A Good Day

by | Nov 21, 2008 | , , , | 4 Comments

Making my day…………

Over the past few years, I’ve been fortunate to have my work chosen for 5 different book covers. Two books have been from a wonderful poet who teaches at the University of Alabama, Theodore Worozbyt.

Yesterday he sent me this link to an interview he had about his books. My work featured on the cover is mentioned and his quotes made my day.

Pieces of Red 5 will grace the cover of the award winning poetry book, The Dauber Wings, by Theodore Worozbyt.

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Progress

by | Nov 9, 2008 | , | 0 Comments

Progress is being made…………slowly.
I’m showing some pictures taken over the past couple of weeks…. First the slow process of removing old flooring and down to the old pine boards. A nasty process, I assure you. Also the removal of a couple of layers on some of the walls, down to some old wallpaper when it must have been a dining or living room. This was found when taking out the old pantry area we are going to use as part of the new kitchen cooking/prep area. New wallboard had to be installed. Thank goodness it didn’t have to look perfect since the new cabinetry will cover most all of it anyway. Nothing is perfect in this old a house anyway…….so you might as well like it that way.
The area where the old sink was is the area with the only two cabinets we left around the sink window. ( We still have to put in new bead board to meet the old here. This was the ONLY counter space in the old kitchen. Since I wanted to leave SOMETHING of the old, we left these two old cabinets, removed the doors, and I will leave them as open shelves for my blue and white dishes and also near the dining area in the kitchen for convenience. At the beginning I will paint the interior the same SW Universal Khaki as the walls about the wainscoting…….later I may add more color as is appropriate for the dishes displayed.
My husband (favorite helper) is doing most of the grunt work on this project. We are hiring out all the plumbing, electrical, cabinets and the new white oak floors are now installed but not yet finished. The same man who finished the other adjacent floors will be doing the work…starting on Thursday. I have no idea how long that will take but it will be three visits he says. After that will be the new cabinets installed………..WE have to paint them…paint grade maple. All the appliances are here. Are you tired yet? I am, but still have to finalize what hardware and counters/back splashes and get some schedule for the installation of new wiring, the rest of the plumbing and the venting, etc. I plan on a dark quartz counter top.
Off Tuesday to deliver more paintings to Dallas so it might be some time before I get back to the blog.
AND, I have been informed I will have Thanksgiving company………..

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A LOT GOING ON

by | Nov 3, 2008 | , | 1 Comment

There’s a lot going on here at the farm but not a lot of it is making art much to my disappointment. My mom died so I ended up making two trips to Oklahoma.

We’ve gutted a bathroom and the whole kitchen. The floors and some of the walls had to be stripped back so it was a long physical process (mostly for my husband) as he does most of this physical work. I have to be there to just lend support and the hammer and nails so to speak.

I have ordered and received the new appliances and have the cabinet man starting to work. We’ve had plumbers, need electricians and then the plumbers back later. I haven’t a clue what back splash and counter top I want as I’m just going from one project to another helter-skelter. We also will not do anything without cash in hand so I wait daily for set-backs which would make the budget (What budget??) go out the window. The new oak floors will be installed on Thursday but I can’t get the finisher on the phone.

I have a gallery interested in my work so I’m running back to Dallas Tuesday to take them some work. Fifteen gazillion people call wanting to know how much my house in Longview is selling for. My Seattle gallery, Gallery Mack, sold a large painting…………..yaaay Gallery Mack.

Over the week-end my thirteen year-old grandson came for the opening of deer season…his dad came the next day and also my daughter and granddaughter. It was a interesting situation with only one bed due to all the upheaval here………but two hideabeds. One is in the studio so we all ate up there and two slept up there. Looks like they all like my studio. OH yeah….didn’t kill a deer ( saw some) but did kill that huge hog and did some stalking of the beaver that keeps damming up the spillway on the pond.

I have time to write this since I got upstairs to make coffee and discovered I had forgotten to set back the alarm clock, although I think I’ve re-set all the others. Joke’s on me I guess. I’ll be drooping tonight from being up so early.

Off to Tyler today and Dallas tomorrow….BUSY BUSY

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Back to the Wax

by | Oct 16, 2008 | , , , | 2 Comments

Back to the waxes!

So long ago it seems since I put this piece up. I needed to get some commission work done with acrylic so all the wax/encaustic paints had to be put away to make room in the studio.

Later, a trip to Italy and moving and and and….all conspired to keep me away.

Today, I finally got to fooling around with this piece again, and I suddenly wanted to add something that I passed every day when running around the Umbrian hills. ….an umbrella or Italian pine tree that seemed a lone sentinel on one of the roads we traveled. I’m not sure what kind of pine they are but it doesn’t matter to me…it looks like an umbrella.

This photo is a little dark since it is such a gray day today. If I don’t change it, I’ll have to take a better picture with truer color. Whatever, there were plenty of these kind of gray days in Umbria as well, so it seems appropriate. This one is 24 x 24″ titled, Umbrella Pine, Umbria.

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Same old refrain!

by | Oct 11, 2008 | , | 0 Comments

Still working on gutting the kitchen and one bathroom with hall. We’ve piled up everything we can in a back bedroom that also has to have the oak flooring refinished. Also, much furniture is piled up in the front living room (entrance hall). I have no idea how long we will have to live with this.

The tractor and farm truck is in the front yard waiting to take off the old toilet and vanity plus all the extra wall board removed so far from the bathroom. Next is demolition of the old shower. Now we discovered one old wall was left when they moved a wall to make this bathroom. Ooops…might be a wall that has to stay so back to rethinking all this.

My husband already took away all the old cabinets/pantry in the kitchen. We save what we can that might be reused but it’s hard to store all this stuff.

Yesterday, we took a break for a time to go to my husband’s big high school reunion at a ranch nearby. Woo…what a fancy place and fabulous food. It was great to see all these old friends for him, and nice for me to meet a few new people plus renew acquaintance with some I knew from before.

Back to the kitchen gutting…….our fridge is now in the front entry so I come down and pick up food, take it up to the studio apartment and place in the small fridge there to cook. Looks like I have a whole kitchen up there but small amount of counter space to work on….but it will do until we get this all worked out however long it takes. We’re lucky to have somewhere to go while all this takes place. It will be a slow process due to doing a lot of work ourselves (really my husband with me standing by for support).

Maybe I can sneak in some real painting time………I hope so.

I have a big week next week running back over to Longview several times for appointments and taking work for an art walk Downtown Longview has started recently. Some of my work will hang at the Tyler Street Bistro and Gilbert’s Martini Bar. Come by if you are in town………..5-8 pm….Thursday, October 16. It should be fun. All the merchants in downtown will have art work to share.

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Promised Painting Photo

by | Oct 2, 2008 | , , | 2 Comments

I’m just now getting around to taking pictures of the four paintings I completed at colony. I did take some but the light was bad so I waited until I got home. Time is flying so I’m just now taking my first pictures here at the farm studio. Hummm…not funny if your painting wants to fly off the upper porch which almost happened. I kept moving around and moving around and finally got them done although I need a special place to hang them at a better level in the future.

This is the last one I did before Colony ended. I’m titling most everything right now with Umbria in it since that is what I hope I am calling on for my show in Louisiana next year….and these are the images that come to my mind as all the relationships with shape and color evolve.

This one is HilltownsUmbria ….30 x 30″ acrylic on canvas.

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Colony

by | Sep 25, 2008 | | 0 Comments

Woo woo….I’ve got internet people. Of course, now that I’m here at camp and painting, I don’t have much, if any, time to check out anything on the internet. I only scan emails, etc.

I have got two paintings that might pass muster. One is finished and hasn’t died on me (all acrylic painters know what I mean here). The other is still being considered but I think it will do.

Maybe I can get a couple of pictures taken and up tomorrow if things don’t get too hectic.

Now time to close down for happy hour and dinner….see ya tomorrow if at all possible.

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Farm Studio…continued

by | Sep 8, 2008 | | 4 Comments

It’s been a while but I’ve been working…. Just not always on painting. I’m still setting up in the studio and took more pictures. However, my ISP and Flickr don’t always cooperate with me. I got some of the pictures to load after making them into web sized images. Here’s the link  
Just look for the ones from Sept 8. 
The photo above was made at sunset during the week of rain and storms coming up from the coast..
Yesterday my daughter, her husband and two kids showed up with their two quarter horses. They are going to see if they can keep them out here now but we’ll have to move them at times for the cows to get through their area. This morning after my husband headed out to Longview and a dental appointment and seeing after more house stuff…I heard a rumbling noise. Guess I couldn’t see the horses running around but finally saw one of them running around the pens…whinnying. For myself, I was hoping nothing was wrong since I know absolutely nothing about seeing after horses. They seem to have quietened down now. They also know nothing about having a lot of space so I guess there is a lot of learning to do on all sides.
I’m planning to get back to the studio now but hopefully in the future some of this ISP coming in and out of service will get better. If not, you will hear me screaming from here to “anywhere and everywhere”.
PS……….Looking through the pictures, you will see one room used to be a living room, one a bedroom and one a kitchen (forgot little bathroom)…………we’re going to keep a sofa up there so it will be a better place to just go sit at times and I also put in a little “break room” table in the kitchen. NOW, to figure out what to do with all the shipping boxes. I used to have them on a high large shelf mostly in the old studio closet. These closets are nice but not in the height and depth department for this kind of storage.

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A Friend……..Bill Gingles

by | Sep 4, 2008 | , , | 0 Comments

Angst…withdrawal….call it what you will. NO INTERNET, SUCKS.

I’ve been on the farm and trying to get into my mail or the bank or whatever, you name it….It’s, LIKE DIALUP. I’ll never complain about my old ISP of DSL-ATT-YAHOO again, I promise.

Anyway, I’m still scared to try to upload a picture but I finally got this email from a friend over in Shreveport about a neat Utube video he now has published so I thought I could load it ………..fun, wish I could do one of these some day. (You wouldn’t want to hear me, I promise with my TX accent).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRH44NFgzLE

………………. Introducing, Bill GIngles……

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SOME LIKE IT HOT

by | Aug 31, 2008 | , , | 0 Comments

Carolyn and I traveled to Dallas Saturday to go to the opening reception of the “Some Like It Hot” show we have work in at the Bath House Cultural Center. It’s a great place to have a show on the banks of White Rock Lake in east Dallas.
The reception was packed with lots of people interested in the encaustic technique as well as a lot of people coming in to see the Women Printmakers showing in the adjacent gallery.
Looking forward to sharing encaustic painting techniques, some of our TX Wax Dallas members are preparing for demonstrations of their personal techniques during the DADA art walk on September 13.

Right now Flikr says “We have a problem, Houston” for my uploads of photos…so maybe later I can get some up from the reception or send them to some other member of our group to post.
Go by the Bath House if you get a chance before September 27th when the show closes….you won’t be disappointed. 521 E. Lawther Dr. Dallas, TX

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Confident Color

by | Aug 22, 2008 | , , | 3 Comments

Last week I was looking through my art books with the thought of starting to pack them up for the move to the farm. It suddenly hit me again……….MY WORK IS ON THE COVER OF THIS WONDERFUL BOOK by Nita Leland,(The New Creative Artist, revised).

And, it’s happening again for the second time for her new book, Confident Color: An Artist’s Guide to Harmony, Contrast and Unity.

Without a formal art education, I haunted the library and bookstores for books on art technique. Nita Leland’s books were among my favorites. To think that my work is now in the place Edward Betts work was for the cover of first Creative Artist… awesome is an understatement. I never met Betts although I always loved his work and read many articles he wrote for magazines or where he was quoted in books. Many of the artists who have been featured in these books I’ve now met going to shows, working within organizations, etc. It’s still amazing to me when I stop to think about it.

So when I was contacted last week by Art To Art Palette about my thoughts on being featured in Nita’s newest book on color, the stars must have all be in alignment or something.

Karen Jacobs has a great comment on the book and being included in her blog a few days ago…thanks for the plug, Karen.

Most of all, thank you , Nita Leland, for writing some wonderful and inspirational books. I am so proud to be included with all the other fine artists in this latest publication. I’m waiting impatiently for it to be available in bookstores.

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