Genteel Garden Party

Garden Party, 7x9½" watercolor (sold)

Garden Party 2, 8½x5½ watercolor

I’m currently listening to the audiobook, Luncheon of the Boating Party, written about the painting of the same name by French impressionist painter Auguste Renoir. This has inspired me to want to do a large oil painting that has this same festive quality. So when milliner Jewel Sauls mentioned an upcoming garden party that would take place next door to her here in Goldsboro, I all but invited myself (with camera) to attend. The party was in honor of soon-to-be-man-and-wife, couple Charles Parson Gaylor, IV and Sarah Jane Powers. Jewel and her daughter Emily, being milliners as well as the co-owners of Chapeau Chateau, gave me reason to believe that ladies in fabulous hats and gentlemen in their finest garb would be in attendance. This was pretty much what I found when I attended the black tie engagement party that Jewel and husband Randy plus twenty or so other couples hosted at parents of the groom, Mr. & Mrs. Charles Parson Gaylor, III.
Wow!  This kind of writing of possibly Goldsboro’s social event of the year takes me back to the days of “Teen Topics”, a weekly column in our Goldsboro New Argus where we as teenagers could read who was at what party the week prior. Youch! The angst of growing up in Debutante Land!