Isn’t the internet amazing? Don’t just answer, yeah, yeah, like that. I am mean really – REALLY – think about it; hasn’t it changed your life? I think of my life as pre- and post-internet. I’m serious.
Shopping for an imaginary house and a hoped-for guest house is very time consuming, as you can imagine (decorating all those imaginary rooms can be just exhausting …). One night I was surfing the web looking at art, and I came across an award winning artist named Maria Noma Bliss. I found her work to be haunting and meaningful, and there was one painting, in particular, that I was drawn to – an abstract portrait of a woman entitled Me. I didn’t think I could afford the painting (although, in retrospect, the price was quite reasonable) but I was so taken with it that I emailed Maria to tell her how lovely I thought it was.
And just like that, a friendship was struck up. Online.
Around the time I first contacted Maria, I was doing some volunteer work for Operation Smile in Morocco. Maria, without ever having met me in person and knowing very little about the organization, offered to do 100 small watercolor portraits and to sell them on Ebay to benefit Operation Smile. She then traveled to Morocco for an Operation Smile mission where she did art therapy with children before they went in for their surgeries to correct their cleft lips.
Lucky for me, Maria also spent several days with us after we had moved into our new house in Marrakesh. The portrait of my family on the sidebar of this blog was her gift to us.
In addition to the Me painting, we now own four of Maria’s other paintings. I adore each and every one.
This blog entry is dedicated to my friend, Maria. A woman as equally endowed with talent as she is with generosity of the heart.
You can see Maria’s art here. She takes commissions and will work with you to create something you will love. Contact her at [email protected] if you are interested in something. You can also visit Maria and Jim's ebay store for less expensive offerings.
(Jim's stuff is amazing, too. Yeesh, so much talent in one family....)