So, my favorite small people, it is now summer break, yes? Tell Auntie Paula what you did yesterday. I remember summer break days being so amazing…but then again, the last time I had one was a long, long time ago, so maybe my memory has gone faulty!
Today at work we had a fun event to celebrate the start of the World Cup Soccer tournament, which my company is a sponsor of. I got to have my picture taken with the mascot, who I think is an armadillo. I don’t have the photo back yet, but will send it when I do! I also got to kick soccer balls (mine go nice and straight but I wasn’t able to get them up off the ground to go through a hole to win a prize) and I ran a race against my co-workers (this is also not one of my talents, but it was pretty fun). Definitely better than my normal lunch hour!
For this week’s artist I chose Suzanne Valadon. Not necessarily because she’s a great artist, but because she’s just pretty awesome. Her most well known piece is probably “reclining nude” which is, as the name suggests, a naked lady… but she’s on a really ugly couch. It was a bit scandalous in its’ time, especially for a woman to be painting a naked lady…but all I can think is “Dang, that is one UGLY couch”. I do like her flower paintings, though – lots of bright color and busy patterns.
BUT…in addition to being an artist, Suzanne was also painted by some of the most famous artists of her time (she lived in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s).
This is her, painted by Toulouse-Lautrec (the first two) and Renoir (the second two). I love them all, but the dancing one is my favorite; look at that amazing dress!!
Suzanne was a free spirit; she wore a corsage made of carrots instead of flowers, kept a goat at her studio to "eat up her bad drawings", and fed caviar (really expensive, fancy fish eggs) to her "good Catholic" cats on Fridays (Catholic people don’t eat meat on Fridays). So she was definitely an eccentric person, she had very interesting friends, and I think she was pretty awesome!
That’s it for now, know that I love you and think that you are also totally awesome.
Hugs and kisses,
Auntie Paula
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