Oh my God! Norm, you are so talented that it's mind-boggling! I was taken aback by the pottery, thinking that was your medium and spent a long time looking at the pieces, not realizing how many photos were below it. My favorites are the pieces on the shelf and the tall piece to the left of the shelf. The large blue one on the table with the cover is really pretty as well; I was told years ago by some potters that blue is a very difficult color to achieve or deal with. I've got a couple of very dark blue pieces and one which shares the color blue of yours. Very, very nice, Norm.
And the gargoyle -- I've been drawn to them for years and even bought some as gifts for people years ago before they got so popular. They were much harder to find back then but it's nice to see so many available in retail settings today. Yours looks very unique and scary -- just what a gargoyle should be! Some of our older buildings here have them, though not many. Some of them must have been created as drains for buildings as water comes down from them when it rains. They always have fascinated me, even as a kid.
The rings you did are very nice as well but I really like your drawings. I'm unsure if the first three are charcoal or pen and ink but they're really quite nice. The facial expressions are all so wonderful and show so much talent. I can only imagine what it feels like to be so talented. All I can do is appreciate others' talents and purchase works I fall in love with (Brian would tell you I fall in love with wayyy too many). It must feel incredible to sit down and create things that are so pretty and that evoke thoughts and feelings in others. Just creating something others admire must be wonderful, too. I was once being shown a photo by the artist herself (a friend of an artist friend of mine) in a gallery and the photo (I call it an "altered photo" as it's not just a straight photo) was so sad that it made me cry. When she saw the tears welling up in my eyes, she started to cry, too. Of course, I had to have it and bought it right then; had to wait until the show was over to pick it up. To this day, probably 13 years after I purchased it, it still occasionally brings tears to my eyes. It's a very very sad image of an angel in our prettiest local cemetery, Metairie Cemetery. It's a life-sized angel leaning her whole body over the edge of a grave weeping. It's just so sad that it made me wonder who was the person whose family paid a fortune (even years ago) to have that angel sculpted and weeping over the loss of their loved one. They must've loved the deceased so much to have that angel be so sad...
I've got to say I've never regretted purchasing a piece of art but I have lots of regrets about pieces I didn't purchase. I still have artwork stashed around the house waiting to be framed. One stunning watercolor (my favorite medium) is waiting at the top of the list but it's pretty big and I want it matted wider than normal so I figure it will cost me a bundle. It's currently poorly matted and covered with plexiglass instead of glass and has some crapola stuck under the plexiglass on top of the matting. My brother recently came to my house and fell in love with it as well. He told me he'd cart it to the framer in his SUV when I'm ready as Brian could barely fit it in the car when he picked it up for me (I bought it from a local Public TV channel's last televised auction of donated art).
I can't thank you enough for going to the trouble of taking those pics and posting them, Norm. I knew you were a retired art teacher and was always curious about what type of medium you worked in. Had no idea that you were sooo talented in so many mediums. Many, many thanks.
--Michelle
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