Anybody Else Feel a Draft?

Anybody Else Feel a Draft? collage/acrylic, 6 x 6

Elizabeth W. Seaver

Couldn't help myself. The name just floated out of the air to me.

These two (yesterday's posted painting and today's) will hang side by side at LibertyTown Arts Workshop in Small Works, artworks on a small scale by the Ltown artists.

The Art of Collaborating and More...

Seven pairs have sold, fifteen have gone to Backdoor Gallery and fifteen more are slated for delivery to LibertyTown on Monday. Santa's elves have been busy. Click on the picture to see them more closely.

This is my kind of art--no two pairs alike and collaborating with an amazingly creative person like Lynette.

I enjoy the collaborative process. If two artists are in tune, things can go one of two ways for success--either one starts the process and then stays out of the other's way to let them do their part (like my cool collaborator, Tex Forrest, did with Wilbur.)

Or the artists sit side by side and work together, bouncing ideas off of each other, asking opinions and generally fueling a runaway train of creativity and fun. That's the way it works with Lynette and me. It is so all-absorbing that we look up two hours later, with aching necks and cranky from lack of lunch--or cookies!

I would love to hear other stories of collaboration. Did they go well? Not so well? Dump it in my comments section.

Still Alive and Very Well

I'm calling these Raw Materials

I took the picture in the only quiet corner my new studio. They look a little lonely, but not for long.

Just to catch you up with a little that has been going on with me--at the end of September, I left my beloved LibertyTown studio to step out in a new venture with my friends Susan and Lynette. We have opened a new business which will have a dual focus, writing and art. It is still in downtown Fredericksburg. We named it Water Street Studio because it is on a street that has been named that in the past and because we sit right on the banks of the Rappahannock River.

Last Friday, we had our grand Grand Opening with lots of friends, old and new. We've already scheduled a reading with Steve Watkins, whose new book Juvie just landed in stores yesterday. It will be held October 26th at Water Street Studio. Refreshments and read-aloud from a wonderful author. What could be better?

Back to art. I have been looking for wooden folding chairs since January when I painted one of a set of three auditorium chairs for a fund raiser. I had so much fun painting Chester, that I immediately wanted another project like it. I looked through antique shops, sent my yard sale spies out to look, asked and asked, but couldn't find any more chairs that suited my purpose.

Then last month I traveled to Texas to see family. Along our way on a birdwatching trip north of Corpus Christi, we passed through the little town of Sinton, Texas.

"My chairs!" I shouted from the back seat. "Stop! There are my chairs!" Sure enough, on the side walk outside an antique store, there sat the perfect raw materials.

Exhibiting fabulous driving skill, my sister did not lay a scratch in the road, but pretty quickly we were piling out of the tiny white mazda and into Kountry Kaboodles. It turned out the folding chairs came from the old theater down the street from the antique store.

What nice folks we met! We stayed and chatted a long time, forgetting about the birds waiting for us at Choke Canyon. In the conversation, Gary offered to mail them to me, as they would be an awkward carry-on back to Virginia.

The chairs blew in just this past Monday along with tropical storm Karen, safe and just as wonderful as I had remembered.

I like the original surface and plan to keep it. (Extra bonus: I found decades old gum on the bottom of the seats, likely put there by movie-goers so they could eat their popcorn.)