HAPPY NEW YEAR

January 1st is one of my favorite times of the year. It's another chance to start again to do something better or to do something more. I sit down on New Year's Day with my pen and paper and just write down all the things I would like to try this year that are new and different. I've given up on the exercise/lose weight option. That's getting very boring and so run of the mill. This year I want to have fun ... lots of fun and learn scads of new things. I'm already signed up for a blog course at our local university and I'm also considering a photography course. I want to paint a large canvas this year. I want to meet more interesting new people. I want to change my hairstyle and get some funky vintage glasses. I want to get rid of clothes I have been holding on to for reasons I'm not sure of....

2010 sounds like a lucky number and it's a brand NEW decade. What a wonderful opportunity to switch my head around and make it ten years of celebrating a life lived.

All the "girls" of Priscilla Mae want to wish all of you a very Happy and Healthy New Year!!!!

A SNOWY DAY IN PARIS

Meredith Mullins, an American photographer living in Paris, took this photograph this past week of the lovely snowfall in Paris and a woman riding her Velib bike. It is one of the most beautiful and peaceful photos I have seen in a long time. Wishing I was there I guess.

May all of you have a happy and peaceful new year.

IS IT HOT IN HERE OR IS IT ME?

And another Midlife Madonna... This is Olivia and she looks a little perplexed about her new stage of life. Those damn hot flashes come at the most incredible point in time. I can remember sitting with a client over lunch and luckily, she was a woman client. I had just finished eating a lovely meal when my face turned beet red and not so little drops of perspiration appeared on my top lip. I was having my first hot flash. I thought death was at the front door......

My client burst out laughing and said, "Oh, I've been there. Congratulations. You are now a woman of a certain age." I had had my first initiation into a very special club of women. I was now ONE HOT MAMA!

I love midlife. It has been the best years of my life. I am finally doing all the things that I have dreamed about for so many many years. I love painting "the girls" of Priscilla Mae, I love running off to Paris, and I love doing and saying whatever I please. You see, I think those hot flashes are a sign that a new woman is emerging. Luckily, I didn't have many flashes or I may not be quite so positive about them. But, I had enough to remind me that I am now a New Hot Mama.

NEW MIDLIFE MADONNA

Meet Lola. She's a Midlife Madonna and I just finished painting her yesterday. She's in my Etsy shop now along with her other friend, Olivia, who too is a woman of a certain age.

The quote on the back of this Lola pillow says, "Youth is a gift; Age is an art."

PLUS SIZE SHAPELY PILLOWS

This is one of the very first women I painted and made over 8 years ago. When I first started Priscilla Mae, I thought it would be fun to have big women sitting on my bed or chair. The first woman I made I called Veronica because she reminded me of Veronica Lake. It was the hair. I wanted to make the heads large enough to fit a funky little hat on the lady and then add fun jewels. I made a lot of mistakes with this first "head" but I learned a lot from her. I wasn't sure if a larger head of a woman as a pillow would be a good idea or not. When I did my first show with a few of the larger heads of my women, it scared the men to death. The women were rather intrigued but I put the idea on the back burner and made my square pillows. I still love the concept and I having been playing around with the idea of redesigning my "plus sized models" again and reintroducing them to my customers. I want to try something new again.
I designed smaller shaped pillows last year and I really these ladies. They are about 4" high and sit in a little stand on your desk or side table. The ladies become real when they are shaped and I sold most of the little pillows I made.

What do you think about a larger shaped pillow? Is it scary or is it fun?

OLD FRIENDS

I have been in the strangest place this past week. I am not feeling like doing much ... just sitting in my studio painting larger pillows of some of the earlier "girls" that I haven't spent much time with lately. I don't have to think a lot about Angelique for example because I've painted her so many times before, changing little details here and there.

But Angelique is like an old friend. I can count on her to go the direction my paint brush takes her unlike my Coco Chanel lady. Coco has a mind of her own and those paintings are always very, very different. Sometimes I love her; sometimes she ends up in my waste basket. Not a great place for Madame Chanel.

I needed to do the Angelique pillows this week. When I paint in my studio, I listen to older movies because I can't watch them and paint. It's like someone is reading a story to me. This week, Angelique and I enjoyed listening to "Under the Tuscan Sun" several times. Maybe the dream of escaping someplace interesting and new is accounting for my restlessness. Hmmmmm.

To see my Angelique pillow, visit my Etsy shop. www.priscillamae.etsy.com