Francesca Filanc

Category: Artists

Art San Diego and Spectrum Art-Miami

As this year 2014 draws to a close I wish you all the healthiest, happiest and most fulfilling of New Years!

Painting On Live Television

The past few months have been a whirlwind of activities. Aside from the traditional holiday events I was fortunate to have been selected to participate in Art San Diego 2014. I was also thrilled to be juried into Spectrum Art-Miami.

In Booth Art San Diego Two Paintings I Painted On TV Large One To My Left And Small One To My Right

Art San Diego In My Booth

In conjunction with Art San Diego 2014 I was asked to make guest appearances on KUSI, NBC and the Fox Morning Show.

Art San Diego Painting In Progress On KUSI News

Francesca Painting on NBC News Art San Diego

As well as being interviewed I created works of art while being filmed for these live TV shows. Francesca Filanc Being Interviewed and Painting on TV

View From Bench Under Arbor Where I Ate My Lunch Every Day At Art San Diego in Balboa Park

Looking Up At Arbor From My Bench Balboa Park
Art San Diego 2014

Arbor Art San Diego in Beautiful Balboa Park San Diego

Being a part of Art San Diego was exciting and thrilling. The show took place in the Activity Center in beautiful Balboa Park. Parts of Balboa Park are reminiscent of Italy, Spain or parts of France as well as San Diego! I would eat lunch each day in the adjacent beautiful gardens! They were quiet and gave me a chance to reconnect with nature and amazing architecture before returning to the show. ‪Francescafilanc.com

Setting Up Art Miami

Miami proved to delight me more than my wildest dreams!

Miami In My Booth

It wasn’t just the people and the shows, but the experience of being around so many amazing artists and their energy.

Art San Diego With Kelsey Giusta

Students In My Miami Booth

The show was a week long and in a very large tent. The tent was the size of several football fields and about 20 stories high! It was estimated that between seven and fourteen thousand

Looking Into My Booth On Left Miami

people a day came through to view the works of art.

A View Into My Miami Booth

Stargazer With The Painting’s New Owners – Miami

Stargazer With A Child Clothing Designer

There were 29 shows going on simultaneously throughout the town of Miami.

Spectrum Art-Miami with
Cirque du Soleil Performers

There is an expression used to describe this event; Art Takes Miami. Miami houses the largest collection of art fairs in the world. The largest art fair during the time of Picasso used to be in Basel, Switzerland. Since then they have expanded and now the largest is in Miami, Florida. Since 1970 twenty-nine art fairs have sprung up all over the city. Spectrum Miami is one of these.

Metaphysical In My Booth Miami

The history of Art Basel is as follows:

Art Basel was founded in 1970 by Basel Gallerists (also known as art dealers and connoisseurs of art) Trudi Bruckner, Balz Hilt and Ernst Beveler. Three years after its launch, Art Basel welcomed 281 exhibitors and over 30,000 visitors. While other emerging art fairs partnered in the 1970s, specifically in Cologne and Düsseldorf, Art Basel remained independent.

In 2002, Art Basel was launched in Miami Beach, under the leadership of former director, Samuel Keller.

Art Basel debuted in Hong Kong in May 2013. In July 2011, MCH Swiss Exhibition (Basel) Ltd. – the parent company of Art Basel – acquired 60% of Asian Art Fairs Limited, which launched ART Hong Kong and has the option of acquiring the remaining 40% in 2014.

Miami With My Friend Nora

These art fairs provide opportunity to new emerging and established artists to be set on the world stage with collectors, galleries and individuals interested in purchasing fine art. This has become the way to expose fine art of all prices from $50 a painting or sculpture or photograph to half a million dollars and up in price.

This was my first time visiting Miami and I did not know what to expect. The extremely friendly people blew me away and so many cultures, each with their own traditions.

See If You Can Find The Baby Alligators In This Photo Everglades

I was busy working the whole time but took the opportunity, staying an extra day after the show, to discover Miami and environs. My last day in Miami started with a tour of The Everglades in an airboat. Viewing baby alligators in the tall grasses and egrets. After the boat tour we had a show at the Everglades Park that included having the opportunity to hold a baby alligator.

Holding The Baby Alligator

In the spirit of the moment, I added an informative bus tour of Miami which also included a two-hour boat tour of Miami’s famous harbor including viewing shipyards, cruise ships and the homes of many famous people! Among the areas we visited by bus were: South Beach, Little Haiti, Little Havana, and Coral Gables to name a few. South Beach teemed with nightlife, eclectic varied restaurants with myriad aromas wafting through windows and doors onto the street, new quaint and older established hotels, night clubs galore with the delightful sound of Latin music. Visiting the area known as Little Havana where we had the opportunity to visit Cuba Tobacco Cigar Co.

Hand Rolling Cigars

Cigar Shop

While there I met the great-grandfather legendary tobacconist Pedro Bello Sr., holder of the cigar industries most prestigious leaf award. Great grand-pa sits outside smoking, they say, sixty cigars a day and drinking sweet Cuban coffee! He is 85 years old! We watched a man hand-roll cigars in the traditional old-fashioned way! People had the opportunity to purchase cigars. The district Coral Gables homes and environs were reminiscent of Pasadena and Beverly Hills, California;

Driving Under Banyan Trees Lining An Avenue in Coral Gables

even housing the famous Biltmore Hotel on one of its grand avenues. Kings, Queens and Heads of States have enjoyed the old world opulence and elegance of this famous hotel.

After Coral Gables the bus finalized our tour taking us to our waiting boat. In Miami’s harbor we sailed past three islands; Star, Palm and Hibiscus that are each privately owned by the homeowners of the islands. It is interesting to note that people of such high profile have or had homes right next to each other that can be viewed from the harbor! Several of the homes are now empty or have new owners which makes sense to me during this time of paparazzi! Some of the people whose homes we passed by: Madonna, Miami Sound Machine, Ricky Martin, Antonio Banderas, Elizabeth Taylor, Bacardi Rum Family, Frank Sinatra, Don Johnson, Johnson & Johnson, Sylvester Stallone, even Al Capone had a compound and died there years ago! May I also add that many of these mansions had large expensive yachts docked right out front of their properties!

View From Our Boat In Miami Harbor

We sailed past a magnificent estate with Italian Gardens, including Italian Cypresses, parterres and vegetables. Docked at the water’s edge was an elegant yacht backed by romantic woods on either side. The joke is that this is the house that Viagra built, but in reality it is owned by an important person on the board of the company (Pfizer) that distributes the drug.

One Of The Grand Homes Seen From Miami Harbor

I was amazed that all these very famous people chose to live or have homes right next to each other in an area accessible by boat to onlooking tourists. Perhaps this is why several of the homes were vacant or recently sold!

I ended my day with a most delicious meal at Joe’s Stone Crab! An elegant restaurant dating back to 1913.

Joe Weiss opened up a small lunch counter on Miami Beach. Back then, Miami Beach was just a quiet, backwater town. Folks stopped in to chat and for a top-notch fish sandwich and fries. This, of course, was only the beginning, and what happened next is a story worth telling.

Joe’s Stone Crab
Yummy!

Sitting in Joe’s Stone Crab eating a delicious dinner while sipping on a up Gray Goose Martini I was lost in thought. It was so reminiscent of days gone by, viewing a traditional Christmas tree with tinsel and all — it took me back to my childhood!!

Bye For Now,

Francesca

January 7, 2015
A Visit To An Artist’s Studio

The artist, Tom Leedy, in front of his painting “Horses Aqua”

Earlier this week I got a call from a friend. Fran I’m calling to invite you over to see my artist studio. I was thrilled to receive his invitation!

Here are a few excerpts from my interview with Tom—

Tom: There were two things I knew when I was growing up: one, I was going to marry and have a family, and two, I loved Art! . . . the most amazing achievement and expression of what humans can do! To me there is nothing better than making a good piece of art! I built this space two years ago and I am thrilled with the studio!

Tom has his bachelors in fine art and was a professional artist for many years. He concentrated on stained glass because it was big in the 70s.

Having four children is a lot of mouths to feed so Tom went into the computer industry. He thoroughly enjoyed his work in the corporate world traveling to Japan among other countries.

Tom is a well-rounded individual with many passions; sports, all sports, but running daily and playing tennis two to three times a week, reading, traveling to Hawaii and excursions to see his grandchildren just to name a few.

Fran: Tom, I see a photo of your dad. Did your father’s love of art influence you to be an artist growing up?

Tom: I suppose it did subliminally. I remember looking at a portrait my father did of my brother Dave and I thought, I’m going to do that when I grow up. I was interested in all the things boys are interested in growing up: sports, rockets, cars, but I knew that art was my thing!

Tom has been painting throughout his life but when he retired he started a routine of painting every afternoon.

I will never forget the date I retired, May 31 2013, etched in my memory forever as a very Happy Day!

I couldn’t wait for the time in my life when I could be doing art every day. I realized one day talking with Martha that we could survive without a corporate salary. Then I did it. Kids were raised, out of school and on their feet. I was then free to go back to my first love and passion. I felt liberation, freedom to return to that! I feel like a kid in harmony with the world. I am grateful.

Now my days are my own –I take a run either up here in the hills or down on the beach. I think about painting and inevitably images come to mind that I want to capture on canvas. Then I come home, have my lunch and head out to the studio in the garden.

The creative process —If you could only do one thing to leave a piece of art, that is great, that would be Success! Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great to be a businessman and build corporations -–awesome achievements in the business world, but great art. . . !

The struggle–I am maybe too much of a perfectionist to look at one of my pieces and say WOW, that’s it! The danger is that you are so examining of yourself that you overwork it! Not to leave it soon enough, know when to stop.

Tom has this quote on his wall from author John McPhee:

People often ask how I know when I’m done – not just when I’ve come to the end, but in all the drafts and revisions and substitutions of one word for another how do I know there is no more to do? When am I done? I just know. I’m lucky that way. What I know is that I can’t do any better; someone else might do better, but that’s all I can do; so I call it done.

Tom: I love that one by McPhee. Especially the part about knowing that he can’t do any better even though someone else might; I find that very liberating, very helpful in accepting one’s own work. I try to remember that!

Lately Tom has also started sculpting again. He is trying something new, carving in granite.

Fran: It seems to me Tom, that you are not afraid to start new things, to jump in with both feet and start something new.

Tom: It’s not scary for me to start a new process because I’ve never done it before. I am not afraid because it’s just for fun and to learn something new. I have confidence that I can draw and make forms and shapes! Can I do it again for a painting, to me, is the struggle because painting for me is the foremost form of art. I am a painter before a sculptor, a drawer before a painter, less scary to mess with sculpting. Like almost easier to excel when your expectations are lower, not so high.

“The Wave” in Granite

Tom: I carved a wave in stone – I find this amusing, cracks me up. Stone has seams and stuff like that. The process of working in stone is almost delicate in a way, even though it is granite! When you start to do something new you know how amazing it is and the amazement for the people who do that kind of art goes up! Blows me away!

Fran: Who are your mentors?

Tom: The guys who could refer to the real world not just the mind. I respond to it. Nobody touches Matisse in color, line and expression. Vermeer is a sheer marvel and Goya to name a few.

Tom’s studio is large, organized and light filled. He has photographs of people and relatives whose beauty or differences inspire him to paint. He has several pictures of his beautiful wife and his daughter. Look, wasn’t she a beautiful woman?! Tom exclaimed as we looked at a photo of his deceased mother-in-law.

Pressfield says it well:

Steven Pressfield, author – If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist? chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.

Tom: What I like about Pressfield’s statements is that they reflect the almost compulsive love artists must have for their work – something they can’t not do, regardless of how hard or scary it gets for them.

Tom: I am free again, back in my own skin and I am in the journey, I am starting the run. I think people who can do it well are amazing!

I came away from the morning with Tom totally inspired to get back into my own studio! As I left I couldn’t help but notice this inspiring quote on his studio door:

Art is not a thing. . .it is a way~! Elbert Hubbard

Bye for Now,

Francesca

The artist in his studio

February 20, 2014
Growing and Maintaining a Garden Hedge

Francesca’s Garden Hedge

January of 2007 we had an unusually severe winter in San Diego County. Peter and I traveled to Spain for the birth of our first grandchild. When we arrived home from Spain in February several trees and shrubs had died on our property, or so we thought.

Since I had been to Ireland with my mother on a garden tour four years earlier I had longed for a garden hedge like the kind I saw all over southern Ireland! They are filled with all kinds of plants. In this way, the freeze in my garden in California was serendipitous for creating a new interest in the garden; a garden hedge! My gardener and I started to let all the plants that survived the freeze grow together. Then an amazing thing happened; some of the plants and trees that had supposedly died miraculously came back to life! Those branches that didn’t recover acted as support for the other climbing shrubs as they grew skyward and formed a solid hedge. As the plants, shrubs and trees grew I was enthused each time Sergio pruned the hedge. My mother came over one day to videotape a segment on properly pruning a garden hedge. The Correct Way to Prune a Hedge. The hedge consists of Cape Honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis), Periwinkle (Vinca minor), Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina), Mock Orange (Pittosporum tobira ‘Variegata’), and Abutilon.

If you check out Pat Welsh’s video above, Pat teaches one the correct way to prune a hedge. Looking at this hedge now, it needs to be thinner at the top than it currently appears in the photo. Back to the drawing board!

The hedge is now three stories high and creates welcome shade on a hot afternoon!

Happy gardening and painting!

Bye for now,

Francesca

Frost by FF

September 4, 2013
Summer Visitors

Grandchildren’s Room and
Francesca’s painting in the hallway

This evening my older daughter and her family will arrive from Spain for a visit. I am so excited to see the whole family! The grandchildren’s room is ready and I look forward to the patter of little feet running up to their room to see what outfits Mimi has on the wall for them. The Pink Grandchildren’s Room

Pixies and Fairies
Painted by the Author/Artist when she was seven years old

Two paintings that I created years ago when I was a child myself are framed and hanging on the wall . My mother had kept these paintings and had them framed for my oldest daughter’s first birthday.

For those of you, like me, who have grandchildren who live miles away, you know the feeling of feast or famine with the family.

I have been gardening in the children’s garden seeing that it needs attention! There is a jungle gym for the children to play on as well as many little gardens for them to dig and plant in.

The Wisteria

A song came to mind that I heard years ago that matched my mood and excitement of the day. Michael Franti – Say Hey For years I searched for it on the internet and suddenly discovered it again.

Enjoy July whatever fun events or happenings you might have planned. I will look forward to being back in touch mid-August!

Bye for Now,

Francesca

Elephants at The Circus
Painted by Francesca When She was Seven Years Old

July 9, 2013
Summers Growing Up in Del Mar

Del Mar was a sleepy little beach town when I was growing up, coined Gasoline Alley by some. There were at one time thirteen gas stations in our little town when Highway 101 was the main thoroughfare to the City of San Diego. The County Fair was a big deal for folks when it came to town! Within a few days of the County Fair closing the Races would start. WOW! Movie Stars all up and down the beach! Summer Days in Del Mar

Lucy and Desi Had a House on The Beach!

I remember summer mornings swimming in the ocean, warm, sleepy afternoons painting and playing with our Barbie and Madame Alexander Dolls and plastic horses with my sister and friends. Our step-grandpa was John Lloyd Wright and we lived right next door to him. We called him Grandbot. Grandbot invented five toys. The most famous one was Lincoln Logs. He also invented a toy called Wright Blocks. They were sooo much fun to play with!!! Wendy and I loved making horse corrals and pastures on the grass for our plastic horses to run! The most fun part of our play for me was setting up the elaborate houses and pastures and placing our plastic horses in them, dressing and undressing the dolls in different outfits!

We also loved playing Indians (Playing Indians) and I loved playing Queen and Geisha girl. I would get bored of those two games quickly because once I was dressed up there was nothing for me to do except sit on the throne and be waited on. I remember one time my sister and our friends bowed down in front of me and said Salami Salami Baloney Baloney! We all fell into gales of laughter! My mother would help me get all dressed up to be a Geisha in a kimono with an obi. But once I was dressed up all I could do was sit, the outfit was so binding! After all that I would ask my mother to please help me get out of the outfit!

As a child I would become bored with some of the games. Looking back on it I am so happy to be an adult! Sometimes with all the stresses of adult life we may look back on childhood as an idyllic time of endless freedom and happiness.But in actuality many of us have more freedoms as adults. I guess what I am saying is even with all the seriousness, grief or traumas that we go through, when immersed in happy work, exercise, helping others we can free the passion of life!

Happy summertime! On that note I am going to go take a swim in the ocean!

Happy Swimming or whatever you love to do for exercise in the summertime.

Have a safe, Happy Fourth of July!

Bye for Now,

Francesca

“Beauty”
By Francesca

July 2, 2013
Growing Sunflowers Can Be A Summer Passion!

Sunflowers in Fran’s Garden

Sunflowers are so much FUN to Grow!!! If you have a place where you can put them every year they give so much joy! I smile every time I walk out and look at the field full of these tall prehistoric plants! Maybe that is why we love them so much! They have been around for a long time! And we feel the earth connection all the way back to cave man and beyond!

I actually did not know why I had never grown them.

In late June of 1996 Peter, Erica and I traveled to Madrid, Spain to see our older daughter Yvette who had been an exchange student from UCSD for the whole year. We then traveled by Eurail and Rick Steves suggestions of lodging and places to visit throughout Europe for one month!

Author’s Daughters in Provence, France, 1996

First stop off Eurail was the town of Arles, a town rich in Roman history and ruins in the province of Provence, France. We stayed in a small hotel for one week traveling to charming small towns such as Aix-en-Provence enjoying the multitude of nature’s sites through traveling through the countryside from small town to small town. The countryside was carpeted with fields of Sunflowers and fields of Lavender! In breathtaking excitement the girls and I ran into some of these fields and we could not stop taking pictures! It was awe-inspiring to experience!

Several years later Peter and I moved to a property that had lots of land. I planted a Giverny style garden with Nasturtiums lining one of the paths all the way down to horses in pastures far below our home. A girlfriend stopped by one day and exclaimed

Fran, why don’t you grow sunflowers!? I actually had no idea why I had never grown them! Especially since we had experienced the beauty and wonder of this ancient plant in the south of France a few years earlier!

Fran and her daughter Erica in a field full of Sunflowers, Provence, France, 1996

I love the very tall ones! This particular girlfriend gave me a bunch of seeds. I planted them and WOW!!!! So much FUN! This year I am planting a second Parterre of them so I will still have some when my grandchildren come to visit in July! After planting the seeds I cover the area with netting so the crows don’t pull up my seeds. I put the netting about three feet high on stakes. When the Sunflowers reached the netting I remove the netting and they continue to grow up to eight or nine feet tall! This year I bought the seeds online; some for their height, some for their seed production, and some for the Mammoth flowers. And then it is FUN to sit and paint them or take pictures to put on Facebook :) or just sit, smile and watch them grow. Have Fun Growing Sunflowers!

Oil on Canvas, Sunflowers by Francesca

Have Fun Gardening!

Bye for Now,

Francesca

Forty Eight Million Years before Van Gogh – Eocene Sunflowers

By Mike, September 29, 2010

Fossils of Ancient Member of the Daisy Family Discovered in Argentina

The Dutch born, post impressionist, artist Vincent Van Gogh famously painted a number of still life pictures of sunflowers. One such painting was sold at auction in the late 1980s for a little under $40 million USD. However, researchers at the Argentinian Museum of National Sciences have discovered their own “portrait of sunflowers” with the finding of two exquisitely preserved fossilised flowering heads in southern Patagonia (Argentina). Sunflowers are members of the Asteraceae (otherwise known as Compositae – we think) Family. This family of flowering plants (Angiosperms), is one of the most diverse and widespread of all the plant families. This family includes plants such as the daisy, dandelion and commercially important plants such as the tea bush and sunflowers.

Plant material is rarely preserved as a whole fossil, for instance, a fossil of the entire plant with roots, leaves and flowers all together. Fossils normally occur as isolated individual parts such as cones, pollen grains, pieces of trunk and such like. Delicate flowering heads (capitula) are extremely rare in the fossil record. However, the discovery of a fossil that shows two complete flower heads, winged seeds and the flower stem is helping scientists to understand the evolution of this very important group of plants.

The fossil has been dated to approximately 47.5 million years ago (Eocene Epoch) and it was found in strata along the Pichi Leufu river. During the Eocene, this part of the world had a sub-tropical climate with average temperatures of around 19 degrees Celsius. The dense flower-head would have been attractive to pollinating insects, suggesting that flowers such as these primitive ancestors of the sunflower already had a long established relationship with insect pollinators.

The Fossilised Flower Heads

Dr. Viviana Barreda, one of the authors of the paper, the details of which have been published in the journal “Science”, suggests that the finding of this fossil supports the hypothesis that the ancestors of the Asteraceae Family evolved in the southern region of Gondwanaland and spread to most of this super-continent before this landmass began to break up. This would explain the wide geographical dispersal of related genera.

Scientists believe that the common ancestor to a number of related plant families first evolved in sub-tropical Antarctica, (which was part of Gondwanaland), before migrating to Australia and South America as Antarctica cooled and became an unfavourable climate for most plant species.

Commenting on the discovery, University of Vienna (Austria) botanist, Dr. Tod Stuessy stated that this fossil and the related pollen grains were clear evidence of the existence of the sunflower sub-family at the early stages of Asteraceae diversification. Dr. Stuessy wrote an accompanying article to the Argentinian scientific paper. He went on to add that little is known about the origins of sunflowers and there is much still to learn about how these plants evolved and spread all over the world or indeed how members of the Asteraceae became so “incredibly diverse.”

The scientific paper on which the journal article is based is the culmination of two years of research.

http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2010/09/29/4643493.html

Fran and Pete in the Sunflowers, France 1996

June 26, 2013
Maui Revisited Thirty Six Years Later!

Betty’s Beach

When our oldest child was a baby I used to say Yvette would be upset when she got older because she lived in Hawaii for almost half of her first year of life. Too young to remember the amazing time we had! Although being exposed to such beauty at a young age definitely went into her psyche.

That was the year that I said I had three summers! My husband, Pete, was working for the government installing the first computer system for the sewage treatment plant at Pearl Harbor. Yvette was three months old and we lived in Honolulu from October to November of 1976. We then returned to live there for the months of May and June in 1977.

In those days my folks used to vacation at a friend’s private shack in Kihei, as Betty called it, twice a year. They would go for two weeks in the fall and two weeks in the spring. Betty had a guest house on stilts. Rolling grass and palm trees extended out in front to her private beach. (Beaches in Hawaii are public, but her little beach was so secluded, being at the end of the road, it was rarely used.)

The view took one’s breath away! And the beach had the softest creamiest colored sand. The way the sand felt between my toes was like nothing I had ever experienced before. The ocean felt like velvet on my skin and the snorkeling off Maui was stupendous! The most colorful coral and water teeming with fish I have ever experienced to this day! The colors of the coral were every color in the rainbow and more; vivid pink, orange, blue, purple, red, violet and white!

Pete and I had decided we had seen the best and knew that the island had been developed. So we chose to remember Maui the way we experienced the Island staying with my folks one week in the fall of 1976 and one week in the spring of 1977.

As our girls grew up we vacationed on the North Shore of Kauai several times.We also frequented the Kona Coast of the Island of Hawaii and Oahu, but I had never returned to Maui until two weeks ago.

Naturally the development has continued on the island in the intervening years, but nonetheless I was not disappointed and had a fabulous time!

The very first day we arrived I found Betty’s Beach. The property is now covered with condos but the beach is the same! My friend and I stayed at the Maui Coast Hotel in the town of Kihei.

The hotel has good prices and they have a great concierge service with Expedia. Whether or not one choses to do some of the many activities the island has to offer, it is great to hear the options! We met in the lobby of our hotel with other guests to hear the fun things available to do!

The author at the top of Mount Haleakala

We chose to go on a 45 minute helicopter ride that toured Molakai and Maui. We also chose to take the snorkeling trip to the Molokini Crater and lastly to take in a Luau at a neighboring hotel.

The day that we went on the helicopter tour, we then took a drive to Kula experiencing a botanical garden and then driving up to the top of Haleakala. The day was crisp and clear!

We ate dinner at the Kula Lodge on the way back to our hotel. It was beautiful and romantic. The views were spectacular and I would go there again even though the food was underwhelming.

The highlight of our snorkeling trip was a surprise sighting of whales fluke waving and breaching right in front of our boat! I was disappointed to discover that much of the coral has died and lost its color. Development and agriculture are the most significant threats to Hawaiian coral reefs because of runoff containing sediments (soil and silt) and chemicals and nutrients from lawns, farms, golf courses, construction sites, storm drains, cesspools and septic tanks. The runoff of sediment reduces sunlight penetration and smothers corals. The reef then starves to death because it can’t manufacture food from sunlight any longer.

We had a fun experience of being there the same week as some friends who showed us excellent snorkeling spots! Honolua Bay offered some great underwater sights. My friends had the amazing experience of swimming with a pod of dolphins back in the mid 1980s in this same Bay. Honolua has treacherous surf in the winter-time but amazing snorkeling in the spring and summer.

Snorkeling in Honolua Bay

After visiting with friends in Napili Point we drove up around the end of the island. The road is a single lane in areas and rules dictate that the person heading downhill has to back up and make room for the person coming uphill, often a dangerous situation and the map reads,

The road around this north side of Maui is desolate but very picturesque. It also has a very narrow section of road and a sheer cliff and no guard rail before you reach Kahakuloa. Not for faint-hearted. Drive at your own risk.

All in all the eight days were fun, beautiful and had new surprises to offer!

Bye for Now,

Francesca

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May 16, 2013
Cooking, Entertaining, and Making Art

I am having a spur of the moment dinner party tonight. As you might know from earlier posts I LOVE to entertain on the spur of the moment! Dinner Party Breakfast Expanding Vegetables Entertaining is one of my passions. It gives me the same feeling that I receive when I paint; entertaining on the spur of the moment heightens the excitement and exhilaration. I know most of you out there are thinking IS SHE NUTS? Yes, maybe a little. It’s what makes me an artist, that creative piece. Not to say a person is not creative if they like to plan out what they do ahead of time. Planning is actually an important part of creating art. I just speed up the process as I do in my style of painting. I like the adrenalin rush! Having gardened most of the day I picked a large squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, chives, mint, limes, lemons, apples, and kale which is really a winter vegetable around here in So Cal. A friend gave me a small plant this spring and it is doing great! Oh, and egg plant!

Now what to cook! I roasted the vegetables. Squash is peeled and then cut in small chunks drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper; same process for egg plant put on baking sheets covered with tin foil and baked in 375 oven for 40 min or until a fork goes through vegetables easily. Meanwhile I made kale potato chips for hors d’oeuvres. After washing kale, chop into 2” pieces, drizzle olive oil and sprinkle with salt (not too much, I have made that mistake!). You can drizzle with Ponzu Sauce instead of salting the kale. Bake in 375 oven for 20 to 30 minutes, maybe less depending on how much is on your cookie sheet. This makes a delicious hors d’oeuvre to accompany the dinner. And people love it because it is not fattening.

The fresh apples make a wonderful soup when combined with butternut squash. Here’s one of my favorite recipes.

Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

Ingredients
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons good olive oil
• 4 cups chopped yellow onions (3 large)
• 2 tablespoons mild curry powder
• 5 pounds butternut squash (2 large)
• 1 1/2 pounds sweet apples, such as McIntosh (4 apples)
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cups water
• 2 cups good apple cider or juice

Directions
Warm the butter, olive oil, onions, and curry powder in a large stockpot uncovered over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until the onions are tender. Stir occasionally, scraping the bottom of the pot.
Peel the squash, cut in half, and remove the seeds. Cut the squash into chunks. Peel, quarter, and core the apples. Cut into chunks.
Add the squash, apples, salt, pepper, and 2 cups of water to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover, and cook over low heat for 30 to 40 minutes, until the squash and apples are very soft. Process the soup through a food mill fitted with a large blade, or puree it coarsely in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade.
Pour the soup back into the pot. Add the apple cider or juice and enough water to make the soup the consistency you like; it should be slightly sweet and quite thick. Check the salt and pepper and serve hot.

Many people have expressed an interest in my process of painting. I have a high tech studio in my garage with Ott lighting so I can paint into the wee hours of the morning if I am so inclined. Ott lighting gives the impression of sunlight.

Photobiologist and pioneer in light research, Dr. John Ott, discovered through 40 years of scientific research the remarkable effects specific wavelengths of natural light have on all living things. Dr. Ott developed the first OTT-LITE® product while filming “The Secrets of Life Series” for Walt Disney. A specially formulated blend of rare earth phosphors is used to create this unique illumination that looks and feels like natural daylight. TrueColor lighting allows details to be seen more clearly and colors accurately. Now it is possible to see with superior clarity without the intense heat, excessive glare and harsh distortion of standard lighting.

Last night I painted for 4 hours working on one very large abstract. A few days ago I painted from 3 pm to 11 pm. I took about a half hour break for dinner. My studio is all ready with everything at hand so it is easy for me to start painting without a lot of fuss to get my materials together. It used to be that I would use that as an excuse not to paint. Painting is my passion. So there is a lot of energy and emotion wrapped into the process. As an abstract artist I paint my emotions. If I am happy, sad, angry, melancholy, feeling sexy, whatever the emotion, you name it, the emotions wind up in my art.

I have said that painting great art is like shining a powerful searchlight up into the heavens at night. The light never dies! Great art is alive. My passion is like a drug! Once I start I do not want to stop. I love squeezing delicious colors of thick paint onto my palette. My favorite is Golden. I admire the colors before I start mixing them on and off the canvas.

There is an expression that I learned many years ago from Sebastian Capella.

Paint as if you are the wealthiest person in the world.
That means, use the best paints and accompanying materials. Don’t be stingy with the paint. Paint with thick luscious colors.

Another thing I usually do is paint on several paintings at one sitting. I have them all over the studio and spilling out into the rest of my garage. I get into a frenzy of movement from one to another. Sometimes I concentrate meticulously on a painting and make it very detailed with many layers of paint and then with one fell swoop put my whole body into the process of mad strokes of paint and color over the top. In this photo I used a brush. I also use palette knives.

In my paintings I am moving energy at lightening speeds. Well, maybe snail speeds, but the paint is flying. People feel the energy in my completed work. It is a fascinating process. This is another interesting component to art, being that it is alive. It is forever changing, growing, evolving. They talk of Picasso and his “blue period.” Every great artist has different periods of his work. Françoise Gilot, a great artist in her own right, spent hours every day talking Picasso into getting out of bed and producing more art. In his later years he would paint all day and the very next day say that his art was crap and he would not get out of bed to paint another painting. Thank goodness for Françoise or the world would have a lot fewer of his masterpieces!

Happy painting and creating,

Bye for now,
Francesca

All this paint you see and much more is on this canvas

July 31, 2012
WHY THIS ARTIST LOVES TO WRITE

FAR AND WIDE

I come from a long line of writers on both sides of my family. While some research implies talent in families is passed down through the gene pool, equally important are environment, training and opportunities. The environment in which I was nurtured encouraged creativity and artistic expression. In our family we are all artists. My sister is a scientist as well as an artist. Check out my first blog post We Are All Artists.

In my family tree there are writers, actors, architects, designers, gardeners, musicians, and painters.

I was reading an article in Surfer Magazine today about the surfing gene and how families of professional surfers evolve. The author of the article was interviewing families of famous surfers. One statement they all seemed to stand behind is the fact that their children had been exposed to the best surfing from the time they were born. And practically before they could walk they were taken out into the water with their famous surfing parents.

My niece Rebecca has a childhood friend whose family is full of famous baseball players. It seems to make sense that we are born into families where we can excel in the family business.

I love to write because it is so creative. The same energy I experience when putting paint to canvas is present when I write. In the beginning everything was written longhand. Imagine my delight when I learned to use computers. Now writing is effortless and even more of a joy.

A couple of years ago I went to the mountains by myself for a long weekend with my standard poodle Amie. When I got home I sat down with my laptop and just wrote and wrote. I felt like I was with my best friend. If there really are angels like my granddaughter Anushka says, and which I tend to agree with, maybe they are right there with us while we write (Check out my blog about my granddaughters). I believe we are never alone. The idea that our spiritual guides, angels, God are always with us continually is such a comforting thought.

Think of all the authors who have said, I don’t know where a story is going to take me when I sit down to the computer – the story unfolds, the characters tell me who they are and at times the story starts writing itself. In this way my art takes the same form. I’ll start a painting in one way yet it totally changes before it is done.

I am at times beginning to feel swept away with my friends or friend as I sit here and type away. Many times I can’t type fast enough for the thoughts that flood into my heart and mind. Writing is like painting because it is fluid and alive. I love this quote of Maya Angelou’s . . .

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

― Maya Angelou

I view writing the same way. I enjoy the juxtaposition of writing and painting. Here’s to creativity no matter what form it takes.

Bye for Now,

Francesca

June 27, 2012
CYBERSPACE GRANNY AND MARC CHAGALL

I have three granddaughters, two who live in Spain. As a result I have been a Cyberspace Granny since they were born. SKYPE is so great because it gives one the opportunity to relate to the grandchildren even though one might be thousands of miles apart.

Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise

The younger one in Spain is still a baby and I sing to her and play peek-a-boo. My oldest grandchild is her big sister and she is now five and a half. Anushka and I play on the computer. I also read her stories some of which Nana, my mother, has given her so that she has one book in Europe and the same book in the states when she comes here to visit. What my mother did not even think of and has worked out so great is that I can read to her over Skype and she can look at the pictures in her copy of the book. One of these books that we have two copies of is Barbar Comes to America. Barbar is a long story and we talk about what is happening on every page in the pictures. That usually takes several Skype sessions.

Anushka used to get the giggles and move me from room to room in her home in Spain, even onto the balcony that overlooks the horse pasture.

Now this is your home Mimi, and then she would burst out laughing.

It was really funny because little Mimi was in the computer. Sometimes she would take blocks and put them on each side of the computer to show my house and then she would put a towel over the screen.

Anushka, I can’t see!

Anushka would then throw up the towel and laugh hysterically. We have sometimes played for hours cooking and store, plastic horses, little dolls. Anushka used to say,

OK Mimi, I am the princess and you are my husband and I have 3 husbands. Not all at the same time!

I would respond.

Oh yes, Mimi, at the same time! I get tired of one and then I have another prince.

And then Anushka makes her mouth in the shape of an O and then smiles, then laughs hysterically.

On my recent trip to Spain last month, after seeing the Chagall traveling exhibit in Madrid, Anushka and I both bought books depicting Chagall’s art.

After viewing the Chagall exhibit we went to lunch. We also bought in the museum store sketchbook paper and colored pencils. At lunch Anushka and I drew and looked at our books and compared the paintings. Anushka would show me a painting that she loved in her book and then I would do the same. We then talked about Chagall’s use of colors and depictions of scenes and emotions from his life including many brides and grooms. Anushka loved all the wedding paintings. As I mentioned in my last blog post she also loved all the animals in the sky.

Abraham and the Three Angels

After I was home in California I Skyped with the family one day and asked Anushka if she wanted to go get her book with the paintings of Chagall. With a large grin on her face she said,

I’ll be right back, OK Mimi?!

OK Anushka let’s do like we did in Spain, why don’t you show me a painting that you like in your book and then I will show you a painting that I like in my book.

Our books are different and do not have all the same paintings. Anushka’s is a large soft back so easy for a child to turn the pages and not too heavy.

Ok Mimi, I show you, and Anushka proceeded to take her time to look thoughtfully through the book.

Oh this one Mimi, I think this one is very beautiful!

It’s a painting depicting three angels. Then I showed Anushka the one that is on this page. It was also in the exhibit.

We were showing each other our favorite paintings and describing them and telling each other why we liked them and then all of a sudden Anushka said, I don’t like this painting at all!

OK Anushka, why don’t we show each other paintings we don’t like and talk about why we don’t like them.

Illustration for the Book Marc Chagall. Cirque, Paris, 1967

Chagall was so in love with his first wife and then she died. Anushka’s book had a picture that to her depicted the woman dead.

The woman is dead in this picture.

So then we discussed how that made Anushka feel, very sad.

At times life is really sad and great art can depict the sad parts of life. My Mimi, Anushka’s great-great-grandmother, used to say:

If you look at a great piece of art and look in one corner it may look very ugly but if you look at the whole painting it is so beautiful. The ugly part together with the beautiful part is the essence of making a particular painting great.

Mimi was also teaching me about life. Life has its sad and ugly parts but all together those parts can help us learn and grow.

So after revisiting the angel painting that was Anushka’s favorite, she said,

The Angels take care of us but we can’t see them.

About that time her mother came into the room.

Anushka we are going to take a walk now.

We say our goodbyes and blow kisses at the computer screen. I hug myself telling Anushka and her family I am hugging and kissing them.

Hugs and kisses and love till the next time we Skype and have another art adventure.

The world is a much smaller place than it used to be thanks to modern technology.

Bye for Now,

Francesca
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June 20, 2012