still life painting

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

1. Hello, October, you are the prettiest month! To celebrate, we’re featuring the art of Minnesota illustrator Laura Irene (Chimney Smoke Art).

Laura is all about the warm and cozy, and is inspired by nature, home life and the changing seasons. Love how she captures the beautiful autumnal colors and a slower pace of life. Whether strolling down the lane or baking an apple pie, the people in her pictures seem to thrive on simple pleasures.

Creating her illustrations in a studio right off the kitchen means she’s never far away from the tea kettle. Is that chili and cornbread on the table? You can purchase prints and postcards at her Website Shop or Etsy. For the latest updates, check out her Instagram.

Continue reading →

*“Christmas Morning” by June Webster (oil on canvas).*

MY MOTHER'S COLANDER
by Dorianne Laux

Holes in the shape of stars
punched in gray tin, dented,
cheap, beaten by each
of her children with a wooden spoon.

Noodle catcher, spaghetti stopper,
pouring cloudy rain into the sink,
swirling counter clockwise
down the drain, starch slime
on the backside, caught
in the piercings.

Scrubbed for sixty years, packed
and unpacked, the baby’s
helmet during the cold war,
a sinking ship in the bathtub,
little boat of holes.

Dirt scooped in with a plastic
shovel, sifted to make cakes
and castles. Wrestled
from each other’s hands,
its tin feet bent and re-bent.

Bowl daylight fell through
onto freckled faces, noon stars
on the pavement, the universe
we circled aiming jagged stones,
rung bells it caught and held.

~ from Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems (W.W. Norton & Co., 2019)