Valentine Portrait

Meet our artist friends Richard and Bara. They were neighbors on this island years ago but now live and work on Vancouver Island. They've been together and making art for 13 years. I had some art supplies she wanted from Seattle to deliver to her so we met for lunch on Saltspring Island, in between the islands where we live. They took the ferry, we drove our boat through pretty thick low visibility fog and drizzle, but very little wind, did some errands (the wine store, the hardware store and a few groceries) and had a long overdue roundesvous in a cozy restaurant. These two are amazing. Richard does wonderful wood and concrete sculpture, draws and writes. Bara is a painter and do-about-anything-with-paper (dolls, jewelry, feathers, cards, flowers and much more) as well as a whole line of concrete garden art-fountains, statues and containers they both have created. (Heavy work, they are ready to move away from this) They live off their art, have been connected with several galleries, sell at art fairs, teach workshops, and have steady orders at places like Butchard Gardens in Victoria, but they so long to just do the art they love just to please themselves and not the buying public. They are almost to that point, (I hope!) if they live very modestly. It's the same old story. How much validation do we need? How much do we need to share? Does our art need to mean something to someone else? Or is it enough that we love it? We could have talked the whole day away....but we needed to get home before dark (the visability was better) to our quiet place.
I'd love to link some of their work but Bara (who is also a wizard with the computer...) is in the process of restructuring their website (Oceanstone studios) so that won't work today. I've had some of their work in some blips but the internet I have here won't let me go searching for it easily.. Today she brought me one of her new paper mache "feathers" so I'v put just a few photos on FLICKR. You can see a few of her feathers and the weather going and coming... :-)

Happy Valentine's Day, Everyone! and Happy Birthday to my Mom (and her twin sister), who would have been 110 today!