Djurdjevic - Personal Photos - Life at Grayhawk

23 Jan 2011

Updated August 6, 2006

My New Life at Grayhawk

Desert in Bloom, Summer Edition

SCOTTSDALE, Aug 6, 2006 - The Sonoran (Arizona) desert is an amazing creation. The scorching summer heat (115F; 47C), that would have killed anything in sight anywhere else in the world, has just given a new life to the local flora. Desert is in bloom again for the third time this year. And it's beautiful. Make it a "floral show, summer edition." Take a look...

The floral show along the Thompson Peak Parkway (a street that leads to Grayhawk).

"Tough and beautiful," that's the only way to describe these Sonoran desert plants.

SCOTTSDALE, Aug 20 - I went back to my "a touch here, a dab there..." project after our return from a wonderful vacation in the Canadian Rockies. And the result were these additions to my household artifacts...

Rodin's Thinker, whom I painted personally to blend in with the rest of the living room settings. I also hand-painted the stand gold-bronze, antiqued it, and made the flower bouquet to go with the colors of my "Daybreak" Parrish painting above the fireplace. In short, I had fun. :-)

But maybe not as much fun as I had watching people (women) at the checkout counter of the local store go "gaga-googoo" over this cuddly tiger. I felt my bedroom was too formal and needed some lightening up, yet it had to be in colors and tone that went with the rest of the gold-navy theme in it. The tiger also brought back memories of the tiger cub I held in my arms in Thailand. Any ideas as to what I should name him?

SCOTTSDALE, Aug 26 - Earlier this week, stopped by the store of my French art dealer who

sold me the "Nina, the Ballerina" sculpture. No particular purpose. Just wanted to browse; top see what was new. And almost immediately, my eye went to this portrait of a girl (right) that was practically hidden on an easel in the middle of the store. It was signed by "P. Montana," an artist I've never heard of before. Yet it had an aura of familiarity.

I waited till Guy (my dealer's name who reminds me of Guy de Maupassant , a popular 19th century French writer), was off the phone. Then I asked him to come with me back to the painting of the girl with the red hair.

"Actually, I don't know anything about him except that he was one of the French painters who was officially sanctioned by the government to hand-paint Renoir's paintings," Guy replied. "So this is an 'official' reproduction of a Renoir painting."

Suddenly, I liked the painting even more. "What a snob you are," I reprimanded myself. "Now that you know that the original was a Renoir, you are even more interested." But then I realized that I was maybe drawn to that painting subconsciously BECAUSE the original was a Renoir. I had probably seen it before, but without recording the time and the place or the author. Maybe that's why it seemed familiar in the first place.

And here's a close-up of "Mlle. Irene Cahen d’Anvers," the title of the painting which Renoir did in 1880, as I have subsequently discovered. The original is a part of the E.G. Bührle Collection in Zurich, Switzerland. And so, unwittingly, there is now another (French) Irene living with me at my home. Hope she and my Russian Irene get along... :-)

I also almost bought from Guy this reproduction of Monet's painting "The Artist's Garden at Giverny"...

It came with an official-looking "Certificate of Authenticity." But I backed away the next day when I could not confirm independently its authenticity and value.