namaste

Yes! I did it! Baby Bean (I'll call her "Bean" for now) is sleeping upstairs and I've worked up enough energy to get myself back to The Blue Room.
I've been thinking about the meaning of namaste - the way we end each yoga practice, hands to our hearts, head bowed, honoring ourselves and each other. This Sanskrit word has a truly beautiful meaning...

Namaste = My soul recognizes your soul, I honor the light, love, beauty, truth, and kindness within you because it is also within me; in sharing these things there is no distance and no difference between us, we are the same, we are one.

Above baby Bean's bed, there's a painting of the seven chakras.

I painted it when I was seven months pregnant with her. Every night I put her to bed, I look up at it and then at Bean and truly feel the weight and significance of namaste, like I've never felt before. I don't know if I'll ever create anything as important or amazing is the little Bean; I don't know if I'll ever feel the same exhaustion, confusion, joy, frustration, bliss, fear, love all rolled into one like a did when she made her grand entrance into the world! She is me and I am her. So when I look down at her every night and then look up at this painting above her, I finally get the meaning of namaste.

new creations...

The summer solstice is a time to celebrate the light within ourselves and all human beings, and embrace the change, maybe taking the time to create something new! Here are some new creations coming out of The Blue Studio and new things coming from the MacLaughlin-Galligani clan in the summer of 2014.

Hand-painted, bamboo notebooks/sketchpads on Etsy.com from The Blue Studio

These little notebooks were painted with the purpose of their owner to take some time and be creative, whether it's journaling or sketching or creating a new recipe or writing a letter to someone special. They're just small enough to slip into a pocket or a bag.

But my best creation yet will be arriving at the end of August - it's a collaboration :)

Introducing....The Blue Studio!

There's nothing like plunging into the world of entrepreneurship - it's scary, exciting, time consuming, and satisfying simultaneously. I've been painting since I was a little girl, selling my work here and there, a few commissions, many paintings gifted to friends and family, but nothing constant. This year I finally decided to take the plunge and with the end of summer came a new beginning: I opened my "store" on Etsy.com (a hub for artisans, craftsman, collectors and vintage vendors) with gusto.

My online shop is called "The Blue Studio" - inspired by this very blog - and I sell hand-painted illustrations of recipes, watercolor postcards, bookmarks, children's alphabets and more. The most interesting development since opening "The Blue Studio" has been the opportunity to participate in a local arts and crafts fair that takes place every autumn/winter called La Fierucola. I've always been an avid supporter of this event ever since I first lived in Florence five autumns ago, so now it's especially exciting to be one of the vendors. Below is a picture at September's Fierucola del Pane...

The Blue Studio, photo credit J. Garcia (thanks buddy!)

It had such a good time, being part of this community of craftsmen, artists, farmers, cheesemongers, etc. that I can't wait to return on the first weekend of November for the Fierucola di S. Martino (patron saint of wool weavers). The theme is all things wool (weaving, crocheting, knitting, felting) but there will also be the regular fruit and veggie guys selling their enormous pumpkins, the honey lady smoking her hand-rolled Pueblos and the very kind lavender oil lady, who was set up next to me in September (great smells were drifting my way all afternoon)! So if you're in Florence, and actually reading this, come over for a visit!

Apart from the constant sketching, painting and brain storming (which is the BEST part of taking on this new, second job) is the constant shameless self-promotion...this part is a little more difficult. The branding, promoting, updating the website, promoting, updating the facebook page...did I mention the promoting...is enough to make your head spin, but hey, someone has got to do it and up until now Winnie still doesn't have opposable thumbs.

So thank you all - family, friends, faithful readers (whoever you may be) - for all your support. It's only the beginning and "Rome wasn't built in a day", so I really appreciate all your kind words that you've sent my way over the past few months. Now, go be like Mr. Fox and have an autumn adventure (while the weather is still nice).

Mr. Fox, watercolor on paper, Lauren MacLaughlin 2013

ferragosto

Sun-washed walls in Tuscania, Lazio (right over the border of Tuscany)

Buon ferragosto! Today is August 15th, otherwise known as ferragosto in Italy, a holiday that dates back to 18 BCE. In Latin, it was known as Feriae Augusti (Augustus' rest) and was meant to celebrate a long season of agricultural labor and the upcoming harvest. I just love living in a country that celebrates ancient Roman holidays...sigh...Nowadays, most Italians spend the 15th of August at the beach or eating a big meal with family and friends. Actually, the majority of August is spent doing this. Shops and restaurants close, all the chic Florentines head off to Forte dei Marmi or Punta Ala (we poor Florentines go to Livorno). In the past two weeks, our neighborhood has become a veritable desert, the exception of course being myself, Alberto and Winnie - the latter of which is always on vacation.

Winnie in paradise

We've already taken a vacation down to the Maremma - the southern most part of Tuscany - and we had a fabulous time. We visited a few Etruscan tombs, did some mountain biking, some swimming (with jellyfish), took a night-time dip in the thermal baths, ate some really tasty local grub and played a lot of chess. It was, in a word, un successo. 

The town of Pitigliano is constructed on a very porous rock called tufo - see how it seems to be growing right out of the mountain? Pretty sweet, huh? It was once an Etruscan settlement and parts of the ancient walls are still standing.

So it seems that we'll be spending ferragosto at home, reading, painting, watching Mel Brooks movies, eating homemade popsicles and on Friday performing the Decameron in the mountains outside Pistoia...actually, that sounds like a pretty good vacation to me!

I is for Ice-cream, from the Alpa-baby series, watercolor on paper, 2013

summer scent, summer memory

Summer in Tuscany is a feast for the senses: the sticky, sweet smell of a fig tree, the color of sunset on custard colored palazzi, the sound of swallows diving for morning breakfast, the taste of sweet melon and salty prosciutto makes your taste buds explode!
Perhaps the sense that hits me the hardest are the smells of summer, scents that bring back a flood of memories from summers past, both in Italy and in Pennsylvania...

Burning wood
August, Girl Scout camp. Right after dinner we did flag ceremony in the field, as the sun was setting, and then we would take the girls back to their camp site and get them settled in for the night. I would build a little fire and then walk up to the mess hall through the woods, in the dark, to get supplies for making s'mores. No flashlight. Just the moon. And the smell of campfires burning. Knowing it was the end of summer, autumn just around the corner, and that this simple task was so comforting and simple.

Three red feathers (watercolor on paper), 2013

Jasmine
My first summer in Florence. Nighttime, near midnight. Sitting on the balcony of Alberto's apartment in Piazza Antonelli, eating watermelon and spitting seeds down at the stray cats circling around the umbrella pines. The scent of jasmine at night would be so strong (and as it turns out, I'm allergic) that it would fill up the bedroom and cling to the mosquito nets above the bed.

Tuscan Moonrise (watercolor on paper), 2013

Linseed oil
Ambler, PA. My grandmother's art studio had a sky-light that would flood the wood paneled space with warm light and make the scent of linseed oil even stronger. It was right off the kitchen, and when she cooked eggs in the morning, the smell of oil paints and linseed mixed with the smell of toast and dippy egg. Dippy egg. Now there's a Pennsylvania word.


In any case, when it comes to senses and memory, Proust knew what he was talking about:

"No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of it origin...And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray...my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea."

- Marcel Proust from "À la recherche du temps perdu"

what the fig?!

Three figs, watercolor on paper, 2013

One summer, Zio Giovanni gave us a crate load of figs. I mean, a. crate. load. of. figs. Approximately 70 figs total. For two people. These figs were so ripe, that they were practically bursting their figgy sweet insides all over the place. The kitchen smelled like a sweaty orchard and within two hours of their arrival, fruit flies had arrived on the scene. Time was limited. We tried to eat as many figs as we could in two days, but when all was said and done - our bellies aching, shouting, "BASTA!" - there were still about 50 rotten figs stinking up the kitchen in Piazza Antonelli. What a sad day...don't tell Zio Giovanni.
Time has passed and I've learned how to make fig jam, fig preserves, fig pie, fig cookies, fig and walnut cake, figgy pudding (just kidding), you name it, so never again shall a fig go to waste under this roof. In fact, when the first figs of the season arrive at the market, I come running home with a bagful. They're like giant gemstones, varying in color from the most beautiful deep purple and maroon to a shocking, zesty green. Crack them open and their fragrant, fleshy insides are the pinkest pink. Too beautiful to eat, I take to painting them first...then I slice them up with a little prosciutto crudo, some fresh pane toscano and dinner is served.

macaron, mermaids and mint

I've been painting, sketching, photographing up a storm in the Blue Room! Taking inspiration from our balcony herb garden, favorite French sweets and American folk music, the themes are as varied as the mediums used to create them. Coming to www.etsy.com (ASAP!)

Macaron, watercolor on French book page mounted on paper, 2013

Trois, watercolor on paper, 2013

The Mermaid, mixed media with acrylic on canvas, 2013

"'Cause her hair was as green as seaweed
Her skin was blue and pale
I loved that girl with all my heart
I only liked the upper part
I did not like the tail."
- from a sea shanty, "The Mermaid"

The Green Willow Tree, acrylic on canvas board, 2013

From a ballad bought to America by the early colonists. The Green Willow Tree is supposedly about  the famous British sea captain Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618)

Herb series, watercolor on paper, 2013