Of Children & Art

My just-3 year old nephew, H, has come for a week long visit (without his sister) with his grandparents and aunt. It's a bit tough with my mother's eyes, but my dad and I manage to tag team most of it even with my odd working schedule. H is a cuddle bug and has inherited his grandfather's sweet tooth. You know how some people have cognac before bed? Well, my father has a glass of maple syrup. Yep, that's right. When we were little my sister and I always had to hide any candy we had from his insatiable sweet tooth - not that he doesn't share, he's very generous but you have to get to it before he does. Tonight he had made homemade strawberry shortcake and my nephew was so excited he flapped his arms in the air and said "thank goodness the food is here!"

H experiments with the dog head cone as toy/ clothing

We've had a few bears through our yard this spring, mostly a mama black bear and her cub, and H has heard stories about them. For some reason he was talking about them and saying how if the bears come by at night he'll just punch them in the mouth. We mentioned that this would probably not work and he'd best let Disreputable Dog take care of it since he knows all about bears and what to do, when H raced inside and closed the door behind him to "keep the bears out before we go to bed".

The Disreputable Cat also enjoys the dog collar

Before joining H for dinner I went off to an art gallery opening called "We will be rich for the rest of our lives" of a childhood friend of mine, Gabe Liston - it was fabulous. He does these wonderful things called Blue Book tiles where he actually uses old books as canvases. He also does wonderful things with light in his paintings. Check out some of his work over at Lastwater and click on paintings or Blue Tiles for artwork. His subject is mostly children and he has a great knack for catching those emotional childhood moments.