Thankful!

Feeling thankful for friends who rallied to my cry for companionship on a long day of solo Henry-tending! First, Home Depot with Sarah Barr:

Next, we visited a lumber yard with Alex Tyng:

Lastly, a long drive on a rainy night, going nowhere in particular but Mary Walsh to chat with made all
the difference!

All full of gratitude for friends and ready for Thanksgiving!

A Henry & Katja Reunion

"Is that you?"

Katja is visiting us from Heidelberg! It's been three or four years since she was last here. K and I drove out to Beaver Farm to see Henry. K wondered if H would remember her. I really think he did. As usual with Henry there were no glad words of remembrance but some intense stares and happy grins. Like, "Oh THERE you are!"

"It IS you! Yay!"

"Now can I have some ice-cream?"

♡☼♡....

Day Trip to NYC...short but sweet

Went with a couple of friends to see the Mary Cassatt Print show at the NYC Public Library...wonderful!

My scholarly side...!

The Library building is breathtaking!

Jennifer and Eliza with one of the iconic NYC Library lions

Then we hit the Frick to see the Piero della Francesca show..superb!

We went indie with our coffee break...this tiny little Mexican Coffee shop featured coffee-n-empanadas!

Displayed prominently...not very confidence inspiring!

Great light on the drive home!

Home sweet home! A great day!

Traveling to a Museum Show

Nancy Bea Miller  "Sarah Cellphone" 2012  o/c

Just sent my painting "Sarah Cellphone" off to be part of a show at the Asheville Art Museum called The Philadelphia Story: Contemporary Figurative Work Drawn from the Academy.  I am really thrilled to be included in this show which looks amazing! So many outstanding artists are in it. Also, I find it encouraging that the curator, Nancy Sokolove, picked one of my most recently completed pieces. And BTW, a big thank you to my friend Sarah Barr for posing for this painting!

I have been in a few museum shows before, but this is the first time a museum sent a preparator to pick up the piece. In the end because of some scheduling issues for the pick-up guys, I brought my piece over to the home of another participating artist's house nearby, my friend Elizabeth Wilson. The museum guys came up in a truck from North Carolina to get my piece so I didn't at all mind driving ten minutes to my friend's house to help them out. :-) I was so dorkily tickled by the whole experience that I documented it with my i-phone (I simply cannot act cool no matter how hard I would try, so, yeah, I just don't try, obviously! :-)

Paperwork! Liz signing and signing and signing...

My boxed up piece gets taken aboard.

The (very nice) guys getting ready to take off for the next pick-up spot

Liz makes me some French Press coffee for a little post-pick-up celebration!
Woo hoo!

Friends, Family, Fun and Art Galore!

It was great to have a visit this past weekend from Amer Olson and his lovely family!  (photo credit: Jon Redmond )

It's been a busy month, so halfway through, I am going to somewhat randomly focus on some of the more obvious points, in no particular order, just to keep up!

 

Part of the the old art school gang: Jon Redmond, me and Amer Olson (photo credit: Paul Downs )

Son H running in a X-C race two weeks ago

Well done all!

A couple of weeks ago the Wilburn cousins came up from Maryland to see the William Trost Richards show at PAFA. Friend and artist Eliza Auth joined us for lunch and small masterpiece viewing. I highly recommend this show, A Mine of Beauty, it's simply amazing! And there are magnifying glasses!

My wonderful MIL Darian came to Philly from DC for a day to lend her expertise and support in a medical matter (but we had fun, too!)

Darian came to Philly by train: the view at 30th Sreet Station was fantastic!

The first PAFA Aumni Gathering took place earlier this month. This was something the Alumni Association Council has worked very hard to pull off, so we were all thrilled that it turned out to be such a great night (many thanks to all who helped make it so memorable, most especially Patty Castner!)

Liz Wilson and I joking around in the cast hall (Fred Danziger took this shot!)

Liz drove me home and we just by chance happened upon this visually stunning art happening, Open Air,  as we wended our way past the art museum later that night!

This past Saturday was yet another PAFA event, a panel for Family Weekend on "Life After Art School." I was the moderator and here I am with two of the panelists, old friend Clarity Haynes and Sterling Shaw. This was the first time I was a moderator, an unexpectedly interesting role! (photo credit: David Sigman)

Happy (Chinese) New Year!

The Golden One!

I wish you a beautiful new year full of golden moments and soaring dragon dreams!

I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to window; 

golden chains from star to star, and I dance.

-- Arthur Rimbaud

Henry's Spring Break

Henry comes home

As usual, Henry's recent two-week spring break reminded me of Hemingway's words: The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.  Sometimes while I am squaring up to a six-foot-five 250-pound young man in a rage, I get a sudden objective flash of vision of myself doing this, and I am momentarily shocked at how strong I have learned to be. (Not always though. Sometimes I turn weakly away.)


All in all, this was a nice sojourn with Henry. Overall, his aggressive behaviors seem to be diminishing. What is increasing is his deficit in finding ways to entertain himself. So, there was more driving Mr Henry around than ever before (one activity that soothes and pleases him seemingly endlessly is being driven around. A shame that the gas prices are going up! ;-)


Here are some random photos from his break. We had many happy times:

We also had some dark times:

But we got through these rough patches. What helped was the love and support of friends and family. In no particular order here is a gallery of Henry Helpers and Friends:

Henry's favorite person on earth: Miss Janice!

Wonderful Ynnon brightened our days

Peter was a huge help with his twin brother. Here we are delivering some of my work to the Philadelphia Sketch Club. Peter drove, parked and Henry tended with grace.

Taz and Zai: but Henry is not at all  interested in new babies

Shaking hands with his emergency care coordinator Joel (the guy whose number to call if there is a huge emergency involving hospitals and/or police)

Hen and his neurologist, Dr. McHarg

It's hard to take Henry clothes shopping without help. Thank you Janice!

 One thing people don't hear much about is the occasional intense loneliness of being a special needs parent. You are often cut off from a lot of normal interaction others probably take for granted. So it was a special blessing to have several visits from friends and family over this vacation:

Our dear friends Andy and Diane Strauss

The Downs brothers  Tony and Paul measure up to each other

Friends we rarely get a chance to see Paul and Rose-Helene Spreiregan

My girlfriends were the best support imaginable. Bouquets to all of them:

We visited Sarah on her birthday

There was a lot of driving involved! Mary accompanied me on the night shift

Alex

Theresa

Carol heroically did day AND night shifts

Eliza

Sarah and her delightful, intrepid children came with us for a long nature walk

We had mixed feelings when it was time to say Goodbye:

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