My Excuses

Life continues to be a bit of a whirlwind. Obviously! As Caroline noted in the last set of comments, I post and then disappear for a week. It isn't intentional, but rather an attempt to learn to fit the new pieces of the puzzle of my life into the old existing parts.

The job is one big piece. It really doesn't take a lot of my time, but I'm learning a new business, and it is sometimes challenging. While I have a big toe in the door of the art world, there are many things new to me, and acting as PR for the Gallery, I'm having to try to catch up the the pack. It's coming along. Also I find that every time I go to the Gallery with the intention of spending an hour or two I'm there for double or triple that! I'm not forced to stay, but when I'm there I meet other artists or townspeople; this is both interesting and informative for my future endeavors. So I go, and I linger. And the boss always buys lunch, even if I'm not "on the clock." How can I turn that down??

Today I did a telephone interview with an artist that I haven't met in preparation for another article in the newspaper. What a delightful woman! She has been a practicing artist for just two and a half years, following over twenty years as an RN. she wanted to be a painter as a child, but the responsible-self won out and she ministered to others by being a nurse. Now she is finding that she can minister to another part of people with her art. She will be the featured artist at the Gallery for the month of July and is just delighted about it. I was encouraged because, since I am a late-comer to the art world, as well, I feel there is hope for me to succeed, even this late. She gave me some wonderful information about techniques, materials, and resources that are going to prove invaluable to me in the coming months.

In the next week, I will be lunching with other artists who will be featured in coming months to interview them and get started on their write-ups. Also, the boss is taking me with him to meet some folks in another town who will potentially be an essential component in launching my photos into public displays. I find it both exciting and unnerving to be so close. I expect that with a few weeks, it will be real ... my contribution to the field will be out there for public scrutiny, praise or scorn. It will be alongside exhibits of artists that I now recognize to be really fine crafts persons. Exciting, yes. Exhilarating, yes. Scary as hell, OHMYGAWD, YES!!!

And in the confines of my private life, I'm pretty much done with the unpacking. I'm now beginning to set up for the garage sale, and I frankly feel overwhelmed by it all. There is SO much stuff to price. Gail has offered to help with that, and I'm going to let her do as much as she can. She can be impartial about pricing, and I think that's good. It is hard for me when something is worth $100 to me, but I realize that someone else might not think it's worth $1. I'm pretty sure Gail would find a price somewhere in between those two.

Related to the garage sale, I'll tell you about a strange encounter I had yesterday. I went to the local lumber yard to buy two sheets of plywood and to have them split so I would have four pieces of plywood that were 2' X 8'. These were to make tables, using sawhorses as legs, to display the garage sale items. I was told that they can't split them. Huh?? They are a lumber yard!! No, "it takes a special saw" and they didn't have one. I asked why. I was told that the one they had burned in a fire they had. I asked when it would be replaced. Reply: with a shrug, "Maybe never; the fire was over two years ago." OH...GOOD...GRIEF!!! I even said I didn't care if it splintered somewhat because of the intended purpose, but they wouldn't do it. I asked how I was supposed to (1) get it home in those big sheets (2) unload it and (3) cut it at home if it takes a special saw. They didn't know. I left. No, I stormed out. What a ridiculous thing for a lumber yard to say to a customer. They sell it, but they don't cut it to fit???

I'm not sure what I'm doing about this problem now. My only known alternative is to drive an hour or more to Roswell or Alamogordo to buy and have the sheets split. I'll work it out, but I'm so frustrated!!

But you? Y'all get off easy. All you have to do is look at this.....

We had a storm a few days ago. It began like this ....



Then it went to this......


And this.....



And I got a few pix of lightening flashing behind the clouds .....






Now, a few shots of thistle blossoms in the corral.



Beautiful things, aren't they?



But they create the most obnoxious weeds I can think of. Think of a dandelion with painfully pokey spines growing eight feet tall. Well, they're pretty now ... tomorrow they get the Roundup!



And just for kicks ... can you see why this is called an "alligator pine"???