I am sentimental about the German Wendt and Kuhn angels my parents hang on their Christmas tree. Similar angels here perform an outdoor concert on a woodland stage. The three inch wooden frame for this stage is wrapped in a hand stamped Italian paper. This charming, nostalgic paper was designed in the 1930's by Eleonora Gallo.  She named the pattern Siena and designed it after a cross-stitch embroidery found on a Tuscan apron. In her book, Peasant Art In Italy, she wrote:  "'Wait',he says, 'the first autumn rains will hide the burnt-up crests with a mantle of vegetation and they will be covered with browsing flocks'. All the cities in Tuscany endow their country-side with a halo of that art and poetry which is their heritage."

I studied a painting once by an old master who used a checkered table cloth as his canvas.  I delighted in seeing the pattern emerge and disappear in the ground. Here I painted my stage curtain and background on the same Siena paper as the frame. I think I will add clouds.

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