Some years ago my very good friend, Karen Stone, showed me some of the wonderful paintings in her house. As I was ooohing and ahhhing, she told me that they came from antique stores and garage sales. They weren't 'Art' with a capital 'A'. They were paintings that had been painted by someone and that ended up owner-less, discarded. The thing is that she loved them (and so did I).

Since then I've bought a variety of discarded art paintings myself. This was my first one:

(FYI – click on any image and it should open up larger.)

I absolutely love this painting. I took it to Kim and Neva at The Frame Team here in Sherman – the best picture framers I have ever met. Both of them are incredibly good at choosing the right frame for any project. What you see on this painting is a liner frame in green with a wider, cherry-colored outer frame. Perfect.

Neva and Kim have, over the years, collected similar works. They have a good eye and they get out more than I do. I was in their shop this week and had a chance to see, and photograph, these…

The sailboat painting on the left is calling me. And then there are these…

Look at the cow up close. Goodness gracious, I LOVE this cow (and I don't like cows all that much). The problem is that I have run out of walls!

FYI: Kim and Neva have an etsy shop (click here) where you can see much of what they have collected and have for sale. 

I recently bought one of their finds that we titled Nuclear Sunrise (this was before the cow came in, so to speak). I love it because of the colors in it. It is perfect in the spot above this green cabinet, which lives behind a door in our bedroom. We went with a smaller, less expensive frame for this one. It's a deep violet/raspberry that is really good with the colors in the painting.

It's not a painting I see all the time, but it's an interesting surprise when I happen to be in a spot to see it. 

I could show you more of Kim and Neva's collection here but it's probably eaiser for you to go to their etsy pages. 

So back to the original question: Art or art? When I go to a museum and look at the art, I sometimes ask myself: If this was in a garage sale, would I buy it? Many expensive and respected works do not, for me, pass this test. Once I took that to heart, I find it much easier to find works that I love in the most unusual places.

I've also found that I have much more of a sense of the artist in these discarded paintings. Someone felt the need to express her or himself and they just did it, most likely without classes or training. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but that feeling of the artist is a large part of what makes these pieces more special to me.

The same thing is true in quilts. I find that I am personally very attracted to quirky quilts – and I am looking forward to working more quirkiness into my own quilts in the future. 

NOTE: if you go to Neva and Kim's etsy page, and if you fall in love with something but don't live here and you want it framed… if you do not have a good option where you live I can attest to the fact that they can choose the perfect frame for any of these pieces.

Judy sent me a detail shot and more info. It's pretty interesting! She says:

"Just wanted to give you a follow-up on the church door. The heads represent the 6 bishops of Ljubljana overlooking the body of Christ. The shiny knob is the result of thousands of hands entering the church and "rubbing it shiny". I'm sending a different view to show it a little better. "

Interesting, indeed. You should be able to click the photo and see it larger.

Now I'm going to reveal the practical part of myself. Perhaps it's because I live in Texas where any standing water = mosquitos. Mosquitos that could carry West Nile virus which no one wants. I look at the large vessel in the lower right (an amphora if I'm not mistaken) and the bishops' miters (hats) and I wonder if they were designed in such a way as to not collect water. I can't help myself – I'm spending at least as much time wondering about the water as I am about the story that is being depicted. Does anyone else ever wonder about this sort of thing? 

Yes, they are. Judy Liebo sent this picture of a door that is on a church in Ljubljana. She says that while it isn't from Italy, she couldn't resist sending it to me. Thank you, Judy – this is a really interesting door!

It's fascinating, don't you think? I wonder of the average person, back when this door was new, had any idea of what it depicted. (I've had a lot of art history and should know the answer to that, but I don't.)

I also wonder if the shiny brass doorknob is original equipment? It looks out of place.

These came in from Mary Lines. This is from Notre Dame in Paris…

I have stood in that same spot and I must say that these are indeed marvelous doors. I need to comb through my own Paris door photos…

And these are photos she took in Amsterdam…

My mom needs brass plates at the bottom of her back door like these. Taz, the 8 lb wonder-Yorkie, is scratching the life out of the bottom of her door.

Today the final touches were put on the remodel at Chris and Lorna's. I admit that I allowed some mission creep. I could not call the job finished without replacing an awful window over the kitchen sink that overlooks the newly remodeled side deck. And the boards on the side and back decks were really slick when wet and needed to be made safer. 

I read an op-ed piece last week that I can't find to link to now, but in it the author was lamenting the loss of craftsmanship. As I remember it, he said that we used to be a nation of tool users and now – not so much. I suspect that that is correct and that most of you have never replaced a window. So here's a quick look at what we did.

The old windows (and there are 9 more that I am ignoring) are single-pane aluminum windows with an additional aluminum storm window. This is a different window but they all look like this.

Taking out the old window was slow and sort of hard. The storm window came off more easily once Steve figured out where all of the screws were. The inside window was another story. After nearly an hour I finally googled it. What little I found suggested breaking the glass and cutting the aluminum which is what we ended up doing. I was too busy trying to be helpful to take photos. (Did I mention that it's even hotter now?)

We never did figure out how the original installers put the old window in. It made no sense. But eventually we took the bits apart enough to find all the screws. We ended up having to remove most of the wood that the old window had been attached to. 

The new window came with flanges that, as it turns out, were never going to fit in the opening. Luckily they were vinyl and Steve cut off what needed to be removed. He screwed the window into the opening through window casing. Then I filled in the gaps between the window and walls with foam insulation.

And a detail…

That was Friday. Saturday we went back to trim the window, inside and out. I don't know if you ever think about what lies under the trim/moulding in your house but it's often kind of ugly. Trim helps a whole lot! And caulk to fill the gaps doesn't hurt either.

We decided that the two decks needed to have a gritty finish on them to keep us all from slipping. I went to Lowe's and found out the oil-based porch paint sprinkled with some stuff that looks a lot like fine salt is what was called for. Steve power-washed both decks several days ago and they were dry enough today to paint.

Back deck before:

and after…

It's a surprisingly calm, almost boring color which keeps the focus on the door and wall colors. 

Here's the side deck, before:

and after… 

It takes oil-based paint 2 days to dry so I don't know yet if the gritty stuff is gritty enough but I do hope so. I painted the trim on the new window this morning too. None of this painting took that long and it makes such a difference in the way the area looks. 

So that's it – mission accomplished! Now I'm going back to choosing fabric for the 2nd door quilt.