Art with Special Meaning

 It may be the smallest piece of art we own but it has special meaning. It's a ink and watercolor painting of Jamaicans on a raft. It reminds me of a rafting trip my cousin, Joyce, and I took down the Rio Grande river in the same country. We plied our pilot with Red Stripe beer purchased from vendors wading in the river and listened to him talk about the pilots' efforts to unionize.

Small watercolor of Jamaican rafters


Joyce and I rafting down the Rio Grande river in 1984


We lost Joyce in September of this year, which makes this small piece of art even more special.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We're in Debt Again

Image
We signed the contract to build our house with TAB today. Pete and I celebrating being in debt again; personal collection The contract is a firm-fixed price contract with three areas of unknown costs, which was unusual for TAB. We were unable to get a price quote for site preparation due to the Hurricane Florence recovery efforts. Our contract included only an estimate. Also, our plans would have to be reviewed by a structural engineer to ensure they met or exceeded local building codes. Because we are on a river in hurricane country, there could likely be additional costs. Finally, depending on where we located the house on the lot, the foundation may exceed the four rows of cinderblock included in the contract. Next, the hurry-up-and-wait period while permits are pulled and the structural engineer weighs in on changes to meet codes. I have been busy setting up electrical, water, and sewer service to the lot.
Read more

Selecting the House Plan

Image
"Where we love is home -- home that our feet may leave but not our hearts." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Dad was a mechanical engineer by degree who worked at an architecture and engineering firm and then with a manufacturers' representative company, designing commercial heating, air conditioning and ventilation (HVAC) systems and selling the equipment. He and Mom were inveterate remodelers of every house in which they lived. (I got those genes.) They designed their last two houses, which they built; and Dad did most of the construction of their house on Dawson's Creek. Some of my fondest memories of Mom are sitting with her at the kitchen table and looking at house plan books. Building a custom home is a project I anticipate eagerly. After I retired in 2015, Pete and I decided it was time to move to New Bern. He was commuting by plane every week to Albany, New York, and figured it didn't matter where home was. So I started looking at house plans in ear...
Read more

Selecting an Interior Designer

Image
"All rooms ought to look as if they were lived in, and to have a say, a friendly welcome for the incomer." -- William Morris The Internet disrupted the interior design industry as it did many other industries. No longer should designers be able to charge exorbitant prices for furniture, art and other decorative items that can be purchased online. Now, buying services provide access to private label goods and to-the-trade-only items. Designers who offer e-decorating services have learned to adapt. After trying a few other interior designers with different business models, I've learned I like using e-decorating services. It lets me be more involved and finish a room at my own pace. So I stuck with what works when choosing an interior designer for our river house. We used  Zuniga Interiors '  Interiors To-Go, an electronic decorating service for the master bedroom and sunroom of our house in Oakton, Virginia. Oakton house master bedroom; person...
Read more