Farewell! party and things i'm gonna miss....

A very proper send off...

Alison hosted a great party last night to send us off. Everyone for came with delicious food and words to sort of encapsulate our 6 month experience here with the island community....

after dark, sparklers....Alison's gorgeous LR, showcasing her work...

Look closely, see the house with the fish on the roof and bright blue trim? That's where we have been calling home, and today, we walked the 36+ steps up into the lighthouse and got a bird's eye view.

roses climbing

what a yard!

Too beautiful to not post

Pics from a gorgeous twilight tonight

Frank painting Uncle Henry's cabin, just above the wharf

Tillie, weaving her way thru Rusty's wares

The "Kathleen", in the harbor

Really knobby knees...(click on image to see knees up close)

The odd halo on the sun from last night, sunset, from the Bracy's porch. God, we're going to miss this place.

Taking a walk....

The kids and i braved big heavy, dangerous looking clouds and went for a walk...along the way, we visited Frank painting with the other island artist painting greats, Don, Alice, Alison, David and Frank ofcourse, and headed south to Lobster Cove...

this is a pic of Frank's sweet painting where he is "pushing color" as Don recommended in the painting critique he held in his studio, yesterday.( i think it was very successful)

...everyone listening to Don giving critique....some clutching white-knuckled to their wine glasses...but with his quips and witty remarks, there was a lot of laughter too.

discovered down on Lobster Cove....beach peas. kids were competing with how many peas "their" pods held, and how many they could eat.

so sweet

dinner picnic tonight. we got ice cream to go-before dinner. never have seen the kids eat their dinner that fast.....(as in-i gotta just choke this dinner down so i can get to my melting Novelty ice cream) And after ice cream, we went to hear our fave new bluegrass+ band play, starring Frank Stettner, with Linda and David, and their daughter Allie.

Lupine! Lovely Lupine

Frank had to paint the lupine at least once....they are just about over now, it was a treat to experience their rise and fall in the meadow across from the aptly named "Lupine Gallery", which the owners Jackie and Billy say... for at least one month a year, the gallery's name makes sense.

Lupine Meadow 11x14" oil painting by Frank Bruckmann©

please click on painting for enlarged view

Dead Tree-6x8" oil painting by Frank Bruckmann©

There are many a dead tree on monhegan, they are all over the landscape on the back side, particularly between gull pond to gull rock. Usually the subject is not the first choice for artists to paint, but Frank obviously was inspired...

Father's Day edition

I took a bunch of pics of the kids serving breakfast in bed to frank, but really, no one needs to see them. i mean, everyone is tired, messy hair, rumpled sheets, badly lit, so i spared you from that. After we gave him his coffee in his cool new coffee mug that is ceramic , but looks like a takeaway paper coffee cup with a rubber top that looks like a takeaway plastic lid, from Elva's, along with the world's coolest head massager, Frank declared we hike to Blackhead thru the woods.

We finally saw a baby gull, see that little fluff of speckles?? just last week i posted pics of her (or him-after all it is father's day) roosting on the 2 eggs, and today, one had hatched, the other still incubating.

Jorgie cannot walk through Cathedral Woods without checking in with the fairy house she built in February with pal Riley. Frank was suggesting she add a portico. That didn't go over so well.

Arlo walking with a big stick, after forming the FHRC, self appointed commissioner of the Fairy House Regulatory Commission...who's #1 function is to destroy any and all fairy houses that are built using living material, the biggest offender, torn up moss. so, if you plan to build a fairy house yourself, and you don't choose already dead stuff, Arlo may just be on your heels with a big stick.

Last Days of School on Monhegan

The Monhegan school kids were taken to Manana, across the harbor, in the cool dory that belongs to Rusty. Then, i heard, they hung out with some very friendly goats....If you look closely at the above photo,or click on it to make it bigger, you can see what i saw from our 2nd floor balcony, the kids and the goats on their school trip across the harbor...have you ever been able to look out your window, or if you are lucky enough, from your lovely 2nd floor balcony, and watched your children, across a harbor, having a school field trip? pinch me! but please, don't remind me that our time here is almost over....

a most special visitor on graduation day......all the way from st. croix!

this year's graduate chose to eat pie and play frisbee golf after graduation ceremonies ended (nobody warned me, btw, that the graduation ceremony is such a crying fest). so there we were, walking down main street, looking for a badly thrown frisbee...

"goodbye!!!!" to quinn and dalton, from all the kids and the teacher at school, who jumped off the dock as their ferry took them away for the summer.....

just me, in the kitchen mirror at susan and victor's where i swear i always look 10 years younger. ok, maybe the visor isn't quite the look, but you should see my skin in that mirror in the light of that particular kitchen....

Workshop: Critique Night

Before getting busy critiquing the work, everyone filled up their wine glasses and ate some very good hors d'oeuvres. Frank asked us all to select just one painting, of everyone else's, that we liked and we brought them all to one side of the porch. And then one by one, talked about why we felt the painting "worked". Later, Frank gave pointers on how to work them up even better.

still smiling and lovely, even though they'd been painting inside with inclement weather. the sun burst through the clouds by late afternoon, and we were had some of the loveliest light later that night...

very actively critiquing!

look at all those canvases, stacked against the railing of the ice pond house! a prolific bunch.

good stuff!

ML painting on Fish Beach in the foreground....Frank questioning someone's color theory..."is cerulean blue a warm blue, or a cool blue"?

the aforementioned late afternoon light:

the blue splotches on the purple shirt are the long shadows from the buttercups sprinkled all over the trail to the beach.

found page of poetry washed up on the beach, which i stuck on a boulder. anyone recognize this verse?

Spotlight on JORGIE

Tonight the Monhegan School held it's very first Variety Show. All the school kids played their ocarinas, as solos, duets and as a whole group, including their teacher and music teacher...also the school invited the community at large to bring in an act to show off their "talents".

We were blown away by the nerve of my girl, who got up on stage and sang her heart out with the excellent accompaniment of Linda and David.

Frank's Workshop...gets to Work!

From L to R: Frank, Sandy, Annette, Susanne, Jane, Mary Louise, and Natalie on Whitehead where we hiked to see the headlands, which were shrouded in mist and fog.

who cares if it's foggy??? the ladies (who were dubbed as "Frank's Harem" the moment they docked) got out their gear early Monday morning and hit the beach with lots of gumption and instruction.

nice work too!and this is just the first day....stay tuned.

Jane Darling Ellis, who has never missed a workshop taught by Frank! She's been with Frank as long as i have, and even made it to the South of France to paint with us...

wonder why they think Frank would have a harem?

Walk in the Woods: Flora (and some Fauna) edition

Misty walk thru cathedral woods and along the maple trails for lunch. great timing for seeing all the greens in the flora and the rich soil and dark tree trunks, after a nice spring rain.

Cricket same size as 9-year old's eye teeth!

fairy house in cathedral woods....

never knew gull eggs were speckled and lovely

silvery tree roots on maple trail

fern whorl

bunch berry, relative of dogwood. i have been learning the names of plants on morning walks with my artist friend susan, who seems to know them all!

Workshop Begins, Strawberry season and outdoor parties

The painting students (for Frank's first Monhegan workshop) arrived, and not a one packed light! they have enough food and art supplies for 3 weeks. after a sunset dinner up at our place, frank walked them home to their house by the ice pond and made them set their alarms for a 10 am painting demo...

The kids and i hoofed it to pulpit rock today, in search of wild lupine growing, but instead, we found wild strawberries!...the egg is a regular chicken egg, or rather, one of the locals' chicken eggs we buy, in the photo for scale. the strawberries may be tiny but mmmmmm! good.

the photo just above is a gathering to celebrate the new caretakers of the andrew winter house...and this impromptu musical group was such a treat. above that are the lupine standing tall outside the home of other friends' hosting a BBQ last night.