Author Archives: Satin & Sand

Five Beautiful Things for Which I am Grateful…

29 Thursday Dec 2022

Posted by in Art, Five Beautiful Things, Iceland, Reflections, Sheep, watercolor

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© Joan Currie – My sheep watercolor. Loved the Icelandic wool!

I’m glad to be here. I’m glad to be anywhere. – Keith Richards

In the last few days I have been thinking about the many things in 2022 for which I am grateful. The year started off quietly but the latter half was filled with a certain sweetness and gentleness of family connection, some exciting adventures, followed by succumbing to Covid infections.

  1. From the first of the year I made an effort to connect with my loved ones on a daily basis. The compilation of photos on my phone always brought tears to my eyes! New ones popped up every day and my family loved to receive them. I made sure to download the photos they shared with me, and added them to my photo library.
  2. One of my 2022 resolutions was to make time for a daily art practice – even just 20 minutes some days. I discovered new techniques and painting supplies, particularly watercolor. I framed a number of my landscape and animal works for my living room gallery-wall and changed out the pieces frequently.
    I was able to carve out some space in my back studio-shed to begin oil painting this last year. It was very satisfying to embrace the medium of my favorite Masters.
  3. I was very grateful to have made two trips (Reykjavik and Amsterdam) with my youngest daughter. Both places were our ancestral homes and we connected with the people and the landscape in a special way. I loved the coarse texture of the Icelandic wool and brought some skeins and fleece home with me for my knitting and rug hooking projects.
  4. Despite getting vaccinated, several family members and I got Covid this year, but I am glad we got through the course of it, including rebounds, without any longterm effects (so far, so good!).
  5. I remembered the introduction to a soap opera my mother watched years ago called “Days of our Lives.” I revisited the show’s promo, “like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives,” and noticed the sand seemed to be flowing through the glass bulb at an alarming rate! It reinforced how precious time is and looking back this year, I am thankful and fortunate to have spent so much time with people who were loving, kind, curious, and supportive.
Schaap en twee lammeren in een stal by Frans Lebret (Rijksmuseum)

Beautiful Reindeer on Christmas Day!

25 Sunday Dec 2022

Posted by in Art, Christmas, Reindeer, watercolor, Winter

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© Joan Currie – My reindeer watercolor.

We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
And a Happy New Year!
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin;
Good tidings for Christmas
And a Happy New Year!

My best Christmas wishes to you and your loved ones!

Love, Joan xox

Beautiful Winter Solstice…

21 Wednesday Dec 2022

Posted by in Photography, Reflections, Winter, WInter Solstice

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© David Dodds

This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath. – Margaret Atwood

When I was a child our family sometimes had Sunday dinner at my Uncle’s house. We younger children would be banished to the basement, while the adults stayed upstairs, doing whatever adults did at dinner parties.

The unfinished basement was the room of doom for me. In it was the dreaded fruit cellar, consisting of an interminably long and completely black space that I would be dared to enter: the challenge was to touch the end wall deep inside it. While I groped my way along, I had a weird, terrible feeling of being drawn towards something sinister. Because of its malevolent power, and because I had an inner desire to defeat the challenge of evil, I kept to task. When I touched the rough cement wall at the end of the cellar space, I quickly turned back towards the light of the room again with a feeling of utter relief, but even more, the feeling that comes with victory over an unknown terror.

This fall has been fraught with challenges. Sometimes I have had that same feeling of my childhood, of moving into the dark, and yet I know with complete certainty that, in due time and with a certain stalwartness and grittiness, the light will be right there in front of me.

Beautiful Christmas Gift Tags…

18 Sunday Dec 2022

Posted by in Art, Birds, Christmas, Crafts, Reflections

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© Joan Currie. My watercolor birds as gift tags.

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas Day.
Don’t clean it up too quickly.
Andy Rooney

When you are finally cleaning up the mess of ribbons and wrapping paper, be sure to save some of the gift tags. I treasure the ones I have collected since I was a child. My mother loved to use the front of beautiful note cards with images of winter such as those by Cornelius Kriegoff, A. J. Casson, and Roy McMurtry. She had beautiful penmanship and always wrote a sweet note to go along with the present. I especially love the gift tags given to me from my daughters – their early attempts at printing “Mommy” and their names are delightful!

Last year my gift tag theme was Christmas trees, but this year I decided to go with birds. I hope one of my children continues my tradition of not only saving the tags but of creating them as well.

Beautiful Winter Robin…

07 Wednesday Dec 2022

Posted by in Birds, Christmas, Crafts, Poetry, Red, Winter

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© Joan Currie. Christmas Robin needlepoint I stitched.


Winter by Walter de la Mare

Clouded with snow
The cold winds blow,
And shrill on leafless bough
The robin with its burning breast
Alone sings now.

The rayless sun,
Day’s journey done,
Sheds its last ebbing light
On fields in leagues of beauty spread
Unearthly white.

Thick draws the dark,
And spark by spark,
The frost-fires kindle, and soon
Over that sea of frozen foam
Floats the white moon.

I have been noticing robins on the branches of fruit trees on my walks through the neighborhood. Although the robin is usually thought of as a harbinger of spring, the December robin makes a delightful Christmas herald!

Beautiful Wool Blankets…

22 Tuesday Feb 2022

Posted by in Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Relationships, Travel, Wool

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© Joan Currie. My wool blankets – the ones from Ireland and Britain are my favorite!

And you belong right here, where you’re home,
and where I hold you close,
Of all the wonders I’ve ever known,
you’re the one I love the most.
From You Belong Here by M.H. Clark, Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault

There is nothing better than snuggling with you under one of the beautiful blankets from our travels together.

Beautiful Valentine’s Day Red…

14 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by in Art, Domenico del Ghirlandaio, Red, Renaissance, Valentine's Day

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Detail of Old Man with a Young Boy by Domenico del Ghirlandaio

All of my life I’ve pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. It’s exactly as if I’d said, “I want Rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist temple” – they have no idea what I’m talking about. About the best red is to copy the color of a child’s cap in any Renaissance portrait.
-Diana Vreeland

Pursuing my perfect Valentine’s red.

Happy Valentine’s Day! ♥️

Beautiful Winter Thaw…

10 Thursday Feb 2022

Posted by in Daily Life, Photography, Reflections, Winter

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© James Currie – NYC

Like a sudden thaw in the middle of winter, grace happens at unexpected moments. It stops us short, catches the breath, disarms. If we manipulate it, try to control it, somehow earn it, that would not be grace. Yet not everyone has tasted of that amazing grace, and not everyone believes in it.
– Philip Yancey

On my walk today, I felt the warmth of the sun on my back like the reassuring hand of an old friend.