Francesca Filanc

Category: Painting

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
Joys of Gardening With Grandchildren

The author/artist granddaughter picking tomatoes to eaThis past summer my daughter who lives in Spain came with her husband and children to California for a five-week visit.

Their oldest daughter Anushka loves to garden. She is now six years old. Every time the family comes to visit Anushka and I have fun gardening. While they were here we planted some vegetables and seeds together, picked tomatoes and strawberries, and pulled out vegetables that were spent. Anushka was able to experience the cycle of the vegetables; lettuce, purslane and arugula. She had the experience of planting them as well as seeing them regrow from seeds in the soil after we had pulled the old ones out.

Monarch Butterfly on Asclepias curassavica

This summer people have been amazed by the multitudes of butterflies in Southern California. My granddaughters and I had so much fun gardening and playing in the garden all the while butterflies and dragonflies floated as if “lazily” overhead. For months I have been curious as to this fabulous phenomenon. I was thinking that it was possibly due to so many of us planting the plants that caterpillars love to eat and build their chrysalis on such as Asclepias curassavica. Also the fact that many of us through the years have become organic gardeners. And many more people plant vegetable gardens which also may encourage a variety of colorful butterflies and dragonflies to our gardens. Gardeners have been planting milkweed to encourage the Monarchs to their gardens. My grandchildren got to experience seeing the magnificent and beautiful chrysalises of Monarch butterflies and then the butterflies just emerged and still wet on a branch. This is a link to a blog post that I wrote on butterflies. Butterflies in Our Gardens

Monarch Chrysalis

I checked the Internet to find the answer to this interesting phenomenon. The article below speaks of this fascinating development in England also this calendar year 2013.

Britain’s butterfly population seems to have exploded this year, the buddleia bushes are bursting, the veg patches are teaming and there seems to be an invasion happening in my home.

Every day for the last week or so I have had to rescue at least one trapped butterfly from my cottage. They seem to appear from nowhere and crash desperately and repeatedly into the windows leaving their precious wing powder behind. I was always taught not to hold a butterfly as the powder comes off on your hands and that’s what helps them fly, I’ve no idea if this is true or not, but I like the idea of magic flying dust so I find myself leaping about with a pint glass in one hand and beer mat in the other trying desperately to channel Gerald Durrell and catch the frightened insect.

British butterflies have been in decline over the last 10 years with a 24% decrease in the common garden types like the Red Admiral and Cabbage White.

My childhood was full of butterflies and then they all seemed to disappear. British butterflies have been in decline over the last 10 years with a 24% decrease in the common garden types like the Red Admiral and Cabbage White so how come we are seeing this year’s butterfly boom?

Despite being around for at least 50 million years butterflies are fragile things that are hugely affected by environmental factors, their habitats are disappearing and more and more pesticides are being sprayed around the countryside which has resulted in our summers seeing fewer and fewer of these beautiful winged creatures fluttering about their business.

Peter Eeles, Chairman of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight branch of Butterfly Conservation attributes this year’s boom to three major contributors – the first is that we had a ‘proper’ winter (i.e. cold) which suppresses the ability for parasites and mould to kill off any stages that are overwintering. The second is that we’ve had a good summer and the fine weather has allowed the caterpillars to rapidly feed up – which gives less time for predators to find them (especially birds). And thirdly the sunny weather has allowed butterflies to maximise the time spent finding a mate, and for females to egg-lay – and for multi-brooded species we’ll see the second or third hatches and in good numbers.

So it’s excellent news for Britain’s butterflies this year and you can do your bit to encourage them into your garden by planting butterfly friendly flowers like buddleias and marigolds or visit the butterfly plants website for a list of their favourite plants to feast and lay on and let’s hope we continue to see them flourish and flutter by. Metro Newspaper.

Anushka and I also planted a succulent planter. Check out a blog post that I wrote on this subject. Create Your Own Wall Succulent Hanging Planter

My granddaughter was having fun playing with her fairy princes and princesses in the planter before it was finished as you can see from the photo.

I just recently read an article in First for Women Magazine that talks about how gardening alleviates stress in a person. Our lives are so stressful these days. Every time I go out and work in my garden my stress goes completely away. And I think, why didn’t I do this sooner!

The #1 Way to Nix The Stress of Daily Pressures:

When too many demands leave you feeling exhausted, take a time-out to tend your garden. Researchers in the Netherlands discovered that subjects who spend thirty minutes outdoors pulling weeds and planting flowers experience a significantly greater reduction in levels of acute stress—the kind created by rushing from one to-do to the next—than those who stayed indoors and read for a half hour. The authors of the study explain that soil contains a bacterium (called M. vaccae) that boosts the production of the happy hormone serotonin and relieves anxiety.

Sometimes I forget to get into the garden. Now is a great time to buy the winter vegetables to plant in California. We are so lucky here to be able to garden outdoors year round! I am so thankful for the blessing of working in the earth.

Succulent Planter That Author/Artist Granddaughter Created

Have Fun Gardening!

Bye for Now

Francesca

South Beach
https://francescafilanc.com/gallery/#lightbox/28/ FF

September 25, 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
SUMMER DAYS –PAINTING AND PLAYING INDIANS

The Author & Artist in her first Studio

My mother, Pat Welsh, realized I had an aptitude for art at a very young age. Gallery of my current work. In the summertime she taught painting to some of my friends, my sister and me. Mother would encourage me to paint on warm summer afternoons when we were tired of playing imagination games or had had enough beach time for that particular day. I recall so vividly painting in the afternoon after lunch as I matured into adolescence.

To this day I actually remember the upwelling of joy I felt when painting some particular paintings at ages six to eleven years old. My Mom thought them special herself and saved these paintings, having them framed for my oldest daughter Yvette when she born.

Long before I vacationed with my husband and children on the Snake River in Wyoming I recollect painting a scene depicting two Indian men with their canoe. One Indian was leaning into the canoe, the other Indian to the side with a thick forest in the background. I took hours to paint this painting in watercolors. I really felt the Indians getting ready to take the canoe out onto the water. Possibly the games I had played as a very young girl influenced my deep emotion in painting this scene. I loved playing imagination games and I believe my mother encouraged us to play outdoors.

Indians was one of my favorite games. I was a squaw princess and my name was Falling Waters. I have no idea where I got that idea! But I loved the name and no other child could borrow the name, Not Even for one day of play. A little bossy I would say! In those days we had a huge area of Eucalyptus and Monterey Cypress trees growing out of sandy soil. It was a great place to play Indians! We also had an area on our property that had solid clay, which enabled us to have fun making clay pots and cups like the Indians did back in the day!

Playing Indians

We were a neighborhood of girls and we all played together. There were at least seven or eight, Barbie, Katherine, Patty, Annette, Mija, Tina, my sister Wendy and me. There were actually more girls, but they were older than we. They played with us in a more in charge role like being mothers’ helpers. We adored these older girls, Joan, Trudy, and Chris.

On some occasions I remember playing at a friend’s house observing wide-eyed while the older sister got ready for a date, dreaming about the day that I would go to a dance all dressed up in a beautiful shiny dress having been given a corsage by a boy!

Painting is something I have enjoyed doing my whole life thanks to my mother’s encouragement to paint! As an abstract artist I paint my thoughts and feelings.

Here’s to lazy Summers Swimming Painting Gardening sipping Ice tea in beautiful environments!

Happy Summer!

Bye for Now,

Francesca

July 10, 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
ART IN MADRID AND HOW THIS PAINTER FINDS INSPIRATION

BIRTHRIGHT

Painting as well as other disciplines needs enlightenment and inspiration for the artist to make the opportunity to paint an inspired piece of art. It is paramount for an artist to view paintings in museums. Many artists, some who paint abstract and some who are traditionalists inspire me which can be seen through my art.

The last few days I was in Spain visiting my daughter and her family, we traveled from their home in the town of Izcue by bus to Pamplona and then by train to Madrid.

We stayed in a hotel that I would highly recommend. The prices were good. It was clean and lovely located in a residential neighborhood on a tree-lined street. AC Hotel Carlton Madrid Paseo de las Delicas 26 28045 Madrid. The hotel is in walking distance to all the museums and just down the street from the train station. Which by the by has a restaurant and a beautiful garden. The hotel seems to cater to the businessperson as well as the vacationer. There is a sumptuous buffet breakfast with everything from smoked salmon to deserts. After stuffing ourselves on the delicious repast we were ready to walk it off with plenty of museum viewing!

I was thrilled to learn that we were in time to see the Marc Chagall exhibit at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Chagall’s art is childlike yet sophisticated. He paints cows, roosters, goats and lovers in the sky. Chagall was a colorist and he painted his feelings.

I relate to Chagall because I am also a colorist and I paint my feelings.

We walked to three museums that day including the Prado. We looked at works by Diego Velazquez, larger than life paintings, some looking to be ten stories high. The majority of people were clustered around Las Meninas. Las Meninas is famous in part because Velazquez painted himself in the painting. One painting in particular that I was especially attracted to depicted a magnificent white horse with flowing mane, snorting the air, high-spirited with a regal-looking man on his back. There were many such paintings with a similar theme. Velazquez is a national treasure of Spain. When you go to the Prado you see a multitude of his works.

My son-in-law Iban and I visited Guernica by Picasso, depicting the massacre in a small Basque town during the time of Franco. They are working on refurbishing the painting at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía but it was still on display. It was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on April 26^th, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War.

On my last night in Madrid we walked to dinner a few blocks away from our hotel. We sat on the street, drank good wine and had a culinary delight of several courses of tapas that my daughter took great delight in ordering for the table. We started with calamari and white asparagus, the dishes kept coming including lamb and ending with traditional deserts.

Mikaela had fallen asleep in the stroller next to our table and Anushka stayed awake until we returned back to our lovely hotel. I asked for a cab to pick me up in the morning to take me to the airport. Yvette, Iban, Anushka and Mikaela enjoyed the day in Madrid and then walked to the train that took them back to Izcue, and yours truly traveled home to California. What a lovely memory of my last two days in Spain.

Adios,

Bye for now,

Francesca

PUCCI

June 14, 2012
BIRTHDAY LUNCH FOR A FRIEND

Birthday girl with flowers and Vegetables

May I take you out to lunch for your birthday?

Fran, I’d rather just come over and have a good girl talk visit.

We talk about deep things — things that matter to us, our children, grandchildren, gardening, and spiritual things, about where we have come from, the sad times and the happy ones. How as we get older, we are each more content in our own skin. That is a gift of growing older. Not worrying so much what others think, but appreciating our own gifts, accepting the struggles and being more present in the present moment. After all, it is all any of us have. There is that saying, The past is gone, the future is yet to be and where I am is in the present.

Author arranging flowers

A friend related to me the other day about the book The Artist’s Way. I read the book years ago. This friend reminded me about how an artist should take an outing once a week by herself – An Artist’s Date With Herself. Whatever it is that turns her on. Going to an outdoor market, going antiquing, going browsing down a tree-lined street in the city. In this way we open ourselves up to the beauty in life and how we fit ourselves into it. When we age gracefully in a spiritual sense we are coming more into our own of who we really are and what gifts we give and have given to the world. Some of us are just coming into our own as we mature in years.

As Leanne and I talked I prepared leek vegetable soup, green salad from my garden and locally caught sea bass from the Del Mar Farmer’s Market bathed in lemon juice and cooked in a skillet.

Recipes

Lemon Lime-water with Sprigs of Mint
Fill two glasses with ice, add fresh slices of lime and lemon, squeeze juice of one slice of lemon and lime over the ice. Rim the glass with lemon and lime, add water. Garnish with sprigs of mint.

Vegetable Leek Soup
Slice four large fresh leeks into one-inch sections. Rinse several times in water to remove sand. Using your fingers peel back all layers of sliced leeks to remove any remaining sand. In a heavy cast-iron skillet saute four chopped cloves of garlic in 1 tablespoon Nutiva Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil. Add to this one large chopped onion and leeks. Cook until color is translucent. Transfer to a soup pot. Dissolve 3 tablespoons Rapunzel Vegetable Broth concentrate in hot water. Add about a quart of water or enough to cover vegetables that have just been sautéed along with the vegetable broth. Dice one to two Roma tomatoes and add to soup. Add pepper and salt to taste along with Garam Masala seasoning, Turmeric, a dash of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg. (I also added mint, ¼ cup cilantro, chives, oregano and basil fresh from my garden). Simmer for half an hour to forty-five minutes. Spoon into bowls and top with a little grated Parmesan cheese and toasted sunflower seeds.

Salad

Salad
Fresh greens from the garden
Chopped mint, cilantro and basil
1-2 sliced Roma tomatoes

Dressing
in a jar add two whole cloves garlic,
1/2 cup best organic olive oil,
to that add 1/3 cup good quality fruit
vinegar or vinegar with a little jam mixed in for flavor.
(I used fig and currant vinegar.)
Salt and Pepper to taste.
For people not sensitive to garlic, chop up
two cloves garlic and add to dressing. Shake well.

Rim the salad bowl with garlic; pour about 1/4 to 2/3 cup salad dressing in bottom of bowl. To this add your greens, tomatoes, top with toasted sunflower seeds, and feta cheese. Toss just before serving.

Sea Bass

Sea Bass

Sauté in coconut oil 1-2 cloves garlic, add to this the sea bass washed in the juice of two lemons. Season with salt and pepper. Sauté with chives from the garden, leeks, one sliced tomato, and lemons. I cooked the fish with some finely chopped lemon on top. Cooking times will vary depending on the thickness of the fish. Sauté one side and about half way through turn it over to finish cooking. Serve on plates with Gloria’s Pico de Gallo and tomatillo salsa artfully spooned over the top of the fish and then sprinkle with fresh cilantro and sunflower seeds. (See my March 8 ^th 2012 blog for the recipes)

We walked in the garden to collect the vegetables for the salad. We picked flowers for her birthday bouquet. It had rained yesterday morning so as we wandered through the garden and the air smelled fresh and the plants and flowers that we picked had little droplets of water caressing each leaf and petal.

We sipped lemon lime-water with sprigs of mint and feasted at the beautiful table. The food was delicious.

Here’s to having deep conversations speaking of the art of living a fulfilling life over delicious food in art filled environments.

Bye for now

Francesca

June 6, 2012