The holiday was first about my killing myself to get my mom’s gift to Mississippi in time for the exalted day. In spite of the fact that Joel from Brown’s Fine Art and I had conspired in the fall of last year to deal with this issue, I did not find the time to do anything about it until, oh, Monday before Mother’s Day. I painted this canvas awhile ago, but it never naturally found its home. My mother collects very fine art, so when she casually mentioned that she would like to have the painting I was very excited. I’ve painted quite a few works, and the one other painting she really liked was lost in Hurricane Katrina. I was quite eager to get this to her – but in classic fashion, I had to make it extremely complicated. First, the painting is quite large – three feet by five feet. And I didn’t really want a frame for it so much as I wanted a nice fastener to complement the provencial French antiques in her bedroom – there was enough hardwood in the room already. The solutions? Send Joel the unstretched rolled canvas. Buy thick gallery stretchers for the canvas and have them sent directly to Joel. Buy fabulous two inch wide cotton velvet ribbon and send directly to Joel. Send Joel directions for the perfect bow to festoon the top of the painting. Buy one and a half inch nailhead to attach the ribbon around the edges of the stretched canvas in a wonderful hand gold leafed finish. Great!

Not great – there is no such nailhead finished off in this way, so I have to find the size and then do it myself, since you know I am an expert at gold leafing techniques (not). When it dawned on me that I had exactly two days to arrange purchases and deliveries, get the nailhead finished and get it all to Joel with time to spare for his work. I called Troy, the concierge of my mother’s condo building, to ask him if Joel could access my mom’s condo when she wasn’t at home, and he was enthusiastically helpful in playing our little spy game to surprise her.

At this point you may wonder why I would go through all this when I could have just sent a lovely card and flowers, but the designer in me had go ahead and finish this mission. I realize most people don’t care how many steps go into a thing hanging on the wall in someone’s house. But I knew it would be fabulous and Mom would love a surprise! So I surrendered to my project addiction and got it all together.

Mission accomplished per Joel at 4:30 PM central Saturday before Mother’s Day. The Eagle landed Sunday evening when she returned from visiting friends on the Coast. In these photos you can check out the process of leafing the nailhead, and the photos of the painting installed in her bedroom. My Mississippi conspirators pulled this off without a hitch and I can’t thank them enough!

Part two of Mother’s Day here in the ‘hood focused on relaxation, snuggles, kisses and a killer two hour mani pedi with massage. Accents of the day were flowers, tear inducing cards, and a fun three way conversation with my mom and my brother. It was perfect – thanks honey xoxo