RMW Ramblings

  Joseph's Dream The Gospel of Matthew recounts four of St. Joseph's dreams.  The New Testament echos, as it does frequently, the Old Testament, where Joseph, son of Benjamin, had prophetic dreams. Here I painted St. Joseph visited in a dream to alert him to flee with Mary and Jesus to Egypt, Joseph's Dream.    And here is my Flight Into Egypt earlier painting.        

  An Intergalactic Storm & Lear's Storm This morning's news feed brought images from NASA's Webb space telescope.  An image of the Pillars of Creation (astronomers' hyperbolic nomenclature) brought to mind one of my paintings.  Years after a flood from hurricane Isabel devastated our cottage I commemorated our recovery with this painting  of Lear chalanging the storm, "Rage, Blow, Ye Cataracts and Hurricanoes."  Shakespeare's breath, upper right, animates the faces of the storm, who in turn blast Lear and his fool.    Do you see the  faces in this intergalactic dust "storm"?  I reoriented the picture to highlight the similarity.    

  Alaina's Room  A Christmas Pop-up For Christmas 2014 I created a pop-up book, A Christmas Visit, a visit to our neighborhood and house during the Christmas season.  (I'll post more on this in the future.)  In the same spirit, this year I made a pop-up of our great-granddaughter's bedroom with an imagined Christmas tree as a Christmas gift for her. Here is Alaina's Room. Closed...     Open...    

  A Christmas Past Christmas on a Mug In my last posting you saw a photo of our library with a Christmas tree from a few years back...    I had this photo printed on coffee mugs for a family gifts.  Our great-granddaughter Alaina has admired this mug at her grandmother's house.  I had an enameled metal cup imprinted with the same picture as a gift for Alaina this year.  Don't tell her! She'll get the mug on Christmas morning.   One of the ceramic coffee mugs and Alaina's gift cup...     

  A Christmas Past

  Christmas Woodcraft Toys Our 2022 Christmas card in our last post referenced a wooden toy car that I made for our son Mike about 50 or so years ago.  Here's the little wooden car...   I have photos of only a few of the simple wood toys I made for our kids back then...   This wood trolley car was made for Christopher.  His monogram is the trolley's "logo" on the side of the car.    Here's a little race car...    And a boat...     The circular holes were meant to accommodate little Fisher-Price figures...    A generation later I made this truck and trailer for Mike's son, Jake...     Maybe there will be a few more wood toys in the future.  

  This Year's Christmas Card A 1930s Christmas Gala   For 2022, Christmas card, our 62nd home-crafted Christmas card...