Happy Birthday Mom!

Hey Blogsters!

This post is dedicated to my mom who will be 84 this week.  To all she touches, she is our mother, grandmother, sister, neighbor, chef (still cooking for her family) and friend.  One of the wisest woman you’ll ever meet.

How can I begin to tell you what my life has been like with such a wonderful woman, like my mom, guiding me all these years. Being the youngest of 5 siblings (4 girls, 1 boy), I may have been a bit more free wild growing up in the 60′s and in my teens in the 70′s.

My mom, Georgette, came to America, from the Middle East, with no education at all and not knowing one word of English and 14 years younger than my dad.  She was a stranger in a strange land.  My dad always related their life to the song sung by Tony Bennett, “Stranger in Paradise”.. and it was.  That song can be emotional for me; especially since my dad has passed (10 years ago).

You see, my dad (Fred) came to America, also from the Middle East, when he was 11 years old. He went back to Syria at the age of 32 to choose (yes, choose) a wife going door to door (yes,  “door to door”) over a ten month period of time visiting many families with single daughters.  I remember him telling me that if he wasn’t interested in the women, he would jingle his car keys to give the signal to his friend, who accompanied him, that is was time to leave.   At the end of his search, he chose my mom.  They married in Syria, then mom left her mother and siblings behind to find a better life.

If you’d like to see the handmade journal I did about my dad’s life journey, click here.

Dad brought her back to the USA to live with him and his family (his 6 siblings… I know).   She inherited 2 brothers in law and 4 sisters in law.  With no English to be spoken, she was a stranger indeed.

After 15 years and having 5 children of her own, we moved to a home of our own.  I was 2.     Even in our own home, mom was the go to person.  She did all the holiday parties at our house, did all the cooking.. gosh, I don’ t how she really did it, feeding a family of 7 every night..  I can’t hardly keep up with 4.

As my mom reaches yet another birthday year, we are truly blessed to have this strong woman still in our lives.  She always tells me how proud she is of all 5 of the kids, but we are more proud of her.

Thanks, Mom and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

All My Love,

Judy (aka #5)

Vacation, Family and New Canvas

Hi Blogsters:

I’m back from vacation.  I took two weeks off from work.  One at Cape Cod and one hanging out at home, doing some art, visiting family and friends.

I was able to finish up my latest canvas.  I have no name for it yet.  The picture is of my parents in the old country after their wedding, on their honeymoon.  I am so in love with the pictures I was able to get from my mother after my dad passed 9 years ago.  Here is a picture of the book I made.  Yes, that is my actual father in his real Middle Eastern attire.  He was such a handsome man.  Reminds me of Omar Sharif.  Do any of you remember the movie “Lawrence of Arabia”?.. or am I showing my age here?  Anyway, making this book was a great experience for two reasons.. one was that I got to relive my father’s life, which gave me so much comfort and two… I learned to design my own book with my own style.

You can see the rest of the book at my Web Albums here.

I presented this to my mom on her 80th birthday.     There is just something about these vintage pictures that hold so much in my heart because of my parent’s background and their journey to America.

OK.. somebody stop me.. I’m way off track here…. moving on…. sorry.

Here is my new canvas that was inspired by a DVD that I just purchased by Ann Baldwin called Mixed Media – Collage – Text & Texture in Mixed Media Collage with Ann Baldwin.  You can see a preview here.

I love the colors; so rich.  What I’ve used on this canvas includes.  Crackle paint around the picture, molding paste with stencils, corrugated cardboard, heavy gel medium, photo transfer of tree, magazine picture of door, polymer clay and layers upon layers of paints.

Here are some close up shots.

I hope you enjoyed this mini journey with me and I hope that Ann would be proud.. Thank you, Ann.

If you have any questions about the canvas or any techniques you’d like to know about, please leave a comment; I would be happy to contact you in return.  Or just leave me a hello comment anyway.. I’d love to hear back from you.

As always, thanks for stopping by.