With our patio project completed, my husband and I were more than encouraged to spruce up the rest of the yard behind our house. This is, more or less, a work in progress but we have made significant strides. The final intent of the space as a whole goes well beyond it being a rather lovely outdoor area to relax and entertain. Once it is completed in its entirety, it will be The Slate Garden Gallery, providing an ever-changing, but permanent outdoor display of some of my original, traditional media artwork.

Our View: The Slate Garden Gallery: Before

View of The Slate Garden Gallery itself, before and during cleaning and construction.

My husband, being an ardent collector of junk, previously used our lawn and garden area as his staging area for many of the outdoor tools and odd or over-sized auction finds. The ornamental fireplace, that you see against the garage towards the right of the photo, was original to the house, created by the original contractor from poured concrete sometime during the 1930s. Because of its history, my husband chose to keep it. The issue was that it weighs about 450 lbs between the docorative facing and the "firebox". This is the real reason why it was allowed to languish against the garage for the 3 summers since it was removed from my living room - No one wanted to move it. As it was on Saturday, DC and I got up our gumption and carefully removed it to the basement.

Our View: The Tomato Garden: Before

View of The Tomato Garden, before and during cleaning and construction.

With the strange weather we had during mid-May, the family obligations and events, and the substantial patio project that we had undertaken, the garden area itself was allowed to lay fallow. As usual when presented with any flat empty space, my husband started accumulating various leftover construction materials in the garden next to the shed. It did not take much to convince him that this area should also be cleaned up, given that he is very anxious to invite friends and family to enjoy the fruits of our labor on the patio.

It took the entire weekend, from sun-up to sundown, but I am happy to share our substantial amount of progress with you.

The Slate Garden Gallery as seen from the street

The Slate Garden Gallery, spruced & ready for artistic development, as seen from the rear of the house.

Our plans going forward...
We live about 15-20 miles south of Pennsylvania's Slate Belt, making the material readily available and virtually cost free. Slate comes in an interesting variety of colors and varigations and it makes a texturally interesting substrate. With this in mind, I am currently collecting slate canvases of various sizes to paint with portraits of people, flowers, illustrations, etc. Another large-scale outdoor work will be hung in the center of the exposed wall of the garage.

The Tomato Garden, planted with the artwork in progress.

Check out this post for more details on "Pluckin' Joyful" which is currently being developed in the Tomato Garden.

The shed the Don built from the ground - up.

This shed, built by my husband from the ground - up, covers the entrance to the basement and provides ample storage for the garbage and recycling cans as well as the garden tools and equipment. The slab foundation is poured concrete and it was during this phase of construction that our lawn was all but destroyed by a truck load of concrete, wheel barrows full of cement, and 3 men in very heavy work boots.

05/24/2008: DC cleaned and the stripped the cement patio. I am going to paint it today.

He completed the frame construction and primed it by the end of the summer in 2007. realizing the white, while it matches the woodwork of the house, was way too bright, we opted to paint it this slate-blue sort of color. It coordinates well - I think.

View of the patio from the center of the space.

The Slate Garden Gallery and patio as seen from the rear of the house

The finished piece: 48" wide by 24" high. Acrylic on plywood. Signed & Sealed

06/25/2008

06/25/2008: Ginger Glass: Color blocked and ready to be hung for finishing and refinement

GingerGlass hung in place. I lost perspective of face. She's too cartoony. Will fix and finish today

You can read more about the development of GingerGlass, Queen of the Slate Garden Gallery in this post. Stay tuned for updates.

After a few setbacks in completing Ms. Ginger Glass, the work was stripped and revised between Friday, 06/26/2008 and noon today, 06/29/2008. He is the new and improved version, sceduled to be sealed with clear acrylic top coat as soon as the humidity breaks

06/29/2008: After many challenges Ginger Glass is finally complete - all 96 by 48 inches of her.

Ginger Glass as seen from the street

Refreshed vintage lawn chairs and two more panels of outdoor work have been added to the gallery.

I'm so happy to report that we are almost there and this entire project will soon be considered complete! Thanks so much to all of you, my SugarBuds, for being part of it. Your encouraging comments and continued interest has provided much of the fuel, encouraging our resolve, in getting this done.

Much love to all of you,

Haze

PS to Anyone Interested:
The car that you see in the driveway, in front of the garage, is my Little Black Corvair. He is a fully restored 1961 Corvair Monza 900 and my daily driver. I do love him. Yes I do - that Little Black Corvair In All of His Cuteness. I don't think I've ever had a car that I loved so much.