Lynn Ricci's Musings

Columbus Park, North End, Boston Over the last 6 months I have concentrated more on my artwork.  I am not sure where credit is due for this change . . . an unusually harsh winter here in the Boston area, a muse that made me want to be creative, or a high level of stress that called for therapeutic time and to pick up a brush . . . but whatever the reason(s) I am happy to be concentrating on my artwork again!

One of the...

Chatham Fish Market

I read a book once by Peter Mayle, A Year in Provence, and loved one line in the book that went something like: We saw the house in the afternoon, and by dinner we had mentally moved in.  That feeling was something like when I went to Chatham for the first time.  After my first afternoon, I knew this was where I wanted to summer, own a cottage, and it became in a blink of an eye my "happy place".

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A dear old friend did something incredibly nice for me.  They wouldn't let me help pay, waving their hand to shoo away the idea like a bothersome fly.  "I am happy to do this, I don't need the money", my friend said in their very generous way.  And so it was done.  But was it?  I didn't feel so, especially when they followed up with another generous offer of tickets for my two boys and me for a sporting event - and we Bostonians love our sports.  Great seats, great time.  Now I really wondered how could I...

I take breaks from painting - not by choice, but due to life.  I work, have a family, am a single parent, and I have other commitments and things I am involved with.  There are weekends that start off where I look at my canvas, excited to get started and I think, I will just get the laundry started and then get started, or I should go shopping first and start this afternoon, or the phone rings and company is on the way . . . and before I know it its Sunday night.  Life. [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="360"]

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." - Pablo Picasso

When I was a child, I liked to draw.  I would copy anything that I saw: pictures on a lunchbox, a scene in a magazine, animated characters from comic books or MAD Magazine.  As I got a little older, I would get up very early on Saturday mornings and draw along with Captain Bob (You need to be from the Boston area and of a certain age to remember Captain Bob). My teachers were never happy with...