Remembering a Great Artist...Sebastian R. Gianino

this is just a small sampling of Seb's Paintings. My house had turned into a small gallery of his works. He was so incredibly talented. Now I know where my kiddos get it from.
His primary medium was oil painting. I can't even begin to tell you the thousand upon thousands of sketches he has. yes, thousands. His Morgue file was unbelievable. At least 9 metal old file cabinets.
If you are unsure what a morgue file is..it is where he would spend hours upon hours cutting stuff out from magazines and such and use for research to draw a certain body part or item.
if it was hands, abs, breast or feet..he had at least more then a thousand of each. Then it was put into sub categories....babies, adults....American...european..you name it there was a category. His dream was to one day be an illustrater.
In the 70's someone offered to buy a painting for 300$$. He declined.
I can only fathom how well he would have been known if he would have sold his paintings.
He studied under Brother Matthew, who was a wonderful monk over in Illinois.
I will be posting more art work soon from Sebastian.

He loved Jesus.

He loved the idea of family

my husbanded misses him.

the kids miss their Grandpa

the art world has missed something.

Today's Freshness

ahhhh....
a cool front moved through..knocking it down a few degrees and with lower humidity it has made it nice to survey my small garden of Eden.

It has been so hot that Watering 3 times a day was necessary. More so for the plants that are in containers. Which is halve of my garden.

I love to garden...I mean grow food. Sure flowers are nice, but give me something I can eat. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but for me, beauty is in taste.

I have never grown FOOD. I am in WONDERMENT that I can grow stuff I can EAT. Sure, I have always had an Herb garden. There was nothing more liberating then being able to step out my door and pick basil, Italian flat leaf parsley, dill, sage, cilantro, thyme, rosemary.... what ever else I might need for a dish. I felt like I was kind of free from the MAN. I mean, have you checked out prices of fresh Basil at wally world? I was spending easily about 15 bucks a month alone on Fresh BASIL during winter.

When we first thought about how we would garden we did not have much room. Our back yard is the size of a postage stamp with a GINORMOUS tree in the back yard. I think that thing has seen many moons pass. On the side of our house was optimum sun. but we had shrubbery. Well, up it came.

I did not have quite enough room for all of the things I wanted to grow. So containers were a great alternative.

The rest as they say is History.

This leads me to now.

Today's Freshness.





As I pick the okra when it is ready, I go ahead and clean, cut then freeze. I am hoping by turkey time have enough for our tradition of Gumbo Thanksgiving day weekend. We have picked about 2 pounds and had it stewed with homegrown maters. With speckled butter beans, rice and corn bread. Wow..is life ever good!





I am really not sure how big Okra is supposed to get, anytime I have ever bought it home grown from the farmers market it was never this big.



My okra is just grown in containers. I can't help to think how much I would have if it were in the ground with great dirt.




Today we also picked about 2 pints of grape tomato's...




all in all this 3 dollar grape tomato plant growing in a pot has given me at least 12 pints of tomatoes...with more to come it seems. What a money saver. if you buy the sweet grape tomatoes at the store you are spending at least 3 bucks if not more a pint!!




This tomato is my favorite. The bradley.



I really thought it was done. but after putting some compost in there it has had a rebirth, every flower blooms into a fruit now...I am counting down to pick these so I can grab my salt and savour the acidic goodness this tomato has, with a flesh that is tender with no mushiness at all.

WHAT IS IN THE FUTURE?

Eggplant...



cantaloupe..( I planted this from seed, I have at least 6 waiting for the perfect moment to be plucked) Again, just in a container..and I was told Cantaloupe had a low yield and was hard to grow...








what is even more wonderful about our garden. Pesticide free. and no unnatural chemical fertilizer.
here is to fresh eats...