My Mother

My mother June Justine Powell born June 18 1928, died last May just weeks before she turned 82....the TOP OF THE BLOG is a page from her high school year book......it is great to be able to take a look at a picture and description of a parent in their youth...untouched by marriage and all the things that life has in store for us over time... being told that your voice was not opera quality...dashing your only real dream of a career......four children, two marriages...losing my Dad in a terrible car crash when I was 4 1/2, my sister 1 1/2 and my mother eight months pregnant with my baby sister .....in this picture her eyes do sparkle and shine and are so filled with possibilities ...I remember her always being beautiful but never so pure and untouched as she appears in this photo....

the composite photo is of my Mom and Dad ( John Griscom McGuire III 1944) on each side of my High School 1968 graduation picture....I can see both my parents in me and as I am typing this blog it is my mothers hands before me......kind of a cozy feeling...unpacking and putting out family photos has been great fun ....
if your Mom is still around give her a hug ...lol...I do miss mine....

In the Beginning .....

In the beginning in 1972....after college and I apprenticed at American Needlework Center, in Georgetown, DC...I was just starting and training to paint needlepoint.... the very first custom piece I painted was this pillow on 13st for my mother....I was still not asked to design yet at the shop, but my mother was up for a piece of custom painting...until this piece she had only worked the background on Penelope canvas , the design already done...they were french canvases ...so this was an adventure for both of us...not bad for a beginner...a little rough around the edges...and of course my mother was a blue person...Hench the background, not my choice but you never won on that front...I designed twelve dinning room chairs for her with different bunches of flowers ..all had this background color...lol...this pillow is special to me, because it was my first attempt at designing and my mother loved it and worked it...she passed away this May and my brother made sure that this piece was returned to me...it is precious even though I have designed for years and years, every time I look at it I think of my mother and being in my early twenties......you can't get better than that....lol

Poofy Flowers....

I grew up with a mother that had a passion for gardening...like my grandmother and great grandmother.....when my grandmother sold her house on California Street in DC, I remember my mother and father going to dig up some wonderful hydrangea for their new house in Bethesda Maryland...these plants were planted along the side of the old screened porch...and there they are to this day unless the people that bought my parents house around 6 years ago or so...removed them....I can't think why....they were always amazing...so big...what we kids referred to as poofy flowers since Hydrangea seemed hard to say.....
this is a custom wreath I painted for a customer last month...she has a real love of flowers.....I find this kind of flower picky to paint in needlepoint...you have to be careful to not overdo with shading......the trick is to fool the eye and make the flowers seem poofy...
Isn't it strange how a flower can bring all sorts of memories flooding back....I lost my mother this May...just a couple of weeks before her 82 birthday.......her name was June...born in June ...how fitting, for someone that had a green thumb...even her African violets she grew in her kitchen window above the sink were prettier than any I have ever seen......
unfortunately, I did not inherit the family green thumb...I can't stand bugs and dirt under my nails and plants are truly in trouble in my care....cactus is my thing...the only plants I have ever been able to keep....
I can remember my mother always having a huge bunch of fresh flowers gracing the table ...lilacs, her prize winning roses , and the wonderful smell of lilies of the valley which she grew under a big shade tree at the back of the porch....
I guess it is fitting that I can draw and paint flowers ...they are safe in needlepoint......needing no special light, water or egg shells and coffee grounds...I can't remember which plants need caffeine, but my mother always had the right mixture and extras....she would love these flowers in needlepoint.....when I first started to design needlepoint I painted her eight chair seats for her dining room...each chair had a bunch of her favorite flowers......I can't remember just how many flowers we included...but she would sit and discuss each flower and why that one was her favorite...until she thought of the next...they were all her favorites.....but it was the gardenia that she always wore on holidays.....the funniest one came from our little local florist ....it was delivered with a little stuffed turkey in the box...I had bought a couple of these little turkeys for decorations and the florist must have been confused and added one in the box with her corsage... I always had it delivered with a little card ......I was just a special thing I did....when the box was delivered and she open it , everyone laughed...and I believe she wore the Turkey along with corsage at Thanksgiving dinner......typical of my crazy mother.....my biggest fan and such fun !