This is the only artsy activity I managed to do this summer with Friboy. I wanted to do more clay masks from different cultures but he wasn’t into it that much. We made this one which is inspired by Romanian dance masks related to winter / end of the year traditions.
This is a series of small paintings based on Friboy’s drawings of the raving rabbids sold at Bazar Bizarre and some commissioned by Friboy’s aunt.
Learning a language be it our mother tongue or another is neurologically linked to the working memory part of our brain.
We organized this exhibition with the purpose of funding Friboy’s school ski camp this year. I made about 37 paintings on glass, all based on his drawings. Café de l’Ancienne Gare hosted this exhibition, also to the benefit of the children. We sold almost all of the paintings and managed to cover the costs for his entire class.
Tomorrow, the 13th of December, people in Scandinavia and in other parts of the world (Italy, Croatia) celebrate Saint Lucia. I particularly like the Swedish tradition observed on this day and I decided to honor it with an illustrated interpretation and by baking the delicious Swedish Lussekatt, a sweet saffron bun served on this occasion.
Winter is my favorite season and it is also the time of the year where I feel the most creative. Maybe we are programmed like that through millennia of evolution. Not long ago, women would spend the long winter days doing all sorts of handicrafts (weaving, sewing or knitting). Now we have Netflix and social media and we have replaced needle and thread with modern gadgets.  Continue reading
When I moved to Fribourg from the overcrowded and suffocating place where I lived before, shared with almost 4 other million souls, I had the impression nothing much was happening…no Christmas rush, no over the top Christmas lights or a huge Christmas market.
I still have one of the toys that Saint Nicholas left in my boots when I was a child, it’s a mother gorilla stuffed toy holding a baby gorilla in her arms. I had named her Uga because at that time I thought she looked like the daughter of Ugo Fantozzi, an Italian series my mother was watching on TV. I gave it to Friboy a while ago and told him that it was from Saint Nicholas, he was shocked because he doesn’t picture me as a child. I am his mom, I couldn’t have been a smaller person that believed in magic and waited impatiently for Saint Nicholas just like him. He never reacted like this when I showed him photos of me as a child, this gorilla made me that little girl in his eyes.
Autumn school break is over which means that for the past two days I have been binging on Harry Potter and Kambly biberli and taking long baths…in the bathtub. While our vacations have been getting easier because FriBoy has grown into a collaborative, easygoing and fun kid to be around, I still find it hard to manage his activities all by myself. We haven’t had grandparents here to help out in a long while, and those couple of hours a day, while they were in charge and I got to sit and do nothing, really mattered.
Making and offering art for birthdays has become somewhat of a family tradition. I make paintings for everyone in my family either for their birthdays or for another special occasion. For me this is easier than coming up with a gift idea that is likable and useful. It is also very personal.
