My Blue Room

I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to Mae Wygant, of Jacksonville, Oregon, on the launch of her new website, maewygant.com, after a summer of intense work punctuated by a busy travel schedule. We’ve spent many hours photographing and color-correcting images of her work, and it’s finally complete. Please visit to celebrate her new online presence and feast your eyes on 40 incredible paintings in a variety of genres. Her abstracts are like nothing you’ve ever seen – the movement and color makes them the best I’ve seen! And her work is available for purchase on the site, from reasonably priced fine art prints to investment quality originals. We will continue to work on her site to add over 20 more paintings, so don’t forget to check in from time to time.

Today Janet London added another fine art print to her Print Gallery at Hummingbird Arts. “Ego Disintegration,” the second of three paintings in her “Dark Night of the Soul” series, is an intense, colorful and beautiful new piece – a must-see!

9/5/09: Today marks the launch of Butterfly Jewelry & Treasures new Online Jewelry Boutique! We wish owner Heloise Gerteiny the best of success in this new venture and hope you’ll check it out when considering a gift for someone special.

Other recent updates include the announcement of a new Fall schedule of mandala classes by Janet London of Hummingbird Arts, and updated gallery and exhibition schedules for Jannie Ledard, stained glass artist, and Duane Sample, mosaic artist.

I have a number of projects beginning soon, so stay in touch for more, and if you’re thinking of a website of your own, please contact me before my fall/winter schedule gets too full! For those in the Medford-Jacksonville area, you may not know that I also offer computer skills tutoring for those who need a hand getting started with the basic operation of their computers or with specific programs such as Adobe Photoshop. PC or Mac – don’t get frustrated before contacting me – I can help!Technorati Tags: website design, linkedin

Where we stay at the Baines’, we live downstairs in the basement, which has been finished into a beautiful gallery filled with James’ incredible work. Since I’ve been so busy and the guys are away, I wind up spending most of my time down here and don’t venture upstairs much until it’s time to cook. Well, the other night I ran out of milk and, since I planned to work late, really needed some for a cup of joe. I went upstairs around 8pm with the amber glass creamer Lea lent me for just his sort of thing, went into the frig and opened a new thing of milk, only to have Lea come in and tell me there was an open one on the counter, and I had just opened her upstairs visitor’s milk! Well, Kay walked in right behind her and consoled me. She and her elderly mum had been there a couple of days as mum needed to go to hospital for some tests, and we had met briefly, but aside from some friendly exchanges hadn’t made a connection. Boy did that change! Three and a half hours later I felt like she was my older sister as we exchanged a kiss and hug goodnight…
Kay is an artist who lives in Cooktown, and it turns out she’s close with an aborigine man and his wife who live nearby. Ronnie is the son of a certain tribe’s medicine man, Jack, and she had a deep friendship with him for many years until his recent passing at age 97. This paints some of the picture of what this woman’s beautiful heart is like, but there’s more. The elder chief of Jack’s tribe was Peter, whose funeral was just a week and a half ago (he was 100). As it happens, my husband and son arrived at their mate’s place just as the tribe was congregating – yes, right there – from all across Australia to pay their respects and see him over to the spirit world. As fate would have it, their mate, and his mate too – who came all the way from Singapore for the funeral – were adopted (read:white) sons of Peter’s. They all got right down to making friends, Thomas and Joel completely overwhelmed by the beauty of each one (including one man who was 130 years old!). They made a special, deep connection with Peter’s natural son, too.

As we talked til late in the night, once again I felt the Spirit swirling around us, joining us in that way which cannot be described with words. We touched upon so many subjects – art, tribal culture and healing, poverty and prejudice, old friends and family, Jack’s funeral, her last visit with Peter in hospital, and what it really means to walk with God. When I walked downstairs with my now-warm jug of milk, it was very thoughtfully, and sleep didn’t come easy with the many colorful images now in my mind. The next morning she shared with me pictures, video and audio files (she also plays the flute) of her varied works, her home and views of Cooktown as her dog Karma lay at my feet. I just cannot seem to put into words how deep it all sank into my heart, and that fast!

After taking her mum down to Cairns the next morning for her tests (the results of which were good, thankfully) and spending the night there, she came all the way back up here to see if she could bring me up to where the tribe is (and my husband!), or at least part of the way. It didn’t work out due to the timing on the other end (read: red slippery clay road, so no-one travelling down to meet us just then), but I was so moved by her choice to do this, driving up the Gillies range (you just can’t imagine how many twisting curves there are in that highway) an hour out of her way, and poor thing, she was so tired. Love and selflessness are such amazing, powerful forces, and Kay’s got them both! I now have a new sister…and so do we all.

I had spoken with Peter’s son on the phone a few days earlier, telling him how much I wanted to be there, though I knew my place was here for some reason I wasn’t quite sure of. He said that the presence of my closest family and my own heart’s desire placing me there in spirit embroidered me into the fabric of the tribe. And Kay put the finishing touches on this work, our crossing of paths in Lea’s kitchen finally convincing me it was true, showing me why I was here and not there.

We are one, family both from the loins of Noah and the blood of Christ, one blood, one spirit, one Creator whom we all love with one heart. It’s all true.

Except for those who excuse themselves.

Technorati Tags: Australia, Cooktown, artists, friends, sisters

We first met Vivian when our host, James Baines, did a painting seminar (which she attended) in Tully, Queensland, about 6 years ago. We had a wonderful conversation and we never forgot her, yet when she showed up in the Baines’ kitchen a couple of months ago I was shocked, because when we met her she was the owner/editor of the Tully newspaper and I had no idea anything had changed. Well, that wasn’t all, her husband had passed away, she sold the paper, her daughter got married, she built a house on her property here outside Malanda and had taken up permanent residence there a little more than a year ago. She looked great! Her husband had been sick for a long time and,  though she missed him, with this weight lifted she had a new, vivacious light in her eyes…We had another short, but sweet conversation and she invited me to come visit her new home.

Well, my clients back home have been very good to me since I’ve been here and have kept me very busy, so I didn’t make it over there until a few days ago. It turned out to be serendipity, and the timing was perfect in every way. She picked me up and took me there, where her Rhodesian Ridgeback, Pagan (I’m the Christian, she’s the pagan, said Vivian, laughing) greeted me as if she’d known me forever. First she showed me the studio she’d built. Have to admit, it would make any artist green with envy! I was.
On our way to the house she showed me the work she was doing with her garden beds. She’s been adjusting to living alone by making her home and grounds just what she’s always wanted. Although the beds are young, I could see that once her plants mature it’s going to be gorgeous. When I’m done painting with dirt and flowers, I’ll get busy in the studio, she told me with a smile. Once inside, Vivian made a pot of Chai and we sat down at the table in a glassed-in veranda with incredible views of the Atherton Tablelands, which that day were crowned with a blue sky and scudding clouds. The wind blew as we talked about everything under the Sun, from her late husband to matters of faith, reincarnation, resurrection and the Lord’s return…the phone rang…she came back talking about the prayer meeting the Spirit himself organized, called people to, sustained, then ended without any effort on anyone else’s part…then there was the aborigine man she sat next to in the Full Gospel Businessman’s Fellowship she used to attend…another pot of Chai…then she was sharing experiences she’d had as a child and with her own children, then her daughter’s recent wedding in England. We sauntered into the kitchen for a chicken sandwich at one point, still talking, only now it was the book of Ezekiel and UFO’s. And there was more, so much more, we talked for…for…five and a half hours! Time seemed to stand still and the Universe swirled around us as our connection grew deeper and deeper. magic. I knew I needed pictures of her beautiful surroundings and of course, of Vivian, so we went outside and snapped a few, then she brought me home. I was so overwhelmed I lay down for a siesta, dreaming of blue skies and Pagan’s eyes, politely asking for bits of biscuit at Vivian’s table.

Technorati Tags: Australia, Queensland, Atherton, Tablelands, artists, studio, friends