I hope you enjoy my first Guest-Requested MUSICA . . . for you, dear Girlfriends, from my darling friend Margot, the Magical Mother of Scarlet (the elf), the Grandmother of Georgette (the gnome), and dog mother of Yoda (the Naked Leprechaun). 

Scarlet kindly granted me permission to show you her new baby! Thank you Scarlet! Those little baby pants are a very soft wool, and with the pointed white hat, there was no doubt that Scarlet had given birth to a gnome.

Totally worth waiting for, don’t you think? Didn’t Scarlet do a fabulous job?  This was our Baby Snuggle Tea, where Scarlet brought her three-week old baby girl Georgie to meet and greet Margot’s best girlfriends.

We each got to hold her . . . she made us feel like we must be really interesting looking.

Scarlet’s already a wonderful Mom . . . Georgie went out like a light when Scarlet put her into this little wrap. (I’m thinking about getting one of these for Girl Kitty, she would LOVE it.)

We are going to enjoy watching this little gnome grow and thrive, she comes from a family of extremely creative people.

This is Scarlet and her adorable brother Wolfie at my house for an Easter Egg hunt many years ago ~ it’s been fun watching them grow up.

This is the baby announcement Margot painted when Scarlet was born.  Is it not the most adorable thing you have ever seen???  Me, too!  I think it should go into the Smithsonian for best baby announcement ever.  Maybe I’m biased.

Margot loves to celebrate her July birthday at the beach.

This is Margot’s dog.  Its name is, of course, Yoda. 

To make Yoda feel better about “everything,” Margot and her fiancé-for-life, Tom, modeled themselves on Yoda for Halloween.  Look at the top of Tom’s head! Look how happy they are!  Don’t they know what they look like?

A scientific comparison of Yoda’s hand and Margot’s hand.

Just so you know, Tom and Margot don’t always dress like Yoda.  But they always do have fun, and . . .

Last summer, Joe and I went sailing around Edgartown Harbor.  I took a picture of this little pointed beach. Later, we went to Margot’s art show . . .

And this was one of her new paintings! It looks like the same place! 

If Margot seems familiar to you, I’ve mentioned her before, along with her wonderful book, the Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids.  If you haven’t seen it, I asked Kellee to put some up in our web store.

Besides everything else, Margot is a very famous local muralist on Martha’s Vineyard . . . not only Martha’s Vineyard ~ Margot’s done projects in many parts of the country.  Here she is doing a mural for the Oak Bluff’s Steamship (ferry boat) Authority. That’s not the real sky, that’s the sky Margot made.

This is a project Margot did at her art studio at home.  It’s for a private home. The home owners had an indoor balcony off their bedroom and asked Margot to paint some ambience for it.

But this has been Margot’s most ambitious project so far and one for which she will go down in Martha’s Vineyard history. You can see the “before” in the top photo, and the “after” down below, Margot painted the mural behind the musicians.

It was for this historical  building in Edgartown called The Whaling Church which was built in 1843. You can listen to a story about the renovation of this church and see Margot in action by clicking that link.

During the restoration, they found this old photo and discovered that in the 19th century there had been an amazing mural that had been painted over. 

Using the photograph as a guide, Margot made a working drawing so she could reconstruct the mural as close to the original as possible. I thought you’d like to see some of the photos I took while she was in the process of doing it. 

This was the space as it was before the new mural began.

And this is it while Margot was working on it.  Every so often we girlfriends would come over to see what she was up to. We knew it was big, but we had no idea!  I could not wrap my mind around the fact that what we were looking at was a flat wall.

I had to get closer, and the closer I got, the harder it was to believe.

A complete flat wall . . . if you try to jump onto that checkered floor, you will body-slam yourself into a wall. 

Hard to believe, but it’s true.

Margot has worked two freezing winters on this project . . . the first year she did the front of the church, and this winter, she trudged through one snow storm after another to complete the sides and back.

I think you can see the passion in Margot’s eyes as she explains to Lowely and Barbara (and me) what she has been creating.  Note: no matter WHAT else Margot is wearing, no matter if she has been dipped in paint, she always has on a pretty scarf and cute earrings.

The patience, the sheer energy this took! (Margot is 61; she said I could tell you.♥)

Here’s a close up of some of her detailed brushwork . . .

See the flat walls, that’s what it looked like before Margot got her brush onto it.  Not to mention the fact that she was up and down this scaffolding, carrying paint and brushes, twenty times a day.  If I got up there once, I would cling there, a ball of dripping adrenalin, until the fire department came to rescue me.

Yoda came to work, dressed for action, every day.  Margot says sleeping with Yoda is like sleeping with a naked leprechaun.

Yoda does the happy dance.

Margot didn’t have to do the whole thing alone, besides Yoda, she had Scarlet and an incognito Georgie, as the perfect assistants.

And every so often we would all trek over to Edgartown to check out Margot’s progress, sit in awe as she explained how she was doing this impossible thing, and take her to lunch.

We did the right thing by giving her no advice.

So here is the “before” of the back of the church which Margot finished about two weeks ago.

It’s very subtle, but you can see the panels on both the bottom floor and the top, the gold leaf details below and around the clock. Tromp L’oeil  panels also go both sides of the church.

The panels look raised, but they are completely flat too, all the way from the edge of the window trim.

The eye, she is fooled! I have to say, the whole island is proud of what Margot has accomplished here; generations will applaud what it took to do this.  ♥ Thank you, also, to Chris Scott and all the supporters of the Preservation Trust, for bringing back to the island history that had been lost.

See what I mean?  Flat. Margot explains these stripes of color in this link.

And I bet now you’re saying to yourself, I’d LOVE to see what that girl’s house looks like inside . . . right? Mas Margot MUSICA  

Come with me to the Casbah. . . and . . .

Oh, yeah.  Margot, along with Scarlet and Wolfie’s dad, Charlie Blair (the afore mentioned “fisherman”) who is now the  Harbormaster of Edgartown, built this log cabin.  And then Margot did things to it.  See that sofa?  Just an old run-of-the-mill brown sofa, but not after Margot got her hands on it, recovered  and fattened up those cushions, and voila! And the panels around the windows?  She made them. Wah ~ Wah.

     How about this magical “doll house” Margot made for above the fireplace?  She used to make lots of doll sculptures that she called “individuals” for obvious reasons.  She fashioned them from high-fired stoneware and fabric. The hair, she said, came from Poodle Parlors, and I’m told that if you had a dog with a very nice tail, you had better watch it when Margot was around.

It is the perfect creative surrounding for costume parties at Margot’s.  But, you say, I wonder if she has anything cute in her closet?  Is it all paint-spattered jeans, or what?

OK, you asked for it ~ because Margot puts Vanna to shame. (Don’t tell Vanna I said that.)

For starters, she wears diamonds on her feet.

Poor thing, she simply has no personality. Tsk Tsk.

As you can see, I keep my camera ready to see what cute thing she wears next. I try to talk her into doing a whole book of clothes.  Then make them, then sell them to me.  In normal sizes.

Darling Margot, Mother, Grandmother, Original, Artiste Extraordinaire, Hard-worker, Funny, Smart, Problem-Solver,  World-Class Survivor.  Great Cook, Excellent Bargain Finder, and All around Good Dresser. And Best Friend to Many and to Lucky Me.

I hope you enjoyed our Baby Snuggle and Grandma Snuggle, our elf, our gnome and our naked leprechaun . . . I know you will LOVE Margot’s paintings, you can see some of them and “Like” her on Facebook at  Margot Datz Designs or go to her website at www.margotdatz.com

With love from me to you Girlfriends.  Hope you enjoyed that!  I am working hard on our book, and making progress!  Thank you for all your wonderful supportive comments.  You’ll never know how much they mean to me.  HAPPY SPRING!  ♥ XOXO