Sit, Knit and Split in Mineral King
When I didn’t have a cabin in Mineral King, I said I’d kill for one. My new boyfriend said, “There is an easier way.”
That was about 30 years ago.
I learned that there are multiple parts to cabin life. There’s the social aspect, the having 2 homes challenge, the trails, and just hanging around.
Hanging around suits me just fine these days. Seems that life down the hill, life in the studio, life on the computer, life in a drought while on the local water board, life in the book publishing world and life in general is wearing me out. Retail Therapy isn’t going to cut it. Instead, I go to Mineral King to just sit, knit or split.
A Color Junkie Goes on About Primary Colors
I am a color junkie. It jumps out at me everywhere, and I think about it without meaning too. Primary colors are the basis for all colors, and when I began oil painting, I became even more aware of colors, particularly the primaries.
Red, yellow, and blue make up all the colors in the world. I have to add white for painting. I’ve heard it described as the absence of color, the sum of all colors, the coldest color and some people refuse to call it a color. Doesn’t matter – it is impossible to mix colors without it.
The primaries keep appearing in my life. Early in my painting career, I was given the assignment to copy one of the old masters. I chose Vermeer, and later realized the primaries figured in large in the painting.
I liked the painting so much that I did another one. Red, yellow and blue are all over the place in this one too. (Of course they are all over – I did the entire painting using nothing but the primaries and white.)
See my palette? White, yellow, a mixed orange, 2 reds, 2 blues, a mixed purple and then the other colors that I mixed for whatever I was supposed to be painting when I was procrastinating by photographing the palette.
Every spring I look for blue flowers to put in my blue pots, completed by reds and yellows. No pinks, no purples, an occasional white, but mostly the primaries.
Last summer we were walking through a village on an island in Alaska and I saw these cans.
Only a color junkie would get excited about a scene like this.
Label Mural Afterthoughts
Ever heard it said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee?
The Rocky Hill Antiques mural is in danger of becoming a camel. Three owners, a former owner, vendors within the organization – many many people have opinions.
I will paint until the one who writes the checks is happy.
More will be revealed in the fullness of time.
Meanwhile, only TWO people have told me what is hidden in the mural. There have been many imaginative guesses; I think people are very very creative!
Hanging Around the Cabin in Mineral King
I was lucky, smart or blessed enough to marry into a cabin in Mineral King, the most beautiful and peaceful place in Sequoia National Park.
One would think this would mean spending every possible hour out on a trail.
One would be wrong.
Sometimes cabin time means catching up on things that just fall through the cracks at home. Sometimes these things are just not all that urgent at home, or maybe it is just too hot to do them at home.
Cracking walnuts is much more enjoyable in Mineral King.
Splitting wood is certainly more necessary in Mineral King!
Refinishing chairs? Definitely more enjoyable in Mineral King!
Knitting is enjoyable anywhere.
Knitting is especially enjoyable when it is this yarn – the colors and texture are magical.
Sometimes we hang out and help neighbors. Mostly it is Trail Guy, because they need the kind of help that only he knows how to provide. However, I can trot back to the cabin for a tool or make a phone call.
Sometimes we don’t see some neighbors because they are hanging out at their cabins, working on their own projects. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with cracking walnuts, I might have come over and taken a “before” shot of these steps. They did a beautiful job of cleaning them out and resetting the rocks.
If this was your view, maybe you’d be content just hanging out too.
Next Friday, I’ll share photos from a walk in Mineral King.
Random Facts About Squirreliness
Sometimes a list helps. I’ve been making lists for years, sometimes as an aid to memory and efficiency, and sometimes for the sense of satisfaction gained from checking off things.
Today’s list is in the first category. I hope this is helpful for you.
- The comments on my blog may be working again. Anyone want to try?
- I’ve updated my page called “Where To Buy“. Want to look? It is under the Artist tab on my website. There are addresses, phone numbers and website links for most, and hours when I know them.
- The contact button works intermittently. This has to do with my ability (inability?) to update pages on my website. When it is disabled, supposedly I am able to add new pictures to the pages. Sometimes I forget to reactivate it. (Maybe a list would help me. . . ?)
- I haven’t been able to successfully update the oil paintings and pencil drawings on my site. It seems as if I have added them, but the pictures just appear as little question marks.
- My former web designer is working to simplify the design of my website so I am able to update things without getting in line to hear back from her replacement. He must be very very popular. I could give you a list of the steps to update, but you’d be bored silly.
- When the design has been simplified, things might be squirrely-looking for awhile.
Questions and Better Questions
As a self-employed artist, I must puzzle out many dilemmas and questions that come my way, out here forging along in the big wide world. Here is a random sampling:
1. Why did a customer not pay me for selling a boatload of paintings for 5 years in spite of numerous attempts to collect and then simply write a check when my husband asked him too?
2. Can a mural be successful on a business with 3 partners, 2 of whom are enthusiastic and 1 who is less than happy about it?
3. Why do people want to buy books of my photos or drawings or paintings when I only have them to be used as a portfolio?
4. By not painting in 2013, my painting inventory feels much more manageable.
5. When paintings haven’t sold in a long time, I do a careful evaluation to determine why not. Sometimes I decide it is because the public is unworthy of such gorgeousness, but other times I decide they are just not good enough. I paint over the top of those. When I feel relief at the disappearance of the old image, I know it was the right decision.
6. Why does Photoshop Elements sometimes show tools and other times not show them?
7. Will I ever learn to Facebook?
8. Where is the Botmobile?
There is a book called The Question Behind The Question by John G. Miller that teaches how to ask better questions. So, let’s try this again:
1. How can I learn to collect immediately from a customer so that a problem doesn’t develop?
2. More will be revealed in the fullness of time. . .
3. Is there a way to have these books printed at a reasonable price instead of the super-high-no-room-for-profit prices of Shutterfly? (Start shopping, Toots!)
4. What’s the question??
5. What’s the question??
6. Where can I find help on Photoshop Elements, helpful help, not the so called “Help” menu that comes with the thing?
7. When will I call the helpful Elsah, so she can walk me through this most irritating thing called Facebook that is supposed to be a MUST for every business that wants to succeed? (Now that I am on it, I definitely think it is 1/4″ deep and 6 miles wide, BUT in learning a little of how it works, I’ve learned a better way to enjoy both Pinterest and LinkedIn!)
8. What is the Botmobile?
(The Question Behind the Question is available on Amazon, of course. )
A Question Artists Don’t Like
The question that most artists don’t like is this:
Will you donate a piece of artwork to My Good Cause?
And then it is followed by something like “You can write it off on your taxes” or “It will bring great exposure”.
The answers to the follow-ups are “Only the cost of the materials” and “People die of exposure”.
If a good Cause needs items for raffles and auctions, it would behoove both parties (the Cause and the artist) to buy the items.
All those causes are good. One year, I donated more than I sold. It didn’t bring me more business; it brought me more requests for more donations.
A Cause can spend some of its resources on an item and then sell the item for more than it paid. It will make a profit. If it doesn’t make a profit, it can write off its expenses.
An artist who gets asked to donate her individually produced items depletes her inventory, can only write off the cost of the materials but not her time or the value of the item, and gets worn out.
An artist who gets worn out begins donating items of lesser quality, items that haven’t sold, items that aren’t her best work. (Honestly, I had an artist friend say to me one time, “Just give them your junky stuff that hasn’t sold – that’s what I do!”)
In a small community like Three Rivers or even anywhere in Tulare County, word gets out that you can either buy a piece of art for full price or you can just wait for the next fund raiser for The Good Cause. Then, Mr. Good Taste who spent money on art, sees that someone got a similar piece for 1/3 of the price, and the artist’s credibility goes down.
So, I don’t give my art away anymore. If your Good Cause would like to buy a piece, call me or email me. Perhaps we can work out some sort of a discount. When you truly value my art, I may be more likely to value your event.
Hint: if you have never bought any art from an artist, how do you have the chutzpah to ask for a gift??
There are a few Causes I choose to donate to, because they are part of my life. One of them is the mural project in Exeter, which was started by me and an awesome group of volunteers in 1996. Someone called me for a piece for their upcoming Garden Party fund raiser (a very nice event on May 5 this year); I explained my point of view because I’m teachy like that, and then I offered a painting.
Because it hasn’t sold in spite of the fact that I really like it (Obviously, my opinion does not causes pieces to sell), I took a hard look at it.
I paint better now.
Before
After (New and Improved!!)
If you don’t think it is improved, just be polite, ‘k?
I wrote about this a few months ago and called the post “Donations Bloviations”.
How to be a Professional Artist in Tulare County
- Love the place
- Be flexible
- Never quit
Easy sounding? Here are the details:
1. Love the place – take a camera everywhere, always be on the lookout for a different angle, another landmark, better light, something never noticed before. Take what feels like endless photos of Sequoia trees, Mineral King, oranges, poppies. Learn as much as possible about the landmarks. Meet as many people as possible who have lived here a long time, especially those who know people who know people, go places when you’d rather stay home. Pay attention to the geography, the seasons, the agriculture, the flora and fauna.
2. Be flexible – learn to teach drawing lessons, figure out how to give both private and group lessons and workshops too, learn to paint when you’d really only prefer pencil, learn to do murals even if you think it seems impossible. Accept commissions of things that don’t seem worth painting or drawing and figure out a way to make them look great – find their beauty and show the customer. Enter shows, schlepp your work around, try new shows, take your work to different places of business so it gets seen because there aren’t many galleries in Tulare County. Listen to suggestions by people of what to draw or paint. Be willing to give talks to groups. Be willing to open your private studio to the public from time to time. Reproduce your work as cards, prints, tee shirts, whatever it is that people are wanting to buy. Write a blog. (NEXT WEEK IS MY 6 YEAR BLOGIVERSARY!) Maintain a website when you’d really rather be drawing or painting or blogging.
3. Never quit. Get a second job if you have to, but don’t quit trying to make it with art.
P.S. Every so often, publish a book. Upcoming from me, The Cabins of Wilsonia.
Any questions?
What’s That Smell?
For years, in the spring I’ve noticed a stunningly fabulous scent while out on my morning walks. It happens in March, and I have never been able to find the source.
Last year I decided it had to be the buckeye blossom, but this year I changed my mind again.
The smell showed up last week and there are no buckeye blossoms out. It is not lupine or redbud or fiddleneck or popcorn flower.
It smells like orange blossoms, but there is never an orange tree nearby.
Well, guess what?
It IS orange blossoms!
Turns out you don’t have to be near the tree at all to pick up the scent. Once we really scouted around, we always found a citrus tree of some sort. It wasn’t always in bloom yet, but the buds were there, and they were beginning to smell from 50 yards away or more. (I am writing this post with these very blossoms on a table across the room- not 50 yards, and the scent is strong and lovely.)
As the daughter and granddaughter and niece of citrus growers, you’da thunk I’da figgered that out.
Only took 15 years.
Too bad you can’t scratch and sniff your screen.