Category: Abstract Flower Paintings

September 20, 2020

Happy Sunday…

I hope this finds you safe. We have had some cool days and rain. The smoke cleared to safer levels in our valley along with blue skies. I am so grateful for this, even though I fear it won’t last for long. The smoke still has a fog over the not so distant mountains. The high was 68 degrees here is Western Montana. This is weather perfection to me until about 75. In the photos you can still see the yellow blooms of sunflowers and in the background you can see the yellow leaves on our tree. He is always the first to go at the end of Summer.

I walked around the yard and considered my fall plantings and ate some ripened tomatoes (bare foot, of course). Soon I will be tidying up the garden for another spring.

I brought my office outside to enjoy some time in the fleeting moments of the summer. I hope you were able to take a break from worry this Sunday and enjoy some blessing that the day gave you.

Where Life and Earth Inspire Art

Bella Cosa Art Studio

Deana Mattos Diefenbach

September 17, 2020

Some days the air weighs heavy. Today it is literally Heavy with smoke, as so many are dealing with. Heavy with some health concerns. Heavy with some financial concerns. Heavy with the suffering and injustice of the world.

Some days we may need to pray on it and let it go. That may be all we can do. As I do that and push through this morning to get some things done, I start to feel a little momentum.

This website and blogging are important to me for various reasons. It will take some discipline to be regular, especially for me because I am not a very scheduled person. I want to make a list of must dos for each day. To set some kind of routine I put other things around. I making that a winter goal. With summer coming to an end some outside things come off the list and I will have a little more time.

I know I am new to all this and a little sporadic still but I am hoping you like what you see enough to stick it out with me through this beginning stage.

Where Life and Earth Inspire Art

Bella Cosa Art Studio

Deana Mattos Diefenbach

As I ventured out into the garden this Spring I have found I have some excess trees and vines. In the last few years I have started to sell them to make a little spending money to spend on improvements to my yard. It is fun to share plants, most leave here with extras. Also a perk, meeting new people and fellow gardeners.

Recently I met a pleasant older woman who came to pick up plants. I usually dig when they show. This lady was very sweet and asked about the apricot trees and vines as I was digging. While we were shooting the breeze she told me she had lots of raspberries if I needed more, also strawberries. Three varieties so you always have fruit.

I definitely needed strawberries and mentioned I would soon be paying her for plants. She said no she had so many that she doesn’t need. So I tried to give her money back and she insisted.

We then took a tour around the yard and talked plants. I gave her a start of everything she showed interest in and told her there was more to come when I visit her gardens. She also has a ton of red bee balm. Score! I only have a pink one. I love feeding the bees and birds.

She also gave me a Pro Garden Tip: Plant cilantro seeds in with your strawberries each Spring. Bugs don’t like them and stay away from munching your berries.

Where Life and Earth Inspire Art

Bella Cosa Art Studio

Deana Mattos Diefenbach

Spring has Sprung here in Western Montana. Summer will soon be upon us but maybe in name only. Our weather has been unique in the past years. Unusually wet and cold last year. It is a glorious albeit busy time of year, it helps that it is one of favorites. The only stress is it is time sensitive. I am trying to ignore that element and take things one day at a time and remember it can always happen next year.

This Spring I inherited a bunch of plants from a neighbor who is residing her house and putting decks in. She had so many of green babies that needed a new home. I was one of the happy recipients. It took hours of digging. I put them in buckets with a fair amount of dirt in the shade and watered them a lot.

They all stayed happy until I was ready to plant. It took weeks to do this as all my beds needed to be cleaned from three years of neglect while I didn’t have the energy to take care of things. I also dug new beds too as I created little vignettes to enjoy around the yard and a new flower bed for me to enjoy around back where the vegetable garden is. With hard work my gardens have been redeemed. Nature always has a way of enduring and with a little nurturing is more than willing to give back. I am already seeing the hard work and muscle aches pay off. My mental status is happier and more content, my gardens are prettier than the have ever been. Lastly it has been great PT and more fun than my traditional PT. My balance and endurance have come up for sure.

Garden Therapy….Works

Where Life and Earth Inspire Art

Bella Cosa Art Studio

Deana Mattos Diefenbach

Welcome and Thank you for joining me again. It has been awhile. I am always creating but not always posting, blogging or sticking to the business side of art.

As you know things change, sometimes daily, weekly, monthly or yearly and sometimes it seems all at once. Family, health, age, circumstances, work. In the last three years much has changed in my life. The littles are growing and are 23, 19, and my baby is 15. Two of my children are now adults. My husband and I now have adult legal custody of our autistic daughter and entered a new phase. She will continue her life adventure living with us.

My husband is no longer working full time in banking and is moving in to working from home. That makes a full house! Winning hand in cards… let’s see what it does for Art.

My health changed also. My disc slipped while looking up (in a thrift store, of course) and caused extreme vertigo for days. I then got inflammation that caused Vestibular Neuritis, which in turn became Vestibular neuropathy, causing the balance nerve signals to die in my right ear.

As you can imagine, this has caused many changes in my daily life. These are among the few things that led me here today and inspired me to move forward. I have another art mentor (my mama of course is always number one) and friend who has helped me make my dream come true of having my own website.

So I am official now, “Going Pro”. I am doing this just as I turned 50 this last month and this year is our 30th wedding anniversary. This is a great way to start my second half of a century. Don’t you think?

Over the years I have learned a thing or two … maybe, so what I share I hope you will find interesting. Please follow on this new life journey. Life after Fifty! Feel free to comment on what might interest you or you want to know more about. I will be sharing many things from life in Montana to finding my heART as I step forward into my fifties.

So, one more time:

“Hello and Welcome to the heART of Montana and Bella Cosa Art”

–Deana

Where Life and Earth Inspire Art

Bella Cosa Art Studio

Deana Mattos Diefenbach