Blue Satin Sashes: August 2012

While we were in New York, André, Mom and I went up to Barryville

in up-state NY

to where Willard lived and had his art studio.

We stopped by the Barryville Antiques Emporium to

talk with his good friend- she lives in the upper floors of the red house.

Yup, that's a sword...

While we were in the area we had dinner with old family friends (my mom grew up with them) and Willard's "un-son" Paul.

Paul is the son of Betty, Willard's first wife.

After they divorced, she remarried to Paul's father- however Willard, who he had never actually met, became a sort of father figure for him growing up.

The finally met three years ago by chance when Willard moved up to his studio full-time and needed to weather proof his place. The happened to be sitting at adjacent tables and when Willard talked about himself in the third-person (something he did quite often to promote his art...) Paul introduced himself and they became good friends.

Paul is a musician and has a recording studio, by the name of TrickDog.

Paul with his homemade cigar box guitar

One of my favorite things about East Coast are the fireflies. Love them.

And the summer rain.

{it's currently raining in D.C.}

The benches around the fire are from an old bowling alley!

A good friend of Willard's was storing his artwork (while Granddad moved...) in his second home in Matamoris, Pennsylvania.

We spent 14 hours, cleaning, organizing, sorting, cataloging and photographing all the hundreds of originals, prints, and posters.

At one point, every bit of floor and table space (no exaggeration) was taken up by artwork- then there was a whole second floor with rooms filled with his oil paintings...

It was absolutely exhausting.

We put a bunch into our rented mini-van to drive it up to our friend's house in New Jersey where they are currently in process of being shipped to us in California.