Back from a roadtrip

I've been on the road for a week. I needed to get away. Here's the first part of my journal:

Saturday, September 15

Dropped the dogs off at Pet Spa – I tried to tell them it was a spa, anyway – and trundled off to Longview, getting there in time to see Katie's high school varsity team play the alums and get beat. Too bad!

Sunday we went to the new IKEA in Portland, partly to check it out and partly because Katie needed curtains for her bedroom – having lived for years with sheets push-pinned up. We were thrilled to see that it's visible from the freeway, right next to the airport, but not so thrilled to find that if you miss the one right way to get there, you're screwed. It was a comedy of errors, but we finally got there. There's only one way in, and if you go past that one turnoff you're thrown into a warren of freeway entrances and exits. Pooh. Katie did get curtains, I got picture frames, and back to Longview we went.

Monday I got over to Astoria to see Dennis and his new house. It's a great old place with a fine view of the Columbia River. He has an old, gnarled cherry tree in his yard which has stuck with me. I'm going to ask him to send me a picture of it, as a possible subject for a painting. We had lunch at a new restaurant on the waterfront and it was good. Then I barreled down the coast – stopping only at a gallery in Lincoln City, the Ryan Gallery, which my brother had recommended. Florence is quite a way down the coast, and I didn't get there till... dinner time, I guess. Checked into the motel and found a Thai place for dinner, which was good, though I thought the service slow. Maybe things are just slower in Florence.

More trip journal soon, or, later.

Actually, it's been two months

So I'm a bit frazzled. Anyway, here's another image. This is my grandson Tim. He's 17 now. Still cute though.

So it's been a month

But what a month. In other words, I have all kinds of excuses for ignoring my blog for a month. A month ago I was on my way to have my work photographed, and that did happen, and I eagerly awaited the results, and they came, and they're fine and dandy. The collages don't photograph well cause they're a little bit three dimensional. Bas relief? Anyway, I'll post some of them soon but bear in mind they're lots more fun than they look like in their pics!

And then, I GOT A SHOW. My first!!! I am so excited. I have stage fright. There's all my stuff, being stared at (or not?). So I had to put everything back in its frame, quickly, after taking it out to have it photographed - which is a lot of work. And the show's at a coffee shop in Seattle, so I had to hang it myself. Lots MORE work. I had lots of help, thank goodness. Anyway, if you're in the area stop by Bus Stop Espresso, 800 NE 65th, have a latte and admire my work. Better yet, make a special trip to Seattle to see the show and of course buy something. It'll be up through the end of September.

Everyone says I should be looking for the next venue now. I'm trying. I'm thinking about approaching a coop gallery in the area. Anyone have any opinion about coops? I like the feel of the place; it seems serious - as opposed to being about crafts. But do they sell anything? Or should I approach the glitzy place, which does sell stuff - but which seems to be more about glitz than about art. I don't know whether any of them would want my work anyway. So I need to get busy. But I'm going to take a little road trip next week. I NEED IT. I've earned it. Tomorrow I'm going over to the coffee shop to see how things are looking. And collect all those checks. Thursday evening there is a neighborhood art walk. I'll be represented so I'll be there with wine and chips and salsa from 6 to 8 p.m. Stop by!

Have I had time to do anything creative? Well, I did manage to do a pastel of the Palouse. Ever been there? It's wheat country in the southeast corner of Washington which is unlike any other landscape in the world, I think. Miles and miles and miles - and more miles - of rolling hills of wheat fields almost unbroken by roads or any sign of civilization, except for the fact that it's all planted with wheat. I'm fascinated with it and have done several landscapes. There's another part of Washington state which is also fascinating and completely unique, the channeled scablands. The WHAT? I should do a series on it, too. Washington State is actually a wonderful place. Not just the west side, where there's most of the population and all the green lush vegetation and the ocean and Puget Sound and Seattle and that famous and beautiful stuff - but all of it. It's incredibly varied. I double-dare you to convince me your state is better.

Oops, I got on a rant and it's a bit off the subject. But wait - it's my blog - I can talk about anything I want - and that's what it says at the bottom of it so that sure gives me permission if nothing else does.

Oh yeah, I've been having some work done on my house. My house is a project too. More needs to be done, before The Rains come. In this part of the world it's not just the rain, it's The Rains. But the rain makes everything so beautiful. It's worth it.

So now I'll just choose one of the images I had done last month, and pop it on here. What'll it be? I think I'll show you my 'signature' collage. It's on my business cards. It's based on a tiny scribbled character my granddaughter did when she was six. She's eight now.

Having my work photographed, and framing it

I took lots of my work out of frames and schlepped it to a nearby town a couple of days ago, to have it photographed by a recommended photographer. I'll see the results in a few days. I'm pretty excited about this. It's a step I've known I needed to take if I was serious about getting into galleries or shows, so of course I've put it off! Well, part of the reason for that was that I worried about how much it would cost. But I had inflated that in my head. So I came away a happy painter. Now all I have to do is put it all back into those frames. It's all over the dining room table - there not being room in the studio for such a messy job. I have high hopes for the results - and I'll be showing it off here, maybe just about the same time I get indexed.

There are some great things about watercolors and pastels, but a drawback is that you have to mat and frame things to show them. Speaking of expenses. I think I've gotten the process down as cheap as it can get. I watch for sales on inexpensive frames at the big box "craft" stores like Michael's and JoAnne, and I order mats, and better frames, from framesbymail.com. I've had great luck with them so I recommend them. Once I made a mistake myself, which I took to be their mistake, and they fixed it without arguing. Only later did I realize it was my mistake. So I'm making up for it here by recommending them. I think I shopped around a bit and found them to be at least as cheap or even cheaper than everyone else. And they have a good selection. And since you shop online you can live anywhere and shop there.

Go paint!

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

I did a series of lighthouses a couple of years ago. This one is on the Oregon Coast. Email me if you're a collector of lighthouse pictures - the original watercolor is for sale, as are high-quality prints. I'll be publishing more from time to time. ep

Theorizing about women painters

I have wondered about this for years: i'm not aware of many women painters who are driven to paint - so driven that other parts of life are subsumed. I mean driven like Van Gogh was driven. That's why Louise Nevelson is one of my heroes. She knew what she wanted from when she was young. She was sidetracked temporarily by consenting to marry and have a child, but then she left the marriage - and the child - and spent the rest of her life doing whatever it took to keep on producing. She was driven. She didn't have a well-placed mentor like Georgia O'Keeffe did, she was on her own. I totally admire her. I wanted to be "an artist" when I was young, and spent hours drawing. But one of my teachers in high school didn't appreciate my stuff and had another favorite student, and it squelched me. My ego, or whatever, didn't survive. It was easy for me to do other things, since my ego wasn't tied up in those things. Through my life I've gone through phases of drawing, then doing no art, then taking another class, then doing nothing again. It wasn't until my kids were grown that I started producing fairly consistently. If you believe, as i do, that practice is a large part of "talent," I have a lot of catching up to do. Any comments on this would be welcome. In the meantime, here's another painting - this one is a view to the west from a friend's house, showing off the wonderful Puget Sound with the Olympic Mountains in the background. I love this area - but I grew up in Eastern Washington which has a totally different ambience - high, dry, spacious and dramatic in its own way. I'll be throwing in some of those kinds of landscapes too.

Here's a watercolor sketch

This was a quick study, done from a photograph.