Donna L. Martin Fine Art

"Cherish This Life" We recently lost someone very special to us.  My Father-in-Law, Mikey, was Italian, to the core.  He grew up in North Denver, in what was known as little Italy.  He worked at an Italian Bakery for much of his life and he fought in WWII, in Normandy.  He knew the Italian Mob Bosses in Denver, worked hard to raise his family, and he loved to gamble in Vegas.  He was pretty good at it too. He also loved to go dancing.  He went dancing almost every Saturday night up until about 4 months ago.   There was just no question where you stood with Mikey.  My husband has commented so many times about what a great role model he was.  I believe it because my husband is a great man.  Mikey took me into the family just like a daughter and I loved him.  We have so many great memories of him and walking through life with him.  I am grateful.   Mikey would always tell us, "Everybody's got to go some...

Artist Appreciation Month Did you know that August is "Artist Appreciation Month"?  In honor of this month, I was encouraged by Patience Brewster to write a blog about the artist that has inspired my work .  I jumped at the opportunity because I know who "my" artist is.  I couldn't wait to tell the story. In July, 2011, I resumed a friendship that I thought was long lost.  My friend and I had not spoken in a few years.  We had just both been busy, trying to live our lives and deal with the day-to-day.  My friend emailed to say hello and that he had found my website and spent a couple hours looking at my paintings.  At the time, all I did was watercolors.  I felt like that was the work I was supposed to do and couldn't really do anything else.  We began corresponding through email and picked up our friendship, just like we had last spoken yesterday.  We had always been able to talk to each other and open up to each other withou...