It's fun, it's fresh ,it's FIRSTFriday!

The oncoming storm was actually inside the shop yesterday. MaryAnne Pollock and Suad Raja transformed one room of the gallery with their artwork. MaryAnne's acrylic work ranges from panaramic landscapes and intimate florals to collaged abstracts. Many of Suad's fine jewelry pieces are inspired by ancient Yemen and need to be seen up close to be appreciated. In fact I think they look even better on (me!). Their opening is this evening from 5 to 8pm and continues tomorrow, Saturday from 10am to 6pm. Do join us!

Views of a kitchen

The Pellegrino and tomato vignette only lasted as long as dinnertime, but my long suffering husband has well, suffered, a lot lately in the random decor department. The vintage blown glass bird has been sitting in the ficus tree since December 2005 because my daughter deemed it "pretty" and refused to pack it.

That dims in comparison though to the beat-up pink tinsel tree that is gracing our dining room at the moment. (You know it is bad when I had a half a dozen girlfriends and their families over and it didn't get moved out of the main floor so I could look like my house is clean all of the time!) Why is it there you ask? One of my curb crawlin' colleagues alerted me to its existence on trash night so I had to go get it. Actually, to be truthful, I had been sitting on the porch with neighbors for the equivalent of a couple of glasses of wine in me so I decided it would be prudent to make my husband Bob go fetch said hot pink tinsel Christmas tree as soon as he pulled in the driveway. He wasn't too happy about the idea of going with all of the snacks and beverages on the porch but I convinced him that someone else might liberate this marvelous convection before I can clean it up and use it for a shop display in my girly-girl room. So, ahem, there it sits in the dining room looking a Warhol-esque Charlie Brown tree. Will post another shot when it is ready for its close-up....