More San Jose Museum of Art

This is shot of the Christmas Wonderland across the street from the San Jose Museum of Art. There were over 100 decorated Christmas trees and animated Christmas scenes. This little Monkey by James Grashow was sitting on a window ledge looking at the Chihuly glass in the entry to the Museum.

This is one of the Chihuly Glass Sculptures in the foyer of the Museum. We have a very large permanent collection of Chihuly Glass at the Oklahoma Museum of Art. If you are ever in Oklahoma City don't miss the chance to see the collection because it is fantastic. I saw a special on the Chihuly Glass Group Compound during the holidays on the Discovery Channel...it was very intriguing...if you get a chance to see the video be sure and watch it...Chihuly doesn't blow the glass anymore but he designs the pieces ...the video was all encompassing of the process...

I met an Art Teacher from Houston, Texas, Phyllis Knerl Miller . She and her husband were in San Jose visiting their son for the holidays.

Some Pics from the San Jose Museum of Art

A baby Monkey riding on the back of it's mother. The Monkeys are made out of Cardboard by James Grashow...they are life size and there is 100 of them. Glashow is a cardboard artist that makes all kinds of animals. The Monkeys appear to be constructed of cardboard and then covered with a layer of brown paper...paper mache' process maybe????

The San Jose Museum of Art

The San Jose Museum has some Chihuly Glass Sculptures. It was like the monkeys were looking at the Chihuly Glass...it was really a wonderful exhibit.

These are just some of the Monkeys made by James Grashow. The exhibit was at the San Jose Museum of Art and contains 100 life size "Cardboard" Monkeys...I have to tell you that thses are incredible...you may have seen James Grashow on the Oprah show a while back. I was really excited to get to see the show. There was also a showing of photographs of Fredia Kahlo at the museum. It was a great day to visit the museum because there was a Christmas Wonderland across the street, and ice skaters in the court yard of the museum. We took my Mom and Step Dad and they both really enjoyed the art.

Merry Christmas from ICE

Give us an M...give us an E...give us an R R...give us a Y

Give us a C...give us a H...give us an R...give us an I...give us an S ...give us a T...give us an M A...give us an S...

What does that spell?????

MERRY CHRISTMAS...

This a wonderful group of artistic cheerleaders from the ICE Group, wishing you a Very MERRY CHRISTMAS.

This picture was composed by Chris Tessener, a member of the International Colabaration Experiments in Altered Book Yahoo Group that was started about a year ago. Chris made this pic digitally by taking the pics of each member and turning them into cheerleaders for a spread that she did in Dawn Gold's School Days Themed AB.

I thought it was so clever of Chris that I would use it for a little Christmas Card here on my blog. Thanks Chris for the smiles and for your artistic and creative skills that you share with all of us...we are truly blessed to have you and all of the other gals involved in this AB RR.

New Living Room

These are the after pictures......

These are the before pictures......

The new furniture arrived 2 days after the final painting of the floor. Georgia (O'Keeffe) one of our Carrin Terriers had to check out the new chairs and our friend Charya liked the black side chairs....

Big change huh?

These are pics of the "new" floor...the old floor was carpet that had foam backing and was glued to the concrete...if you remember this type of carpeting then you are older than 29...lol...any way we had the carpet pulled up and then we (Susan & I) scraped, sanded, scraped some more and then we put muratic acid and then we rented a sander from Lowes...OMG...it was the Big Mac Truck of the sanders...wow...it weighed 250...seriously...the guy at the Lowes loaded it and we "slid" it out of the back of the Envoy...then when we finished our neighbor, two doors down came and loaded it up for us...it was a "duzy", but it got the job done...Then we used a carpet cleaning machine and then we sealed it....I painted the center of the floor cream (the same color as the walls) then I used a sea sponge and "fauxed" on the gold...well it looked so much like a rug I decided to paint tassels on each corner....I just free hand cut a pattern and drew it on the floor and painted it with the cream and the gold and then used a Sharpie marker to draw the detail...then I painted the outside edges (border) with black...it really looks cool. Then another coat of sealer. This is a close up of one of the tassels....

This is "long shot"...not the kind you bet on but a full view of one end of the room...

Getting a new Roof

Well on top of remodeling the old and new living rooms, building an Art Studio....we had a bad hail storm a few months ago and our roof has to be replaced and they started on it yesterday. It is really hard to get in the mood of Christmas with all of this going on...I can't get to my stuff to make my baskets or wrap packages...I am not sure how all of this got pushed so close to Christmas...oh well it will all get done...and one of my favorite "Eastisms" is..."Stop Global Whinning: and it seems that I am whinning...so even though it is frustrating...I am really trying to not whine about it all...after all I am getting a new Art Studio....and can't wait to get it finished and move in. LIFE IS GOOD!!!!!!

Our back yard.......

Our Patio.....can't wait for the AFTER Pics....lol

Insulation Installed...Yippppeee

One of my students from the drawing class at Rose State came and helped do the insulation yesterday...Susan and I are going to finish it up today...the Peg board and sheet rock are going up tomorrow...

The Building of the Art Studio

And so it begins...this is a little after 9 am...on Monda December 1...these guys were so nice and "fast"...the building a from Cedar Built...ok so this is really exciting. They are putting in the floor. As soon as the floor was in they started on the walls...Wow...this is only about 10:15.

This is a view inside...and they have only been here like 2 hours...

This is vew from inside with the window installed....

This is like 4:30 and they are almost finished...just putting the window frame on...Wow I can't believe they built it in one day...it is awesome!!!!