Hold me close, keep me warm

It is the time of year here to pull out the warm clothes, and/or find someone cozy to snuggle up with. And it is the time I am most busy with my children. But I am working on a new “purple” series, in hopes of getting into a show next month. For the background of this, I rubbed some coffee into a piece of parchment paper. For the purple, I scanned in my favorite purple shirt from the 1980’s. I have been parting with a lot of old clutter lately, in an attempt to get the house looking more civilized, but I will NEVER part with my purple shirt!

Have a beautiful day, everyone!

~Shelley

The Hermit of Babel

I thought I would show you some of the visitors in my new gallery, in the flower corner…

Strange, isn’t it, in 95% of the photos, it is Kevin who is on them smiling, and not me, as if HE were the artist! And in fact it is him, also, who tells the people about me and my art.

And honestly: I am glad he does, as I am not at all a person who enjoys speaking about herself. Yesterday evening, I was asked by this English lady if I also speak Spanish. I had no time to answer, Kevin was already saying:

Oh yes, fluently… she speaks everything, French, German, Spanish, English, Russian…”

I didn’t add anything but I was thinking:

“Yes, I speak every language, but I don’t say one word!”

By Miki

Miki Sent Me a Card! :-)

Yesterday I had a lovely surprise in my mailbox. Miki sent me one of her cards with a Watercolour scene of Portugal. The colours are so rich! The monitor doesn’t really do the card justice.

Thank You, Miki and Kev!

by Bonny

Seasons in the Park

    The season has been changing here in the NorthWest. The days are becoming shorter and the temperatures are dropping.

   Last Sunday Rob and I needed a break from weekend work, so we grabbed our cameras and headed for our city park. Beacon Hill Park was almost deserted wen we arrived late in the afternoon.  The trees have definitely changed their wardrobes to brighter hues. It’s a reminder that their job of photosynthesis for the trees is nearly done for another year. We get to see their final splendour before the keaves begin to fall.

  The bench is mostly vacant now. Too cool too sit still for long. Soon, it will be time to look for those scarves and mittens!

If it weren’t for caffeine…

My dearest Cafe Creamers,

perhaps you remember that many months ago our wonderful friend Susan Cornelis, knowing how much I love beautiful coffee cups, sent me to Spain the most fantastic cup I have ever seen. And how she, some weeks later, as a thanks for the music he created to her art video, sent to Kevin another fantastic coffee cup from the same designer.

2 weeks ago I painted both cups together for Cafe Crem – yeah, not even our cups can exist without each other  -  and well, until now, I could not find time to show you the painting. But here they are, now

And… I have decided to exhibit this painting in my new gallery, and below, that, in honour to our great Cafe Crem, little  prints of some other coffee cups paintings I made for Cafe Crem. Today we had the first official visitor to the new gallery, and before she arrived, I had a coffee in Susan’s cup…

by Miki

Lazing on a Sunday afternoon….

OR: Coffee and Music by the sea, Mojacar style!

Kev caught avoiding working

Sunday afternoon saw Miki and I taking a break from finishing the Art Gallery and heading down to Tito’s on Mojacar playa where my good friend Clive Sarstedt was performing his weekly gig, aided by Maurice, a Madagascan by birth, and a long-time Mojacar resident.

Pop historians amongst you may remember Clive as Robin Sarstedt, who climbed to Number 3 in the UK charts in the mid-70’s with “My resistance is low”. He’s had a long career in the business, firstly under the name Wes sands, when he was produced by the legendary Joe Meek. He also recorded some of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s first songs under the same name. All his early stuff is featured on CD anthologys commemorating Lloyd Weber and Meek.

Clive is one of three singing brothers, the eldest being Eden Kane, who enjoyed a string of Top 5 hits in the early 60’s and went on to feature in lavish shows in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, eventually appearing on the screen regularly in several of the Star trek franchises.

Clive’s other brother, Peter Sarstedt, is responsible for writing and performing the worldwide hit “Where do you go to my lovely” – and indeed Clive liberally laces his repertoire with both his own and Peter’s classic compositions.

It’s a real treat to go down to Tito’s – run by ex-Californian Tito – and watch my mate work his magic. I have been known to get up and join him, but today, me and Miki were just chillin’ – leaning on the bar drinking my latte!

…and as you can see, both old AND young were enthralled!

Can I play the spoons, Clive?

Kev Moore

Too Funny!

Just had to share this with you all…

It’s from ‘LOL Cats’ at Icanhazcheeseburger.com

Enjoy!

Bonny

Phil in My Blanks

Today I want to tell you a story. Some months ago I stumbled on the net upon a cute, tiny little man, responding to the gigantic name of  “Harold Lawrence Windcrampe”. I spontaneously felt a big emotion for Harold, and believe me, if I could, I would have grasped hold of him and put him into my pocket. But well, the net is great, but still a dream world somehow, you can’t grasp what you see.

Anyway…

I entered the World of his Secret Thoughts (mainly “Sigh”…)  and found out who his father was. A certain Phil from Syracuse, N.Y., U.S.A. An artist. And what a one! What a talent, what a technique and what a humour!

And, perhaps even more important for me, WHAT A HEART!

I found out that Phil sold some of his self-made comics, and badges. I ordered some, paid with Paypal, but I made a mistake in the name and he did not get my money. An embarrassing situation for him, I guess, and I felt very sorry. I sent the money a second time, and he replied to me, saying that he felt so bad for me that he would add some more stuff in the package.

Some time later, a gigantic envelope arrived, filled with much more things than I had ordered. Of course the post costs had been much higher than planned, but Phil didn’t care. I must say that I have seldom experienced such generosity from a stranger, and I was deeply touched in my heart.

Have a look at his site, and you will see what I mean. Everything Phil draws is full of humour and kindness!

Today, weeks later, thinking of him again, I  had an idea. In my new gallery there is a room where, as soon as the gallery is finished, I will spend my days making art there. Originally I wanted to cover the walls with my paintings too, as part of the gallery. But today I decided that I will cover the walls with art from my friends all around the world. And of course I will start with Phil. So I put some of his art together in a frame, Kevin wrote his website on the frame, and this frame will hang there tomorrow.

And now to my further idea. Last week I got some art work too from my dearest friend Susan Cornelis, and I will make the same as I did with Phil’s work.

So, now, if YOU who are visiting my blog, are an artist and want to be featured in my new gallery in Spain, with your website, your blog, or whatever on the net, then ask me my address and  just send me a little something nice, which I can frame in the form you can see on the photo above. It can be one or more prints, postcards of your art, etc.   it must just look nice! And I promise, for each of you who will be featured in my gallery, I will make a post here, showing what you sent to me. And, of course, show your art to my real world gallery visitors.

I am very excited about this idea. I hope you will be too!

So please, following Phil’s example

PHIL IN MY BLANKS!

by Miki

Post from Canada, Hurrah!

Yesterday we had a great surprise in our mailbox: 2 postcards from Canada!

And do you know who sent them to us?

Our Bonny from Cafe Crem!

We were both very emotional about it, it was such an incredible feeling to have in our hands “real” post from Bonny, to imagine her writing the cards, sticking the stamps, throwing them in the mail box.. and all that for us! I won’t tell you what she concretely wrote to us, but let me at least tell you that these were very lovely and interesting words.

Thank you so much Bonny, for your kindness and generosity!

By the way, I remember having felt something similar as I got my first real post from Susan, about one year ago now… to make the step towards each other, from virtual world into the real world, is always a gigantic step. I hope that we all, Cafe Cremers, will make this step towards each other with time passing by,

in one way or the other…

Have a nice weekend!

By Miki

The Pasty Shack

Kev enjoys a coffee in The Pasty Shack, Turre

As our little town of Turre grows, new bars, cafes and businesses are appearing here and there, some Spanish, some English, all trying to “make it” out here in the sun. Our main street is a constantly changing parade of interesting outlets trying to cater to the community and make a few euros, from Second-hand furniture to DVD rentals, D.I.Y. stores to beauty parlours. Halfway up, there is a little place called The Pasty Shack. As its name suggests, it specialises in that delicacy peculiar to South-West England, The Cornish pasty -but that’s not all they make, We have found our one-stop shop for fresh bread and chocolate eclairs!!

I started calling in there recently after searching for some decent bread. The local Spanish supermarket here in Turre doesn’t really sell the best bread, so I was forced to look around. Stumbling upon this cheery bakery/cafe with its inviting lemon interior was a delight.

Particularly so , when, one afternoon, I was a little late in looking for bread. I wandered in and found their shelves empty, but the owner, seeing the forlorn look of abject hunger on my face said:

“We’ll bake you some fresh if you can wait 10 minutes!”

Well, that was music to my ears, such friendly and accomodating service – I told them I’d sit and enjoy a coffee while I waited. When the bread arrived at my table, hot and delicious, it was all I could do not to eat it up before returning home to Miki! It came in a beautifully designed paper bag which I think fits right in with our Cafe Crem ethos perfectly! (You can see it within the photo here)

The more eagle-eyed amongst you will also perhaps notice Miki’s painting on the left hand wall. It’s there by the grace of computer graphics just now – but – after speaking with the owners, we will be exhibiting a series of Miki’s coffee cup paintings which she had specially created for our Cafe Crem, for real on their walls.  The Pasty Shack are quite happy about it, and needless to say, so are we!

You can visit their brand new website HERE.

Kev Moore