Go with the flow...

First version... above - Below: the third

Two weeks have flown by, blown by - and I - like a leaf or bit of flotsam have been carried along in the maelstrom. I painted this one evening and felt wonderful about it. It actually gave me a little thrill each time I looked at it. Next day I felt a few tiny changes were in order - and I "ruined it" !! Then I wasn't able to get back to it for a few days. Finally, yesterday, I spent time trying to regain the freshness of the first draft, so to speak - and made it worse.

The lesson? Don't be so eager to be working (painting, finishing things) that you overwork and lose the very quality you sought. I should have started another rather than changing what I had. My excuse? Since starting the "job" I've not had time to prepare more panels... Well, it's a reason, but not a good excuse.

Today I'm looking at it anew - trying to be objective - and it's not so bad, it's just different from the first version. Like I said, I wish I had both interpretations That's the beauty of working in series. One gets to see a progression and to explore so many options without the burden of thinking there is/was only one way to make that painting.

Today I'll take it to the Heritage Center and just look at it while I work on something new. It's 24 x 24, by the way.

And good news...
I was juried into the Sautee-Nacoochee Arts Center Gallery this past week and they took four of my large paintings for the current show! I went to the opening reception last night though I was dead on my feet. Being in this gallery has been a long time coming and I wasn't about to miss my first showing there. Yeah, there's a story there, but I think I can finally let some hard feelings go. The current director is a charming and knowledgeable artist with a broad view of the arts and an eye toward balancing the scope of the gallery between quality professional work, and a venue for area artists and students of the arts.

















It's a spring of blue and lilac for me. I've always been drawn to purple, lilac and blue flowers, favoring violets and purple phlox and deep dark clematis and iris.

So here's Winkle, my only "exotic" kitty - a blue-point Siamese, accompanying me on a stroll to the pond. She coordinates quite well with the lilacs - though it's the little fishies in the pond that she is stalking here...

Another quick post - kinda nostalgic...

A self-portrait of sorts, done about thirty five years ago when I actually looked like that.

An ironic note: at that time, I lived in a loft in Philadelphia and the sheep images were taken from visits to the petting zoo adjacent to the Zoological Gardens. Many years later, I raised sheep of my own on my very rural 43 acres.



Whaddya think? Any resemblance?

And below - that's me in my then-studio with Fred, my white Shepard. In the background is some of the fiber/fabric art I was doing back in the 1970's and 1980's.

What always strikes me about this photo is how frail and waif-like I appear. Even my hands look small. Now, after years of building things, mending fences and handling livestock, my hands are strong.

In the 1980's, my right hand had to be "rebuilt" with bone grafts after a benign tumor destroyed the bones in my index and middle fingers. The surgery was performed by a "hand specialist" from Buffalo, NY. Who'd have thought there were hand specialists? He did a great job, and within a year, I had full use of the hand again.

I guess I'll tell the rest of that story quickly. I had a terrible horseback riding accident in 1986. Even though I was wearing a helmet, I suffered a fractured skull, broken ribs, and severe contusions to my hands, as I was apparently dragged through some gravel on a blacktop road. (I don't remember.) Small stones and grit had to be removed from the backs of my hands. and arms.

About three years later, when I was all healed up and playing tennis, I began to have terrible pain in my right elbow. My doctor diagnosed tendinitis and I was treated accordingly. Months went by and the pain remained, until one night I dreamed that I had to have my right arm amputated due to bone cancer. Now I am about as right-handed as a person could be. I panicked; called the doctor and went for a bone scan. That's when the tumor in my hand was found. It had been pressing on nerves causing the "tendinitis." Within a few days or weeks, the bones would have been beyond repair as they'd have separated completely.

The dream thing? Runs in my family. It's one of those unexplainable things that is what it is

Sweet dreams, all. I'll be retiring at 10 pm to be up at 6!!