Getting By With a Little Help From My Friend

Trail Guy and I set up the booth at the Holiday Bazaar on Friday night, quickly and efficiently. There was enough merchandise, and it looked pretty good. I didn’t take pictures of my booth, figuring I’d get some on Saturday with the morning sun coming through the full-color Chinese Pistache trees visible through the window, which was the back wall of my 10×10′ space.

Then I went home and developed a fever. Well, phooey. Why during my busiest weekend of my busiest month?? Life is not fair. So, instead of doing a show, I did a No Show.

A lifelong friend offered to work my booth. What would we do without our friends?? I thought to myself, “Self,” I thought, “I will NEVER get out of her debt”.

Another friend said, “Real friends don’t keep score”.

Being a Questioner, I thought about that. My conclusion is that we have built-in scales of balance, and without actually keeping score, we can tell when we are being taken advantage of, when someone is a moocher or a user. I hope we also can recognize when we are taking advantage of someone else and put the brakes on thinking we are entitled.

It is so hard to be on the receiving end of giving, so much easier to be a giver. Probably has something to do with my innate need to be self-sufficient.

No one is completely self-sufficient. We all need a little help from our friends. Thank you, MKACD! 

Five Different Reasons to Send a Note

Everyone loves to get real mail, and as Crane Stationery used to advertise, “No one has ever cherished an email”. (This was before texting, which has made email look personal and handcrafted.)

The other morning I wrote a bunch of notes. A list had accumulated of people I needed to communicate with, and each one needed to be handwritten. Sometimes email just doesn’t do the trick.

As I carried them to the mailbox, it struck me that each note was written for a different reason.

  1. Thank you
  2. I’m sorry for your loss (any of my cards, blank inside, would work for this).
  3. Get well soon (any card with a blank interior will work for this)
  4. Happy Birthday (nope, none of my cards actually say this inside, but I have great confidence in your ability to write those words)
  5. An invitation (I used a blank card for this too)

There are many other reasons to use cards and hand-write notes to people.  

I’ll give you some other ideas tomorrow.

 

Lazy Listicle of Distracted Thoughts

  1. The acorns have been raining down from the live oaks in our yard and attracting herds of deer. One morning Trail Guy counted 16 in the driveway. (Deer, not acorns)
  2. This painting needs a title! Any suggestions?
  3. These 2 5×7″ oil paint on panel paintings are drying. There are 3 more, but these are days of distractions,  falling acorns, broken things, a rush pencil commission, RAIN, and yet another odd job.
  4. This big guy was focused on acorns and water. There is a tub on the other side of that rock that the deer come to (and the turkeys and the cats. . . probably some others we don’t know about). Such is life in Three Rivers in rural Tulare County.
  5. My wonderful webdesigner gave up two hours on her day off to begin figuring out what keeps going wrong with my website. This was her only day off in the busiest week she has had since pre-Plague. There are still some mysteries, but it is mostly functional at this time.
  6. Many years ago a former neighbor gave me this juicer. This year it wouldn’t work, AFTER we picked a 5 gallon bucket of pomegranates. Someone told me about a repair shop in Goshen, so I navigated my way to Breck’s in a ferocious rainstorm, and they gave me hope. Now my hope is that it can be repaired quickly, because in spite of not paying for it initially, at $90/hour, I will be paying for it now.
  7. In spite of November being my busiest month, I spent a day on my tookus, watching a live workshop of many demonstrations of art realism. During the boring ones (I KNOW how to draw!), I packaged notecards. During the other sessions, I took notes.
  8. I also took photos. This is how the light looks on one of my studio windows in the afternoon.

P.S. I might have knitted a little bit too. . . it wasn’t Zoom and no one could see.

P.P.S. (that means PS #2) I hit a skunk on my way home the other night. Didn’t know it until I got home. Felt something, but didn’t smell it until the car was in the garage. Well, yippee skippee. A skunk is easier on a car than a deer. 

 

Round-up of Randoms

This post is a round-up of random thoughts that I’ve been gathering, thoughts that don’t fit any category, sprinkled with irrelevant and random photos.

  1. The last time Michael and I drove up the Mineral King Road together, a car with two young women caught up to us. Michael pulled into the next turnout, rolling slowly as he does, wishing the driver would get on it so he didn’t have to stop. Instead, the car stopped, the window went down, and the driver said, “You two are so adorable!” Excuse me? “Adorable” is what young people say to old people! I wasn’t even knitting at the time. (At least she didn’t say “adorbs”, a word that affects me like nails on a chalkboard.)
  2. The largest Catholic church in all of North America has been under construction in Visalia for two years. Visalia?? Central California, huge number of Catholic families, not a lot of priests available for multiple congregations (or however they refer to their separate churches).
  3. The bears are very active in Three Rivers this year, but not as many as in 2015 during and after the Rough Fire.
  4. Three Rivers population has dropped from 2200 to 1800, and there are only 80 children enrolled in the school. Seems like a good place to enroll your children if you want the teacher:student ratio of private school without the expense. WAIT! One week later, the population part of the sign was missing. What is happening??
  5. An old customer/friend called with an art emergency. This means that she needs some custom art and needs it fast. My prices haven’t changed in many years, but the smallest size I draw is now 9×12″ instead of 8×10″, and I tacked on a rush charge. I was a little embarrassed to tell her the price, feeling as if I was gouging her (but come on!), and her response was: “You don’t charge enough”. Oooph. Just oooph.
  6. I bid on a large mural project, and the waiting to hear if my design and prices were accepted, not knowing the competition, not knowing if it is even feasible to the (potential) customer is Not Fun. This is where faith comes in: “Okay, God, I trust you and your plan for me”. (If I say it enough, maybe eventually I will just relax about the uncertainty).

7 Things Learned in October

These month-end learned posts are for people with curious minds, but not necessarily short attention spans. Welcome to my world. 

  1. Do you live in “a bubble“? A friend (Joy Cromwell) had something about this on her website. I took the PBS quiz and scored 44. This means I am very insulated from mainstream American culture. Wish the score was even lower.
  2. Knapheide is a word and a brand completely foreign to me. I saw this on the back of a utility truck.When I looked it up, this is what I learned: “Knapheide is North America’s most popular manufacturer of work truck bodies and truck beds”. They started out building wagons in 1848! Their mailing address is a P.O. Box in Quincy, Illinois. This is a town along the Mississippi River where a lifelong friend of mine lives. How did I never hear about this company??
  3. Some friends told us they are having solar panels installed for their home electricity. This led to quite a discussion where we all confirmed that we are probably too old to recoup the costs of the panels and installation in SCE savings. However, they are tired of trying to conserve, getting hammered by large bills anyway, and being uncomfortable in the summers. Our conclusion is that solar is a luxury item that is being misrepresented in advertising, not only as a way to save money, but as a way to “save the environment”. Those panels take an enormous amount of resources to build, and that is not necessarily “environmentally friendly”. (Truth is very hard to come by, but I do my best for you here.)
  4. Feijoa is a green fruit that I found at a farmers market in Morro Bay.  After peeling and slicing one, I tasted it. It ended up in my compost bucket because it is just weird. I read about it here (#25) and contrary to the seller at the market, this article says it isn’t usually eaten raw. I can’t remember how to pronounce it, but it doesn’t matter since I won’t be buying it again. It is also called “pineapple guava”, which I think might be a plant in my yard. Wait, that might be “strawberry guava”. Doesn’t matter, because my shrubs don’t make fruits, and if they did, the deer would eat them.
  5. A “malthusian” is a person who believes there are too many people in the world. (Is there a word for people who think there are too many people in California? in cities? visiting Three Rivers on a weekend?)
  6. This is something I knew but hadn’t followed through: I don’t like social media. It is a grind to stay current, and very little (if any) business or true friendships result. A. LinkedIn is helpful if a stranger contacts you about business and you need a clue before returning a phone call. B. Facebook is a sewer and Twitter is for birdbrains. C. I have neither posted nor looked at Instagram for several (6?) months, so I deleted it from my phone. So there.
  7. When asked which brand of colored pencils is the best, I usually say that Polychromos are the best quality, Prismacolor have the best colors, and never waste your money on Crayola. I think they don’t have enough pigment; besides, art supplies easily found at a grocery store probably aren’t professional quality. Here is a helpful comparison of Crayola and Prismacolor.

And thus we conclude another month-end Learned List, in which your Central California takes you down various side roads of often irrelevant and vaguely amusing topics.

(This is Charles-Eugene, a cat I have not met yet.) Clearly, he didn’t find this list vaguely amusing.

 

 

And a Final List in a Week of Lists

List Lady, that’s me. They help me think and prioritize. (I like charts too… doesn’t everyone?)

This list is all the things that I can do instead of making lists when this very busy week is in my rearview mirror (figuratively speaking).

  1. Fix the oil painting of the North Fork of the Kaweah River with Blossom Peak(s) in the distance.
  2. Paint a new oil painting of pumpkins, titled “Unspiced #2” as a replacement for the painting “Unspiced” which I feel confident will sell. (Yeah, yeah, I know, I told you this already.)
  3. Paint out another river picture that has been hanging around too long. I believe this one is still here because very few of the visitors to Three Rivers and Kaweah Arts recognize this view of the river. (It’s not because the boulders sort of resemble potatoes, but thank you for your thoughtful input.) I plan to use the canvas for another Sequoia tree painting, because that is what the bulk of the passers-through our area want to see.
  4. Paint a few more Sequoia trees for Kaweah Arts.
  5. Design and bid 2 more murals, this time for a new building in Visalia called The Loft or The Artist Loft or Loft for Artists. (Notice how the word “loft” ceases to sound correct after a bit of repetition?) That bid proposal has a deadline of December 11, but I have a few very strong ideas and have to figure out if I need to paint the scenes to scale for my submissions or if I should use existing paintings that are somewhat proportionally correct.
  6. Relearn how to write blog posts without resorting to lazy listicles.

Making Another List

 

While figuratively twiddling my thumbs and waiting for responses, I took advantage of the empty schedule to do some necessary tasks. These sorts of things don’t normally come to mind when people think about an artist’s work.

  1. Finished bookkeeping to file my sales tax report. (no photo for that boring task)
  2. Took inventory of notecards to see which ones to order next time the printer has a sale. Should I reorder this one, which I love but doesn’t sell very well? 
  3. Checked on sales and inventory at Kaweah Arts and resupplied them with cards.
  4. Asked Trail Guy to repair my flat files and then reorganized the contents. (They don’t show in this photo and my walls are currently almost empty, unlike this deceptive photo of abundant paintings.)
  5. Finished the design and ordered the 2023 calendars. (Hold your camels because I’m not ready to show you yet!)
  6. Asked Trail Guy to oil the shingles on my studio that are looking tired from the sprinklers, and he did it – thank you, TG! (This photo was taken last year.)
  7. Updated my inventory lists for the places that sell my work on consignment.
  8. Worked on the 30,000 photos in my computer, getting the drawings from The Cabins of Wilsonia separated into their own folder. (280 drawings, all requiring lots of boring computer work to get into order). The book is now $40, such a deal.

And thus we conclude another lazy listicle of another day in the life of your Central California artist who would rather be…

…making art that people can understand, of places and things they love, for prices that won’t scare them.

Waiting. . . and Making Lists

Today is a peek into the life of a professional artist. A working artist. A self-employed artist. A rogue, solo, maverick artist. Something.

So many jobs on hold. Time for a listicle:

  1. Finished a commissioned drawing but the customer isn’t ready for it.
  2. Framed a drawing requested by a business to use in a display, but the proprietor hasn’t told me when she’ll be there to receive it.*
  3. Been chosen to supply art for a new office building but the Committee hasn’t made its decisions yet.
  4. Been asked to paint a mural but the Asker hasn’t returned my calls.
  5. Sketched a few ideas for that mural but since the Asker hasn’t told me the budget, I don’t know how big to make the mural.
  6. Designed and bid 3 murals for a large project and waiting to hear if my ideas and prices are acceptable.
  7. Ready to paint a replacement in anticipation of selling something from Falling into Winter at Exeter’s Art Gallery and Museum (formerly known as The Courthouse Gallery). I’m certain this one will sell. (6×12″, Unspiced, $125)

*UPDATE: THE DRAWING OF THE GATEWAY BRIDGE IS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE THREE RIVERS HISTORICAL MUSEUM.

Eight Things I Learned in September

Started with six and then two new learnings arrived. It was a month of great thankfulness for no fires and for a little bit of rain without lightning.

  1. King Arthur Flour is supposed to be superior for baking. I have always just bought the cheapest unbleached white and whole wheat flours from the bulk bins at Winco, so this will be a giant leap forward. My tastebuds are not very discerning, so I may decide it isn’t worth the extra moola. However, I have been told it is worth the higher price. I looked it up and the shipping is high (of course!) and the website sent me around in circles, so I am not providing the link. Found the flour at SaveMart. Expensive, so it had better be good*.
  2. Simon Beck is a snow artist. Say what? He creates 2-8 acre “murals” in the snow, geometric designs, by walking in a pattern with snow shoes in new snowfalls. Here is an article about him with more photos than words.
  3. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a wonderful book, one I read many years ago, again in 2003, and just finished. Why does it seem as if I have never read it before?
  4. Fiestaware is the last pottery factory in the United States. I had no idea. Dishes are overwhelming thrift shops because people rarely buy sets anymore and definitely don’t choose “fine china” along with “everyday dishes”. Guess I was way ahead of my time when I decided against “fine china” back in the early ’80s. But oh my, I do love those bright colorful dishes. (I learned this while listening to Mike Rowe interview Salena Zito – Episode 268).
  5. Also on Mike Rowe’s podcast (episode 260), I learned about a dairy called Fair Oaks Farms in Indiana that is entirely self-sustaining. They found a way to feed their cows so that the milk is lactose free, has 1/2 the sugar and 1/3 more protein than regular milk, and Coca Cola bought the brand, naming it Fairlife. I bought some—super expensive, and good, but not sure it is worth the extra money. But I felt so hyper-nourished and righteous about it).
  6. Painting on a south-facing wall is an activity best done in December, January, or February. I learned this years ago when I painted my first giant mural in Exeter. However, when the work appears, it doesn’t often come with ideal options. (Begun in January, completed in May.
  7. Asphalt driveways DON’T need to be resealed every year. In fact, about every four years is right, according to ASR, an excellent asphalt seal and repair company. We’ve been thinking we were neglecting the driveway by skipping a year or two, and in fact that was the right thing. If you keep resealing it, it traps moisture and starts flaking. Who knew?? Obviously not the guys driving around resealing driveways every single year!!
  8. There was indeed a carousel at Mooney Grove Park. It has been restored and now is in front of Hanford’s Fox Theater, according to old friend/blog reader David Stevens, who also provided this photo (THANK YOU, Dave!)

*Good, but not awesome.

An Artist’s Aimless and Arbitrary Random Roundup

How is that for a fancy name of a lazy listicle? Sometimes there are various and sundry things taking place in my life  and sometimes, I think you all might be interested. Let’s have a look:

  1. Remember the commissioned flowing water drawing that I was redrawing because the the original had sold? IT DIDN’T SELL! IT WAS HANGING ON THE WALL IN MY STUDIO THE ENTIRE TIME!! Good grief Charlie Brown. This is the new version.And the old:I found it impossible to duplicate the old one exactly, but it doesn’t matter, because water motion doesn’t duplicate itself exactly either.
  2. We have a bad bear in the neighborhood. This was our first attempt to thwart him after his first attempt to tear into the door.
  3. This is the second way “we” (Trail Guy, but I watched a little bit) secured the door against Mr. Bad Bear.
  4. I mailed the sweater to my friend that I began for her back in August, and this is how she reimbursed me for postage. (Now should I reimburse her for $4 it cost to send this plus a very appreciated turquoise necklace?)
  5. The lawn was still a meadow until recently, I allowed Trail Guy to mow it. This year I am clipping and saving the seeds to see if I can fill in the bare spots, which don’t show under the long blades of grass (or under Tucker, who doesn’t show among the long blades either). Once mowed, I realized the lush lawn was actually the botanical version of a comb-over.
  6. Oh, Fernando, you have been so faithful. I’m so sorry about your ignition switch. If you live in Tulare County and drive Honda, Toyota, Lexus, or Acura, you NEED Foreign Auto Works, 210 N. Cain, Visalia. Mark’s number is 559-734-8285. You are welcome. (I wouldn’t dream of driving something he doesn’t work on!)
  7. The ignition switch is now repaired; now the windshield wipers don’t work. When does the owner of a much beloved old car say “enough”? Sigh. (If I didn’t have AAA and Foreign Auto Works, I’d probably be more inclined to update my ride.)

Tomorrow’s post will be our monthly Learned List.