Helloooooooo, my sweetums! Been a long time. Took the weekend off from posting. Oh man, what a vacation that was. Channeled my creativity into painting. Yes indeed. Got some ART to show you.
But first…the weather report.
Remember all that rain I bitched about rejoiced over last week? Sumthin’ like 12 inches by the Friday evening news. That’s a whole lot ‘o wet. Indeed.
But Saturday we woke up to SUN! Blue skies. Big yellow orb. Heaven. Pure heaven. For a couple of hours.
Walked outside and it was like an enchanted forest around here. All that water going back up to the sky.
But it came down again. Only colder. Next morning we woke up to a different kind of enchantment. The kind that makes the dogs crazy happy.
But that’s enough about weather. Happens one way or another, every day. So let’s move on to ART! YAY!!! Let’s hear it for studio time. YAY!
I can’t hear you. Let’s do it again. LOUDER!
YAY!
Much better. Okay, so here are some works-in-progress. All acrylics. 12×24, (2) 24×24, 40×40. The closest one to being finished is the one with the woman.
'In Her Dreams' by Susan Lobb Porter. Acrylic on canvas, 24x24
Pretty close to being done. Might be, in fact. But until it walks out the door to a new home I always reserve the right to make changes. Just because I can.
Oh, how I enjoyed being in the studio. Enjoyed being productive. Did some thinking while I was painting and realized I need to do more of that. But since there’s only so many hours in the day something’s got to give. So I decided to cut back on the blog schedule. Instead of posting EVERY DAY (Is that nuts or what???) I’m cutting back to three days a week. At least for the time being. To make things easy to remember, I’m thinking Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
So I’ll see you Wednesday. Remember, that’s Random Acts of Art day. If you’ve got a link to share, there’ll be a link up on my blog. You can also send your photos to me and I’ll post them here. If you’re sending photos, be sure I get them by Tuesday afternoon, Pacific time (California). Can’t wait to see what you have to share!
Holy kamoly! Water water EVERYWHERE!!! Just pouring outta the sky like, umm…RAIN. All. Week. Long. The meadow is now a lake, the culvert a raging, bank-breeching creek.
Mr. Spouse is putting the studio project on hold while he builds the ark.
Yoo-hoo…goddess of precipitation. This one’s for you, hon…ever hear of moderation?
Lights are flickering. I think I’ll cut this short before I get cut short. Going to take the weekend off while I’m at it. But I’ll be back Monday.
And if I’m not, it means the connection floated away. Or we’re without power.
Now in case you’re in drought mode, here’s something to remind you what it’s like….
I’m sitting here listening to the weather. Not the weather report, the weather. The real deal. The sound of rain blowing through the pines. Beating against the widows. Spilling over the gutter onto the patio.
The sounds of winter when it’s not quite cold enough to snow. The sound that will keep the pastures alive this summer. That will help the trees retain some moisture during fire season.
I’ve been listening to for days. It’s the most beautiful music, especially coming so late in the driest of dry winters.
That, my friends, is the number one thing I give thanks for this week.
Although the roof over my head and the fire in the wood stove are a close second. Creature comforts are a good thing.
Speaking about creatures and their comforts, it a wet world outside these days. There’s standing water everywhere. Puddles and mud. Puddles and mud. The ponies are hanging out in what I call the barn but it’s really a three sided shed that keeps them high and dry and out of the wind. They can go in and out as they please. When the weather is…weather, I make sure they have a nice fluffy bed of shavings to keep them warm.
And no one appreciates that more than my boy, Saki, AKA Pony-My-Heart. The sight of Mom lugging a bag of shavings through the mud gets him all aquiver. He’s all over me as I slice open the plastic. Nuzzles the bag. Pawing impatiently. Making excited little noises deep in his throat. Can barely contain himself as I dump the shavings onto the mat. And then he’s down on his knees, over on his back. Grunting and groaning and rolling like he’s the happiest boy on the planet. And for a couple of minutes I think he is.
The wind is picking up right now, driving the rain against the roof. It’s a comforting sound. In a few minutes I’ll climb into bed. We always sleep with a bedroom window open, no matter what the weather. I’ll snuggle under the covers. The rain and wind will sound like I’m right there. Outside, in the thick of it. Like a lullabye it will lull me to sleep.
I went to the local art store the other day. I only wanted a couple of pens, honest. But my plans were seriously screwed compromised before I even got in the door.
Before I even got out of the car.
A man and woman caught my eye. Young. Attractive. Matter of fact the guy was seriously h.o.t. In a younger-than-my-son sort of way. But that didn’t stop me from noticing. But what really caught my attention was the stack of canvases the two of them were struggling to carry. Huge canvases. GIGUNDO NORMOUS beautiful blank. white. things. that had me drooling with envy.
My creative lust-o-meter was popping off the charts.
I wanted to be like them. I wanted to wrestle creative potential into the back of my car. I wanted to go to bed that night KNOWING I had five glorious BLANK canvases waiting for me to have my way with them. BIG canvases. Because at this time in my life, size does matter.
I got out of the car. Marched right up to the couple, total strangers to me, and told them I had canvas envy. Then I went into the store .
Oh. My. See where this is heading? Umm-hmm…bet you do. Because my best beloved readers are the smartest ones on the interwebs, aren’t you? So you KNOW I went right past the pens. Straight to the canvases. And you’re right.
Thing about this store, it’s the only game in town. Got to drive nearly 50 miles down the hill to find more art supplies. Gas and time, ka-ching ka-ching. Or order online and pay for shipping. Ka-ching again. The local store knows that and, as a result, they are not kind with their markup.
Except when it comes to canvas. They practically give it away, provided you buy a case. A case of the small things means 10. A case for anything remotely large means 5. When you buy a case they give you 70% off.
Can’t come anywhere near that, even at the cheapest of the cheap source online.
So I found myself in the canvas section where I have been many times. Enough that I could probably qualify for an intervention. But this time I was just there to look. To ooh and ahh over the price list. To pull them from the rack and check out the size. To gaze longingly at their blankness and imagine….
And then I asked for a yardstick. Which I took outside to measure the back of my SUV. Because I was taking this imagining game to the next level. It was such a nice canvas fantasy. I said hello to the young couple on the way out. They were still struggling to fit their purchase in their car. On the way back into the store I talked to them again. Got personal this time. Asked them what size they bought. 4 X 6 feet. Oh. My. They were ambitious.
I was happy with 40X40. They fit so well in the back of the car, even with all the crap stuff back there. 40X40. Big enough for me. At least for now.
And I didn’t have to strap ’em to the roof of my car. Like some people.
It’s Wednesday…time to spread the luvvv. Sprinklin’ good mojo one arty token at a time.
TaDaaaa…it’s RANDOM ACTS OF ART!!!
Good times. Good times.
And time for me to make some new arty tokens. Found I was almost out when I reached in my pocket this afternoon. Oh nooooooo! Deep pockets, lots of stuff. A couple of small flashlights. Neither one works. A little bottle of Rescue Remedy spay. Never know when you’re going to need that. Some paper towels because I ran out of tissues long ago. And hay. Lots of little bitty hay things.
And three heART rocks. Only three. So I had to think carefully where they could do the most good.
I hopped in the car and found myself heading to the other side of town. Actually, another town entirely. I got to thinking a good place for one of the heart rocks would be Mama’s cardiologist’s office. Really. Heart rock for someone seeing the heart doc.
Having been there with her many times I knew there was little chance I could sneak into the waiting room and hide the rock much less photograph it. Not without at least ten old people watching my every move. And the receptionist…no way I could get past that woman. Open the door and she’s got her hand out for the insurance card. Just doin’ her job, just doin’ her job…
So no, his office wasn’t a good idea. But the atrium of the medical building was. There it is, about knee height. Just waiting for someone who needs something to smile about after leaving the doctor’s office. Blind as she was, Mama would’ve noticed something like that and swooped it up as fast as…as a ninety-something year old could swoop.
Which isn’t very fast, really.
The medical building is near the hospital. Figured that would be a good place for a drop. People in the hospital need cheering up, right? So I made that my next stop. There wasn’t any parking down the hill at the ER so I went in the main door. Through the lobby.
But first I needed a tissue. It was raining. My nose was running. I couldn’t just reach in my pocket and pull out a paper towel and shake the chaff onto the floor. Not in the hospital lobby. The idea was to leave ART, not hay. So I went to the ladies’ room. And that’s where the perfect opportunity jumped out at me.
Right there on top of the paper towels. Everyone washing their hands will see it. But I hope it stays there until someone who needs it takes it. Along with one of those cards. Maybe it will encourage them to get out of a bad situation. Who knows….
After the hospital I decided to head downtown. Told myself if there was an easy parking spot I’d wander around looking for another drop spot. Lo and behold, the universe heard me! Easy-peasy. TWO parking spaces in a row. Doesn’t get any better than that when it’s parallel parking on a hill.
It was meant to be.
So I parked. When I went to feed the meter I realized the car behind me had run out of time. So I fed that meter too. And left a calling card rock. Double luvvv. Then I wandered into my original target, the little indy bookstore up the hill. Where I spent a most pleasant hour.
Uh-oh…See that yellow notice on the meter? Where it says ‘No Feeding’. I just read it now. Honest, officer. No ‘feeding’. Here I thought I was being a good citizen and it turns out I’m a law breaker. A parking felon.
Well, we’ll just let the karma fairy be the judge of that!
Now it’s your turn. Got any Random Acts of Art to share? I KNOW some of you do! Join the link party. Don’t be shy! Just enter below (above the comments) where it says “You are next…click here” Link stays open until 11:59 PM Saturday, Pacific (USA) time.
