Process: The Memory Filter

Here are three of the steps in making the painting, The Memory Filter.
I laid down paint from the tubes in artrage, used a pallet knife to
spread them, layered them over yellow material and a pattern, and
added a juvenalia self portrait.

Process, Grad Predjama

Here's the Artrage screen and the process of making the painting on
the computer.

Predjama Castle, unfinished

I've been painting this all day but it is not done yet.

It's from a photo taken in Slovenia last June.

If you click on the image , you can see a larger version of it and thus see the details.

Not Lasagna

A brand new poem, written in a plain voice.

Not Lasagna

When my mother married an Italian, she had never
eaten lasagna. My father had never eaten a turnip.
My mother ate turnips and Irish stew.  She took cooking
lessons from Nicolina, who spoke a difficult English.
My mother learned how to make lasagna.  And pizza,
which back then was thick and had on it whatever
was left in the icebox.  About then, I came along, 
to Irish stew and fat pizza.  Grandma taught Mom
to make stuffed shells.  Manicotti.  And "gloves,"
cookies draped over the hand and deep fried.  My mother
and I learned a few words of Italian.  My grandmother's
English got a little better.  She was fat, always wore
an apron and smelled like squished tomato worm
caterpillars.  Wore hair braided over her head. 
Grew tomatoes, peas, pole beans, and eggplants. 
Didn't have much lap for me.  Too much belly. But she was soft
and made me cookies, farina with skin and girlie clothes
which I always hated.  I was a tomboy.  She cooked octopus,
too, which tasted like lasagna but was chewy as a rubber ball.
We all learned to make stuffed eggplant.  My mother
became famous for her lasagna, and then, so did I. 
And my manicotti.  OH!  My manicotti.  But I got sick, allergic
to cheese.  No more lasagna or manicotti.  I traded octopus
for squid.  Squid is tender, like my Grandma and my Mom.
I'm not tender.  I guess I'm a turnip.  I don't eat them,
but the man I married likes turnips.  Full circle.

Mary Stebbins Taitt,
080910-1047-1

When I am ready with it, I hope to submit it to Forklift Ohio, www.forkliftohio.com
Please visit me at my daily photo blog, my art blog, or my personal blog.  I also have a poetry blog.