Monday, September 22, 2008

Bel Air Festival of the Arts...



It was a warm & sunny September day in the ‘Heart of Harford’ County - a perfect day for an Arts Festival. The crowds were large and the food was good (x-rare pit beef on rye w/ horseradish, mustard & pepper…yummm).

The highlights of the day for me were…

Halikarnas Leathers had the most beautiful hand-tooled & braided leather saddle bags I had ever seen. Elizabeth Hay Designs had very elegant, airy, ethereal, eclectic jewelry made with sterling sliver, fresh water pearls & shells. There was also some of the most breathtaking photographs of Provence, France at Madelaine Gray Photography. Madelaine & her husband travel extensively for their art and told me “It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it”.

Most Unique: fusions (fusionsart.com) Glass bottles melted & flattened into wall art or cheese trays! What a way to preserve a special occasion memento.

Eco Favorite: M L Design (MLDesignStudios.com) Woman that ‘recycles’ old sweaters and repurposes them into bags/purses/backpacks using every possible part from sleeves to yokes.

Best In Show: Harmony In Design (silver-fork-jewelry.com) Jim & Lia Harmon of Chase make incredibly unique, one-of-a-kind jewelry from recycled forks! Some are antique, some have semi-precious gem stones set within the tines, others have fossilized shark teeth…all are gorgeous! (These were so special that my very frugal daughter spent over $100 on a bangle style bracelet she just couldn’t walk away from and my mother purchased a ring as well. BTW: this was the only money either of them spent all day!)
It was a good day: I met lots of new artists/craftspeeps, learned a thing or two about France and bottle melting, and did I mention the pit beef???

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Buffett Virgin No More...




If you have lived under a rock, as I must have, the past 30+ years and have never attended a Jimmy Buffett concert__you don’t know what you’re missing!

This is something you absolutely must see to believe. The lengths that these ‘Parrot Heads’ will go to all in the name of their Island God…




First let me begin by saying that fans begin to arrive at the venue around 10AM…for an 8PM show!!!




They come fully costumed in their finest island gear and equipped w/ canopies, coolers, grills and lawn chairs, as well as generators (something has to run the margarita blenders, cooling fans, surround-sound-stereos, and fountains/waterfalls for their portable swimming pools!)




I surely don’t want to underestimate the main event of the day – Jimmy Buffett’s performance was incredible! His vast songbook of hits, plus a little Van Morrison & Bob Dylan thrown in for good measure, rounded out the evening quite well.


(Not to mention that he has never looked better – yea, FG has a great big crush on JB!)