Artists are different.
Artists are in a perpetual search for inspiration... for beauty, joy, light, magic.
Artists are inventive, expressive, adventurous, and intuitive with an overwhelming desire to share their world.
I am such an artist.
Each Friday, I'll share with you a few beautiful, delicious, intriguing treasures I'm grateful to have discovered.
Or simply things I'm just grateful for... Period.
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♥ Founding Fathers
With Independence Day right around the corner, I am in awe and appreciation of America's Founding Fathers. I am grateful for their vision, their courage, and their faith, and yet bewildered by some of their choices and decisions.
♥ Amish Country
Today I am spending time with my students on an "Art Date" to Ethridge, Tennessee, to Amish country. We'll drive from farm to farm and select produce, jams, jellies, candies, breads, quilts, birdhouses, furniture, harnesses, and handmade and homemade items the families sell from their kiosks. The Amish lifestyle is something to see really. It's like stepping into a time machine and going back at least a century.
When I go I'm so tempted to photograph the adorable, barefoot children playing with chickens and rabbits or the men and older boys working the mules in the field, but out of respect I don't. The photos shown above are not mine. The Amish take the verse in the Bible seriously regarding "no graven images." They don't allow sketches, paintings, or photographs.
♥ Vintage Better Homes and Garden Cookbook
My mother had the red and white gingham Better Homes and Garden cookbook in her kitchen when I was a wee bairn, and I had my own junior version. Still do. I learned to make broiled hot dogs split down the middle with melted cheese by reading a recipe.
The original cookbooks are long gone, but I replaced the Junior Cookbook a few years ago and just found the first edition Better Homes and Garden book after years of treasure hunting looking for it.
My parents were visiting Sunday afternoon, and I showed the cookbook to my mother. She said that my father loved the recipe for Scalloped Eggplant. I must make him some next time we have a family meal. It's not one of my favorites, but if you want to taste 1953, try this recipe...
Scalloped Eggplant
- 1 medium eggplant
- 1 beaten egg
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 Tablespoons melted butter
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 1 cup dry bread crumbs
- 1/2 cup buttered bread or cracker crumbs
Pare eggplant; cut in 1-inch cubes. Cook in boiling, salted water 8 minutes; drain. Add egg, milk, butter, onion, dry bread crumbs.
Place in greased 1-quart baking dish. Top with buttered crumbs; bake in moderate oven (350*) 30 minutes.
Did you get a chance to try the Oven Roasted Tomato recipe in last week's edition of Bullet Point Blessings? I did. It's crazy delicious!
♥ Diana Hollingsworth Gessler Illustrated Travel Journals
I love Illustrated Travel Journals, my own as well as others. I've been collecting published journals for years, but only last week discovered the ones by Diana Hollingsworth Gessler. I purchased two: Very Charleston and Very New Orleans.
A couple of years ago a few friends and I went to New Orleans for a long weekend. It was so much fun!! And beautiful! I painted scenes from the area, but didn't take my travel journal. I can't wait to go back!
And I snapped loads of photos to use for reference for future paintings.
This year I've been invited by a friend to join her on vacation to Isle of Palms in the Charleston area, to sight-see, take photographic references, and to paint. This year I will take my illustrated travel journal, too.
And in the meantime I can enjoy the delightful illustrations of Mrs. Gessler.
(She did publish Very California, Very Washington, DC, but I haven't read these yet.)
♥ Poldark
If you have never seen Poldark, you are running incredibly late to the party. The fifth and final season will air on PBS in a couple of months, but you are in luck. An encore presentation of Season 4 is being re-aired on Sunday evenings at 7pm in anticipation of the premier of Season 5. Luckily for PBS Passport members, you can watch all four previous seasons on demand, as well as all the other wonderful programming in their library. All that is required is a $5/month donation.
The main character, Ross Poldark, is a very handsome British Army officer who returns to his father's home in Cornwall after serving in the American Revolutionary War for Independence only to discover his beautiful fiancee Elizabeth Chynoweth believed him dead and is about to marry Ross' cousin Francis Poldark. Ross attempts to restore his own fortunes by reopening his deceased father's home and one of the family's derelict copper mines. After several years, he marries his scullery maid, Demelza Carne, and although he loves her, he still mourns the loss of Elizabeth's love. It's full of swashbuckling, handsome men fighting evil, injustice and cruelty and beautiful women who aren't above using their influence and feminine wiles. And there is a lot of swimming in the sea to clear one's head and doses by the handful of wistful, cliff gazing.
Is it me or does simply hearing the word "Cornwall" make your heart skip a beat? And this series was written in the 1940s, my favorite era.
Some of you may even remember the 1970s adaptation on PBS. I don't. But I've been told the actor who played Ross Poldark in the 1970s has a reoccurring role in the 21st century version.
And don't forget to listen to the podcast.
♥ Family, Friends, and the best Neighbors in the world!
In graduate school in the 1990s, we studied the priorities of the auto industry in the US vs. Japan. It was interesting to note that the US listed Quality as it's #1 priority and Quality didn't even make the Japan list, yet at the time Japanese cars were thought to be of superior quality and US cars did not have that same reputation.
Our professor commented that in Japan when a product is built, it is understood it will be made well, that it would be redundant to list it as a priority because Quality simply is part of the product.
I feel that way when listing my blessings each week. My family, friends, and neighbors are absolutely #1 on the list, but I don't list them because it should be understood. I don't ever want to take them for granted. And I couldn't have gotten through this crazy week without them. Thank you so much! I love you all!!
We make our friends; we make our enemies;
but God makes our next door neighbor.
