Counting Blessings

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artivive, augmented reality, Domenica & Amelia, Lisa Brunetti art, Museo Portoviejo, portoviejo ecuador, step into my world

Portoviejo Ecuador

Domenica & Amelia – Traitor

(Olivia Rodrigo Cover)

3,000+ views in 20 hours! Not bad for a cold start from the middle of the world!

Meet my friend Shadia’s beautiful and multi-talented niece (Amelia) and her friend Domenica.   Pass the link and help their YouTube view counter soar to the stars! (It’s already soaring without anyone’s help – just their God-given talents and beautiful energies!)

Domenica & Amelia
Voz: Ameilia Mendoza Safady
Guitarra: Domenica Zapata Duenas
Disenadora de Vestuario: Rima Safady Darwiche

Her mother (Rima, who is also a culinary artist and describes herslf as an ovarian cancer warrior) has designed some amazing evening wear, so her name on the video credits as dress designer was no surprise to me.  Peek at her instagram posts: rimasafadyatelier  https://www.instagram.com/rimasafadyatelier/

The gown on the far right is Rima’s design.

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Rima’s facebook page features another friend’s daughter wearing a stunning design in a short video:

https://web.facebook.com/rimasafadyatelier/videos/404249270133137/

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Thanksgiving Eve/2021

My dear friends,

The above just-released video makes my heart smile.  When my friend Dady sent the link, I thought I was watching a Grammy-worthy artist in her latest video.  Dady said, ‘No, that’s Shadia’s niece – the artist that you met…’ and my mouth remained agape in wonder.   Wow.  Just wow, and I deciphered the location – I think – at nearby Jardin Botanico, where visitors are cocooned in a thriving ecosystem.

The park remains closed during this Covid era, but with advanced notice, one can obtain entrance for birding or special photo (or video) sessions.  Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you can take a quiet stroll through the park right now:

Orchestrated Timelines?

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Grey-backed Hawk, Museo Portoviejo, Nomadas en Manabi

Museo Portoviejo sponsors and encourages the arts. (Image from 2012)

El Ministerio de Cultura y Patrimonio
a traves del Museo Portoviejo y Archivo Historico
(Portoviejo Ecuador)
Invita a la inauguracion de la exposicion
NOMADAS EN MANABI
Expositores:
Sigrid Tidmore (Estados Unidos)
Alfonso Endara (Quito)
Crystal Hayes (Canada)
Lisa Brunetti (Estados Unidos)
Yuliana Shevchuk (Rusia)
Abigail Herrera (Venezuela)
………
Direccion: Calle Olmedo entre Sucre y Cordova (Edificio la Previsora)
Fecha: Agosto 15 de 2018
Hora: 19h30
(05) 2652235 – 2652279
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“

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once. ” – Albert Einstein

When one steps into a gallery or museum, they probably don’t think about the stories behind the paintings. Painting can be hard work, especially when ‘the good brushes’ no longer hold a point, and locally-purchased new ones make poor replacements. It is difficult to ‘nail’ the snippet of light on a bird’s eye or sign one’s name when using a brush that flares at the point! Even one AWOL hair on that brush will leave its renegade signature where it doesn’t belong!  Aside from my friends and family in the USA, I also miss the convenience of buying my favorite art supplies!

Painting for me is easy when compared to the next step of matting and framing those works – and having places to store the paintings. There are no ‘Michaels’ or ‘Fads and Frames’ that offer good quality brushes, paints, mats, ready-made or custom-made frames. The larger cities have better options, but what if those cities are hours and hours away? Over the years I’ve adapted, and now use thin plywood as ‘mats,’ which I sand and paint. Just like selecting custom mats at a frame shop, I usually draw and hand paint those windows; when the paint is dry, the original is carefully taped in place.

Ready to paint that window!

“Tres Toucanes”

Because many panes of glass have broken over the years (ha, and in earthquakes!) I now use very-thick clear plastic, which protects the paintings from dust and fingerprints. The curious public can sometimes damage a drawing or painting by touching it…

Ugh; I often forget to photograph the work until it’s beneath the plastic.!

Frames are made by local carpenters; I dole out the requests a few at a time, and almost always they are ready when promised.

What Happened to Google Earth?

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ecuador butterflies, google map where are the images in google maps, Lisa Brunetti art, Museo Portoviejo

Google Earth has sent ‘congratulations’ notices to say that a few of my images – like this one of Poza Honda – were very popular.

Poza Honda/ManabiProvince Ecuador – Have any of you ever added images to Google Earth-Maps?   It’s always been interesting to peruse those images and explore areas that we know well or to ‘cyber travel’ to new destinations without leaving home!  The Satellite Image option helped me fine-tune my search for a new place to live, and reference images were very helpful.

This past week on Google Earth, I entered some GPS points for where I live –  before passing them along for scientific reasons; almost immediately I hit a glitch.  I could not find a place to type the coordinates.  Perhaps that option is somewhere on the page, but I did not find it.     Next I looked for my pinned images, and they were gone!  In fact, there were no pinned images to anything on the map.  Towns and places of interest were marked by name only.  The letters were small and difficult to see – and my laptop has a large screen!

Google Chrome browser… note how tiny the bottom right options appear. That’s where one finds the photo options.

Eventually I found the image option, which on my windows browser showed in a long horizontal strip at the bottom of the page.   There were photos from different areas, and mine could not be accessed until scrolling east on the map, leaving the house site out of view.  After I selected and enlarged one of my ‘popular’ images, a little arrow-type bar zipped from the photo and pointed into the middle of the lake!  Ha, I had to laugh – it was several kilometers from the right location and was obviously submerged at the bottom of the reservoir!

Opera browser provided slightly-easier to view options.

The Dec 3rd earthquake, which rattled the house for almost a minute, must have nudged this particular GPS point into the lake!

Unable to drag it back in place via the old system that worked well, I opened a new window and did a search which took me to a Google Earth/Maps forum.  Oh my, demons must have firmly attached themselves to those who make decisions for Google Earth/Maps, and they have made a lovely mess of what was once a well-managed site.

I moved to another quadrant that I know well – the area around Jama, and I remembered that someone had posted a picture of a Royal Poinciana/Flamboyant.  I was curious to see if it still marked the correct spot.  In real life, the tree was within view of where I once lived near the mouth of Rio Jama.

Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia)still stands, though the nearby farmhouse was destroyed in the April 16, 2016 earthquake.

Flamboyant/Royal Poinciana paired with the Green Kingfisher for a great photo op –  The rear balcony of Casa Loca. 2013

There were zero photos of that area, but there were new ones from 2018 of the community of La Division.   Checking various photos in the town a few kilometers inland, I discovered that the lovely flaming Poinciana tree had been magically transplanted to Jama!  (Jama, still recovering from the earthquake, could actually use several dozen of those lovely trees!)

Timeout for Art: A Species of Writing

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art therapy, Museo Portoviejo, Pencil drawing, transferring tension to art

Student Exercise Sheets – (10 samples)

“Drawing is the artist’s most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing;  it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality.”  (Edgar Degas)

This time last year (July 2012) many students toured the Mola Series exhibit at the Portoviejo (Manabi/Ecuador) Museum. The director of the museum said that a group of girls would be visiting the museum and asked if they could tour the exhibit. She said that the girls had ‘problemas.’   Some came from abusive homes, one was pregnant, and they all deserved some positive experiences. I suggested that we buy pencils and paper and give them a quick drawing class!

Zeebra’s 2012 In Pictures

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2012 in Pictures, Don Koen, Flooding in Manabi Ecuador, Hand-painted concrete floors, Light Post Painting in Jama El Matal, Lisa Brunetti, museo bahia de caraquez, Museo Cancebi, Museo Portoviejo, Peace March, The Mola Series, Wear White for Peace, WordPress Photo Challeng My 2012 in Pictures, zeebra art

Reflecting on a twelve-month journey through WordPress.

WordPress tossed us a tempting challenge for this end-of-the year photo challenge.   With pleasure, I present some of the highlights of 2012.

This amazing tree was felled this past year.

The Magnificent Ceibos  Read about Ecuador’s amazing ceibo trees, cousins to the ceiba that grows in other parts of the tropical world.

Counting Blessings

Tags

art therapy, Lisa Brunetti, Museo Portoviejo, working with troubled teens

On Wednesday, a group of teen/preteen girls visited the museum;  Jacqueline, the director of the museum, warned me that the girls were ‘troubled,’ and she was unsure what to expect.

Showtime: Museo Portoviejo

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Acrylics, Lisa Brunetti, Museo Portoviejo, Series de Mola, The Mola Series, Watercolors

Paparazzi!

(PORTOVIEJO ECUADOR)  Preparing for this second show of the Mola Series should have been a simple task, but—!  It’s not that things went wrong; just that things didn’t flow the way they were planned!

Showtime: The Mola Series – Portoviejo Ecuador

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Lisa Brunetti, Museo Portoviejo, The Mola Series

Enclosed are random images from the past week.  Tonight’s showtime #2 for the Mola Series!  Z