End of August

Today is the day I am coming out of retirement.

Today is also the day I got a spam email with a subject line that said "Your brain may be killing you."

Are these two related?  Perhaps.  Perhaps.

I need to paint.

I haven't painted anything in almost two weeks.  This is tragic thing number one.  Tragic thing number two is that I think I may need to retire my palette knife.  Somehow it developed a weird bent bit that I may not be able to file.  In placing a gigantic order with Dick Blick just now, I couldn't remember which knife it is -- their pictures don't list sizes.  I hope I got the right one.  Actually, I hope I can salvage the one I already have.

Several things have changed for me lately, none of which are really worth writing about here.  I have been unable to meet goals (yeah, yeah, what's new) and reaching for new ones, knowing I am setting myself up for more disappointment.  But a girl's gotta try.  I have also been getting ahead of myself a bit.  Again.  Note to self:  go back and read the Ryan Hall quote.  And post script to self:  heed Winston Churchill.  "It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead.  The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time."

Roxie and I are off to the grocery store.  We are baking chocolate zucchini bread tonight.

And ... I'm back.

Vacations are lovely, but it is hard to get right back into the swing of things.  I need a buffer day between my vacations and going back to work.  Especially since Tuesdays are our Mondays.  I didn't get home until after 1:00 a.m. and once I mercilessly eliminated all the spiders I could find (Derek got the big one in the living room before he left, but then I found the ginormous one in the kitchen sink) and went to bed it was probably closer to 1:30.  Awake again at 6:30.  Oh, and my bag only made it as far as Detroit.  In fact, at 2:46 p.m., it still hasn't gotten here. 

But it was a great vacation.  I got to meet my new cousin Paulina and my new niece Ruby.  Paulina is nine years old and she lives in Evanston, Illinois.  Ruby is five months old and is of the four-legged variety.  Paulina loves blueberries.  Ruby loves barking.  All in all it was a lovely week.  And while I was away Derek sold this:

Terrible picture, I know, but the painting has been hanging over the front door of the gallery and I was lazy when I took the picture -- I stood on a chair and held the camera over my head.  Maybe I didn't even stand on a chair.  I think the canvas was 8" high x 24" wide.  Now I think I will hang STRATEGERY over the door.  See if anyone notices.

It was a good month for THREE LITTLE BIRDS.

Time for a vacation

Just in case you were wondering, I did finish the fifth commission piece (second coat of varnish went on early this morning) but I forgot to take a picture before it was picked up today.  It was a companion piece for this:

It was the pinky color of the above letters, and it said SNARKY in brownish letters.  There is one more I would like to do before I leave at dark-thirty tomorrow morning.  Someone came to my festival booth and said if my 12 x 16 yellow flowers in the silver frame had been orange flowers, she would have bought it in a heartbeat.  I told her I would paint orange flowers in that size but I don't know if she will come back for it.  I want to paint it anyway, just in case.

Dinner last night was an absolute boatload of fun.  Derek did most of the prep work Friday night, and then he cooked 99.9% of the dinner.  (I made the filling for one of the appetizers.)  We ate at our friends' cabin.  Lisa wrote a most fabulous guest blog for us (you can read it here) and is one of the most fun people I know.  It was great spending quality time with Michael, Hillary and Tara as well.  By the time I left their house, picked up poodle-face and drove home it was waaaaay late.  THEN I finished painting SNARKY.  Got up at 3:00 a.m. for the first coat of varnish; got up at 7:30 a.m. for the second coat of varnish.  I need a nap.

I am very excited to meet Paulina tomorrow!

Four down....

... one to go.  Here are numbers three and four:

Feebs is 8x8 and Wanderlust (great word) is 6x18.  The background of the fifth one is painted although, as I discovered when I picked it up this morning and got paint all over my hand, it is not yet dry.  Speaking of which, I tried to take pictures of the really cool paint splatters on my hand last night but the camera in my phone was wonky and sort of ate parts of the pictures.  Total bummer -- it was very very cool.

Poodle-face survived her hoof-ectomy yesterday.  They didn't take the claw off entirely because they would have had to cauterize the nerve all the way up, so they trimmed it as much as they could and then glued the pieces together.  Ick.

(Speaking of ick, there is another ginormous spider in my bathroom.  I am willing to adopt a "live and let live" philosophy if they stay up by the ceiling.  This morning it was gone.  Hiding somewhere.  Waiting to jump out at me and yell "BOOGALA BOOGALA BOOGALA!!")

Here is our best employee, outside working on her tan:

My best girl.  I will miss her when I am on vacation.

Is it Friday already? Yikes!

As is usually the case when I am getting ready to go on vacation, there appear to be fewer hours in each day and more stuff that needs to be done.  And because we are total idiots, Derek and I bumped a let-us-cook-dinner-for-you-at-your-house evening from the week AFTER I get back to TOMORROW.  So.  This is how it looks:  I finished the second of the five commissions I need to finish before I leave.

I also painted the background of two more.  Making progress on that front.  I hoped to get a crap load of work done today but ended up making an unexpected run into Kalispell to take poodle-face to the doctor.  She has a messed up claw that is starting to look like a hoof and today she was limping a lot.  I took her in for a potential hoof-ectomy.  Derek is picking her up right about now -- I was nervous about them putting her under but her footy was very tender so they needed to knock her out to take the nail off.  Poor baby.

Now I am counting down the minutes until the end of the work day, at which time I will go throw in a load of laundry (which was supposed to be on tomorrow's To Do list, but alas) then zip to the grocery store.  However, I just got a call that someone is on her way and I don't know how long she will stay.

Whenever I end up getting home I will finish the two paintings I started yesterday and start the last of the five.  They will have to dry somewhere other than my studio which, as you all recall, doubles as my kitchen counter.  The prep work I have for tomorrow's dinner involves frying stuff and I don't want these commission paintings to be scratch-and-sniff.  It may be a late night.

One down....

... four to go.  And strangely enough, the one I have finished is:

Get it?  One down.  Four to go.  Heh heh.  After these five I think my canvas supply will be practically nonexistent.  Dick Blick will be hearing from me soon.

Thank you. And you. And you.

The biggest reason why my festival experience was a positive one is because I had a lot of help.  Derek did almost all of my framing, helped me with set up and tear down, priced my artwork, schlepped furniture and did countless other things.  Including everything on the To Do List I posted a few days ago (except the sleep part -- I got that one myself).  Deborah came downtown bright and early on both Saturday and Sunday to help me set up the booth.  She gave us a tutorial on how the panels and rods and support thingies work, and then hung almost everything in the booth.  And Eletra, Derek's mom, came up from Missoula for the weekend to hang out with me.  I am eternally grateful for her enthusiasm and her belief in me.

I think an event like this would be easier for me in a town where I don't know anyone.  I could probably be a better self-promoter to strangers.  All in all I had a good time and got a lot of positive feedback.  I sold some pieces and got one, possibly two, commissions.  I also got a sunburn on my lips.  Huh.  Not sure how that happened.

I. Am. Tired.

Almost ready....

Things left on my To Do list:
build corkboard (for the small abstract pieces)
assemble the mirror (I will post a picture when it is finished)
put hangers on the six pieces I finished last night and this morning
paint the background on two commissions that need to match two others (in case the others sell over the weekend - I need the visual in order to match colors)
put hardware on a weirdly clever hanging device
SLEEP!

I think that's it.  I am ready for Monday.

Ryan Hall

"Run the mile you are in."

Don't look too far back, don't look too far forward, just run the mile you are in.  Life lesson from a runner.  A very fast runner.

Monday the 1st

Yesterday I thought I was going to enjoy some elective outpatient surgery but alas, I was referred to a hand surgeon instead.  Bummer.  I suppose it is probably for the best that I don't temporarily lose the use of my right hand during our busiest month of the year.

Things are pretty crowded in my kitchen.  Eight pieces need to be finished before this weekend, including one that could be pretty damn cool.  Or pretty damn disastrous.  Could go either way at this point.

I set a new goal for this month but I'm not going to say what it is yet.  My track record with achieving my goals is pretty dismal so I want to give it a couple of days and see how it goes.

That is all.