Coming Home

This is one of the reasons we have decided to come home after Crested Butte, for the meager 2 days. The damp rainy monsoonal weather has made the studio a tad more humid and the panels I have prepared aren't quite dry. I'm disappointed they can't all come to Crested Butte with me, but am excited to know they will be ready for the Sun Valley show. The pictures above are based on the red Sun Valley barn. I didn't know if it was better depicted with flash or without so you get both! It is a large 30 inch cradled board. My hand was a little cramped after smooshing in all the stars but it is better this morning.
I'm not sure about internet access at our "lodge" in Crested Butte--read aging hotel facility in resort town, which I'm sure will be similar to the one in Ruidoso (where our sink totally fell apart while we were at the show and at check-out they tried to charge us for breaking it!!!) I'll post if there is access, otherwise, dear readers, it won'tb e until Monday! Have a great weekend!

Panels

I've gotten a few panels finished and am hoping they are dry enough to take with me on my next trip. We head up to Crested Butte, Colorado this weekend and then on to Sun Valley, Idaho. We still haven't decided if we'll come home in between or just meander up to Idaho. Coming home adds a full day of driving to the mix but it does allow me 2 days at home--read with my dog, Bug, with the possibility of picking up some of the panels after Crested Butte. Right now coming home sounds like the reasonable plan but I wonder how I'll feel about it Sunday night, after being at the show for 8 hours, breaking down the booth and having a five hour drive to look forward to.

Dirty

It has been two weeks since I last posted. This new computer seems to continue to give me fits. Now, every time I open picasa to import pictures it reloads every single image I've ever taken! So, while waiting for Rees to figure it out, I decided that that was a good excuse not to blog. Besides, nothing too exciting has been happening.

We've had some warmer weather, making my oil pastels even messier than ever. Thank god I don't live some place where it gets really warm! In any case, I had Rees take a photo of just 2 hours worth of oil pastels on my hands! No dust but messy in their own right!

Milestone!!

I spent last weekend at the Angel Fire Community Center exhibiting at the 28th annual ArtsFest, put on by the Moreno Valley Arts Council. It is a small show--only 33 artists and the crowds aren't stupendous. But, it is what gave me my start as an oil pastelist. As I was standing there I realized that it was 10 years ago, this very last weekend, that I exhibited and sold my first 3 oil pastels. I'd juried into that show with my bultos and retablos (will post some images of them soon, as soon as I dig some of them out). But Rees convinced me to fill 3 frames I had purchased with something--just to see what sort of response I got. It was good! I sold those first 3 pieces at the preview night and was hooked--both on oil pastels and on art shows! So, a big thanks to the Moreno Valley Arts Council for giving me my start. Oh, and, by the way, thanks John McDermott and all the volunteers who put on the show! I appreciate it!

Studio Visitors

Yesterday I had the pleasure of having Emily and Leah Clark over for a few hours in the afternoon. While I worked on a nighttime vertical long skinny piece, the girls worked on a collaborative piece. It was fun. Their piece isn't finished yet and they were a bit shy about having it photographed so I snapped a shot of the two of them from the other side of the easel.

I've Been BUSY!!!!

Excuses,excuses. I've got 'em. See we got a new desktop computer to replace the one we've had for 6 years. And I really like the big humongeous screen--gotta be 2 feet wide. But the keyboard sucks--I can't type on it any better than on the laptop--the one that causes me the most headaches because it jumps around all by itself--yes, I own possessed technological items. And it has taken Rees about a week to move all the stuff from the old computer to this one--so, justifiably he has been bogarting the machine. So, I have been kindly letting him proceed with whatever it is he has to do. And I've been out in the studio replacing a bunch of long skinny cradled panels all week. Working hard! Here are the results----now on to some bigger pieces!