Last Friday evening, I attended a special event at The National Arts Club at 15 Gramercy Park South. A large enthusiastic group of people gathered. They listened to talks about a new social science publication, heard marvelous tango music, and watched wonderful examples of tango dancing by a pair of stunning dancers. They also got to do some tangoing of their own at the end of the evening. All of this activity went on within walls chock full of contemporary paintings. So many different elements that one wouldn't normally think to mix together. But it worked.

As I watched a New York City Center performance of Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty ballet, I wished my eyes were bigger so I could take in more of what was on stage. I wanted more of that phenomenally glorious dancing, and more of those inventive, breathtaking sets.

On Sunday, Lou Reed died.

On early Monday morning, a young man in our building's elevator listened to Lou Reed's music through his ear buds. The sound was up high. All of us with him on the elevator could hear it, but no one of the five people on the ride complained. It was our own private ceremony to honor Lou Reed's passing.

By Special Guest Blogger, Ula

Hey, Hey, Hey (that's barking in human speak). An important event in the studio makes me want to write again. Here I am, Ula, with my second blog for Suzanne's website.

This is our garden in its last stages. After a spring and summer filled with color, we have settled into lots of browns and greys with occasional yellows and oranges from decaying leaves. This is clearly the time to take out the rake and the pruning shears and to cart away what were once lively, growing things. But wait. I love the garden when it looks just this way. It is subtle and mysterious. It draws me in to appreciate things that are spent and on their way out of their earlier way of being. Every year, without fail, I take out the pruning shears only to put them away again. I say to myself, "This perennial plant can stay a little longer. I like the way it looks now." This year it was the plant with yellow branches in the middle of the first slide that led me to take out and put away the shears. Simply put, I love these dying things. Maybe Freud wasn't all wrong about the death instinct.

At each of the stages of the painting process, it is good to take a photograph of the work. It helps a lot to look at the photo in between sessions, when I am away from the studio and before I take up the painting again. I sometimes see things in the photograph that I missed when I was in the studio. I also need to confess that although there is something special about the product of the final painting session, I become very attached to and like to look at each of the stages. In fact, unless I fall in love with what happens in those very early stages, especially the very first, I am not going to like what happens later. If love doesn't happen in the drawing, the message is to start a new painting.

icasso is quoted to have said: One does a whole painting for one peach and people think just the opposite - that particular peach is but a detail.

At left is a reproduction of the oil painting, Still Life with Fruits and Bread, 1641 by the Dutch painter, Pieter Claesz. I saw it up close at the wonderful Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College. The image may be clearer if you click on and visit the Center's website: (http://fllac.vassar.edu/collections/medieval_renaissance_baroque.html)

Paintings happen in many different ways. Painters can tell lots of stories about how they are inspired to launch a new idea. My current favorite story is about a painting I did last spring.

It is August 1st and the signs of summer's end are everywhere. Gone are the long, long evenings when it remains light well past eight 0'clock; posters and radio spots announce back-to-school sales; friends are calling to say "We must get together before the leaves turn." Autumn is beautiful but life is not the same as it is in the more relaxed, celebratory, promising, and sun-filled summer season. There is always some sadness about this anticipation of summer's end. But we can't let that be the only emotional response. After all, it is still a month before Labor Day. Seems right on August 1st to think and blog about the summer that is still with us, what there is still to enjoy, and what we look forward to before it turns really cold and bleak.

It happens often in my studio. The color takes over. I fall desperately in love with the bright yellow and green lights that a silver spoon reflects. I am caught up in the pale blue and pink marks that I put on my canvas to represent a white tablecloth. And if it is a bunch of purple flowers I am painting, forget it, I can put down more kinds of luscious purples than you can imagine. I celebrate colors all over the surface I am working on. And then, thankfully, good sense returns.

Bill Cunningham, that wonderful chronicler of the city's fashion and spirit, recently spotted a marvelous Christmas display. At 302 West 12th Street in Manhattan, he found an amazing window filled with sets of old-fashioned Christmas vignettes.

After all the painting, really big painting, that we tried to absorb while visiting Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and Raphael's rooms, we came upon this little gem by Morandi. How lucky we are for all.

Today, the day after our return to Rome from Sicily, was a big day for big art. It began in the Vatican Museums. They were remarkably without crowds. We stayed for a long time in the Sistine Chapel. We sat and looked, stood and looked, read and looked, and listened and looked. Michelangelo was quite a guy. That he could conceive of the images and stories in this room is outstanding, but then he went on to realize it all in paint. The ceiling and the large Judgement fresco behind the altar are glorious. No pictures were allowed so I can't share them here. If I could, I would want most to show the amazing movement he creates in the large Last Judgement. All is in a massive and compelling swirl.

We had only a day before flight to Sicily but we used it well. These are just a few of the many pictures we took. We enjoyed wonderful warm weather and look forward to more of that in the south..

This is our first day in Italy. It is a brief stop in Rome before we leave tomorrow for our 14 days in Sicily.