A Busy Weekend Starting With Canada Day

Posted on July 4, 2022 by Mama Cormier

…Friday, July 1st was Canada Day

Friday morning I started the day at the lawn bowling club where we had a fun time with a 4,3,2,1, game of lawn bowling. After a couple of hours we were treated to a BBQ of burgers, hotdogs and salads and of course cake. Everyone was instructed to wear red and white.

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After lawn bowling I attended a garden bridge party with another BBQ after the game. Great company and great food. Thanks Mary.

On Saturday I went back down to the art gallery where my show is being held and I welcomed 15 more friends and family members to my exhibit. Another successful day with four more paintings being sold and lots of cards. I have one more week at the gallery starting tomorrow. Here are some of the paintings that have sold.

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On Sunday I went to visit a friend to pick up a book and we ended up having lunch together in her lovely backyard. I picked up some yarn from her to pursue a new hobby. I’m going to attempt to do some weaving to add to some of my new art projects. The rest of the weekend is pretty much a blur.

Plans for this week? Not sure but I am going to go back to the gallery on Wednesday with a friend who didn’t have a chance to get there earlier. I don’t need to be there for people to see the show but I’m happy to make the trip for anyone who’d like me to be there. Thanks to all who have already made the trek downtown to see my show. I loved seeing all of you.

Carol

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – One Item or the Number One

Posted on June 13, 2019 by Mama Cormier

…thanks to Cee for hosting the Fun Foto Challenge

Pic and a Word Challenge – Steps

Posted on December 12, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….thanks to Pic and a Word Challenge for this week’s theme – Steps

Every day I walk

Ten thousand steps, sometimes more

Sometimes less – feels good

Thursday Doors – February 2, 2017

Posted on February 2, 2017 by Mama Cormier

…thanks to Norm from Norm 2.0 for hosting Thursday Doors

Last weekend my husband and I took a drive to Niagara Falls to meet up with our daughter and granddaughter. It was a cold and grey day, not the nicest for taking pictures of the Falls. When we arrived at our daughter’s hotel room we decided to get in the car and drive along the Niagara Parkway towards Niagara on the Lake.

We stopped at the Old Winery Restaurant and enjoyed a very nice lunch. Winnie enjoyed her bread and some of her mommy’s soup and her own macaroni and cheese.

After lunch we decided to drive around and take in some of the sights from the car. We were hoping that Winnie would nap and luckily she did. My husband grew up in the area and he decided to take a stroll with the car down memory lane. We headed towards St. Catharines, where he was born and he pointed out to our daughter the first place he lived in as a young child before moving to Niagara Falls. Not too far away was Rodman Hall which is now an art gallery.

The Thomas Rodman Merritt House was built over 150 years ago on a beautiful hillside property and is the perfect venue for special events, parties and weddings. The mansion features stained glass windows, 11 Italian marble fireplaces, patterned inlaid hardwood floors and ornate plaster mouldings. Today it is part of the University of Brock and hosts the visual arts students from the Honours Studio course.

The Rodman Hall Art Centre features the work of artists from Niagara, Ontario, Canada and the world. It houses a permanent collection of over 1000 objects, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints and drawings. While I was there they were featuring a special show called A Sublime Vernacular: The Landscape Paintings of Levine Flexhaug. I could also hear the sounds of workshops going on down the hall from the entrance. Throughout the year the hall hosts a variety of studio programs for children and adults, art camps and thematic family programs.

I would love to go back in the summer when I could enjoy the gardens and the interesting sculptures that are scattered throughout the property.

Peggy Guggenheim Gallery in Venice

Posted on August 14, 2016 by Mama Cormier

….one of my favourite art galleries in all of Italy

I guess I shouldn’t have said ‘all of Italy’ when I’ve only seen a small portion of the country. I had never heard of Peggy Guggenheim before this trip. Of course I knew of the famous Guggenheim Museum in New York but I had no idea that there was another Guggenheim in Venice.

Peggy Guggenheim was an avid collector of modern art and in an eight year period she amassed a collection of art by Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, Picasso, Calder, Henry Moore, Motherwell and Max Ernst, just to name a few, who represented Cubist, Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist movements in art.

She moved to Venice after WWII and set up a gallery of her collection at Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal. In the summers she opened her home to the public and when she died in 1979 she left her estate to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation on the condition that the collection would remain intact in Venice and would be recognized as hers. The Foundation assumed responsibility for both the collection and for Guggenheim’s palazzo.

In 2015 a movie of her colourful and controversial life was made. Here is the trailer.

Peggy Guggenheim

I think I enjoyed this collection so much because it was full of modern artists that I admire very much. The Palazzo itself was light and airy and the outdoor sculpture garden was serene and calming. Being on the Grand Canal added another element of vitality and I could just imagine Peggy sitting on the balcony with her dogs observing the gondolas and small water crafts making their way through the green waters of Venice.

Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge – Lines and Angles

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Mama Cormier

…..I love seeking out interesting lines and angles when I’m on a photo journey

For more interesting black and white photos of lines and angles check out Cee’s blog.

National Museum of Art and Dublin Castle

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Mama Cormier

……exploring art and history in Dublin

After visiting the Museum of Natural History, we made our way to the National Gallery of Art. It was surprisingly smaller than I thought it would be but there were numerous areas that were undergoing renovations and were closed off to the public.

We were treated to a variety of paintings from a very diverse group of artists, including Rembrandt, Caravagio, Picasso, Vermeer and Jack Yeats. Yeats, in fact had a large number of pieces on display. Personally I liked his large abstract pieces done with oils the best.

Unfortunately, but not surprising, I was unable to take photos in most of the gallery rooms. The one place I was able to take pictures was in the large, spacious cafeteria on the main floor of the gallery. Our son took the photgraph of me and my husband after we rehydrated with a bottle of water and split a muffin three ways.

Not too far away from the art gallery is Dublin Castle. Neither my husband or my son were very interested in seeing the interior of the castle but they were willing to check out the building, walls and courtyard. The castle itself is over 700 years old and was built by the English to implement the will of British royalty over the Irish people. In 1922 the power was handed over to Michael Collins and the Irish. Today the castle is used for for fancy state and charitable functions.

A tour of the interior is available but even the guide book described it as a boring room by room walk through. It was also the first attraction, today, that charged a fee to enter the building. Later we discovered that most of the historical buildings, including the churches charge an admission fee.