Afternoon all, it's Sunday, which means blog time!

Well, unsurprisingly, Lucinda has been hard at work this week. She's nearly finished the third of her Large Garden Angels, Shiraz. This will be the first of Shiraz, and so far so good!

Sadly, today is the 11th September, the tenth anniversary of 9/11 when four planes were hijacked. Two hit the World Trade Centre, one hit the Pentagon, and one crashed after the passengers tried to take back the plane. Lucinda wanted to share some words of wisdom in respect to all who died on that day and their families. "When we are deeply injured, we never recover until we forgive... Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does brighten the future."

At 13:46 and 14:04 GMT, we sat for the minutes silence in the gallery as ten years passed since that awful day where 2,985 people lost their lives.

Lucinda and I have been watching the Live coverage of the proceedings at Ground Zero,  where President Obama and former President George Bush are paying their respects. Lucinda feels that this quote sums up today, and what it means for her: "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why they call it the present." - Alice Morse Earle.

On to a brighter subject, literally, Lucinda has taken some stunning pictures of Sunsets at Claydon House which we thought we would share with you. These really are beautiful. Lucinda describes them as; "The moments that take your breath away. I could be doing anything in the studio, but when I catch a glimpse of an awesome sky I drop everything and run out to the lake with my camera or phone. These moments remind me of the simple pleasure of just being and the appreciation of what I have been given."

And then to finish off this post, the joke of Lucinda's choice:

A burglar broke into a home. He heard a soft voice say, "Jesus is watching you." Thinking it was just his imagination he continued his search. Again..."Jesus is watching you." He turned his flashlight around and saw a parrot in a cage. He asked the parrot if he was the one talking. The parrot said yes. He asked the parrot his name and the parrot said, "Moses." The burglar then asked, "What kind of people would name a parrot Moses?" The parrot replied, "The same kind of people who would name their pit bull Jesus."

Hi everyone, Ella here.
Well on bank holiday Monday we had a very busy day. The sun was shining and so everyone came to Claydon House. Lucinda sold quite a lot of art work this week, so of course she was very happy.
The first Shiraz and Chianti are almost finished! Lucinda finished the moulds earlier this week, and they've both been taken out of their moulds this morning. Now Lucinda just has to wait for the clay to set a bit further before she can assemble the main face to it's background. Then she gets to do the fun bit by adding detail to the face.

Chi

Lucinda has been modeling faces since about 1994. I thought I would show you some of her bigger faces, so you can really see the detail she puts in. Two years ago Lucinda modeled the full head of a man called Chi. Her model of Chi currently resides in her gallery for all to see.

She also has a another full head and shoulders of a Flapper from the 1930's in America. Lucinda modeled this from nothing but an image in her head. We have named her Naomi.

Naomi

On Tuesday night we had a staff dinner, made by Eleanor and Laurence. Neither of them knew what the other was cooking until half an hour before we were supposed to meet at Lucinda's, but it all came perfectly together in the end and it was a lovely evening which ended up with us all eating too much chocolate.

Lucinda is currently making more fragments as I type, so we thought this week we would explain the Fragments collection to you. Lucinda got the inspiration for her fragments in 2004 when she was thinking about how she could develop her models of faces further. She says she was half asleep, half meditating when a vision of a face on a spiral appeared to her. And every year she seems to develop these even further. If you want to see more of Lucinda's fragments take a look at her Flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucindabrown/. And she does take orders.
Since this is a blog about Lucinda Brown, I thought I would include a joke Lucinda finds hilarious at the end of each post, so she has left her mark on this blog. So:

A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal it's throat was very small.
The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. 
Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible. 
The little girl said, "When I get to Heaven I will ask Jonah."

The teacher asked, "What if Jonah went to hell?"
The little girl replied, "Then you ask him."