August 30: Whiteboard Cartoons

Benjamin and Keith collaborated to create this poor, doomed stick figure on our school white board....

June 5: The Ademas' Window

We celebrated Dr. Don's birthday in early June, and we took the opportunity to snap another photo of this 1500-piece window that Keith completed three years ago. This window is huge--4ft by 5 ft--and truly is Keith's masterpiece.

May 30: Window Is Complete!

Keith takes a photo of the memorial window

The Memorial Window

Keith completed this window in honor of C., the daughter of dear friends. C. is at home with the Lord; the end of April marked the first anniversary of her journey. Even while she is "forever in our hearts, forever in His hands," she remains a sweet presence to all who know her.

Day 13: California History Mission Report

Benjamin had to write a Mission Report for his California History Class at Class Day. He chose to report on the Mission San Luis Rey de Francia in Oceanside where our friend C. is buried in the most beautiful place.

Benjamin copied the front of the mission from a brochure; he spent nearly six hours on this drawing which is part of the overall mission report. I hope he gets a good grade on this required report for the only class required by the state of California.

Day 4: Stained Glass

Keith just finished this small window for a friend in Japan, so tonight it's all packed up and ready to go. He's my Guest Photographer today since he took these photos with his good camera. I knew that my little point-and-shoot couldn't do it justice, especially in the lovely morning light....

Sand Sculptures at the Beach

B next to his Sand Man sculpture

B's Sand Man

J works on his Electric Guitar sculpture

J's Electric Guitar

T putting finishing touches on his sand sculptures

T's "Honu" (Hawaiian for sea turtle)

Starting at left, counter-clockwise: T's starfish, shell, jellyfish, octopus, stingray, and honu

Elizabeth's First Craft Fair

Elizabeth sold at her first craft fair for the Mountain Empire Little League this past Saturday. The event wasn't nearly as busy as we would have liked, and she only sold $38, $10 she had to pay for the fee. It provided a good experience, though, in dealing with mountain winds (we had to take down the big sign right after this photo as it kept getting blown over) and with selling her jewelry.

Keith's New Window

Keith is working on a second stained glass window for the Ademas, one that will complement the 1500+ piece window he created for their stairwell last year. This one will be in a sliding door for their bedroom, surrounded by dark wood. Keith has the difficult parts done: the two clusters of grapes and all the leaves, both of which match elements in the original window. From the hallway both windows will be visible, so having them complementing each other is vital. I can't wait to see this one when Keith completes it.

Day 45: Keith's Presentation

Keith is explaining how he created the 1,500+ piece stained glass window that he created for our doctor and his wife to a gathering of the Mountain Empire Creative Arts Council (MECAC). For a stormy night, we had a fairly good turnout. If you'd like to read the entire write-up, you can click here: MECAC Stained Glass Event with Keith Barrett

Day 40: The NEW Window

Keith is working on a window now thast he started the last time he had a dedicated stained glass workshop.... almost 18 years ago. Back when I was pregnant with E who will be turning 17 two months from today. For her carousel-horse nursery.

He's cleaning it up and getting it back together. It's looking really lovely now, once he gets the cut pieces washed and starts grinding the pieces, fitting them together, and foiling each one.


The window he's putting together.

The pieces that still need to be washed, ground, and foiled....

It's gonna be a beautiful window. Simply gorgeous.

Day 14: A Little Glimpse o' Spring

I was trying to find a way to blur the background of this photo when I found the artbrush option -- and I fell in love with what it did to my humble little stock. I adore the spicy scent of stocks -- one of my favorite fragrant flowers. With the weather so warm lately (70's again today), I bought one six pack and planted them in the pots on my front porch. They will probably get snowed on many a time this winter, but they can handle it.

The Art of Grapes

This week Keith has been working on the grapes for the upper part of the stained glass window:



He's picked the smallest grapes from the purple globs he purchased. Then he has to wrap the edges of each one with copper foil, then solder each one into place. Some grapes he leaves whole and others he slices to fit in better amongst surrounding grapes. These were the smallest purple globs he could find online; ideally, they would have been a bit smaller in size to me more in balance with the size of everything else, but they work.



He carefully places the grapes into place.



Here the grapes are from the back, with the globbly part face down and a blue piece in back to make the grapes a deeper shade. The back of the window must be soldered first, then the front. So right now Keith is working on the window backwards. It will look very strange to us when he turns it over to work on the front after seeing it from this side for so many weeks....



He holds up the grapes for us to see against the window light. The blue piece of glass on the back deepens the purple beautifully.



He couldn't resist making one grape very happy amongst all the others. See it? Little fun "Easter eggs" in the window will be one of its features, and we're not telling Dr. A. about them; he gets to discover them on his own.... :)

Stained Glass Progress

This is where Keith is in the window, six weeks into the actual glasswork part. He's hoping to finish it by the end of June, and he's just about on schedule. The sunset sky will be layered behind this yellow with oranges, reds, and even blue near the top. He also used the double-layer technique with the hummingbird.

It's the complex areas, like the hollyhocks at the right, that take so doggone much time. His patience amazes me, as does his sense of detail. Newer tools that weren't available seventeen years ago when he was last productive allows for much tighter cutting of the glass and much less grinding. But then it's not easy to place the copper foil on such tight curves, but it does come out lovely.

Lots of work done, and lots more to do.

Friday: Holy Saturday Icon

B and I attended Easter Week Holy Eucharist on Friday. I was mesmerized by the icon on the side wall, the one showing Jesus descending to Sheol to rescue the captives. I love seeing the gates of Sheol, symbolizing death, crushed under His feet....

Window Progress

Keith's been working away at the stained glass window for our doctor. Can you believe that this area has approximately 200 pieces?



The tools of the trade....

Monday: E's Accomplishment

E has finished her first stained glass projects: three butterfly hangers, one for each of her cousins whom she was supposed to visit this week. Unfortunately, my brother-in-law's plans to travel to Southern California have changed, so the trip to Phoenix has been postponed indefinitely. E is extremely disappointed, but we hope that Jim can drive through next week and take the butterflies home to Phoenix with him for the girls.

Keith helped E with some of the process, but E really took to the stained glass work: she jumped ahead of him in her eagerness to complete the project and did most of the cutting, foiling, and soldering herself. She needed a boost or two over the "hard parts," but now she feels much more able to work on her own stained glass projects. I'm very proud of her, and she's quite proud of the beautiful butterflies she has created from scrap glass.

B's "Starry Night"

All three boys are taking art classes at Class Day. T worked on some abstract art, and J is studying texture and color. B, however, is obviously learning about Van Gogh, as he brought home his collage version of "Starry Night" today. I think it's a very good job for a second-grader.

I just wish that I was artistic like my own kids -- my brother was a fine arts major, and my mother paints some, and my grandmother was quite talented. Plus all of Keith's side of the family are artists, so our kids come by it genetically. It just skipped me.

Impressionist Project -- Discovering the Child Within

Tonight our monthly art council meeting was child's play ... literally. Myrna Mora, the art council's youth coordinator and art docent at the local elementary school, allowed us to "discover the child within." As the children at our local school study Monet and complete art projects based on his works, so we adults also got to create Impressionist flower pots. While we painted a white base coat on the three-inch terra cotta pots, Myrna told us about what the children are learning about Monet as a result of the art docent program, and we also discussed our kids' program this past summer, "A Taste of Art." Myrna's project also provides a beginning point for the annual art contest our art council holds each spring for all students in grades K-6 which we will be working on from now until late May.

We all had fun painting our pots using these little squishy toy thingies rather than paint brushes. Monet never mixed paint on his palette but rather dabbed different pure colors next to each other to create the image of color mixing which we recreated by dabbing paint on with the little "squishies." So we had fun creating art as well as gaining insight into the art docent programs in the local elementary school which in the past few years has focused on a certain artist each year: Van Gogh, Picasso, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and now Monet. (I helped teach the Picasso when J was in school that year.) With our district being the most under-funded in the entire state of California, the community has to come together in order to offer art to the back country kids, something both the art docent program and the art council are determined to accomplish.

My Day's Project

I spent several hours today preparing this exhibit on our creative arts council's summer art program for tomorrow night's Art Council Meeting that will focus on our kids' programs. Myrna, our youth coordinator, will be speaking about our upcoming art contest, our art camps this summer, and the current art docent programs in our town's elementary school in which the kids have been studying Monet. We'll cap off the evening with an art project for all the council members: three-inch terra cotta pots to be painted in the Impressionst style. With the help of Keith (for printing many photos) and T (drawing the art supplies), I got this project finished in a couple of hours today. Whew ... done!

The First Cuts

Keith made the first cuts for the stained glass window today. He created this wondeful jig to help in cutting straight glass pieces. A metal ruler is on the right side to measure the width of the glass to be cut, and a strip of metal on springs is pressed down on top of the glass (a cushion underneath prevents scratching of the glass) so that the glass can be sliced into perfectly straight pieces that will require less grinding as well as less cutting time. Metal framing keeps the glass in place no matter how hard he has to press. Then he can pick up the glass, use pliers to separate off the cut piece, and then he adds them to the row of border pieces for the window. He's a genius, my husband!