Songs for You

Lyrics to first verse of Nick Drake's Hazey Jane:

Do you curse where you come from,
Do you swear in the night
Will it mean much to you
If I treat you right.
Do you like what you’re doing,
Would you do it some more
Or will you stop once and wonder
What you’re doing it for.
Hey slow jane, make sense
Slow, slow, jane, cross the fence.

I listen to Nick Drake a lot in the studio. A lot. I think he is fabulous. Hazey Jane came on today and the bolded lyrics are some I think about a lot.  About how lucky I am to love what I'm doing and how I'm gonna do it some more.  I know not everyone gets to do this.  Now, there are parts of what I do that aren't so hot--like setting up and tearing down for shows in bad weather.  But the painting itself is magical.  It is fun.  And then I sell it and get paid for doing it.     And I'm gonna have to do a lot of it because my sales at the Angel Fire show were fantastic and my Santa Fe gallery sold 5 paintings so far this week!  If only I could paint with my toes!

Have a listen: maybe you'll enjoy Nick, too.  Here's the link to youtube!
Nick Drake Hazey Jane

Color Choice

In much of my life, I am a planner.  I make  zillions of over-achieving to-do lists.  I like to know my hotel plans have been made for shows months in advance.  I like to know what my schedule is.  And, while getting on some waiting lists for shows--Belleville, Cherry Creek & Old Town--means I am almost there, it reeks havoc with this planning sensibility I have.  But when it comes to painting, I prefer to let the paintings make the decisions.  Too much preplanning equals static art.  I think. So, while the underlying substrate color dictates a few colors I will use, I prefer to work through the piece with no preconceived notions of what colors will be in use.  I think the art is better for that.  Do you?  

Did ya miss me?

All my good intentions just simply shot! I knew it would be harder to post blogs during my summer "touring" season.  But, really, it seems almost impossible.  To top it off, we've got this nasty little fire going here--the Los Conchas fire--the biggest in New Mexico history.  And, I am obsessed with it. Coming home from the Albuquerque show last Sunday night we saw the blaze when it was only 3500 acres (and it had only started that afternoon.)  It is now over 100,00 acres.  Our gorgeous blue skies are marred by ash and smoke.  Fire restrictions (thankfully) have closed the forests and cancelled fireworks.  On a positive note, we've had dribbles of rain--our monsoons are supposed to start soon.  I find myself checking both the weather.com and noaa weather sites twice a day at least.  I read my relative humidity readings from my weather station.  I listen to the news updates on the radio and even watch some local news.  It is simply driving me crazy.  I want rain so badly!  I've pulled out the rain stick and done some dances.  I've yelled at the sky.  But, what I've got to do is hope and be thankful for all the people who are so actively involved in fighting the fire.  Reports are good on the progress.  I'll just hope the positivity continues.  And then maybe I can move onto talking about creating art! That is, after all, what I do!    In the meantime, if you have it in your heart, send positive rain thoughts this way! Thank you.