The Captain and the Ambassador by Carol Ann Kauffman

Ambassador Tull Redmond is looking for a quick ride home back to Earth after ending her twenty-year mission as peace negotiator. All she wants is peace, quiet, and to be left alone. 

She boards the Earth Starship Giuseppe Verdi with its questionable leader, Captain Ben Jacobs anyway. It's the fastest way home. Her quarters has a full bath, a space view window, and a large, real bed!

How bad could this rule-breaking, authority-defying Captain Casanova be? High Council hates him, true, but his crew loves him. Surely, she's too old and tired to be drawn into this bad boy of the quadrant's personal circus.
 
Will Ambassador Redmond get the quiet, uneventful ride home she craves?

Amazon Link:  https://tinyurl.com/y7dkbt5q

Reviews:

Kauffman gives a try at sci-fi and it's an amazing story!
I love how Captain Ben Jacobs handles the situations, one of which he loses his ship and is going to get court-martialled. He is a very strong and compassionate man, who is willing to save Ambassador Tull Redmond's husband from certain death; especially since he was reported dead and the Captain and Ambassador fell in love.
You have to read how marvelous this book is written. I highly recommend it!


Again another scifi adventure, where your imagination take your readers to far away make believe places. Nice love story , interesting twists, nice ending. Good job, when is the next one coming!!!!!


Love is grand!

The Van Briggle Pottery Museum, Colorado Springs, CO

The Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado houses a very special pottery collection, the Van Briggle Pottery Museum. 

Artus Van Briggle was a potter who in his early years experimented with the various types of clay from the Colorado region. He combined the  most important features of the clay he liked best from the Georgia and Tennessee areas to create his own very special mix.

 Next Artus made a plaster mold from the original clay piece. Then a liquid clay mixture was poured into the mold and left to hardened. 














The next step was to very carefully remove the now hardened clay piece, removing the seam lines and retouching the design. The clay piece was then ready to be fired in the kiln.

The Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum is free and open to the public. It is a gorgeous building with beautifully restored rooms. The courtroom is exceptionally well done. The Briggle Pottery Museum is just one of the many wonderful exhibits in museum. If you are in the area, please stop in for a delightful afternoon. of tracing the history this part of our wonderful country.

An Interview with My Favorite Live French Artist Raphael Seygnovert

 An Interview with My Favorite Live French Artist,

 Raphael Seygnovert 

Raphael Seygnovert

French Artist

Dear Gentle Readers,

What a treat I have for you today! The wonderful French painter Raphael Seygnovert has taken time away from his easel to be with us this morning and I am thrilled to bits.

Good morning, Raphael and welcome to Vision and Verse, the place for Art and Authors. It is my pleasure to have you here with us. Tell us a little about your work.

When I realize a work, I try more to express a feeling than to follow strictly speaking a figurative approach with as a theme the landscape. I use an archaic graphic language impregnated with all my experience, all my musical and pictorial artistic influences. It is as if I were trying to express a distant memory that would not have root in our present life. As a vision the eyelids closed.

What is your favorite medium?

I love all the pictorial techniques. It is a real pleasure to apply and work the pastel with the fingers, I also like acrylic but I use it recently; I have a preference for oil, it is a very complete technique.

So what does our favorite Frenchman like to eat?

I appreciate French cuisine but as I am a vegetarian it is a bit complicated; I also love Asian, Indian and Japanese cuisine. Vegetables, cheeses ... And I love cooking too.

Coffee or tea?

I drink tea and coffee, but more coffee; In the north of France we drink a lot of coffee.

Pizza or ice cream?

The both!  Pizza "Sicilian" and Lemon ice cream.

Where would you like to visit? 
What piques your interest?

I love everything about ancient cultures, ancient civilizations, mysteries ...

Favorite kind of music?

I love acoustic guitar, folk music, mystical music, relaxation music, traditional music and Celtic music. I listen to many different things, I would hardly say my favorite artist.

What makes Raphael Seygnovert laugh?

I laugh easily, I like to laugh with my friends. The imitators make me laugh, the hidden cameras too.

This is my very favorite of all your works. You call them bluebells, but in my part of the world, we have tiny pale violet clusters called bluettes, or Quaker Ladies, that only bloom in the wet, wet spring, only in the woods or parks. They are my favorite flower. You cannot buy them in a store. You must clomp through the wet woods and get all muddy to find them.


How old were you when you began creating art?
I started to paint very young, then being an adult I stopped for a long time to resume after.But painting, art, is not a craft strictly speaking, it is a way of life. It's not a choice one day makes saying "it's an interesting job", or "I can make a lot of money like that!" Or "I will be famous." This is necessary to us, for we need to create, to express ourselves in this way, because it is part of us. I need, as an autotherapeutic way, to paint, it is my medicine ... which heals my soul. I think the important thing is to be in agreement with ourselves.

We all like to draw, paint, glue rocks together, snap photos, etc., but we are well aware we couldn’t make a living doing it.  

When did you know you made the right decision?

I am comforted in my choice by all positive feedback from the people I meet.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Nature is a constant source of inspiration, walking in the middle of the trees has always done me good, it is resource, we should try to preserve as many natural spaces as possible. My spirituality is also a source of inspiration.

What do you do when you get an artist block?

The artistic blockages I see more like moments of reflection that allow to take a new beginning, to have a new eye. We are all the time, internally, dying and reborn to evolve, to grow. Like the crysalid and the butterfly.

Favorite artist?
I like many different artists, I like the Impressionists, Monet, Van Gogh, Cross, Corot and also Modigliani ...


If you were not an artist, what would you do for a living?

If I was not a painter, I would have liked to be a professional guitarist, a singer, or a social job.

Who has influenced you most in your life?

The person who has influenced me most is hard to say; I have a thought for my father .. he was a great person ... courageous and much more, my mother too.. but I do not forget the others, all those people who cross your path and illuminate it even for a short time. I think we are all like sponges, every interaction, every encounter, changes our life in its own way.

What advice would you give someone who aspired to be an artist?I will tell him to paint more and more, it is by forging that one becomes a blacksmith.I would tell him to expose ever more, meetings and criticisms are always very useful to evolve.To have his own opinion about his work and that of others.And getting to know one self, is the best way to be authentic.


Links to follow our favorite Frenchman:

twitter: @seygnovert

my site: http://www.raphael-seygnovert.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seygnovert/

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us today. We at Vision and Verse wish you continued success in all your endeavors. Come back and see us again!

The World of Jacob Eichholtz

Jacob Eichholtz was a famous portrait painter in the early days of our country. He painted in the Romantic Victorian tradition. He was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to a family of prosperous Pennsylvania Germans who owned well-known tavern called the Bull's Head Tavern on East King Street in Lancaster and he spent most of his professional life in Philadelphia. 

As a child, he loved to draw and his mother let him take lessons from a local sign painter. But Jacob was a coppersmith by trade. In 1805, he opened his own shop in Lancaster, where mended sugar boxes and tinned copper kettles.

Jacob married Catherine Hatz Michael, a young widow with two children. They had four children of their own. 

Jacob hired some men to help in the shop and started painting on tinware. Then he started painting small portraits on wood. He kept the shop, but make painting his primary occupation in 1808, saying although he loved his work as a tinsmith, his love of painting continually haunted him. 



Then Catherine passed away in 1817. In 1818 Jacob married Catherine Trissler and they had nine children.  he turned backto painting and although he was mainly self-taught, he achieved both success and recognition for his work. They moved to Philadelphia, where he was very successful.





He painted over 800 portraits in the course of 35 years. In 1830 moved his giant family back to Lancaster. He died there in 1842. 

His portraits are displayed in museums across America. He has achieved wider recognition in death than in life.

Cross-Country Roadtrip

Dear Gentle Readers,

Around mid-May, my husband and I took off on our last official cross-country road trip. We had some places we wanted to visit and sites we hoped to see and we weren't getting any younger hanging around Ohio.

So maps in hand, a filled cooler and snack bag, and two weeks worth of clothes in the trunk, we set out from northeast Ohio to Arizona on the southern route. The weather was perfect for driving, cool and overcast. No glaring, cooking heat. 

And no rainstorms until we hit St. Louis, Missouri. But it passed quickly and I checked off  "Drive across the Mississippi River" from my bucket list. 

Kansas. The bucket question was "Is Kansas corny in August?" Well, it was corny in May, so I would guess it is also in August. I am sure there are lovely places in Kansas, but all I saw was road and corn and corn and road.

A storm rolled in out of nowhere. The wind kicked up. The heavy rain turned to hail. The sky went black. And although my husband could have driven farther that first day, we decided to stay in Colby, Kansas for the night.

We found a Holiday Inn Express out in the middle of nowhere. It was a great hotel and the staff was gracious and efficient. We slept like rocks.

More to come.
Hugs,
Carol

Schedule for June 11 - 15, 2018

Schedule

Mon., June 11 - OBSERVATION My Recent Cross Country 
Road Trip 
Tues, June 12 - ART The World of Jacob Eichholtz,
Portrait Painter of the Early Republic

Wed., June 13 - INTERVIEW with French Artist 
Raphael Seygnovert

Thurs., June 14 - ART The Briggle Pottery Museum
in Colorado Springs, CO

Fri., June 15 - BOOK The Captain and the Ambassador
by Carol Ann Kauffman

Dear Gentle Readers, 

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Thank you,

Carol