Friday, November 30, 2012

San Marino: CAC Artists Celebrate 100 Years

I am pleased and honored to announce that (4) of my recent oil paintings of beautiful San Marino, California have been juried into the California Art Club's "San Marino: CAC Artists Celebrate 100 Years" Exhibit, which opens early next year!  It was my pleasure to paint just a few landmarks of this historic city, and am looking so forward to seeing all the contributing pieces for this show!

Location:  The California Art Club Gallery at the Old Mill
                1120 Old Mill Road
                San Marino, CA  91108
             
Exhibition Dates:  January 8-May 15, 2013
Opening Reception:  January 17, 2013  5:30pm-7:30pm

Historic Thurnher House
8"h by 16"w oil on canvas panel

San Marino Community Church
10"h by 20"w oil on canvas panel

Original Fire Engine
11"h by 14"w oil on canvas panel

Before the Sun in San Marino
6" by 6" oil on canvas panel

Monday, November 19, 2012

Twinkies in the Sack Lunch-Circa 1972

The DPW Painting Challenge:  The Hurricane Sandy Fundraiser!
Twinkies in the Sack Lunch-Circa 1972
I seriously had not bitten into one of these Hostess treats in probably 40 years until last Saturday!  I had seen a post on Facebook that Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies, HoHos and Wonder Bread, said it was going out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of its' striking bakery workers. 

Most importantly, over 18,000 people will lose their jobs because of the closure-this is the true tragedy!

But also, the event brought this tasty treat to the forefront of my mind.  There was a time in my life where I so enjoyed this particular snack. I remember biting into that soft golden bread with it's creamy and uber sweet filling, and life was good!  Now, my parents did not include a snack of this sort often in our sack lunches, and while I show a soda wrapped in foil (to keep it's temperature down), this was also a rare occurrence. This would have been reserved for special days at school where a field trip was planned.  For some reason, my mom must have been regularly including a Twinkie in my lunches (who knows, maybe because I told her I LOVED them!) and, as I said, life was very good!  This came to a crashing end when one of the other parents who was supervising the school yard informed her that I was throwing everything except the Twinkie in the trash so I could hurry out to play.  Imagine that!

Fast forward to Saturday morning when I decided I was going to paint one (after all, when would I have another chance at it?!)  The Twinkie package was on sale at the grocery store for $1 (not $50 as some alarmists would have you believe) and of course the tonic water I had on hand in my pantry served quite well as a "soda" once I wrapped it in foil. The paper bag was tricky; did you know they don't sell paper "lunch bags" any more?  That was easily solved since they give them to you for free if you ask for one at the check out. ;)  

I certainly enjoyed painting "Twinkies", and hope you will consider making a bid on this painting to benefit the American Red Cross in it's Hurricane Sandy Relief! Copy and paste to your browser:
http://www.dailypaintworks.com/Challenge/C0EB586C-7142-4c96-A589-DF9DC9BABA1A