Winning cash to Johnny Cash. Flying for the first time to flying through the air. First love to new love. We consider ourselves lucky for reasons as unique as we are. We asked you to tell us about the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to you. This is what you said!
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While Barbara Gallagher was successfully working with businesses from finance to manufacturing over the last two decades, and earning a mid-career MBA, fashion design was always her secret passion. When her business projects slowed down in 2014, and she was faced with a diagnosis of breast cancer, Barbara decided to follow her passion. Combining her business acumen with her natural instinct for color and love for beautiful fabric, she created a luxury line of finely-tailored outerwear for active women. Raised in Denver, CO, Barbara is a fan of the great outdoors, and her fluid pieces work as well in urban environments as in mountain resorts. They keep you warm and cozy, but make you feel “creativity stylish,” as her website says.
Ed, Barbara’s beloved partner for many years, was also engaged in every aspect of her fashion business. When he suddenly died in mid-2018, Barbara was shattered by grief and grasping for strength. Again, she found comfort by surrounding herself with color and fabric and creating her Spiritual Silks scarf collection. Moved by the intense color and beautiful lights in the work of Bereniche Aguiar, Barbara hopes her seven artistic pieces will awaken the powers of healing. “Color affects the happiness and health of the human spirit,” she believes. The heart is literally and figuratively at the center of her intricately designed collection. “The heart holds all of one’s truths,” Barbara says.
The handmade silk scarves correlate with the individual elements of the chakra system, which originated in India between 1500 and 500 BC in the oldest written texts called the Vedas. Representing strength, wisdom, desire, heart, communication, spirit and creativity, chakras are vortexes of energy that are said to run along the length of the spine, from the pelvic floor to the crown of the head. Connected to different organs and glands, they are thought to affect our physical, emotional and mental well being when their harmonious balance is disrupted or damaged.
Barbara hopes her scarves will evoke feelings of positivity and beauty and give special comfort to anyone undergoing cancer treatment since they provide smooth breathable protection as head coverings. Each measures 36 inches square and is $135 until the end of October.
Give one of these exceptional and meaningful scarves to an important woman in your life this holiday season.
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It’s unsurprising that Shaunagh Keenan was influenced by Greek culture when she was growing up in Melbourne, Australia, home to the largest population of Greek people outside of Greece. “My mum read Greek mythology to us, and I continued to love the fascinating stories of beastiality, sensuality and iconography,” said the 52-year-old travel agency owner who holds a fine arts degree in painting. Although Shaunagh didn’t pursue a career in art, it has remained another passion, and her current body of work embodies her enchantment with mythology.
And now Shaunagh is proudly presenting her fanciful, feminine and folkloric, painted ceramic tablets at the new Plataion56art space in the hip Kerameikos neighborhood of Athens. When Anna Aspasia Theodorakis decided to open the gallery, she wanted its first solo exhibit to feature the art of her longtime friend. The two women met almost three decades ago on the Greek island of Paros, when 20-something Shaunagh was a barmaid who served drinks to Anna and her friends. “I had traveled to Greece from Melbourne when I couldn’t find a job in art after graduation,” Shaunagh said. She’s been to Greece many times since then and has kept in touch with Anna.
Each of Shaunagh’s organically shaped, one-of-a-kind tablets features a different female figure from Greek mythology, painted in happy colors. “Many people would say I’m a ceramicist, but I say that I’m a painter,” Shaunagh said. “I make the ceramics myself and I like organic shapes because that’s the appeal of Greece to me. A lot of the buildings are sort of organic, not ordered and perfect.” The Tasmanian hardwood frames are handmade by Shaunagh’s partner Chris in the back room of their house in Melbourne. Finished pieces, measuring 13 inches by 13 Inches, are $273 plus shipping. “I didn’t want to price them too high,” she stressed.
Interestingly, Kerameikos was originally named for the potters who settled there 3,000 years ago. It was also the site of an ancient Greek and Roman cemetery used until the 6th century AD and rediscovered in the 19th century.
Shaunagh’s work is on exhibit through October 10, 2019. If you’re interested in purchasing one of her pieces, email Anna at aatheodorakis@gmail.com. They would make original gifts for the favorite women in your life and would look wonderful hanging anywhere, from a home office to the guest bathroom.
Only 25 percent of us say we love ourselves first, and almost 40 percent think our looks are the most important of all our personal traits. Things to ponder. But for now, here’s how 245 women answered our survey on What Kind of Woman Are You?
Hmmm. What would you say to a woman who admits she gives up an important part of herself to keep her relationship and says she’d choose a different partner if she had to do it all over again. We’d say: “Why?”
An exclusive FabOverFifty survey of 131 women 45+ revealed that 33 percent would indeed select someone else if they had a do over, and 50 percent give up a piece of themselves to stay with their partners. But look at how many women tell their partners they love them EVERYDAY!
WE COULDN’T EVEN BEGIN TO FIGURE THAT ONE OUT! CAN YOU?
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Women are complex. Mystifying one day; totally transparent the next. Dancing with joy at dawn; downright dejected by dusk. Craving companionship on Monday; anxious for alone time by Friday. And on and on.
Sometimes we’re so complex, we exhaust ourselves trying to figure out just who we really are! Share how you feel about many of the things that make you YOU. It’s all anonymous, so go for it, ladies.
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I’ve had a range of obsessions throughout my life, including my friend Linda in the 1970s, my boss David in the 1980s, and decorating my new co-op, eating popcorn and drinking wine in the 1990s. My obsessions were long-lasting and often torturesome (aren’t all obsessions?). I still have obsessions in 2019, but they rarely last more than a few months and they don’t take up as much space in my head and in my life. Grateful!
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