hello friends,

i’m about a once a week blogger as of late!

ranunculus'... i love u

today i am most grateful for this community of artists and friends i’ve built personally, and that we are all part of with the incredible networking of bloglandia.

other things A-Z order i’m grateful for~

A) i’m on the brink of some exciting projects:

*illustrations for a project concerning katrina victims who have re-located to oakland

*a piece for the guatemala SPCA to benefit their doggie & kitty orphans

*a guest artist in an inspiring yet to be revealed book

*co-teaching a painting/drawing workshop!

*building a website for my beehive studios collective where we will dish about art & finance… maybe a collab blog to come?

B) i am supa-dupa excited about these collaborative blogs:

sew green
1391
illustration friday blog
tagsale tales
re-presenting— not a blog, but a must see collab of my friend amy with kids in ghana and chicago!

C) grateful for our upcoming wedding~ hugh and i are collaborating on all things wedding this weekend and going away for an overnight at the retreat center we are getting married at in august. we are very excited that our place caters on site and uses the slow food philosophy, by using organic farms and distributors nearby, including their own produce grown on their organic farm on the premises. i’ve been loving design sponge’s guest blog on homemade weddings (good timing for us)! …not to mention the link to green wedding reminders ( link from oh joy!)

D) and last, but not least, grateful for miss kelly rae and our new ochre shoes! kelly is someone who draws out your story… from the woman at the soap store who reveals her life changing perspective after chemo, to sharing my own story of becoming an artist. i find myself telling her details of my path that i had never acknowledged before. we share a past of finding our bliss as artists later in life and losing our bio fathers at a young age and have a tender understanding of how this feels and has shaped us in ways we increasingly realize. there is such an easy fluidity to our time together that i am so appreciating and grateful for this girl. and this kickass weather doesn’t hurt the appreciation factor of spending a day walking in the park and eating breakfast outside of waffles with strawberries… mmmm. i want a re-do!

here are a few peeks of our day spent together:
we ate well
what could be better...
lucky kelly

have lovely weekends all!

xxx,
mati rose

ps- i saw mira nair’smovie the namesakelast night and it is beautiful with incredibly developed characters and richly saturated colors– go see!