No round-up of the year’s accomplishments, best-of lists, goals for next year—just some photos of another walk in Three Rivers. (Captions are a little bonus for you, or perhaps just an annoyance.)
Thank you for continuing with me in this non-eventful, somewhat mundane life as a Central California artist, using pencils, oils and murals to make art people can understand of places and things we love for prices that won’t scare you.
1. Aldi’s paper bag says something about no longer providing plastic bags, which causes me to ask this: Hey Aldi’s, why is all your produce pre-bagged in plastic?
2. To “prate” is to bloviate, to chatter endlessly about inconsequential matters.
3. I learned how to block email addresses of people I’ve never heard of—so many of those advertising emails have a non-working Unsubscribe button; not sure that Unsubscribe does anything even when it is working. It seems that many of those “people” just resubscribe you after awhile, hoping you will change your mind. Or they sell your eddress to another crowd of unethical moneygrubbers. So, I block them as they arrive.
4. GARDENING: sweet potatoes grew in knots, so next year I will make a great big gopher cage instead of using individual cages; all lettuces vanished—both cheater-starts from the nursery and tiny sprouts from seed. I haven’t learned what ate them, only that lettuce is almost impossible to grow. (And the broccoli is alive but appears to be comatose.)
5. TUBING MASCARA: Never heard of it but it definitely sounds like a better cosmetic improvement than fake lashes. Prolly not ever going to buy it, but found it curious.
6. A friend sent me this quote, amended and paraphrased by me: “We have a candy holiday, followed by a pie holiday, followed by a candy and cookie holiday, followed by a booze holiday, with another candy holiday on its tail. We call this ‘flu season’, but shouldn’t it be called ‘sugar poisoning?'”
7. Three random thoughts from the bathroom: a. It is a good sign if your toilet plunger has spider webs, but not the brush; b. If you think your shower is clean, put on your contact lenses; c. If you get mascara on your bangs, they need to be trimmed.
8. All the reasons that I avoid medical offices were verified in December; the level of incompetence, chaos, and confusion defies all logic and tests the outer limits of human patience. You will be told that an appointment isn’t needed/is needed/isn’t needed/is needed. You will be given wrong addresses/no addresses and wrong fax numbers. You will listen to many robot switchboards run through long spiels in Spanish. Your insurance will be denied and you will be told that a fax about it has been sent multiple times although no fax will ever be received (see previous—wrong fax number) You will drive to Woodlake, Lindsay, Exeter, and Visalia, all to gather information which will lead to many other appointments, phone calls to verify and correct and remind and question. You will wonder if you will be dead before anything is diagnosed and treated. You will be thankful that all the people you have spoken with are very nice.
9. All of the same sort of chaos and confusion and contradictions from the Medical Circus apply if you experience multiple internet/phone/teevee outages and try to get your bill lowered (looking at you, Spectrum). You will be told that you will/will not get a credit, that the credit has/has not been applied, and that you need/don’t need to call back to verify an amount which continually changes depending on which “helpful” person you are speaking to. The people who answer questions with confidence rarely come up with the same numbers as those who read your bill back to you rather than answer questions. Some are smart and quick; some are stupid and slow; all are polite. You may conclude, as I have, that everyone is trained to say what you want to hear while actually doing nothing to credit you for all the outages.
10. A website called “Bored Panda” is an enormous waste of time along with being highly entertaining, if this post is any example. Funny Vintage Costumes Book. I didn’t look any deeper because I was able to exhibit remarkable restraint and self-discipline.
11. Did you know that there is a Botkin Hospital in Moscow? It was something else until 1920, when it was renamed Botkin Hospital in honor of the founder of the Russian therapeutic school – Sergei Petrovich Botkin. It is the biggest multispeciality hospital in Moscow. The name appeared in some novel I was reading (chewing gum for the mind) called “Our Woman in Moscow” by Beatriz Williams.
Important question: have I been prating at you in this blog post??
My 2-1/2 month show, Simply Home, at CACHE is almost over. I’ve done my best to show you all the entire exhibit so that if you live far away, you can see my entire current body of work.
Here are the final three oil paintings.
My 2-1/2 month show, Simply Home, at CACHE is almost over. I’ve done my best to show you all the paintings, and now I have 2 blogging days remaining with three paintings left to show you.
That worked out pretty well, except I didn’t show you the three pencil drawings.
What’s an artist to do?
How about the three pencil drawings today and the three oil paintings tomorrow?
On December 19, the power went off at 7:20. Edison hadn’t bothered to notify us, but judging by the number of boom and utility trucks, we knew it would be a long, cold, dark day. (SO VERY THANKFUL FOR THE WOODSTOVE, THE GENERATOR, AND THE HUSBAND WHO KEEPS IT ALL RUNNING!)
There was a bit of sunshine on the easels for about 2 hours in the morning. With the door open, I was able to make some eensy progress. Since my reference photos for both of these paintings are on my laptop, I needed to be prudent with my screen time. (We don’t run the generator non-stop, and it keeps the fridge and freezer going, which is very far from the painting workshop).
I should be able to paint this without looking at any photos. If the instructions suggestions weren’t to reproduce a specific pencil drawing, I could make up a similar scene. However, in the hopes that the interested party will be happy enough to buy the painting, it is prudent to keep it as close to the drawing as possible.
Tucker stuck with me, not even in the sunshine, just doing the meatloaf to stay warm.
This one is the commission. I want it to be really really good. Really Good. The customer is a delight to work with and not pressuring me at all. I just want to do my best for her.
It helps to see the shapes and proportions more correctly if I turn it all upside down.
I am working from a combination of two photos and the sold painting that the customer wished she had seen first.
Still not much going on in my little world, other than enjoying some bright sunshine and starting two bright paintings. Winter is mild in Three Rivers and we are usually above the fog. (Do you want to move here? The town is shrinking, so if you don’t mind living in California’s flyover country where there is no Trader Joe’s or universities, you’d be welcome here!)
From my show Simply Home, I got a commission to paint. In spite of having 50 paintings to choose from in the show, someone requested that I paint something that already sold. Yes, I can do this.
Someone else requested that I paint a scene that I drew in pencil about 25 years ago. It was a commission, until I realized that it wasn’t a commission—it was a conversation. Until money changes hands, it is just a conversation, EVEN IF the other person says, “Yes, I definitely want you to paint this”. Because it is a great idea, I know it will sell to someone, so I began the painting.
This painting was added to the show after a customer took her painting and left a blank spot on the wall.
Not much going on in my little world right now. Let’s enjoy some photos.
Calendars available here, $25 each: cabinart.net/store/
SEQUOIAS IN WINTER is sold, but is still hanging at CACHE, 125 South B Street, Exeter, California. Fridays 10-4, Saturdays 11-4, Sundays noon-4. SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29, IS THE LAST DAY TO SEE THIS SHOW.
There was an overcast day in Three Rivers this week. Maybe more than one, but we are only concerned with one of them for purposes of this post. We drove up the Mineral King road, as far as the Conifer gate. (That’s the upper gate, which is below Atwell.
Now the gate locks are consistently secured, we got a little sunshine, and you are up-to-date (but only as far as Conifer.)