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Awesome Packaging from the French Paper Company

My Office Supply Crush: French Paper Company Orange Envelopes

Orange Envelopes from French Paper.
Orange Envelopes from French Paper Company

I ran out of envelopes to send thank you cards, and the distributor had a minimum of 1000, but that’s not a hardship when they are orange. French Paper Company has been around since 1871, in Niles, MI, working on the 6th generation of Frenches.  I didn’t know any of this until I ordered, since I was mesmerized simply by the orange color.

Mr. French of the French Paper Company
Mr. French of the French Paper Company

The box had customized packing tape, with a plethora of black illustrations by Charles S. Anderson.  It made me want to immediately order more French Paper, which I am sure is the company’s goal.  But they also have a database of Anderson’s images that you can use for free if you print them on French Paper.

Awesome Packaging from the French Paper Company
Awesome Packaging from the French Paper Company

Bucks County Painter Lisa M. Nelson and Corvid Love

American Kestrel hanging out with Lisa Nelson's Corvid painting
American Kestrel by Wayne Stratz hanging out with Lisa M. Nelson’s Corvid painting

Stratoz and I were at the Bucks Guild ArtsFest ’15 and we both were taken by Lisa M. Nelson‘s miniature oil painting of a fine corvid.  I was drawn to the orange and blue-black colors, and Stratoz has a thing for birds, so we took it home.  It was great to finally meet Lisa, since we had known each other’s work through Team Hip on Etsy(Handmade in PA), and I had often put her brilliantly colored paintings in Treasuries of Etsy items.  She is a daily painter with a love of animals, and welcomes lovers of shiny, pretty things.  It made sense to her that I responded to the shine and texture of her painting, since my mosaics have the same elements.  I do think I was a magpie in a former life.

 

 

 

Sophia in Her Wisdom: An Orange Spiral of Light

Sophia Spiral in a Blaze of Orange by Wayne Stratz.
Sophia Spiral in a Blaze of Orange by Wayne Stratz. Stained glass, 7 inches. ©2015

Sheets of stained glass migrate back and forth between my studio and Stratoz’s studio.  He had a commission for a larger version of his Sophia Spiral, and needed something special for the center.  I had some Oceana glass that I used in an Orange Sunflower mandala, with beautiful mottles of yellow and orange.  Holding the glass up to the light revealed the yellow like portholes of light.

Orange Sunflower Mandala by Margaret Almon.
Orange Sunflower Mandala by Margaret Almon. Glass and gold smalti mosaic on slate, 7 inches, ©2015.

Nutmeg Designs Etsy

 

Log Cabin Quilt Mosaic MIrror by Margaret Almon.

Log Cabin Love: Quilt Pattern Mosaic Mirror

Log Cabin Quilt Mosaic MIrror by Margaret Almon.
Log Cabin Quilt Mosaic Mirror by Margaret Almon.  Glass and Smalti on wood, 8×10 inches.

 

One of the pleasures of having an Open Studio is that people get to see an abundance of work on the walls, be surrounded by it, and have creative ideas percolating.  A visitor saw my Log Cabin Quilt Panel(below) and asked if I could make a mirror with the same motif.  With Stratoz’s trusty drafting skills, he drew a series of squares around the perimeter.

These glass tiles are from Italy, with swirled and mottled color.  My work table was a mountain of glass as I sorted tiles by hue and intensity.  These tiles teach me to look closely, to appreciate differences that at not discernible at first.

Log Cabin Quilt Mosaic Panel by Margaret Almon.
Log Cabin Quilt Mosaic Panel by Margaret Almon. Glass and smalti on wood, 11×14 inches.

Commission your Log Cabin 

An Evening of Jazz with Catherine Marie Charlton

Thank you’s for tonight’s advance ticket purchasers!

A photo posted by Catherine Marie Charlton (@cmcriverdawn) on

Stratoz and I took a Friday night excursion to hear Catherine Marie Charlton‘s Maiden’s Voyage CD Celebration at the Kennett Friends Meetinghouse. We stopped at La Michoacana Ice Cream on the way, a shop founded by some folks who used to be Kennett Square mushroom workers.  Stratoz had guava, and I had the sweet corn ice cream.  Yes, corn.  I love cornbread with honey, so I took the chance, and it was delicious.  I don’t know if I could’ve named what flavor it was, but it was delectable.

Catherine Marie Charlton, Steve Meashey (bass), Jody Janetta (drums), Bob Meashey (flugelhorn)photo by Joe del Tufo

Posted by Catherine Marie Charlton on Saturday, May 30, 2015

Catherine Marie Charlton played one of my favorite jazz standards, Nature Boy.  During intermission she had us write phrases on slips of paper, and she and her trio improvised based on what phrases they drew. And she wore orange shoes, which is awesome.

 

We don’t usually venture out on a Friday, but the music was rejuvenating.  Stratoz suggested we stop at a diner on the way home for coffee and a snack.  The West Chester Diner was open 24 hours, and full of people eating breakfast at 10:00 at night, which is a PA tradition Stratoz cherishes.  Club sandwiches are ok too, and that’s what we ordered as did the table behind us.

https://soundcloud.com/cmc-1-2/nature-boy-1

Cardinal Love: Small Deaths Exhibit by Kate Breakey at the Michener Art Museum

Cardinalis cardinalis. Northern Cardinal (Male) II by Kate Breakey.
Cardinalis cardinalis. Northern Cardinal (Male) II by Kate Breakey, hand-painted silver gelatin print (1998). Michener Museum of Art, Doylestown, PA. Photo by Wayne Stratz.

Stratoz and I got ourselves to the Michener Art Museum Museum to see the exhibit of hand-painted photographs by Kate Breakey. The Small Deaths exhibit is there until July 12th, 2015.   The colors of the birds were intense and glowing.  I loved the orange beak of this cardinal.

Male Cardinal Suncatcher by Wayne Stratz.
Male Cardinal Suncatcher by Wayne Stratz.

Stratoz had just finished a stained glass cardinal commission.  It’s his Year of Birds, and the Breakey exhibit fit right in.

 

Kaleidoscope in Orange

Kaleidoscope Box
Kaleidoscope Box in Orange, circa 1970, Japan.

This Kaleidoscope has moved many places with me, and I don’t remember when it came into my possession. Looking at it now, I see the type as 1970’s, in the way time makes us able to classify collections, characteristics that are invisible to us as children.

Butterfly Porthole, Kaleidoscope from Japan, circa 1970.
Butterfly Porthole, Kaleidoscope from Japan, circa 1970.

The butterfly revealed by the orange circle was the most fascinating butterfly.  It had a window to the world.  The box has two of these portholes, on opposite sides.

Butterfly Kaleidoscope from Japan, circa 1970.
Butterfly Kaleidoscope from Japan, circa 1970.

The Kaleidoscope has the heft of a mailing tube, with a visible seam where the label wraps around.  The eyepiece is a hole cut from red cardboard, revealing the plastic underneath.  There are no objects orbiting around inside the case to create the patterns. This is a type called a Teleidoscope, which according to David Brewster, Scottish physicist and inventor of the Kaleidoscope, means the mirrors inside transform the world around you into art.

I remember pointing the Butterfly Kaleidscope at the world around me as a girl, and seeing transformation, and yet recognizing some of the forms and colors, even as they were reflected.

Nasturtium Tropaeolum Majus Alaska

Twister with Nasturtiums

Nasturtium Tropaeolum Majus Alaska
Nasturtium Tropaeolum Majus Alaska at Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, PA. Photo by Wayne Stratz.

Stratoz and our photographer friend Paul Grecian have a tradition of going to Longwood Gardens during Spring Break.  I appreciate that Stratoz is always on the lookout for orange.  These fine variegated Nasturtiums have a sunny yellow orange with darker red orange gathering in the creases.  I looked up the etymology of Nasturtium and it’s not a quite as sunny: “nose twister,” for its pungent smell.