I. Joanna
Joanna is one of my first blogfriends I met in person. I immediately felt at home among her books and pieces of art in every room. They are not room decor, they are living things that move around, like in a Neil Gaiman story. (N.G. is a Scorpio too, b. November 10, 1960.)
Joanna's fridge is full of good ingredients, like cherry juice and toasted sesame oil. It is one of the regrets of my life that I was too buy to eat any of the famous chocolate cake she and her daughter made when they so generously hosted the premiere of my 8-min. film.
Joanna has been a kind and clear guide through the Nets, including a happy hour tutorial on the Twitterverse over a pint of Surly Furious beer.
Joanna is diving in deep and dark waters. It's all about transformation, she says. I painted this picture from a photo we snapped when she took me to a Beethoven symphony. I added the Japanese maple in autumn for her. Joanna lived in Japan as a child. The tree's old Japanese name kaede refers to "frog hands". I picture kind and gentle little frog hands helping her along.
Happy Birthday, Joanna!
II. Laura Borealis
"Borlealis" is not Laura's legal last name but it fits her because she is a radiant phenomenon of magnetic and electrical fields in the moving night sky. [Scientists, please do not pay close attention to the previous statement.]
I say sky, but Marz says Laura's style reminds her of an aquifer, filtered through layers of time.
I met Laura when I worked at the art library; as she was checking out a book on the sculptor Giacometti, she commented on how attractive his hands were. She has beautiful mobile hands too: these days she uses them to sculpt polymer clay and to design and cultivate gardens, among other things.
Laura is celebrating her birthday in Germany with The German Boyfriend who found her on Facebook, twenty years after the day they met at the foot of the Matterhorn, near where Laura's great (-great?) grandfather, a trumpeter for the U.S. Army, was born.
Happy Birthday, Laura! Enjoy your German cake!
I based this watercolor on a photo of Laura at the U of M's Master Gardeners' booth at the State Fair. She looks a little fiercer than I intended: really, she is listening intently to someone's problems with crab grass in their lawn or something.
The quote is something she said during a watercolor painting session, but it fits her life, I think.
Joanna is one of my first blogfriends I met in person. I immediately felt at home among her books and pieces of art in every room. They are not room decor, they are living things that move around, like in a Neil Gaiman story. (N.G. is a Scorpio too, b. November 10, 1960.)
Joanna's fridge is full of good ingredients, like cherry juice and toasted sesame oil. It is one of the regrets of my life that I was too buy to eat any of the famous chocolate cake she and her daughter made when they so generously hosted the premiere of my 8-min. film.
Joanna has been a kind and clear guide through the Nets, including a happy hour tutorial on the Twitterverse over a pint of Surly Furious beer.
Joanna is diving in deep and dark waters. It's all about transformation, she says. I painted this picture from a photo we snapped when she took me to a Beethoven symphony. I added the Japanese maple in autumn for her. Joanna lived in Japan as a child. The tree's old Japanese name kaede refers to "frog hands". I picture kind and gentle little frog hands helping her along.
Happy Birthday, Joanna!
II. Laura Borealis
"Borlealis" is not Laura's legal last name but it fits her because she is a radiant phenomenon of magnetic and electrical fields in the moving night sky. [Scientists, please do not pay close attention to the previous statement.]
I say sky, but Marz says Laura's style reminds her of an aquifer, filtered through layers of time.
I met Laura when I worked at the art library; as she was checking out a book on the sculptor Giacometti, she commented on how attractive his hands were. She has beautiful mobile hands too: these days she uses them to sculpt polymer clay and to design and cultivate gardens, among other things.
Laura is celebrating her birthday in Germany with The German Boyfriend who found her on Facebook, twenty years after the day they met at the foot of the Matterhorn, near where Laura's great (-great?) grandfather, a trumpeter for the U.S. Army, was born.
Happy Birthday, Laura! Enjoy your German cake!
I based this watercolor on a photo of Laura at the U of M's Master Gardeners' booth at the State Fair. She looks a little fiercer than I intended: really, she is listening intently to someone's problems with crab grass in their lawn or something.
The quote is something she said during a watercolor painting session, but it fits her life, I think.
