Honest to blog ~ Gramless galavanting

This week’s art and nature adventures began with a trip to Kingston to see my incredibly talented friend Gülnar’s sculpture exhibition. It was only up for one more day and I would have kicked myself if I missed it; plus Gülnar and I hadn’t seen each other in over a decade! We met when I used to be a model for artists at the Woodstock School of Art in Woodstock, NY. She took some artistic license and was the only student in the class to take my form and turn me into Medusa! We really vibed, so we kept in touch online all these years. I grabbed my Albany bestie Sam and we headed down to meet Gülnar for some lunch, art, macarons, book browsing, and walking along ships down by the water. Pictured here are a couple of my favorites, “Attuning” and “Blue Origins: Comfort”. You can see more of Gülnar’s work here: https://gulnarbabayeva.com I highly recommend viewing her work in person if you get the opportunity!

My favorite season is here; hot hot hot and storm storm storm. The clouds and sunsets have been particularly beautiful. Took the doggos for a lilnsunset photoshoot walk.

My chanterelle spot has begun to pop! Took enough home to make a vegan New England style chanterelle (perfect clam sub) chowder. On top are some chives and chive blossom from my garden. In other garden happenings, our cactus bloomed its first buttery yellow flower! I’m still amazed that it makes it through the New York winters. The heat has also led me to some nice waterfall dips.

In arty news, I built a new companion rainbow rolly drawer tower to my existing rolly drawer tower. I had a lot of art supplies in a super old and farty falling aparty drawer stack, and couldn’t wait to get rid of that eye sore.

So I’ve been having this butterfly synchronicity thing going on lately. I was in an antique shop and found a super pretty olden and golden green butterfly necklace which immediately became my new favorite. The next day, I found a tiny gold butterfly charm on the ground. I also keep getting stuck in traffic behind this one car with a butterfly bumper sticker. As I type this, a song called “Butterfly” pops on from someone else’s playlist I’m streaming :D

I started playing on a canvas in oils with just a reference photo of a green butterfly and decided to combine that with the fireflies that have been gracing the gardens at night. Do you say fireflies, lightning bugs, or thunderbutts?

Either way, hope you’re all well & enjoying this dreamy summer!

<3 Your fairy art mother, Nova