Category: General

Wild cats in my workshop

You may have discerned that I have a real weakness for cats. Back in 1987, there were some wild cats living underneath Thrifty Drug Store in downtown Visalia. I shared a parking lot with these cats and fell in love with one of the little ones. A man named George fed them regularly and helped me catch the long-haired one with Siamese coloring. Turns out this is a breed of cat called “American Ragdoll”. Of course I understand that my little cat was just a lucky accident of random breeding, but she most definitely had the characteristics of the Ragdoll breed. We had Fritzi for 13 years, and she was definitely the cat love of my life. After we lost her, I began looking for a baby Fritz. We had Wilson (aka Buster), Scout and Prudence, and then Zeke and Amos. The only survivor in this attempt so far is Zeke. He is definitely NOT of the American Ragdoll breed, although he does have the coloring and the size. Last fall, my friend from the Sequoia RV Ranch http://www.sequoiarvranch.com/ told me of a litter of cats underneath one of their storage mobile homes. When she described them, I knew I was a goner. Michael told me to just go get all three, and now for about 2 months we have had a mom (Cashmere) and her 2 little boy cats living in the workshop where I paint.

One of those little guys still won’t let us touch him. Look at him:

He has no tail and he hoppity-runs like a Manx. So far we have called him Hoppy, Cassidy, Butch, Manx, Dummy, and currently, Steely Dan. (He steals around? His eyes are steely blue?) How can one name a cat who won’t respond to any overtures in a positive manner? I could call him Scairdy or Chicken Little, but I like names with a little dignity for the cats in my life. By the way, Cashmere is reminding me an awful lot of my sweet Fritzi! Her son O’Reilly is just bold and fresh, and reminds me a bit of Buster. This guy? I dunno, I just dunno. Sigh.

American Ragdoll

Growth, part two (Cards & Commissions)

I used to draw pictures that fit nicely into sets of notecards, which then sold very well both retail and wholesale. I still do a few cards, but the market just isn’t as big. In fact, it is microscopic. Tell me, how many cards, thank yous and little notes do you send a year? How many do you receive? Hmmmm, really have to think about that one. Cards do sell, but not very many anymore. (Despite the handiness of communicating via computer, the truth is, no one ever cherished an email, so there.)

In addition, I drew cabins and homes on a commission basis. (still do!) That was the sum total of my abilities in the early years, and it kept me quite busy.

Mural, Day Thirty-four

A picture is worth 1000 words – here, see 2000 words worth!

Mural, Day Nineteen

First, before showing you the day’s progress, I want to tell you about an esteemed visitor today, Mr. Ron Hughart. He has published a wonderful autobiography called The Place Beyond the Dust Bowl and is about to embark upon a book tour. I am very proud of Ron, and have to confess that he is the victim of the second portrait I ever drew, way back when. You can find his book here: http://www.amazon.com/Place-Beyond-Dust-Bowl/dp/1892622173 Today I crossed into the 2nd third of the mural. I photographed it this way because is appears further! I even pulled the truck forward. . . wasn’t sure about driving an automatic and had to call Keith to inquire about the parking brake. It was the first time I have ever driven to Sawtooth – had to go there first to make some subtle changes, which LJ coached me on yesterday. Here is the day’s work without all the porkadelia in the way. The sky looks pretty good in this! These photos help me understand that progress has been made, because today I was just sure that I painted the same snow patch over and over and over again.

Mural, Day Seven

Has it really only been seven days of painting??? Today was a very very very clear day, and the mountains were showing off (the real ones, not the ones in the mural). Check out my view from the top of the forklift. Sawtooth is the last one visible on the right.With the loan of this forklift and the most able and willing driver, today the second coat of sky was completed. This is Jeffrey. The machine belongs to his generous dad, and there was a song written for Jeffrey back before he was born called Smooth Operator! He waited patiently in between lift repositioning, offered honest opinions when asked, asked intelligent questions, and we even had conversations about other topics besides the mural.Check out the machine. It was completely perfect for the job with the minor exception that I had to ask to be lowered. Kept me focused on the job! And when I needed more paint, Jay stopped by just in time to airmail it up to me. LJ (remember LJ? She is my mural consultant) came by to be my ground crew for a bit – what an encourager she is! Tomorrow: more mountain tops, or perhaps I will detail the old Mineral King Store and Post Office to make up for the complete lack of detail in today’s sky. Notice how the visible corner of sky (upper right) matches the wall!

The Ornament Story, chapter 3

A note about getting “gussied up”. . . I faxed the White House a second time to ask about the dress code. Here in Tulare County, “dressed up” means that I iron a polo shirt for Michael to wear with decent jeans. “Formal” means his best Wranglers, boots, and a “sport” jacket. (“Sport?” What, is he going to play basketball??) Really really formal means a tie with the formal ensemble. So the White House returned my fax with a phone call, and I was told in no uncertain terms (in a nasally whiny tone) that “No denim is allowed on the compound”. This meant a major shopping expedition for Michael.

Me? I found a $3 blue velveteen jacket at the local thrift shop, and since I have enough clothing for a small third world nation of short women who wear their skirts too long, this was adequate to complete an outfit for me.

We arrived in style at the White House, and joined the queue to be officially identified as invited guests. Everyone was excited, dressed up, and friendly. We finally got inside the White House itself and began the shuffle down a long hall. Everything was interesting, everyone was nice, every moment was fun! (incidentally, there were 2 men at the reception wearing blue jeans. Michael asked one of them how he got away with that, and the guy said ,”I don’t dress up for nobody”. Apparently he doesn’t bother with proper English either.)

I could go on and on about the details, but will try to contain my enthusiasm. (You realize that I really don’t get out much so this was over-the-top exciting.)

Here is a photo of the East Room where the reception was:

Outstanding food, truly outstanding! Incredible to be there, really.

Here is the podium where Laura Bush spoke:

We were too short and too far back in the crowd to see her. I was wearing my highest heels, to no avail other than killing my feet, and this was many years before the words “peripheral neuropathy” ever entered my lexicon.

This is the tree in The Blue Room. It was 18′ tall, and my ornament was placed in a perfect spot. Lower right is the back of the head of the woman guarding the tree on the side where my ornament hung. My ornament doesn’t show in this blurry photo—clearly I was a little too wound up to take proper photos.

Here is the view from the Blue Room where we were all standing around in shock and awe:

We handed the camera to a stranger for a photo in The Red Room (this was in 2007 when people used cameras instead of phones).

Suddenly, the carriages turned to pumpkins. Everywhere we looked, a uniformed guard was saying, “This way please”. That had to have been the quickest 2 hours of my life! to be continued. . .

Sequoia art sequoia national park art White House Ornament

The Ornament Story, chapter 2

Bob from the White House filled me in on the details of the reception, so I began making travel plans. (Nope, it wasn’t paid for by anyone but Trail Guy and your Central California artist.)

We have very good friends in Pennsylvania who invited us to stay with them AND, get this, lent us a car! So we flew into Harrisburg, which has rocking chairs in its airport. Yes, I know many airports have these now, but remember, this was 2007.

Here is what some of their area looked like:

After recovering from a red-eye flight (Note to self: NEVER do that again), the next day we drove to Old Town Alexandria, Virginia to the home of our cabin neighbor and partner in my book The Cabins of Mineral King. The drive was so interesting to us. Just seeing signs along the freeway that mentioned Civil War battlegrounds was fascinating to these West-coasters. And the colors – this photo was taken at a rest stop.

I knew I would love Janey’s town from years of hearing about it. Sure enough – just look where she lives! Please excuse the car in the way – parking is at such a premium in her neighborhood that we had to have a permit for our borrowed car and she had to negotiate with a construction crew for a place to put the car. These homes were built in the late 1700s, and I was shamelessly and instantly in love with the whole place.

We got all gussied up, and Janey drove us to the White House. To be continued. . .

Sequoia art sequoia national park art White House Ornament

The Cabins of Mineral King

About 11 years ago I was puzzling over how to make my microscopic art business grow. A friend (aka “Limeygirl”) proposed I write a book to feature my art. I laughed aloud, and said “People don’t write books!”, meaning people such as myself. She said “Of course they do, Silly!”As I pondered her suggestion, it came to me that what I knew and drew best was (and remains) Mineral King. How does one write a book? For guidance, I wrote a letter (this was when snail mail was still sort of normal) to my friend and cabin neighbor Jane Coughran, who was at that time a picture editor for Time-Life Books. She said that if I would be willing to include historical photographs, she would help me. Took me about 1/2 a second to agree!

Together, we formed Cabinart Books, a publishing company for the purpose of making a book about the cabins of Mineral King. (Silly aside – choosing a title for the book was quite difficult. I had read that every book with the word “naked” in it becomes a best-seller, so we thought briefly about calling our book “The Naked Cabin”.) We planned the chapters, each page, how it would be shaped, where there would be drawings, text, quotes, and photos. We sent an advice-seeking questionnaire to anyone we remotely knew who had published a book. We learned about Library of Congress Card Catalog, ISBN, copyrights, permissions, bar codes, book binders, and even trucking companies. We sent a questionnaire to many many cabin people seeking stories and quotations, went on a quest for old photos and permission to use them.

We spent 3 weeks together in Mineral King laying out the look of our book and photographing the cabins from every conceivable angle. Some of the cabins were in places that precluded a good photograph, others had nothing of apparent significance or obvious beauty, so we circled them and discussed their various attributes until something of interest emerged.

We planned our timing to have the book appear in early November. Janey found a book designer to prepare the pages for the printer. She began compiling the quotes and writing the text. I started drawing and drawing and drawing – 150 pictures in all. Several were borrowed back from the folks who had commissioned me to draw their cabins, but many of my earlier drawings no longer met my new standards. (I have been asking several of those folks to let me have their drawings back so I can fix them but this only makes them laugh at me!) To pay for all of this, I got a business line of credit and we presold as many books as possible. We had carefully calculated how many books we thought might sell, added another three or four hundred and followed the advice of a local writer to bind 75% as hardcover and reserve the remaining 25% for softcovers, should there be demand later. After months and months of work the books were finally ready. Dad and Michael drove to a trucking company in Fresno to retrieve the books in time for our book signing event. They were not allowed to peek until we had them at my studio. Together we opened a box, and when I got to the dedication page, I passed the book to Michael. He saw the drawing of himself on that page, along with Janey’s mom Florence, and he said, “Hunh. My hat is sitting kind of high on my head.” I responded, “That is because you were wearing it that way in the photo.”

Within a year or two all the hardcovers were sold. We had the remaining books bound as softcover and sold them for 1/2 as much. It took another 3-4 years to sell all of those, and now, if one gets lucky, The Cabins of Mineral King can be found on eBay or Amazon for around $100!