Winding Down

Heard and Seen
My resident expert says that both blogging and Twitter are becoming passé: Blogging because no one has time for peeking in on others' lives, hobbies and thoughts; and Tweeting because it has turned into a ferocious culture-war battleground, where even the non-participants are vilified for not taking sides. I am not party to the latter, but I have seen evidence of the former. I hear that new platforms of communication are constantly replacing the old, some of those being now Instagram and Photo Stream and various "chat" things whose names I do not know.

I am thinking that this blog has passed its prime, too. It has been an interesting year. I have enjoyed seeing your lives and works and places where you live and go. It has been good to see some of you doing art works you would not otherwise have done. I hope you have had some enrichment or amusement in these pages, too.

Now I would appreciate your response: if this blog ended about the time one year after it started -October sometime - would it matter much to you? I do know what some of you said last time I asked this, about not posting frequently and "do what you want" and all that. I don't think it is worthwhile having a blog at haphazard intervals. I am not posting for myself. I am wondering what you think.

I thought it might be nice to see everyones' Christmas once more, but that is the busiest time, so I don't know if that is feasible. We can look in on each other through Instagram - which I personally check monthly, to catch up. And e-mail still exists.

Anyway, I give this a month, more or less.

SO, yesterday being church-at-our-place day and today being cleaning day, with no art time for me - though MARY had some! - we go back to the BALTICS tour.

More Riga

Admirable architecture

And some with critters on top

Note the top

Faces in the city

These houses, from three different period, are called the Three Brothers. They were merchant houses, built - right to left - in 1490's, 1640's and later 1660's, in Dutch style from the trade of that time. Note the bearded man in front. He is a survivor of that time, I think.

Looking back from one spot....

....and looking forward from the same spot.

Folks on the street

And random passers-by

An owl

maybe a hippo

And storks. These are all made out of rocks and steel. ART.

Have a happy day.

Hurry, Hurry

Before the Party

We went to brother-in-law's birthday party this afternoon. Before that, we happened to notice that our Concord grapes were quite ripe and wouldn't wait until Monday, if we wanted to get more than the birds did. SO, I put up 14+ pints of jam, from very lovely grapes.

First batch

Large grapes, and exquisite taste.

We were a tad late for the dinner, but no matter.

This is called recycling a previous idea. It helps when one is in a hurry and making jam. This was yesterday's project for today's party. It had to do with a Mustang car.

Blackberry in champagne.

Blessings on your Sunday tomorrow.

Guest Book

I wanted to share this guest book that I saw recently at one of my wedding deliveries. I have seen many different kinds of ways that bridal couples record the attendance of the guests at their weddings. This one is very customized and creative, with the mountain scenery of their wedding day location (though that is definitely not Mt. Hood) and portraits of the bride, groom and their pet.

                                   I was told that this was ordered from an artist on Etsy.

There's lots of space for messages from the guests too. This was on a canvas so will be fun to have framed and hung in the bridal couple's new home.

Here are a couple photos from recent weddings-

This was a simple cake buffet with eight little cakes in three flavors. No flower decorations but a variety of rustic icing styles and little flags with the cake flavor names. "Mr." and "Mrs." embellishment.

Here was the outdoor setting at Skamania Lodge with one of their brand new "tree house" accommodations.

Another wedding had a very surprising sudden outburst of hard rain just as the outdoor ceremony began. Everyone got drenched and all the tables had already been prettily set. The staff quickly moved everything for dinner into the large barn-

The rustic wood tables were lovely but not as pretty as they had been outside with pink table linens which by then were in a wet pile.

This was the arrangement of desserts near the back corner where a vintage car set the theme.

Disappointments come in life but the charming couple kept their smiles and enjoyed their guests on an especially memorable wedding day.

More Baltics 7

Seek and Find

Today had no art time, because we were searching for furnishings for a dining room. It seems we are falling into the Louis Philippe style, which is the French version of the German Biedermeier, from about 1815 - 1850. One tends to learn a little about historic furniture styles when looking through old pieces in Brockenhäuser and checking out the offerings of grandchildren selling off their Grandmas' furnishings.
Both those styles developed, along with the Victorian style in England, for the newly-moneyed middle classes who wanted to spend what they had, to look like they had something,  yet not so extravagant as the then-defunct Napoleonic era. These styles were products of the emerging machine age, less ornate with less hand work, emphasising the wood grains and simpler forms, something suited to the relative peace and home-centered lives they enjoyed. Now we see them as something between the extravagances of the French royal styles and the starkness of the subsequent "modernist"styles, neither of which would suit us.
See pictures of the styles:

http://www.artnewsnviews.com/view-article.php?article=biedermeier-style-biedermeier-furniture&iid=16&articleid=358

Louis Philippe Möbel

THEN, one needs to find pleasing upholstery for ones chairs, when the fashion these days is entirely opposite ones likes. So we are still looking. That was our day.



So, here is more of the Baltics, this being Riga, the capital of Latvia.

A walk in a park

Somebody's head

The shields of various municipalities of the region

The suggestion was that this place would take care of enemies or other nuisances in ones life, for  a fee of course.

Some of our company wanted to visit this: the military museum. I looked a bit, then drew some folk costumes from displayed figures. I hate wars.

First wars

Last wars

in-between wars

Protection from wars

Our young ladies found a wool shop and partook of the delights inside, from which we should see some results this winter.

In case one didn't know what the shop offered.... these are historic knitting patterns from the country.

More Pictures from Riga to follow.