My Brother Jim

Hello Everyone
      I haven't posted in a few weeks, as my brother has been in critical care for almost a month. He was back and forth between critical care and a regular room. At one point he had been in 8-10 different rooms...one of them twice. But now I'm sad and happy to write that he was born to Eternal Life this past Sunday at just before 12noon.
      He was a wonderful man, a gentle man, an intelligent man, an opinionated man and above all else a firm believer in Jesus Christ.

     He has steadily gone "down hill" since a year ago May when he had a stroke at the visitation of our father's funeral. He had a bad heart, congestive heart failure, diabetes, only one kidney that was failing, and a tumor that was believed to be cancer in his lunges (as well as several spots in some bone x-rays.) Oh, and he was on oxygen while he still struggled to breath. My 86 year old mother has been taking care of him during the day since his last stroke, taking him to and from doctor appointments and seeing that he had something to eat since he had trouble doing it himself.

     We realized he was not going to get better, and knew in time he would not be with us, but it came as a total shock this past Sunday morning. The night before, I had the pleasure of seeing him at the evening visitation... Several of his friends came and I let them go in first. I finally got to go in with about 10 minutes to spare... I got him ice to suck on, and we talked a little thru his oxygen mask. When it was time to leave, I kissed him on the forehead and told him I loved him and he told me he loved me....... my husband  (Tom )thought he would be funny and told my brother that he wouldn't kiss him, but shake his hand...And my brother suddenly turned to my husband and made the biggest kissing sound thru his mask in Tom's direction... Well that caught us both by surprise and all three of us laughed. You could see the twinkle in my brothers eyes! He still had his sense of humor even after 25 days of lying on his back, weak and in pain. He told me to tell his wife (who had left early to get some rest) That he loved her. We left in good humor, looking forward to seeing him the next day.

None of us would have ever believed that by the next day before noon that he would be gone from us.
    Today we buried my brother, but even though I grieve, I am joyous of the many godly friends he had who all came to show their respects. He would so have enjoyed to see how much he was loved and to shake their hands once more or prayer for them. But--- I know he is healed now and is in Jesus' arms. I also know I will see him again.
    Thank you all ( and you know who you are ) who prayed for him, me and our families. I will never be able to express my sincere gratitude for all your well wishes and praying to our Lord on our behalf.
God Bless  you all
Dianne

Garden Harvest - Onion

Hi Again,

I sure hope your eyes don't water looking at my onion :-D

I love the way this piece turned out!

You can actually see the onion's layers.

To tell you the truth, I can't remember where I got this model

who poised for my camera.

I believe a good friend of mine (Rachel) got it either from her garden

or someone else's garden that she knows.

(Does that make sense? :-D he he he)

Mr. Onion here,

became a hearty, robust flavor in my spaghetti sauce

this past month. . . . . .What a beauty! ! ! ! !

And what a spaghetti sauce!

Anyway...

I loved doing all three pieces in the "Garden Harvest Trio"

You can find them located in:

16 Main Art Gallery & Studios

16 Main Street

Madison, Al 35758

http://www.16mainart.com/

http://www.16main.blogspot.com/

or write me at

artbyhart@knology.net

Thanks for looking!

Please leave a comment

and tell me how I'm doing.

Garden Harvest - Tomato

My Tomato :-)

I have to be truthful!!!

This little baby is not from my garden.

I found this luscious "fruit"

at our farmer's market.

What a GREAT place to find mouth watering morsels

and support the local economy at the same time.

I know the lady at the stand thought I was crazy. .

picking up different ones and holding them up and

turning them this way and that.

She was staring at me with a funny expression! LOL

I finally told her why I was examining them so thoroughly

and she rushed right over to help me find

this PERFECT "model"

Don't you just want to pick it up

and take a nice, juicy, BIG BITE!?!?!?!

Well.... I did! Yep!!! I ate it!!!

It was part of the most wonderful BLT sandwich

I've eaten in a long time. . . :-) Yummy!

This canvas is 8" x 8" and

is for sale at:

16 MAIN Art Gallery and Art Studios

16 Main Street

Madison, Alabama 35758

www.16mainart.com

www.16main.blogspot.com

or contact me at:

artbyhart@knology.net

Garden Harvest - Green Pepper

Hi Everyone!

I would like to share the first of my

"Garden Harvest" paintings.

It is my 'Green Pepper'.

This pepper is from my home garden and I decided

it needed to have a life of it's own long after it was enjoyed

in several tasty dishes!

LOL

I hope you enjoy it as well!

Garden Harvest Green Pepper is for sale at

16 Main Art Gallery and Studios

16 Main Street

Madison, Al 35758

http://www.16mainart.com/

http://www.16main.blogspot.com/

Father's Day

My father passed away last year. . . . So it's just not the same on this day anymore. Even Tom won't be here to celebrate. I was sick today, so he and his brother and sister took his father out to eat last night. So that was good.

But I want to share a poem a friend of might had on her facebook page Saturday. I do not know who the author is, but the poem touched my heart.

Yellow roses grow in heaven,

Lord pick a bunch for me.

Place them in my father's arms

and tell him they're from me.

Tell him that I love and miss him.

When he turns to smile

place a kiss upon his cheek

and hold him for awhile,

because remembering him is easy,

I do it...every day.

There's an... ache in my heart

that will never go away.

I hope you and yours have a lovely Father's Day!

Grand Opening

Hi Guys!!!

This is our logo and sign for the new art gallery

that just opening in Madison Alabama. I am so excited

about this endeavor. I am one of the lucky ones

who is in on the ground floor.

This is our opening day Ribbon Cutting Ceremony that took place on June 5th.

That's me on the right end. I'm the more traditional Acrylic Artist.

Going right to left ...next to me is Michele Lee our acrylic-Mixed media artist. Our honorable mayor Paul Finley. Cindy Sensenberger, owner of the building. Terry Hart, Gallery Director and Bead artist, Mike Birdsong, watercolor artist, Jules Weber, Organic Vessel Artist (gourd artist), and Greg Lee, potter.

It was a grand event with food , wine, and music. I wish all of you could have been there!!!

These are two pictures of my art studio in the house. If you are in the area please come on by. If you ever are coming to the Huntsville/Madison Alabama area...come look us up. I would love to meet you.

A New Beginning!

Hello Everyone!!!
It's been a long time since my last post....but things have been happening. My new art studio at home is up and running. The sunroom is wonderful ( I was spending many hours talking to my feathered friends and catching up on some reading)Now, I have NEW news! ! ! ! !

Our fair city of Madison ,Al is opening an art gallery. It is calle "16 Main" - the actual address. It's an art gallery and community of working artists. I have been chosen to be the "resident Acrylic artist". I am so very excited! ! ! Now I have two studios..my one at home and this new one at the gallery

So far we have 8 artist's in all, each of us specializing in a different media. There is room for 10, so we will see :-) Each of us has a room of our own and patrons will be able to come into our rooms and watch us work. The art gallery will host an "artist of the month" and the main area of the gallery will show all the resident artist's work and offer for sale.

"16 Main" also will have a meeting room for civic organizations as well as individuals who wish to rent the room. We are planning "Dollar Movie Nights on the Lawn" through out the summer, wine tastings, art strolls, dinner theater, and various artistic events for the community. We've got big plans! So wish us luck!!!

I'll post more about the gallery with pictures soon and also hope to share a little about each artist in residence.

New Baby! ! !

This is my new baby - - Her name is Chelsea! Isn't she pretty?
Chelsea is 12 years old and was a rescue. I got her from animal services a couple of weeks ago. She says "hello", "meow" and wolf whistles. A couple of days ago, my husband sneezed and Chelsea would sneeze back. We are now wondering what other things she might know how to do or say. Yesterday, after she "meowed" I started barking at her and she tried to bark back...not quite as convinceing as the "meow" but it's a start. Anyway, here she is acting a little shy :-)

Almost There

The excitement is getting more intense! Whoooo Hooo! Here are the most updated pictures of my 2/3rds art studio and 1/3rd Sunroom.
I haven't taken any pictures of the painted walls yet.
My husband got the first coat of paint-primer on the walls! Yeah!
Now we only need the last coat of paint. I have the window trim to paint today, The the guys will come back and put it up on Monday.
Next the vinyl flooring, and last the electrician to install the light fixtures and run the wires to the power box.
Can you tell I'm excited??????
:-)
Dianne

YEAH! ! ! ! Look at what I'm getting for Christmas

Yep! it isn't quite done yet, but it is going to be my art studio! ! ! ! Whoo Hoo!!!!

This first picture is how it use to look (with one of my brothers in the foreground and my father and father-in-law in the back. It was a very pretty screened-in porch. My husband and I really enjoyed sitting and watching the birds feed at the several feeders. We realized though that we were only using it in the late spring, summer and early fall...so my wonderful husband decided that it would make a great place for an art studio at one end (approx 2/3rds) and the other end would be a small sitting area/sunroom for us to still watch the birds.



Here is how it looked two weeks ago.




And this is last week, after sides and electrical wires had been put in...

It is getting closer! ! ! !

I'll share some more photos tomorrow! Yeah! ! ! !
Take care ...see ya soon.