Happiness is....

Monday, I bought flowers and set up a still life in the studio.

Tuesday, I re-arranged the still life endlessly, then mixed paint time and time again, never quite satisfied with the colors.

Wednesday, I worked on my resume, delivered a painting, and generally avoided actually painting....until late afternoon. And then, it happened. The joy, the excitement, the delight, and pleasure that sometimes happens when I paint overwhelmed me.

Such is happiness.

Joansing

As Winnie-the-Pooh says,

"It's so much more friendly with two."

There is no doubt that the weather in Houston is at it's best in the fall and spring....which makes those times ideal for plein air painting, or painting outdoors. Last spring--or maybe it was a year ago spring--Joan and Joan joined me in the Japanese Garden for a morning of painting. The camaraderie is great....just to have other friends who are compelled to paint like I am, and to cheer each other in our small artistic achievements. The two Joans are great encouragers.

This painting was the result of our day together.

"Crepe Myrtles at the Japanese Garden" has been auctioned (as of tonight) to raise money for the Susan G Komen Foundation. All money from the sale of this painting goes to the Houston Chapter to help eradicate breast cancer through research, education, screening, and treatment.

Sleepovers

A lot of people have been asking for an update, especially with regards to the Spice Show a whole weekend ago. It was a grand event, well attended and thoughtfully considered. Because of e-mail forwards, we had a whole group of old acquaintances come out to join us. Reese and I caught up on a few years worth of news from the old hood, which is always entertaining and amusing.

Last week, we had the delightful pleasure of hosting an *our parent's age* couple from England in our home. We chatted endlessly, giggled, and spent a day visiting the MFAH and Byzantine Chapel. Rosemary and David Shaw had never seen nor heard of Frederick Remington, the famous American painter, illustrator, and sculptor who specialized in scenes of the old wild west. The MFAH has several Remington paintings and one of his bronzes. Remington has an unique way of depicting light and/or darkness. One painting is full of soft greens to depict the moonlit night at an open corral on the high plains. It is a painting of a horse being surrounded by wolves in the darkness.

"It's quite fierce really. Yes. Shocking." (they both said with nods of approval.)

As some might recall, my art studio doubles as the guest room. The only complaint from Rosemary and David was that the room got a bit cold overnight. Everyone who sleeps in the studio says the same thing. I must remember to make up the bed with a nice warm blanket before you come spend the night.

A Full Fall

There are several art related things on the calendar for the fall, the first being the Spice Show opening this Saturday at Elder Street Gallery.

On October the 4th, one of my paintings will be in the Susan G Komen Race For The Cure Pasta Party Silent Auction at the Westin Galleria. Tickets for the Pasta Party are available at Komen-Houston.

Something fun and new I'm working on will be in the silent auction for Lawndale Art Center's Dia de los Muertos Silent Auction on October 26th.

The Center for Hearing and Speech is hosting Via Colori on November 17th and 18th. Like last year, I am painting a 10 foot by 10 foot square on a street in downtown Houston. I have almost decided on an image to transfer for this HUGE disposable art. In addition to the painting on the street, Via Colori will also auction a smaller reproduction of the piece on the street, if that makes sense. So I will auction off a ten inch by ten inch painting, and draw a ten foot by ten foot giant painting of the same image on the street that will be washed off by the end of the festival. Someone will get to keep the smaller painting, though.

And I'm having a piece for sale in Bering and James for their annual Holiday Box Sale on December 1st.

A Leaf Treader

I have been treading on leaves all day until I am autumn tired.
God knows all the color and form of leaves I have trodden on and mired.
Perhaps I have put forth too much strength or been too fierce from fear.
I have safely trodden underfoot the leaves of another year.

All summer long they were overhead, more lifted up than I.
To come to their final place in earth they had to pass me by.
All summer long I thought I heard them whispering under their breath.
And when they came it seemed with a will to carry me with them to death.

They spoke to the fugitive in my heart as if it were leaf to leaf.
They tapped at my eyelids and touched my lips with an invitation to grief.
But it was no reason I had to go because they had to go.
Now up, my knee, to keep on top of another year of snow.

Robert Frost

Spice

Elder Street Gallery is hosting a nine woman exhibit called "Spice." It just so happens that I am one of the artists (!).... along with Susan Donaldson, Shelly Shanks, Jerrie Glidden, Bridget Vallery, Alissa Fereday, Sorange Castillo, Rose Marie Moore, and Susan Goettsche.

Instead of being Spice Girls, we are Spice Women. Call me Zesty Spice....or just call me.

The opening reception is September 22nd, 6-10pm. Every one is invited, of course. The gallery is located at 1101 Elder Street in the really old refurbished Jefferson Davis hospital. Drive around back to the gallery entrance.

"Whoever controls the spice controls the universe."
—Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Dune

Bertie On Our First Date

On July 4th, we were invited to an old fashioned Southern style Independence Day picnic where the guests were encouraged to bring a family dish AND include a photograph of the relative from whom the recipe came. This task first required looking through a very disorganized box of recipes. Having found a recipe for Mills' Homemade Ice Cream, the next order of business was to find a photograph of my father's mother, Gramma Mills.

Now, I realize it's very unlikely that this recipe was invented by my grandmother. And it's also very probable that it wasn't passed down from her, but I do remember going to her house in the summertime and eating homemade ice cream. She was really cute. She would get so excited in the kitchen when she was cooking for us. Sometimes she would have saved some snow ice cream from the previous winter....Now remember, I was young. The story was that since it didn't snow in our part of Mississippi, she would save some snow ice cream for us to eat when we came to visit. In my childishness, I imagined that all snow fell in drifts of colors and flavors. One would go outside in the winter and gather a bucketful of vanilla or strawberry snow ice cream to save for the coming year. I'm convinced that's why we tell our youngsters not to eat yellow snow....if it's yellow it must be lemon flavored, right?

The photograph I found was stuck in an old album. It's the only picture I have of Gramma Mills. She didn't still look like this when I loved her.


This is what she looked like when my grandpa first loved her, for on the back of the photograph, it says in a lovely script,

"Bertie on our first date"

Did my grandpa know *on his first date* that he was going to build a life with this woman?

For the last 20 years, the Lawndale Art Center has hosted a Dia de los Muertos exhibition inviting Texas artists to create a retablo, a small oil devotional painting. This precious photograph of my grandmother and what it signifies---the beginning of a life and love that is a huge part of the reason that I even exist---was the inspiration for the retablo I'm painting.

The plan for this piece is to have the Gramma Mills part in black and white (as shown below) to indicate life from the past. Then I plan to paint the background in color to show that love flourished and grew, and is still growing from this first date. The whole "family tree" aspect of the retablo will be suggested by a tree in the landscape. The finished piece will be auctioned in The Retablo Gala and Silent Auction for Lawndale Art Center on October 26. (I might need to buy this piece back.)


Mills' Homemade Ice Cream

6 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 can condensed milk
pinch salt
4 teaspoons vanilla
2 cartons whipping cream
1 pint half and half
2 cups milk - more or less - fill to line in machine

Ice and lots of salt
Also drain water as it turns

Studio Life

For various reasons, it's a tad bit difficult to concentrate on painting during the summer months. This summer has been no exception. A whopping two paintings were completed. Two.

This week has seen a flurry of activity in the studio, starting with a good late summer cleaning. While cleaning, it seemed like a natural time to re-arrange the studio as well, which turned out to be surprisingly inspiring. A renewed sense of purpose overcame me and I've been painting like crazy. OK, not like crazy, but there are three paintings drying on the easels right now. Two of those have quite a bit of work left, but the other one is mostly finished. (There was much rejoicing...yay.)

The painting that is mostly finished is a 12" x 36" box for the Bering and James Holiday Box Sale. It's the first time I've painted on a surface besides cloth....it's a medium density fiberboard box purchased through the gallery. This is also the thing that I was ready to throw away because I found the *art* of applying gesso so complicated. I'm glad it didn't get thrown away, because it turned out to be quite a fun piece to paint. If it looks a bit fuzzy in the photograph, well...it's slightly exaggerated, but only slightly. For some reason the camera seemed to adjust itself to show what my eyes see, instead of a properly focused camera lens view. What's up with that?

Balboa Park

This painting might be finished....I've been working on it since early July.

Way back in the early 80's during my competitive running days was the first time I fell in love with Balboa Park. We (the University of Hawaii women's cross country team) had travelled to San Diego for a cross country meet. The crowd was massive as I remember it, and the weather was downright cold. Anything below 75 degrees is cold to someone from Hawaii. The course was beautiful....bright endless blue skies, rolling hills, dusty foot path, assorted wildlife, eucalyptus groves, and getting to run through it all. Life for me at the time didn't get any better than that.

For the Hazel family summer vacation we went to San Diego to see my little sister get married. While in San Diego, (stay classy San Diego) I really wanted us all to visit the park. My definition of San Diego included the words "Balboa Park."

Reese had us first go to the information center to pick up brochures which was a brilliant idea. He was a wonderful tour guide encouraging us to go see the Botanical Garden right before closing time. Enchanting is the best word to describe it. He also had us trekking through the woods of the park looking for geo-caches. The sky was still crispy blue as it had been years ago, and the trails still dusty. It couldn't have been a more enjoyable afternoon. [Left to right in the photo: Anna, Sarah (me), Reese, Hilary, and Erin. Joy is the photographer. We are standing just outside the Botanical Garden.]

Great Grandma Heidelberg

My memories of Great Grandma Heidelberg are clearly fuzzy. But I've heard stories all my life. Stories that always start with laughter and when Grandma Heidelberg was alive, she...

-would have her maids wash the paper money and hang it on the clothes line to dry.

-had the whole household searching for her girdle only later to realize she was wearing it.

-burnt Grandpa Heidelberg's toast every morning. She wanted to be helpful and do something for her husband (instead of the maid doing everything.) He apparently never complained. Bless his heart.

Somewhere in the beginning of her life story she picked up a paintbrush. It was not unusual back in the late 1800's or early 1900's for a young lady's training to include proficiency in the arts. It is highly likely that she had some sort of art classes during her Belhaven College days from which she graduated in 1902. My mom told me once that she took art classes at a university in Shreveport, Louisiana in the 1950's. By then she was in her 70's! Pretty cool heritage. Mom said that all the college kids loved having her on campus.

So many people want to know how it is that I "found" painting given that I had no previous/formal training. I honestly don't know, but if artistic genes run through families, maybe someday I can live up to Great Grandma Heidelberg's reputation....as a fun person and as an artist. She painted the three chicks (above) which is still my favorite painting of all time.

Mississippi

Our family roots are buried deep in the soil of Mississippi. The earliest recorded ancestor in Mississippi was Thomas Christian Heidelberg who moved his family there in 1816. According to the Christian Heidelberg and Some of His Descendants family book,

"After many weeks of slow hard travel, the wagon train arrived at it's destination. Thomas Christian and his family rested their first night in Mississippi Territory with a hospitable and friendly Choctow Indian chief."

Once a year in late summer, the Heidelberg cousins gather together from all parts of the country for a family reunion. This has been going on for decades. What started out as a rather large picnic lunch back in the day has evolved into a small weekend of semi-organized festivities. Three reunions ago we all gathered in Natchez. One of the planned activities was a guided tour of Longwood.* While there I took several photos of the grounds with the thought of someday painting a part of my beloved Mississippi. Longwood is just off the Natchez Trace, and it's not too hard to imagine early relatives travelling the Trace with friendly Choctow Indians.

*All construction halted on this antebellum mansion at the start of the War Between the States. Even though the owner of the house and surrounding land had Federalist papers, when Union soldiers came through Natchez, they completely destroyed the property. What is left of Longwood is a sad reminder of the war and it's enduring impact that is still felt deeply in parts of the South.

Ex Post Facto

"Lemons and Christmas Cactus" sold before it was signed or photographed. The owners recently loaned it back so that it could be signed and photographed. Having it back in our home for a few days has been delightful. I forget how much I love and miss the paintings after they have gone to live somewhere else. It's a little bit like when one of my daughters comes home for a visit...I relish every moment they are here while rejoicing with them in their independence. The paintings/the daughters are no longer mine to care for or keep. It's right to let go, and equally important to enjoy the visit.

The lemons are from the Cooner's tree which produces it's fruit in December. The Christmas cactus was a gift from Fran on my 40th birthday, and is in full bloom---well, during the Christmas season. Joy, when she when a child, painted the clay pot as a Mother's Day gift. The sweet simple landscape scene she painted on the pot has disappeared over the years, and all that's left is the very faded powder blue rim. This is the third time the wooden bowl has been in a painting and the second time for the stoneware pitcher. The still life was set up in our *Ming red* dining room.

White Linen

Something I neglected to mention last week was that I was the artist in Wind Water Gallery for White Linen Night in the Heights on Saturday night. (The owners, Ross and Cathy Clark are very gracious and kind.) Houstonians came out in droves (at least as many a 15,000). Many thanks to our friends who came to Wind Water to support us.

Of course, I wore white linen guru pants and a white linen sleeveless shirt in keeping with the event. And as usual, forgot the camera...

Wind Water Gallery
548 W 19th, 713.426.4885, windwatergallery.com
Houston’s largest source of Asian Antiques. Paintings by Sarah Hazel, White Linen Night Bacardi Drinks.

************************************************************************************

Rough week of painting:

Somehow, I manage to not remember the same things every time I paint. I hardly ever remember to start with darks first. It's really hard to put shadows in a painting after one has started with lights. For some reason, I think that I can put on a color---and it will be true---and it will blend well. But when that color has a base of white in it, the other colors don't blend so well with it, especially if one is trying to add a darker shadow. This not being able to apply dark over light happens to me over and over again. Why can I never remember to start with dark colors and then add the lights?

Gesso Complicated....

Sweet Anna has moved to Austin. She's renting a house not too far from where Sister Erin lives and is continuing to create a wonderfully amazing life for herself and those around her. I love this for her....*really*....it's just that I have known for some time how much I rely on Anna to answer all of life's art questions. Naturally, since she lives in Austin and I live in Houston, she is not here when I have questions. Questions like: How the heck am I supposed to use gesso? ['je-(")sO] And what's the deal with fixative?

By the time she arrived for a long weekend visit, I had googled gesso, read everything that wikipedia had to say about it, bought some, and understood that it should be used for the beginning stages of a particular project. But the how-to mechanics of it were not answered in any of the online research. (Gesso is a sort of primer/rabbit skin glue stuff used to prepare a raw surface to accept paint. Feel free to correct me if that's not right.) Anna is such a patient teacher and explains things so gently and graciously that when it is time to put to practice what she taught, it isn't as distasteful a task as I imagine. I was dreading using gesso. Whatever horror I had associated with using gesso was---only in my head. In reality it is a relatively painless process----many thanks to Anna's gentle explanation.**

There were/are a few chalk and charcoal sketches that I want to preserve, so I bought a spray fixative that is supposed to protect the surface of the work so that it doesn't smear. Anna said that I bought the wrong kind of fixative, that I needed the workable fixative (fixatiff?)because the "matte spray clear matte protective finishing spray for art/craft projects" will yellow with time. Why didn't the sales lady at the art supply store tell me that?

**In the immortal (or not) words of G.O.B. from Arrested Development:
I made a huge mistake using the gesso after writing the above paragraphs yesterday. The horror is real, not imaginary. Gesso is indeed agonizingly wretched and torturous (for me) to use. The grievous depth of this misery has caused severe pain and anguish. It will take ten times as long to correct the lamentable gesso mistake as it did to make it in the first place. My over-exaggerated, extreme dislike of insufferable gesso survives.

This Is Not A Pipe

First of all, a belated update on the One Show...it was packed. Reese and I had a great time meeting new friends and appreciate our *not new* (but not old) friends coming out to support us.

Secondly, a friend and I toured 10 museum/gallery spaces on Thursday. 10.

Rice Gallery has an amazing summer window installation by Mike Stilkey called When the Animals Rebel. Thousands of old book's spines become the canvas for whimsical portraits of animals and people. Please follow the link on this one...it's worth it.

The Museum of Fine Arts Houston is classically a favorite. How can one go wrong at such a venerable institution? My friend particularly loves the impressionist era, so we focused our time on the Beck Collection and other impressionist paintings in the same area of the museum.

The Contemporary Art Museum was next with Black Light White Noise. It was like a children's museum for adults--very interactive. In one room there were giant 4' x 4' Plexiglas pods on the floor, that one was encouraged to enter. There was a lambskin fuzzy rug on the floor of the pod, and there were a few pillows around the perimeter on the inside...and headphones. A completely random story was playing in my pod about who knows what? I'm sure the piped in story was meaningful to the pod creator. Or not. Does it not seem that the goal of modern art is for it to be meaningless? The more meaningless it is, the more meaning we are expected to get out of it...right? Rene Magritte expressed this idea beautifully when he painted a pipe, and said about it, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe.", (or, This is not a pipe.), which is a painting we later saw in the Menil Collection.

"René Magritte described his paintings by saying,

My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, 'What does that mean?'. It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable." (excerpted from the Wikipedia article)

One Day, One Show, One Dress, One Nasty Critter, One Long Scream, One Tiny Poodle

The One Show opening reception is tomorrow night at Elder Street Gallery.

Sadly, I didn't paint yesterday because I was trying to figure out what to wear tomorrow night.

There is one dress that will work only if I do not sit down all evening because it's a bit short.

We live in an old house--not vintage, not antique, not shabby chic, just old. There are holes, ie., entry points for all kinds of critters into this old house. Mostly this is just a nuisance: sugar ants, fruit flies, an occasional cricket, slug, or roly poly.....but this morning there was a major nasty critter incident.

I was home alone at the time.

My throat is sore from screaming.

As cute as Disney and Pixar draw these critters, there is nothing *cute* about seeing one in a home environment.

Skipper was useless as a protector.

Abundant

Here I am, at the end of a long stormy summer day, feeling full with satisfaction at a day's painting and equally full from a small cool supper. Some days it is more fun to paint than others, this being one of those days. I am especially pleased with the results of this day's labor.

This was also my first time to use the small glass top of a round table as a palette. The glass surface was very conducive to mixing paints, and slightly larger than any other palette I've used previously. Painting usually requires two palettes when this many colors are mixed. These mixed colors are all skin tones; cute, chubby, fleshy skin tones.

Gloppy Balboa

A while back there was a two for one sale on linen canvases at Texas Art Supply because they were phasing out linen canvases in favor of cotton. I got hooked on linen about a year ago. It's a wonderful surface, especially the smooth portrait grade. I bought more than I should have at the sale, especially considering that there weren't many of the smooth canvases left. Several of the linen canvases I bought are thick weave, which I had forgotten is a bit difficult to paint on, unless one gets gloppy. In order to cover the surface, the paint has to be thick and applied with a heavy hand. If it goes on too gently, the paint doesn't fill in the valleys between the weave. But when it's too gloppy, the paint gets all messy and muddy.

The landscape I'm working on now is from a photo of our time at Balboa Park in San Diego and is on one of these thick weave linen canvases. I've determined that the best solution for painting this one is to lay the paint on thickly, then wait a day or so for it to set, then paint another fairly thick layer. Hopefully this will continue to work well for keeping the colors clean, and covering the surface. This is also giving me a little extra time to make sure that the colors are working well together--deciding what to put where and all that.

Also, since I can only work in small chunks of time on the Balboa Park landscape, I am finally reworking a painting that had bothered me for some time. It's got a lot of work before it's suitable for viewing, but I'm already enjoying the bit that's been reworked. Maybe I won't have bad dreams about it anymore.

Game of Tag

Serg and Lis tagged me.

There are rules involved, well, not rules exactly; they are more like guidelines.

This particular game of tag is about sharing 8 random things about oneself, that people might not know.

Here goes.

1. Remember when it was fun to tell people how old you were, and you couldn't wait until your next birthday? I'm still like that. I'm 43 and a half.

2. For years, I deluded myself into thinking that I could sing and dance. Last summer, someone secretly videotaped Reese and me dancing, and I finally had to admit that my skills and gifts might not be inclined toward that area of the arts. This knowledge, however, has not dampened my enthusiasm.

3. My hair started going grey when I was 15. Even still, it used to be so black that it was blue black.

4. I've been a size 8 since I was in the 10th grade, even though I've gained at least 20 pounds since I graduated from high school. This must be because manufacturers and designers have expanded the waistline on clothes to accommodate growth, so to speak.

5. I have passed for many nationalities, the most unusual being a mixture of Chinese, Hawaiian, and Anglo, but have also passed for Greek, Italian, Spanish, Argentinian, and Jewish, to name a few.

6. More than once, people have asked if they could come watch me work, or do stuff. This seems slightly odd to me, but I've always acquiesced. The latest was last week when a friend asked if she could come watch me paint.

7. Almost from the moment of my oldest daughter's birth, I have been trying to decide on a grandparent name for myself (and Reese). Reese thinks "Leroy and Eunice" are good grandparent names. We are open to suggestions.

8. Reese has a sister named Sarah, so for many years until she married, there were two Sarah Hazels. Often my in-laws have mistaken me for her, especially in e-mail communications. Some of the things they have said to me, thinking it was her, were enlightening.

Once I tag you, please share 8 random things about yourself and then tag 8(or how ever many) friends to share on their blog, too. Please let them know, by commenting on their blog, that they have been tagged. Also, please don't feel obligated to play tag. That said,

"YOU'RE IT!" Mary, Michael, Howard, Nils and/or Araceli, Tricia, Laurie, Laura, and Charlton.

Three Goldfish

Today is the day I will deliver a few paintings to Wind Water Gallery in the Heights. These paintings will be a very small part of a much larger event called Heights First Saturday that happily coincides with Yale Street Arts Market.

The first greeters when walking in the door of Wind Water Gallery are three cheerful goldfish eager to start a conversation. They are swimming--pratically running--in an old carved marble feeding trough that has found a new purpose as their home. Our chat went something like this:

Goldfish: "Hey! Hey! Hey! Down here--we're down here. Look at us."

Me: "Wha--?"

Goldfish: "Hello! Hello. Hello. Welcome to Wind Water Gallery. Have you ever been here before?"

Me: "Huh?"

Goldfish: "It's great....lot's of Asian antiques, jewelry, silk, and your art, right? Oh, oh, of course. You're the new artist."

Me: "Um....yes."

Goldfish: "Hey. How about tossing some food in here for us?"

Me: "Food?"

Goldfish: "Please? Pretty please? Pretty pretty please?"

Me: "OK."

Goldfish: "Oh, thank you thank you thank you. You're a nice lady."

Me: "Thank you. And you all are nice goldfish."

Art Investment

This relatively small pile of art supplies cost $180.39 with a 20% discount! Granted, these are higher quality paints, which is the most expensive part, but this is a fairly common occurrence when buying art supplies. Not only does an artist's heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears (some paintings are more frustrating than others to finish) go into creating work, there is a huge monetary investment as well.


The high cost of art supplies is why my next stop for a few household incidentals was here. The 99 cent only store rocks.

One

Curly: You know what the secret of life is?
Mitch: No, what?
Curly: This.
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don't mean ****.
Mitch: That's great, but what's the one thing?
Curly: That's what you've got to figure out. (excerpted from City Slickers)

One thing *for sure* is the one show of which I will be a part for one week in July.

Elder Street Gallery is hosting One Show to pay tribute to Houston's rather large art community.

Featuring 40 of Houston's best artists, One pays tribute to Houston's growing art scene. Each of the 40 artists from the greater Houston area will exhibit one single painting in the show. The artists want to promote the fact that Heights, Corridor, Montrose, West U., Downtown, and outlying area artists are working and showing together. This unified front will hopefully present a more cohesive art scene to Houston at large rather than a bunch of fractured little territories (at least for one week in the One Show.) The artists' vision is to focus on the convergence of Houston's various art communities into One.

The opening reception will be on Saturday, July 21, from 6-10 p.m.

Elder Street Gallery is located at 1101 Elder Street, (from Houston Ave., head east on Dart Street to Elder Street) in the Inner Corridor, near I-45 and I-10. Admission and parking are free of charge. For more information, call (281) 250-4889 (or visit the Web site.)

The exhibit runs one week through July 28.

Artists Include: Alex Wilhite, Dan Mitchell, Anila Aghax, Ray Phillips, Nathaniel Donnett, Marie Weichman, Lorena Femande, Shelley Shanks, John Mercado, Lilibeth Andre, Allan Rodewald, Keith J. R. Hollingsworth, Van McFarland, David Brown, William Panzer, Dune-Micheli Patten, Bridgett Vallery, Sarah Hazel, Julie Zarate, Cintia Rico, Mary Ann Lucas, Heidi Powell Prera, Max Boyd Harrison, Dune Tencer, Lacey Crawford, Sergio Santos, Jerrie Glidden, Alissa Fereday, Martin de Vore, Matt Adams, Solomon Kane, Xsemaj, Sorange Castillo, Mitch Cohen, Victoria Lewelling, Richard Varela, AimiDunn, David Weaver, Susan Goettsche

Magnetism

Instead of buying a refrigerator magnet and /or t-shirt (umm....I did buy an In-N-Out Burger t-shirt) on our most recent trip to San Diego for my little sister's wedding, we shopped for local art. Strolling through Coronado's Art in the Park, and then Balboa Park, we happened upon a plein aire gallery in Spanish Village Art Center. There was one piece in particular called "Among the Eucalyptus" by San Diego artist David Ainsley that I liked. It was painted near La Jolla in an eucalyptus grove in autumn, and is especially lovely (to me). It will cost as much as a multitude of refrigerator magnets when and if I buy it, which is very likely, because I was drawn to it.

Here's my favorite wedding photo. I think this is where my dad, the father of the bride and the preacher, is telling Chris, the groom and my new brother-in-law, that it's not time to hold my sister Elizabeth's hand, yet. Chris could hardly wait to have and hold his bride, as if they were already connected by an unseen force. It amused everyone.

Hurry up, Dad. The force is strong with these two.

Think, Think, Think

Between typical end of school year activities and the normal business of life, there hasn't been much (any) time to paint. And with everyone (the daughters) out of the house for a few days, I naturally assumed that there would be five days of painting to my heart's content.

Not so.

What happened?

Life.

People often ask how long it takes me to finish a painting. There's no one answer. Sometimes, like now, I dream of painting-literally, but schedules get whack and I just don't have the time. Does the whole thought process count in how long it takes? Because I think about painting, and think how to plan the next painting, and think how to re-work a painting ALL THE TIME....maybe a bit like Winnie-the-Pooh.

*“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit. "No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way."*

*A. A. Milne

Art Splash

A few times a year, all the galleries just off the northwest corner of Richmond and Kirby have opening receptions on the same night. Houstonians come out in droves, and since all are within walking distance of one another, it's an art party for a few hours on a Saturday night.

This weekend's opening was slightly dampened by the burst of a summer storm shortly before go time. The skies cleared and instead of pouring rain, the galleries poured wine, and all was well.

Being creatures of habit, Reese and I started our trek at Goldesberry Gallery to see the installation of Kathleen Holmes "Dresses." We always go to Goldesberry first. Oliver and Nancy Goldesberry are extremely nice, and the art and craft they display is entertainingly quirky. Some day, I will buy something from Oliver.

Then we hit Thornwood Gallery, Dean Day Gallery, Hooks-Epstein Gallery, McMurtrey Gallery, and were on our way to the last stop for the night, Moody Gallery, when a car drove by and puddle splashed the lady walking in front of us. What a shame. Possibly because of the abundance of wine and the necessity of walking, she took it all in stride.

Our evening was topped off by joining new friends for a light supper at Sonoma, a new wine bar on Richmond. The shower of laughter refreshingly harmonized with the damp night air and the merriment of the evening lingers still.