it's a charcoal life

i am married to a charcoal artist. ian leaves me little reminders of that everywhere.   there are black hand prints all over the house - around all doorknobs, on cabinets and the refrigerator, and covering the banister.

there is a garden of charcoal pencils growing outside the studios.  koruna's first drawings were on the bricks surrounding that little garden.

who'd have thought a black dust could make life so colorful?

vegetable sticker art

one of ian's pet peeves is finding those little sticker labels on the fruits and vegetables in the compost heap. i usually try to make an effort to avoid annoying those i love, but for some reason i have a ridiculously hard time remembering to take those damn stickers off. these pictures are of the inside of our kitchen cabinets. it's ian's creative attempt to motivate me to REMEMBER THE STICKERS. and it works. sometimes.

ian's show

the opening of New Art in Austin: 15 to Watch was friday night at AMOA.  i had been telling koruna about it all week, so she's been getting excited with me.  we even painted our toenails for the event.

usually, ian's art goes straight to his gallery in nyc as soon as it's completed, so i'm thrilled that we get to have some pieces right here in austin for a little while.

i sometimes have a difficult time letting go of ian's pieces, but i take comfort in knowing that they will likely outlive us all.  i like to think that they hold ian in their memories. i like to imagine that because i want him to live forever.

ian

my husband, ian, has a lot going on these days in addition to taking care of my every pregnant need and fancy. he is one of the featured artist at the Austin Museum of Art's exhibit "New Art in Austin: 15 to Watch" which opens this friday.

he is on the cover of the new issue of Drawing magazine and is featured in a 12 page spread.

and last but not least, he's updated his website, ianingram.com, to include his latest work and started a blog to give the world a peek into his process.

i love this man.

champagne bottle top love

i met my husband in prague when we were both living there 9 years ago. we fell in love in the land of castles and cobblestones, a romantic backdrop for the real fairytale that is ours.

ian dreamt up charming ways of wooing me in our early days. after christmas and new years, a carpet of champagne bottle tops covered our stomping grounds, and in the months following those holidays i would find little champagne scenes in surprising places. these tokens of love are some of my prized possessions.

i lost them this past year. i tore the house apart searching for them, looking in the same places many times, knowing i must've just missed them. though i counseled myself in "letting go", i have grieved their passing in random moments, crying for their loss.

ian is in istanbul right now, but before he left, he found those little treasures. they now comfort me in his absence.