Making Spirits Bright

The studio is Christmas Central these days - in more ways than one.  By an odd quirk of scheduling fate, I'm actually working on a new Christmas collection!  Most of the time, Christmas artwork is on the board in the dog days of summer.  (Try creating jingle-bell-magic when all you really want to do is go pick a fresh tomato off the vine for a BLT.)

But as I write this, Nat King Cole is serenading me.  "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...".  Sing it, brother.  I'm sipping a Peppermint Cappuccino, there is a fire crackling in the fireplace, and all sorts of new visions of sugarplums are dancing in my head.

I love this job. 

Big News

Announcing

Beth Yarbrough Designs

A BRAND NEW BEGINNING

With a profoundly grateful heart, I am overjoyed to announce the creation of Beth Yarbrough Designs.  The new entity will serve as the home of my artwork with the added component of in-house licensing and marketing services, all under one roof.

Concurrent with our debut, we are launching our new website and Gallery for the convenience of our industry clients at www.byarbrough.com.  Updated weekly with fresh offerings from the studio, our new Gallery will provide our manufacturing and retailing partners with up to the minute news on the latest collections.  The Gallery will also serve as a constant resource for viewing a selection of the portfolio of images we have available for licensing.

This has been a labor of love many months in the planning, and a tremendous amount of very rewarding hard work.  On any given day you likely would have found us with paint flying through the air while we held the phone on our shoulder and typed with our toes, trying to put the perfect finishing touches on the artwork, the website, the gallery, the new blog, and the pb&j sandwich we were having for lunch.  Well, maybe I exaggerate.  But you get my drift.

Many many thanks to my wonderful web designer, Holly Knott.  Please visit her at www.hollyknott.com and tell her I sent you!  She's the greatest.  As for me, I'm still going to be right here, doing what I love and counting myself the luckiest girl in the world.

Beth Yarbrough Designs
the home of happy art

Thanksgiving

Making my way through the grocery store this morning, I looked around at the aisles upon aisles of food, the produce section stocked with mountains of fresh fruits and vegetables, the loaves of bread hot from the ovens, and the crush of people getting ready for their Thanksgiving dinners.  In the midst of it all, I stopped and said "Lord, we are a blessed people.  Thank you!"

Wishing everyone a wonderful, happy Thanksgiving holiday.  Stay tuned in the coming days for news from our studio.  We are very excited about major changes that have come our way during 2011 and cannot wait to share.

In the meantime, enjoy some turkey, hug your children and grandchildren, tell your parents how much you love them, share your blessings with those around you, and above all, give thanks to God for this and every day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Autumn Evening

A warm supper on this rainy October evening took me back to my childhood and reminded me of my dad.  Today would have been his birthday.

He loved cheese and apparently it loved him, too.  He lived 91 years without even a hint of heart trouble.  Every year for his birthday, I would bake him a spice cake with as much caramel icing as I could lawfully load onto the layers without collapsing the whole thing.  Behind cheese and my mother, sugar was probably his third love.  

One of our favorite family stories involved one of his teenage birthdays and his mother's delicious apple-stack cake - baked just for him.  The story goes that his older brother waited for him to come home from school and then calmly went into the kitchen, brought the entire cake (on its stand) into the dining room, along with one fork.  He then sat down at the table and consumed the whole cake in one sitting, right in front of my dad.

I thought about him tonight, eating my little stoneware crock of potato-cheese soup.  He lived a good life and helped raise three good children.  He was a master cabinetmaker, a very graceful dancer, and an even better pantomime artist.  He loved life and he loved God.  And he loved cheese.

Happy Birthday, Daddy.

A Year of Sweet Tea

Exactly a year ago tomorrow, I determined to devote each Friday on this blog to something meaningful, or funny, or beautiful, all in an effort to consider the subject of time and how it affects our lives.


Now - with that year behind me - I am stunned and humbled and full of enormous hope - all at once.  We have seen it all this past year - new life, death, laughter, tears, incredible beauty, and surprises around every corner.

The year began with an October sky full of dozens of hot air balloons
and

fond memories of brave young men who should have come home from Vietnam and didn't

A stolen sunrise on the beach

And the discovery of an Italian winery in the Appalachian Mountains.

Early December found us eating breakfast with Junior Johnson, who is just as adept at the helm of an iron skillet as he is behind the wheel of a car. 

Our Christmas was white,

as was a good portion of the entire winter.

And I decided to welcome spring by telling my favorite (true) Earnhardt story.

Life handed us a grandson in March, and we will never be the same.

In quick succession, our garden handed us lily of the valley,

Roses,

Peonies

Magnolias

 and baby bunnies in distress.

We planted a vegetable garden, savoring each sprig and leaf.

We hit the beach,

 and then an island

and then another island.

Back home, we made marinara and ended up making abstract art as well.

We laughed as we remembered the day we stumbled upon the President,

And cried tears that are still flowing as we said goodbye to our best friend.

A trip to Florida gently reminded us that life brings fresh inspiration every day, if you are willing to look for it.

Safely back home, our garden proved the point by delivering the month of June in September.

 And just yesterday, another of our best friends left us.  Fans of my work know how much I loved this beautiful cat.  His name was Tylenol, and he was my faithful companion, studio cat, garden supervisor, and territorial guard extraordinaire.  We will never forget him.

Now, with the year behind us, we stand with renewed respect for the fragile nature of life, a greater appreciation of the astounding beauty that lives right under our nose every day, and the hope that comes from knowing that God has been with us every step of the way - laughing with us, drying our tears, clapping his hands at our discoveries, and blessing us with every breath we take.


Today is Countdown Friday

 and the count isn't over.
We're just getting warmed up.