EARTH ANGELS: Down on the Farm

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Down on the Farm

Diana Card says she always knew that her daughter would be an artist. I am just not at all sure she foresaw she and Deirdre painting together on the family farm – each with their studio in the barn…

Here they are, Diana and her daughter you know as the creator of Blackbird Design, Earth Angels' artists Deirdre Friebely.

Diana works in the large interior studio and next to the hayloft with soft light coming in the east door. Deirdre is stationed in the old milk shed her Grandfather used for eons (in my next post I will share images of Deirdre’s space).

They meet for tea in her studio, take their breaks with the cows and the dogs and inspire each other in their work. Last Friday we shared in their day.

Diana grew up in rural Sussex, NJ on a street now named for her family; they farmed the area for generations. She was the 7th born of 11 children and the first girl after 6 brothers. I looked at a picture of Diana as a little girl on a tractor…she looks the same! She is about as comfortable on a farm as anyone I’ve seen.

Now, years later, after raising her children in Maine, she's back in Sussex living just down the road from her childhood home, one farm that has been in her husband’s family for what seems like forever.Her cows roams the grassy hills behind the barn and she watches them while she paints, taking a break to putter about the barn with the incessant chores old buildings can bring. The main farmhouse sits awaiting a renovation, but in the meantime...

Diana works deftly on booth board and canvas in her fabulous and well-recognized style. I keep begging her to let me sell her works…but with her waiting list, there just never seems to be enough! She promises that there will be…someday. In the meantime, I will content myself with a visit to her studio again in September.

I'll be going back to pick up the old farmhouse’s screen doors; she’s hingeing them together as display for her pal Leslie McCabe’s work to be shown in the Earth Angels Artist Showcase Tent at the Country Living Fair…