Thursday, April 26, 2012

Cast-offs & Commitment~~Sail On, revisited

photo by legalwheel @ Flickriver.com

In March

about the

recycling/repurposing/reusing

going on in the brick building shown above,
housing the new office my daughter shares
@ 11th Hour Racing in Newport, R.I.

It's April

The project's finished
& Amy featured it in

Upcycling the Office With a Nautical Touch

her post on the Chateau & Bungalow blog

☝ Click above for Amy's full scoop, ☝

before and after shots

& the story of what

imagination, determination

& a clever sense of design can do.

photo by Miranda Harple

To get you started, here's the table
crafted by Cody Harple
from wood reclaimed from the
classic 1885 yacht Coronet
currently under restoration down the street at IYRS
the International Yacht Restoration School

& the finished conference area now enclosed
by Quantum's recycled sails & shipping pallets.

photo by Miranda Harple

To bring you full circle,
below I've recycled part of my March blog
showing early project photos

☟

✂ It's Freewheelin' Friday! ✍

Dedicated to Artistic Endeavors of all Sorts

...

Quantum Sail Design Group, Newport, RI

makes a lot of spinnakers...

Spinnakers by Umberto Luparelli

flickriver.com

Since they make sails for the big guys, they have lots to play with.

http://www.americascup.com/en/Teams/Artemis-Racing/Latest/News/1012/1/Quantum-Racing--Hutchinson-victorious-in-Key-West. Tim Wilkes Photography

In conjunction with 11th Hour Project & Sailors for the Sea, they're dedicated to clean regattas & racing responsibly.

Take a look at 11th Hour's new Newport office~~

❉Used Quantum sails room dividers:

❋Used Quantum sails & shipping pallet recycle bins:

~~recycled for recycling~~

clever, creative & responsible

In Amy's words:

Using reclaimed materials was a must

for our office.

We are very conscious about minimizing

the use of non-essential materials

and maximizing the use of old materials

by re-purposing them.

This is an artistic endeavor worth applauding &

❉ "liking" ❉

so click on over to their Facebook pages:

Quantum Sails Newport & 11th Hour Racing

Friday, April 20, 2012

April 20, 1912~~2012: Happy Birthday Fenway!

✍✎ It's Freewheelin' Friday! ☄✒

Dedicated to Artistic Endeavors of all Sorts

http://mlb.mlb.com/bos/fenwaypark100/index.jsp
☛Click & check it out☚

Tear down?

Sweet Caroline, I think not.

Green Monster, grass field, CITGO sign

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Oh right,

it was & they did.

Hang in there Wrigley Field,

we're the only two left.

Happy 100th Birthday, Fenway Park

☝click☝

boston.com

Thank you, (click ☛)Janet Marie Smith

and the boys who've played there

boston.redsox.mlb.com

That first game they beat what grew up

to become the Yankees.

I've loved both.

Yes, I am in front of the Bronx tear down
wishing my rabid Yankees fan brother a happy birthday
in, aaaaahhhh, 2004

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

And she'll name a character after you!

Fun stuff!

Fellow novelist Victoria Thompson is at it again. MURDER ON FIFTH AVENUE

~~# 14 in her Gaslight Mystery Series~~
is about to launch & she's running a contest.

Vicki's FFB (Faithful Fan Base) kept asking:

“When are Frank & Sarah going to get together?”

The answer:

(Sort of. You didn't think she'd give it all away?)

14 Gaslight mysteries in 13 years &

Vicki's finally figured out how to help the series protagonists overcome all their obstacles, become a couple—& still keep solving mysteries together.

She’s having a contest!

~~Join the fun~~

She finally gets Frank Malloy & Sarah Brandt together.

☟☟SHE WANTS YOU TO GUESS HOW☟☟
If you win, Vicki will name a character after you

(or a loved one of your choice).

✍ ✍ ✍

To see how she sets the wheels in motion, check out Murder on Fifth Avenue, the newest Gaslight Mystery & May release from Berkley Prime Crime.

& visit (click ☛) Victoria’s website for details on how to enter the Contest!

Monday, April 16, 2012

Blog tour alert!

Lisa Graff has a busy week

you don't even have to get off the couch to join her.

She's even having a

Rube Goldberg Machine Contest

☝☝Check it out! ☝☝

Follow along on her blog tour. I double dog dare you.

Monday, April 16th:

Novel Novice

Tuesday, April 17th:

Mundie Kids

Wednesday, April 18th:

From the Mixed up Files

Thursday, April 19th:

Greetings From Nowhere

Friday, April 20th:

Reading Everywhere

Friday, April 13, 2012

Full Circle

✍✎ It's Freewheelin' Friday! ☄✒

Dedicated to Artistic Endeavors of all Sorts

To bring my ramblings on (click 'em ☛) Scribner's, ◆ Maxwell Perkins,◆ Treasure Island & N.C. Wyeth full circle, here's my secret:

Once upon a time I wanted to illustrate children's books.

Osmosis had a lot to do with it.

Andrew Wyeth North Light

For two years before I left home for college & what passes as my adult life, I studied painting with Carolyn Wyeth in her father N.C. Wyeth's Chadds Ford, PA, studio.

Carolyn Wyeth Brandywinemuseum.org

As her only teenaged student, I also fed the dogs, crawled through the window when she locked us out, (sat outside on a bench for half an hour the day of my portfolio review when she forgot my interview) painted, memorized her critiques, & listened.

"Old Pew" N.C. Wyeth
for R.L. Stevenson's Treasure Island
Scribner's Illustrated Classics

Her father reigned as America's preeminent illustrator during its Golden Age & his birchbark canoe still hung in the rafters. He'd been dead for 20 years by then but his bottles, busts & palettes, saddles ~~props of every kind~~ leaned in corners & filled musty shelves as if he'd just gone over to the family house down the path.

Osmosis

On my last day at the studio, Carolyn gave me the Dundee Marmalade jar she & her father~~& I~~had used to mix that linseed oil and turpentine.

Now it holds pens & pencils on my desk.

As it turned out, I don't illustrate books, I write them.

But my friend & cohort Brian Lies does both.

It didn't take long for us to discover our mutual love of "Old Pew." Look closely. Brian's homage to Wyeth's masterpiece appears in his NYTimes best seller
BATS AT THE LIBRARY

Bats at the Library carlemuseum.org

When Brian discovered I have the Treasure Island poster in my office, he surprised me with his pencil study.

My homage to two beloved illustrators...

☟☟☟

Homage for me.
Pilgrimage for you?

Maxwell Perkins CT house &
The Snapdragon Inn, Windsor, VT

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' homestead Cross Creek, FL

N.C. Wyeth's house & studio via
The Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

The original Charles Scribner's Sons bookstore

597 Fifth Avenue

between 48th and 49th Streets

New York, New York

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

When Books Mattered, Part 2

Ernest Hemingway &
F. Scott Fitzgerald

It's probably safe to say the days are over when a writer hit a dry (or particularly alcohol-fueled wet) spell & his editor put said writer on an allowance & supported him. Financially & physically.

Maxwell Perkins did.

It's also probably true that these days editors aren't much interested in single spaced manuscript pages that arrive by the crate load.

Maxwell Perkins was.

Thomas Wolfe from
Charles Scribner's Sons: An Illustrated Chronology

Charles Scribner's Sons: An Illustrated Chronology

Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers of Edith Wharton, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry James, J. M. Barrie, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ring Lardner, Jules Verne, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mary Mapes Dodge, Howard Pyle, & about everybody else you've ever heard of, hired Maxwell Perkins in 1910.

Scribner's~~perhaps all of publishing~~most famous editor joined the house about the time they launched their Illustrated Classics series (☚click for Part 1).
In his short, brilliant career, Perkins coddled, cajoled, encouraged, mentored & guided men & women as they gave us some of the most memorable settings, plots & characters of the twentieth century.

☟ ☟ A sampling ☟ ☟