Show Summary

In the interest of following up on Friday’s post, here is the summary of the weekend show in 8 points.

1. My booth looked great.

2. My booth neighbors were delightful, as were the show organizers and all the visitors too!

3. I saw many old friends and made some new ones.

4. This wasn’t really the right place for my art work.

5. Stuff sold anyway.

6. Not as much as I hoped.

7. That’s okay – I have another show next weekend (Three Rivers Senior League Bazaar), and the one after that too!

8. There was a neato star thingie on the ceiling of the convention center.

Paintings In Situ

“In situ” is Latin for “in position”. My brain is full of these helpful pieces of information, and I have no earthly idea how they got there.

These paintings, however, got to their location with great intentionality. My good friend and neighbor wanted to repaint her kitchen. She wasn’t sure how to pick the color, so I suggested that she show me some colors she was considering, and I would mix a small sample for her to try.

One Sunday afternoon I took my paints over, and together we put patches of various shades all over her kitchen walls. When she saw a certain orange that just made her feel happy, with great laughter we dubbed the color “Orange Blossom Special”.

Once her kitchen was all painted, I came over to see it. (Just call me “The Blister”  because I showed up after all the hard work was done.) The kitchen was looking happy, but it lacked some art.

We hustled back to my studio, loaded up a box with paintings that might work and tried multiple combinations until we found the right blend (just like mixing the paint!) Of course, she is only graciously storing them for me until the next show (and the next and the next, ad infinitum, which is Latin for “to infinity” or until they find another happy home).

Spring and fall, both represented here. ( California poppies by a California artist, Mr. Google!)

P.S. You are welcome for the Latin lessons.

P.P.S. It was great fun to mix paint colors and help her choose! Should I add this to my list of art services provided? (Stop thinking I should just lend out my art! She is doing me a favor by modeling the paintings AND storing them!)

P.P.P.S She said “Not to be mean, but I hope they don’t sell!”

What If I Gave A Party. . .

. . . and EVERYONE came! The art show for my students was a HUGE success. It was elbow to elbow for almost the entire 2 hours. The work looked stunning, and if I had been any prouder of my students, lightning might have struck us all.

First, HUGE THANK YOU to Michael, Robin and Sylvia for taking charge of the food and beverages so that no one else got stuck in the kitchen and could just enjoy the show. THANK YOU!

One of my long term students, Jackie, helped me hang the show. I think she has been taking drawing lessons for around 6 years. We grouped the pieces by subject – portraits, florals, landscapes, animals. Then, I just enjoyed it by myself for awhile in the afternoon. (There is more art than appears in this photo, of course. Just didn’t want to antagonize you by showing you all 52 pieces so far away that you can’t really see them.)

The brown box is where you put your ballot after you vote for your 3 favorite pieces. The artist whose piece has the most votes will get a month of free drawing lessons!

This is Jerry – he is the husband of one of my drawing students. He bravely volunteered to be the first at the food table, and to let me photograph him “for scale”. 😎

Kirby and me – 2 different people want to buy her swan drawing! (I couldn’t get the silly happy grin off my face for the entire evening, and my hair did look better in the morning, thanks for asking.)

Kim and me – between us is her first pencil drawing, her cat Scooter. And isn’t it cool that Kim and I are birthday twins, although I am about 1 hour older which means I get to boss her around.

The show will be on display at the Courthouse Gallery of the Arts in Exeter until the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (because that is the last day of drawing lessons for the year and everyone will take their pieces home then.) The hours are Tuesdays 12:30-5:30, and Saturdays and Sundays 10-4.

Mineral King Bridge, Part 15

You may recall that the estimated date to have the bridge be passable is October 20. That’s today! When we last left our Marshmallow Heads, they had successfully placed all 4 stringers. So, what is going on in this photo??

Give up? The pre-drilled holes on the stringers did not line up with the holes on the horizontal cross pieces. Oh man, I hate it when that happens.

This is just a scenery shot. I am a California artist, and I appreciate the scenery of my mountains. (Just sayin’, in case Mr. Google has started to forget me.)

Lookie! The first deck slab is in place! (See the floating Marshmallow??)

This hardworking Marshmallow Head is using a rock bar to set the carriage bolt into the slab.

Here comes another one. These units weigh “several hundred pounds”, so a Big Yellow Machine places it with the help of a few good men and one who isn’t wearing proper head garb.

More scenery, because it is just so beautiful.

Guess this will have to be continued tomorrow, because I like the power of keeping you all hanging. Sometimes I am just mean like that. Not only am I mean, sometimes I can’t count either. This problem shows up from time to time in my knitting, and occasionally in my checkbook. In this blog, you may have noticed, as Craig did, that there is no Part 10 in this series.

Mineral King Bridge, Part 12

My favorite marshmallow head arrived just in time to take this beautiful photo of the last third of the bridge. (Lest you think he was lollygagging around, he was hauling up a load of stuff.) These marshmallow heads are rigging the last section to the telehandler (not to be confused with a teleprompter).

See that big yellow machine? It is the telehandler, a forklift on a telescoping arm with a 45′ reach. (Oh yeah, call me Mrs. Marshmallow Head – I get this stuff!)

Cool, hunh?

Those stringers don’t look half bad from this angle. I refer you back to Mineral King Bridge, Part 7. If the really crumbly parts are sawed off, the rest of the stringers will probably find a second life somewhere else in The Park. And, oops, did we drop an I-beam?

The pieces are stacking up. My favorite marshmallow head will haul them down the hill on a trailer. That isn’t really a load I want to meet on the Mineral King Road.

There goes the I-beam. That was just kind of stuffed underneath the bridge when Federal Highways came through in 2009 and had a cow. Those concrete pads are part of that era, and have to be cleaned out. My favorite marshmallow head donned his waders and spent some time in the stream arranging chains around them. Since he was the photographer and it is my camera and I don’t really want it to get wet, you don’t get to see that part. Besides, he is sort of modest and doesn’t want to show off too much.

Mineral King Bridge, Part 11

Have you just been dying to know what is going on with the bridge? There were 2 snow/rain days, a fake holiday, and then Michael took these photos for us on Tuesday, October 11. Since I wasn’t actually present, my comments will have to be taken with a grain of salt or two.

Abutments completed, bridge still fairly intact, marshmallow heads making plans for bridge removal. (If you are squeamish about the thought of this bridge getting hauled away, you might want to change channels now.)

ARE YOU KIDDING ME???!! That man is using a chainsaw on the deck boards!

He really is! See the swept off portions? See the cut marks running the length of the bridge? Holy cow! So much for the deck boards getting salvaged and removed. . . there must have been at least ten different requests for them. They really weren’t in that good of shape.

Bye-bye, railing that has known countless butts.

Sniff.

The chainsaw massacre continues. Sometimes a man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do.

Now what are they going to do with the pieces?

‘Scuse me, please. This California artists needs to go lie down for a bit.

Daily Painting, Continued

If you tuned in to this blog for the Mineral King Bridge update, I’m sorry to disappoint you today. Instead of watching my husband work on the bridge project, we spent the weekend at the coast in honor of 25 years of marriage. This gives me a chance to show you a few more paintings, even though I suspect you might be wishing for bridge photos. Just be polite, ‘kay?

Sold. (But I can paint another for you)