-bound cats - Kadashan and Chester, with much to enjoy. 

The castle wall provided a nice perch from which to hunt this afternoon for the hawk and the Temple of Kurgok, in its blanket of white, makes us dream of other worlds.  The new coat-of-arms crest is in place above the drawbridge paying homage to the late Olaf Skullcrusher, Jackson's tree (aka cat scratching post), and our ever-present kitties.  The words below the crest - written in Gaelic - are "To Your Pride Be True".  Since it's too cold to play outside - I've been down in my studio creating some new pieces.  Check them out in the gallery and think about how you could be a Gift Whisperer!!

MOTHER NATURE vs. THE FOAMGINEER

This time...Mother Nature lost.  She sent some pretty powerful wind gusts through the area which bent over the old pine tree in the neighbors yard and relocated some trash bins, but the Foam Castle survived.  Thanks to my Foamgineer - all is well!!