Breakfast Duchess-style: Eggs overlays, sausage, home fries very well-done, and whole wheat bread. We get one order and split. SO GOOD!
We passed the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 and I hope we will never pass another anniversary like it ever again. Tom and I recently had our first and second vaccines and we’re getting out a bit more too. We go for our morning walks and a few times a week we enjoy our favorite breakfast at our local Duchess restaurant in Fairfield, CT. It’s not very busy when we go and it’s nice to get back to a routine that is feeling more like “normal”.
Covid didn’t keep us down though, Tom and I have been busy revising my books Indigo Sky (soon to be re-released as THE MEMORABLE MRS. DEMPSEY) and THE UNFORGETTABLE MISS BALDWIN. Tom is the best editor I could ask for. I can’t wait to re-release both books with brand new covers, I’ll let everyone know when they come out.
Spring is in the air and soon our flowers will bloom and our backyards will be a lovely oasis. With that in mind, here are some lovely images of spring I painted a few years back. I hope these pictures give you hope for renewal and healing as we move forward. Enjoy!
Bridge to Tranquility
New England Peace
Waterfall at Lake Mohegan
Stay tuned for a sneak peek next month. 🙂
All the best,
Gail Ingis.
Gail Ingis Claus is an author, artist/painter, and interior designer.
Tom and I have been hanging around the house a lot lately – as everyone is and we had the idea to freshen things up. What better way to pass the time than an easy (and free) home project. When was the last time you rearranged your furniture? How about today? You can give your main room a different look by changing where you’re seated. Build your seating around a painting, television or fireplace. Remember your traffic pattern too. How do you get to the seating? Three feet between furniture works. If you have a coffee table, keep the table about eighteen inches away from the sofa so you can put down your wine goblet.
I could go on, but because you are spending most of your time at home these days, try out what you rearrange and if you don’t like it change it!
family photos
Do you have a collection? Paintings, African masks, antiques, signed baseballs or model airplanes that you’ve built? Collect music boxes. Look around your house—you may already have a collection.
Framed photographs of horses, dogs, or animals make interesting components.
If you want to use framed pictures, here’s an idea of how to hang them. The center of the grouping should be at eye level—that means 5’-6” off the floor, the spacing between each picture is about 3 inches. You can create a rectangle or square with the outside of the group. For more ideas go to Pinterest.com, once there look for Framed Pictures. Lots of terrific ideas.
kitchen
The images I have here are of our Great room where we spend all our time, and it’s open to the kitchen.
Maybe you’re passionate about family photos. We all enjoy finding folks we know in the pictures. Set them up on a table as a conversation piece. The picture here is an idea.
Feel free to ask questions in the comments. For those of you that don’t know me, I’m a seasoned, professional Interior Designer and taught the subject for half of my fifty-year career.
Gail Ingis is an artist, interior designer, and published author. Her historical romances Indigo Sky and The Unforgettable Miss Baldwin are both available on Amazon.
Roses are red . . . We’ve all heard that little ditty numerous times. But have you ever wondered what makes red such a powerful color? Why does red make a bold fashion statement? Why does it look great as a feature wall in your home? Why does red pop on a book cover?
Amy Butler Greenfield’s fascinating book, A Perfect Red, traces the history and cultural impact of the color red. And guess what? It all began with a little red bug called cochineal. Vast fortunes were created and international intrigue bloomed as countries battled to figure out how to beat Spain’s hold on the trade of a red dye. So valuable – it was traded on commodity exchanges in the 17th century.
And of course I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how much I love red as an artist and painter. I often weave red into my paintings, like the one shown here.
And if you’re curious – here are some other fun facts about red:
Threads of Wisdom 36×36 Oil Ingis Claus
Clever red fingernail polish names: Red Abandon, Little Red Wagon, Don’t know . . . Beets me, Wanted . . . Red or Alive. Life is a Cabernet, An Affair in Red Square, and Breakfast in Red.
Remember Dorothy’s beautiful, magical silver slippers from The Wizard of Oz? Not silver, you say? Well they started out as silver in the novel but when the new Technicolor process was used in the film version, the moviemakers wanted a color that popped—so, of course, they chose red. Ruby red.
Charles and Ray (Bernice Alexandra) Eames: Together the husband and wife duo created some of the 20th century’s most enduring designs. Charles and Ray Eames are known for their classic modern furniture and for their pioneering work with materials such as molded plywood, which they created by pressing sheets of wood veneer against a heated mold. Through this work, in the 1940s the couple developed their iconic LCW (Lounge Chair, Wood), which has been called the best design of the 20th century. The Eames Molded Plywood Lounge Chair Wood Base, currently sold by Herman Miller, is striking in red. Today, the chair sells for north of a thousand dollars and is made in the United States.
While writing my 2019 publishedUnforgettable Miss Baldwin, I saw red everywhere. My heroine has red hair, she blushes a pretty shade of red, her lips are full and red . . . Red has seeped into our language: seeing red, caught red-handed, down to my last red cent, red herring, a red-letter day, like red to a bull, red tape, go beet red, in the red, red-blooded, red-carpet treatment, red-light district . . . well—you know. And of course, my sweet Tom and I love to paint the town red.
I’m currently writing an essay based on my memoirs and how red integrated my life.
What’s your favorite red—either in your home/office or in your personal life?
Dear Artist, and to all my wonderful friends in the arts:
In Canada, doctors are prescribing museum visits with the cost of admission covered by universal healthcare. “We know that art stimulates neural activity,” says Montreal Museum of Fine Arts director general and chief curator, Nathalie Bondil. The program, piloted last year, is an extension of the museum’s work with their existing Art and Health Committee, where they participate in clinical trials studying the effects of art on people with eating disorders, cancer, epilepsy, mental illness, and Alzheimer’s disease. This “museum as hospital” idea also has legs for older people, the physically disabled, and others with mobility issues. Because looking at art bumps cortisol and serotonin levels in the brain, it produces an effect in the body similar to exercise.
Mike Kelley 1 (2007) at the Cleveland Clinic by Jennifer Steinkamp (b. 1958)
Steve Travarca photo
This past Wednesday, the British Medical Journal published a longitudinal study tracking the correlation between arts engagement and mortality. It turns out that hitting a museum just once or twice a year can lower your early death rate by 14%. Culture vultures fare even better at 31%. On top of this, studies from Denmark and Great Britain have found that paintings — especially abstracts — in hospitals improves patient satisfaction, health outcome, length of stay, and pain tolerance.
While experts hammer out what kind of art heals best, the big hospitals are hiring their own curators to test the notion of “hospital as museum”.
“We set out to try and change the paradigm of what it’s like to be in a healthcare setting — that in some way, it might be inviting and enriching when you come to the hospital for whatever reason, whether you’re working there, a visitor, or a patient,” says Joanne Cohen, executive director, and in-house curator at the Cleveland Clinic. And while some scholars fear that abstraction is too ambiguous for patients experiencing states of unfamiliarity, vulnerability and stress, Danish architecture and design professor Michael Mullins says that size and placement of work, color, contrast, shapes, and movement are factors just as important. While working on a recent project for a hospital in New York, the only request I received from the gallery was, “no green, no red.”
Pumpkin (2014) at the Cleveland Clinic by Yayoi Kusama (b.1929)
Steve Travarca photo
PS: “I am convinced that in the 21st century, culture will be what physical activity was for health in the 20th century.” (Nathalie Bondil)
Esoterica: When I was about 20, the hospital in which I was born purchased some paintings for their palliative care floor. At the time, my work featured cloudless, gradated color field skies, with kids floating and flying dreamlike above a thin strip of flat, white snow. For some time, I wondered if the paintings would be helpful or upsetting to those in the hospital facing the end of life, especially when I seemed to be at the beginning of mine. Years later, I received a letter from someone who had spent many months with my paintings while saying goodbye to their loved one. Their words left me grateful and connected and honored to be a part of such an important time. “Hopefully, it comforts.” (Joanne Cohen)
Recovery College (2016) in collaboration with Hospital Rooms and South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS
by Tim A. Shaw (b. 1982)
Thank you to: Sara Genn
The Letters: Vol. 1 and 2, narrated by Dave Genn, are available for download on Amazon, here. Proceeds of sales contribute to the production of The Painter’s Keys.
“Imagination is not a talent of some men, but is the health of every man.”
The Letters: Vol. 1 and 2, narrated by Dave Genn, are available for download on Amazon, here. Proceeds of sales contribute to the production of The Painter’s Keys.
“Imagination is not a talent of some men, but is the health of every man.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
It was only two days after the big event, a truck smashing into the rear of my Acura RDX on I-95, in crawling traffic, and disabling the car. Obviously, I survived. It was a good time to get away with our son and daughter-in-law and enjoy being alive in Nashville. Drinks, fried food, pulled pork, yum. Some good singers, some not so good, but the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium was fab, Rascal Flatts. Tom pointed out the window where he and his brother many moons ago saw for free one of the last Grand Ole Opry shows at the Ryman before it moved to its new home. That statue is of Bill Monroe, father of Bluegrass music.
We saw the Christmas show at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, Trace Atkins and Friends. John Conlee also sang and was great.
Country Music Hall of Fame, We walked through the history and read about folks like Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves, Loretta Lynn, and so many others, their costumes, guitars, and the special car that Elvis had built. If you love this music, you must visit this place.
So is this the place to buy cowboy boots?
If you aren’t walking this wheelchair is the way to relax, especially if your bones are achy.
At the Music Hall of Fame. I was sore from that accident.
The rest of the photos are from the Opryland Hotel, the Ryman and Grand Ole Opry.
Below is one of the Genn letters. They are always informative, challenging and progressive. There’s an analogy between writing and painting. I say that because I am both, writers work from a blank page, artists from a blank canvas. The current letter is unchanged from their posting. As a writer, at the moment, I’m rewriting my second book. The Unforgettable Miss Baldwin.
From the Genn family:
Like the novel or memoir many of us feel we have lurking inside but will probably never put to paper, there is undoubtedly a painting or two that simmers in the arm and hand of all creative beings. More primal than writing, mark-making begins in early childhood, to be perverted later into a messy and inconvenient activity where the exception to do it in adulthood is made only when it serves an industry. A lawyer friend once invited me to his basement to show me an appealing, sort-of pointillist portrait in cheery colours. “Can you help me get a show?” he asked. An unfinished second one was leaning in the corner. “Was it fun?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “How much did you enjoy the second painting?” I inquired. He replied, “Not as much as the first.”
“The Abbey in the Oak Wood” 1808-10
oil on canvas
by Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840)
In her 2001 lecture series at Cambridge University, Margaret Atwood explained the difference between writing and being a writer: “Everyone can dig a hole in a cemetery, but not everyone is a grave digger,” she said. “The latter takes a good deal more stamina and persistence. It is also, because of the nature of the activity, a deeply symbolic role. As a grave digger, you are not just a person who excavates. You carry upon your shoulders the weight of other people’s projections, of their fears and fantasies and anxieties and superstitions.”
“Wanderer above a Sea of Fog”
oil painting
by Caspar David Friedrich
I drove home from the studio visit and picked up my brush, thinking it was perhaps easier to be certifiably unemployable than to have a choice about being a painter. Enjoyable or not, the digging would continue until I became a grave digger. I remembered my parents discussing whether we, their children, should have something to fall back on, should we fail as artists. My mum insisted we all take a turn at summer work. I was, for three weeks, the dessert-cart-girl at the Black Forest Restaurant. Soon, the manager relegated me to drawing on the specials board. My dad, as if he knew the secret to never holding a real job, suggested we spend our summers daydreaming and sticking to independent projects.
Atwood recalled, “There were no films or theatres in the North, and the radio didn’t work very well. But there were always books.” She said she became a writer one day when she wrote a poem in her head, while walking across a field. “I didn’t know that this poem of mine wasn’t at all good, and if I had known, I probably wouldn’t have cared. It wasn’t the result but the experience that had hooked me: it was the electricity. My transition from not being a writer to being one was instantaneous, like the change from docile bank clerk to fanged monster in ‘B’ movies.”
“Monastery Graveyard in the Snow” 1817-19
oil painting
by Caspar David Friedrich
Sincerely,
Sara
PS: “Any form of human creativity is a process of doing it and getting better at it. You become a writer by writing, there is no other way. So do it, do it more, do it better. Fail. Fail better.” (Margaret Atwood)
Esoterica: Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa, Ontario to a forest entomologist father and a mother who had been a dietician. Because of her father’s research, Atwood spent her childhood commuting with her family between Toronto, Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie and the Quebec wilderness. She didn’t enroll in full-time school until she was eight and read Grimm’s fairytales and Dell pocketbook mysteries, animal stories and comic books. “I learned to read early, was an avid reader and read everything I could get my hands on — no one ever told me I couldn’t read a book. My mother liked quietness in children, and a child who is reading is very quiet.”
Gail Ingis Claus is an author, artist/painter and interior designer. Her upcoming romance The Unforgettable Miss Baldwin is in revision. Her current historical romance, Indigo Sky can be purchased on amazon.
New York City Hall, a beauty in classicism with its touch of Palladio! I studied interior design and architecture many moons ago, but my passion has not wained. New York City Hall is featured prominently in my upcoming book The Unforgettable Miss Baldwin. The cornerstone of City Hall was laid in 1803. Construction was delayed after the City Council objected that the design was too extravagant. Imagine something like that today. In response, architects, McComb and Mangin reduced the size of the building and used brownstone at the rear of the building to lower costs. Labor disputes and an outbreak of yellow fever further slowed construction. The building was not dedicated until 1811, and opened officially in 1812.
Although Mangin and McComb were the original designers, the building has been altered numerous times over the years, by various well known and respected architects:
The steps of City Hall frequently provide a backdrop for political demonstrations and press conferences concerning city politics. The heroine in my book meets the hero on those steps while attending a suffragette rally in 1886.
Rotunda
On the inside, the rotunda is a soaring space with a grand marble stairway rising up to the second floor, where ten fluted Corinthian columns support the coffered dome, which was added in a 1912 restoration by Grosvenor Atterbury. The rotunda has been the site of municipal as well as national events. Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant lay in state there, attracting enormous crowds to pay their respects. City Hall is a designated New York City landmark. It is also listed on the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places.
Gail Ingis Claus is an author, artist/painter and interior designer. Her upcoming romance The Unforgettable Miss Baldwin will be released when she’s done revising, I’ll keep you in the know. Her current historical romance, Indigo Sky can be purchased on amazon.
This post is applicable to us all. I get these letters frequently, and from time to time love to share with their permission, which is ongoing.
The Letters: Vol. 1 and 2, narrated by Dave Genn, are now available for download on Amazon, here. Proceeds of sales contribute to the production of The Painter’s Keys.
Dear Reader,
A few years ago a thief looked in a gallery window and saw what he thought was a painting by a relatively expensive, dead artist. Using an accomplice to distract the dealer, he grabbed it and fled. It turned out to be one of mine. I know the disappointment he must have felt because the painting soon appeared in a nearby dumpster. This is an example of someone trying to steal something that might have been successfully fenced in an auction or another gallery. I fooled ’em.
“Charing Cross Bridge, London” 1901
by Claude Monet (1840-1926)
stolen in 2012, possibly destroyed
The theft of Edvard Munch’s The Scream and Madonna, from the Oslo Munch Museum is a theft of a different stripe. Impossible to resell, these works can only have been stolen because they could be. In a way, it’s good to know that there are people in this world, like artists, who want to see if they can get away with things — to test the limits of their cleverness. Apparently, it’s also got something to do with stealing the magic that is art. British psychoanalyst Darian Leader explains the phenomena in Stealing the Mona Lisa. His book tells of the poor Italian house painter, Vincenzo Peruggia who, in 1911, merely tucked Mona under his smock and put her in the closet of his humble room. Later he confessed he did it not for money but for the love of a woman.
“Woman-Ochre” 1958
by Willem de Kooning (1904-1997)
stolen in 1985, recovered 2017
Leader also suggests that a painting needs to be properly stolen in order for it to become an icon and irresistibly desirable to a wider public. Further, as most of the thieves are men, the stealing of female imagery takes the psychoanalyst into some sticky stuff. Leader says, “An image is a human-capturing device.” Apparently, thieves as well as artists know this. But maybe some moneyed connoisseur knows it too and is privately slavering over Madonna and Scream along with a Schnapps and a good cigar in a paneled inner sanctum. Meanwhile his clever hit-men are blowing his cash in a bar. Leader concludes that no one does the big jobs for the money.
Of particular interest in the Mona Lisa case, gallery-goers lined up for years to file past the empty space where the painting once hung. That’s sort of modern — conceptual — when you think of it. One thing I do know is that art makes some people go funny and do crazy things. Like the guy who threw mine into the dumpster.
“The Concert” c.1664
by Johann Vermeer (1632-1675)
stolen in 1990, not recovered
Best regards,
Robert
PS: “The Mona Lisa is a magical prize, an amulet to ward off a feeling of insufficiency.” (Craig Burnett)
Esoterica: Stealing, like art itself, is an art. Stealing art is one of the highest of the stealing arts. Books are written and films are made honouring this tradition. To have one’s work stolen is a compliment and can be a big career move. Try to get your stuff stolen.
The Letters: Vol. 1 and 2, narrated by Dave Genn, are now available for download on Amazon, here. Proceeds of sales contribute to the production of The Painter’s Keys.
“What’s new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet — and no one’s gonna shut down the Internet.” (Steve Jobs)
Gail Ingis Claus is an author, artist/painter and interior designer. Her upcoming romance The Unforgettable Miss Baldwin will be released in spring 2018. Her current historical romance, Indigo Sky can be purchased on amazon.
The following is part of a letter from an artist to an architect friend: “I asked him for some of the money I need to continue my work. He told me to come around on Monday. I went on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and there was no money. On Friday someone else came to the door and threw me out. I’m discouraged about getting paid for this job.”
“The Creation of Adam” 1512
fresco 280 cm × 570 cm (9 ft 2 in × 18 ft 8 in)
by Michelangelo (1475-1564)
Sound familiar? The date on the letter is May 2, 1506. The artist was Michelangelo and the patron was Pope Julius II. The “job” was a three-story tomb with forty bronze and marble statues. Michelangelo never completed the job because he was never properly paid. Julius, who never got his big tomb, died. After two short-lived popes, Paul III, equally ambitious, took over. He got Mike to finish a ceiling. Then he told him to paint the end wall. This is the Sistine Chapel we’re talking about. Virtually a prisoner for four years, Mike applied what Thomas Craven called, “the compacted fury of twenty years in which the artist’s vision compromised with the world of fact.” This job was “The Last Judgment.” It’s been called “the greatest single work of art that man has ever produced.”
“The Prophet Ezekiel” 1510
by Michelangelo
We artists are often asked to do something along the lines of somebody else’s ideas. If the subject matter turns your crank, I recommend that you should say “yes.” You should never say “when.” Commissions tend to bend your mind into dimensions where you may not at first be prepared to go. This is good for you. If the job or the patron starts to make you angry, you should pretend the job is for someone else. Even for some higher power. Popes are only popes but art is pretty darned permanent. And another thing, it doesn’t matter who you’re dealing with, get a decent deposit.
“The Last Judgment” 1536–41
fresco 13.7 m × 12 m
(539.3 in × 472.4 in)
by Michelangelo
Best regards,
Robert
PS: “Poets and painters have the power to dare, I mean to dare to do whatever they may approve of.” (Michelangelo) “Art is made noble and religious by the mind producing it.” (Michelangelo)
Esoterica: The pope wanted The Last Judgement to be done in oils. Mike thought it would be better in fresco. “Michelangelo did not say either yes or no. He did not lift a finger for several months. He let it be known around and about that oils were suitable only for women, the rich and the slothful. He quietly had everything plastered over in preparation for fresco, and then Michelangelo set to work.” (Giorgio Vasari)
This letter was originally published as “Commissioned artwork” on November 12, 2002.
The Letters: Vol. 1 and 2, narrated by Dave Genn, are now available for download on Amazon, here. Proceeds of sales contribute to the production of The Painter’s Keys.
“If people knew how hard I worked to achieve my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all.” (Michelangelo)
Gail Ingis Claus is an author, artist/painter and interior designer. Her upcoming romance The Unforgettable Miss Baldwin will be released in spring 2018. Her current historical romance, Indigo Sky can be purchased on amazon.
Art has always been a big part of my life. Guess what? I’m having an art show and you’re invited. Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, 10 am-5 pm. (rain date Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018). At my house. And the Sangria is on me. If you’re interested in attending and you’re in the area (Fairfield, Connecticut) you can email me directly at gail@gailingis.com.
Join me for my art show COLORFUL VISIONS and celebrate color and beauty in our world.
Art, nature, Sangria. Sounds like fun to me. Hope to see you there. xo Gail
Many of my paintings will be available for purchase, including the ones featured in the postcard above. I will be donating half of all sales of my paintings to Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum. A National Historic Landmark since 1971, the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum is regarded as one of the earliest and most significant Second Empire Style country houses in the United States. Lockwood-Mathews holds educational programs throughout the year for schools, colleges, and universities along with other educational groups and for the general public. Lockwood-Mathews also hosts various events throughout the year for the public including art shows, flea markets, tea parties, costume balls, private tours as well as offering guided historical tours of the estate.
Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum
Gail Ingis Claus is an author, artist/painter and interior designer. Her upcoming romance The Unforgettable Miss Baldwin will be released in the fall of 2018. Her current historical romance, Indigo Sky can be purchased on amazon.
The images I have here are of our Great room where we spend all our time, and it’s open to the kitchen.
Charles and Ray (Bernice Alexandra) Eames: Together the husband and wife duo created some of the 20th century’s most enduring designs. Charles and Ray Eames are known for their classic modern furniture and for their pioneering work with materials such as molded plywood, which they created by pressing sheets of wood veneer against a heated mold. Through this work, in the 1940s the couple developed their iconic LCW (Lounge Chair, Wood), which has been called the best design of the 20th century. The Eames Molded Plywood Lounge Chair Wood Base, currently sold by Herman Miller, is striking in red. Today, the chair sells for north of a thousand dollars and is made in the United States.
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