Angie's Art

We were little girls playing with our Ginny dolls on Aunt Margaret's screened-in front porch when we heard noises coming from the basement.  Aunt Margaret called the town cop, who found nothing down there and chalked it up to "Botti's Ghost."  Wait . . . what?  An Officer of the Law believed in ghosts?  My perception of the world was instantly changed in that moment.

The "we" in this scene consisted of my older sister, Karen, and me, next-door neighbors to Aunt Margaret (who wasn't really our aunt) and Angie and Kim Botti, Margaret's real nieces who visited occasionally.  Whenever Kim and Angie visited, Karen and I had playmates for the day.  Aunt Margaret and Uncle Melvin had no children of their own, and we knew, by Aunt Margaret's stern demeanor, to mind our Ps and Qs when we were in her home.  But we were good little girls, and playing with our dolls and musing about the existence of ghosts kept us entertained.

A few years later, after Aunt Margaret hanged herself in her attic, Kim and Angie stopped coming to visit.  Another ghost added to the house.

It was several years later that I rediscovered Angie when our separate elementary schools merged into one high school.  But our individual circles of friends did not necessarily merge, and we were well past our days of playing with dolls, so our connection was marginal.  I do remember Angie taking art classes, as I did.  It was in high school that I made the sad discovery that I had no artistic talent, a rude awakening that was not visited upon Angie.

Fast forward to the Age of Facebook.  The online conversations and exchanges of photographs of Aunt Margaret reunited Angie and me and culminated in a visit by Angie and her husband to my home last summer.  The hostess gift that Angie brought was a collection of notecards of her artwork, a gift that I cherish so much, I have a hard time actually using the notecards for their intended purpose!  They are so exquisite, I just don't want to send them away.

Angie paints watercolors . . . in miniature.  Her paintings are about the size of an index card, but contain such detail that one can only marvel at how in the world she does this.  She will dismiss it as just needing patience and a steady hand, but that's Angie for you . . . humble to a fault.  The way she can capture light and shadow to create mood is nothing short of breathtaking.  The scenes she paints, mostly rural or architectural, have the power to transport the viewer to a place that is calm and comforting.  But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.  You can see for yourself at
 www.perennialdesigns.net.

Be prepared to fall in love.