Stretcher Building in the Robbins Woodshop

Meet Van Gogh the Robbins Woodshop kitty.  He likes loud noises, sawdust, pencils, and measuring tape. 

Van Gogh assisted me with all stages of the stretcher building process.

His bed is on one of the work benches so he also did some sleeping.

I made good use of his skilz in the quality control department because he can fit into small places.

Progress for two days in the Robbins Woodshop and a sneak peek of my upcoming exhibit at Firecat Projects this January.  In eight months some of these blanks will be paintings.  The wood actually came from trees on my family's farm in South West Michigan.  Many of you probably don't know that I grew up in South Bend, Indiana, which is just across the state line from this farm.   As a child, I spent time running around the fields and hiding in the corn stalks.   It's been in our family for 180 years and there is a lot of history on Robbins Lake Road.  You can still see remnants of the original homestead built by Moses Robbins in 1833 down by the lake.  He worked on building the Sauk Trail Road between Chicago and Detroit and ended up settling in Michigan.  He loved the area so much that they named Robbins Lake and Robbins Lake Road after him.  My Grandmother, Frances Robbins wrote a book about the history.  My middle name was named after her but I unfortunately never had a chance to meet her as she died before I was born.   The skeletons of these paintings are handmade and have a history.   

Robins will build their nests just about anywhere.

Karl planted the corn while I worked on stretchers.

8- cylinder engines are quite beautiful

lots of seeds

watering the corn seeds

The turtles were laying their eggs early this year due to the warm weather.  They usually lay their eggs on June 7 as that's my wedding anniversary.