PJ's Studio: August 2025

Sunday, August 31, 2025

Amherst Roof Garden 4

For a decade I lavished love and care on the Amherst roof garden.

So. I am surprised that I haven’t posted more photos of it.

I can’t take all the credit for its beauty. I rounded up lots of volunteers from the building to help out.

We started with perennials. (They come up every year.)

Roses for the sunniest spot.

(Irises share the boxes with the roses since they come up first.)

Clematis for the trellis.

And hydrangeas,

and Rose of Sharon for summer blooming.

Then we threw in some annuals for good measure. 😊

Here are the previous blogs…

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2012/02/amherst-roses.html

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2016/06/bearded-irises-2.html

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2019/06/amherst-roof-garden.html

Ciao

Sunday, August 24, 2025

Transformer fire on First Avenue

On August 21, 2025 at about 9:30 am I noticed the lights in our apartment were flickering.

When I looked out the window, I saw a fire engine below and when I looked south, I saw why. Yikes.

Sadly, transformer fires are fairly common in New York these days. Our infrastructure is old.

But this particular corner received plenty of attention during the construction of the second avenue subway, so I was surprised to hear that tree roots had wrapped around the wires.

Here are some photos of that construction. But I realize now that they are 13 years old. So, the root problem makes a bit more sense. Still, I wonder if it was the deluge the night before that caused the fire.

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2012/06/second-avenue-subway-part-1.html

Here’s another blog about the construction.

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2012/06/2nd-avenue-subway-part-2.html

As I mentioned the FDNY was on the scene in no time.

But as it turns out, the fire department is not allowed to do anything until Con Ed arrives. That’s probably a good idea. There might be stuff down there that does not react well to water.

At 12:30 pm we were informed that our power would be turned off so repairs could proceed and might not be restored for 24 hours or more.

I’m not sure why we didn’t head to a hotel like our smarter neighbors, but we had water and candles, so we decided to hang in there.

When we lost our water at 8:00 pm I realized that we had probably made a mistake.

At 9:00 pm the drilling started. It went on until about 10:30 pm.

It’s hard to believe that all this concrete,

came from this small section of sidewalk and street.

At 3:00 am our power was restored! Thank you, Con Ed!!!

Ciao,

Sunday, August 17, 2025

Embroidery: The Kiss

Klimt’s painting “The Kiss” is a study in beauty, so it’s no wonder that so many artists riff on it. I am no exception.

When Edward and I got engaged in 1987, we headed over to Central Park to take some photos. Apparently, while we were setting up this one, we attracted a crowd. They clapped when we kissed and I couldn’t help laughing – hence the body language.

Given that our positioning was so similar to those in Klimt’s kiss I started thinking about ways I could pay homage to the original. First, I replaced the background with bigger azaleas.

Then I needed a way to combine the foreground and background, so I added a shot from NASA. After all, he does make me see stars. 😉

I have to admit that I was so taken with the result at this point that I hesitated to add embroidery.

But my goal was to create an embroidered piece, so I forged ahead.

Only to admit to myself that I liked it better before I added the embroidery. And, it didn’t really look much like Klimt’s kiss.

I realized that it needed to be gold for the inspiration to be obvious, so I turned to photoshop.

And then I decided that it was too complicated, so a close-up would be better. And so, it is.

Here’s to the next 38 years.

Links to other embroidery blogs…

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2011/12/pink-hibiscus.html

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2012/07/embroidery-chat-eiffel.html

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2012/07/embroidery-tall-coral.html

Cheers!

Sunday, August 10, 2025

The Cotswolds

Tim Baynes – artist extraordinaire – and my frequent collaborator, is now living in The Cotswolds.

How cool is that? So many cute little towns to capture.

Unfortunately, he tells me that they are in the midst of a drought.

How sad.

How un-England like.

And how I wish we could send him some of our rain.

It’s always like that with rain.

Either too much (currently Hong Kong) or not enough (currently France.)

Tim probably wouldn’t mind the lack of rain too much since it would make it easier for him to sketch the local sites.

But his wife is a gardener… so, I feel a “rain dance” coming on. 😉

Here are some previous UK blogs…

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2012/07/london-part-1.html

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2018/09/uk.html

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2023/07/brighton-england.html

Cheers!

Sunday, August 3, 2025

Rome digital collage

This month’s digital collage features this photograph from Rome, which I took on my visit in 1997.

There’s actually an interesting story about it. I liked it so much, that I bought the negative into a photo store to have it blown up to 20” x 30” for my walls at work. Yes, it was pre-digital.

When I returned to pick up the enlargement, I was horrified to find that they had given me someone else’s photo. Presumably they had not lost my negative, but merely had sent it and my photo to whomever owned the one I was looking at.

The people at the store asked me what the subject of the photo was so they could attempt to retrieve it. I told them that it was a photograph of “The Roman Forum.”

Several days later, I received a phone call asking me if the missing photo was of “three columns.” I responded yes. But I also realized then that not everyone knows what the Roman Forum looks like. Go figure. 😉

When I began teaching/training, I used the story to illustrate the fact that communication doesn’t work if your audience has no idea what you are taking about.

I combined the photo with this drawing of olive oil and cherries for the final collage.