The Ashland Gallery Show

At the Ashland Gallery~ one of Gretchen's wall of her gorgeous oil paintings of landscapes of real places made magical due to her amazing use of colour and imagination. On the next wall is a few of my framed photographs.


One wall of my framed photographs-the director saw how I hung my art in my house in one of my self portraits and wanted one wall of my art to be hung that way-all "mish-mashed" together-very "Merle". These are all self-portraits and a series inspired by my ancestor Lydia from Salem,MA.


Here I am in black next to gorgeous Gretchen in white. I am standing in front a few of her magical landscapes and she is standing in front of a few of my framed photographs. The lovely and talented Ivy of Edera Jewerly was kind enough to send me a bag of her odds and ends of left over jewelry projects, beads and threads. I was so excited to find this piece in the bag because I made it into a little brooch that I wore on my dress for the night! It is like a gold and green snowflake with a pretty cord of gold dripping with beads and pearls and I think it looks like a little badge of some kind. You can check out her blog and then go to her Etsy shop HERE.
























And here are Gretchen and me again-we love dressing up and found our outfits way on sale all the way down to our shoes! Hey- take a photo of that would you!

I have been running around with these recent gallery shows. I am always behind and I always think I can get things done faster than I actually can. I would think that I would learn by now, but I guess not. The show openings were stressful up until the doors actually opened(ack, I kept leaving things in my studio!) but, they were also fun. It was fun to meet new artists and the folks who came to see the art as well. I took a few photos but must go back and take more of everything. At least I finally got a photo with my sweet friend Gretchen Powers Katner who is an amazing artist. She really can do it all-woodworking, jewerly(beadwork, silversmith, PMC, and more), oil painting(really large and awe-inspiring ones), she makes quilts, amazing bags of all kinds from old fabrics she finds and others that she hand dyes and she does more and says that it all is "no big deal". I love her and I want to shake her at the sametime! Ooh, I forgot to mention the amazing birthday cakes she has made for kids-don't get me started.

Now, I am jumping into making boutique windows look like "Happy Holidays" and getting caught up on commissions which includes several painting commissions and the dolls are getting their gowns finished and their wigs! Yay! So, that is all for now, but there will more later! Hope all is well with everyone here in blogland. I have been checking out your blogs late at night when I get a chance and love what everyone is up to and what you have found to share. Wishing you the best!