Sidetracked Charley

I have a friend who sends thank you notes. Not via the internet but by snail mail. For over a year now I have been delighted when I receive one of these thoughtful missives. They are not wordy but she has obviously spent some time in the process of selecting the right note card with the right image. I find that I stand these notes around on my desk to view as I ponder the correct response. Sadly, until recently, it was often a quick personal message on a social media platform saying I received her delightful card. Anyone who takes the trouble to find an appropriate card, research the correct address, buy stamps and send it off deserves at the least to know it has arrived. I used to make all my Holiday cards and eventually discontinued that because of an ever dwindling response. And email, and social media seemed to replace them. But there are things the digital media just is not adequate to address like condolences and sympathy and offers to help out in trying times. O...

In the midst of emotional angst I wrote a blog, My Day to Whine, which was either not read or misread but definitely misunderstood. Which has resulted in my being really annoyed. Annoyed sometimes at me because I must have not said it right. One of the survivors of the most recent school shooting said she should have the right to feel safe in school. I never felt safe at school. My first grade teacher had a huge cricket bat she used to spank us with. Second grade on Roswell Air Force base began duck and cover. Then the bullies.  Then high school my art teacher and his mat knife and getting kicked out of class because I screamed and he slammed into my drawing table with knife raised over my head. The school counselor was trying to get me to change my story about the teacher so I could be reinserted into his class. I cried this all out to my father who knew a member of the board of education and they tried to get me sent to Sandia High instead of Manzano. That was scary bec...

I loathe, hate, abhor, and dislike making posters. I feel diminished, dismissed, degraded by being asked to do them.  I dream about leaving groups who believe they "honor" me by asking me to do them. I even come to dislike those friends that so dismissively assign me the task of SIGNS.  I got rid of my large format printer to make it more impossible for me to do them. Nobody seems to have noticed. I just have to do them by hand.  I have tried to process all the horrible Post Traumatic Stress which in unearthed whenever I face another lettering task. I have decided it is entirely too enmeshed in my memories to just vanish it. I can name it and the participants. Mr. Featherstone, the art teacher; Mr. Brown the principal; a school counselor I have relegated to the unnamed witches of my past; Mr. Mealy, the hero; Manzano High School, which will never be a fond memory because of lettering. I want to be cremated when I die. Please lay for my memory no stones...

I get my news from the internet. No, not Facebook, but Youtube and sites for MSNBC and CBS. I do not have access to television via airwaves. And have not had subscription television since the six feet snow of 2006 when Dish and I came to a major parting of our ways. I refused to pay for the two weeks when I did not have access. They refused to give me credit, which launched a debate on me paying for 11 channels of religious channels ($1 per channel) which I saw as a suppression of my freedom of religion or not religion. But I have become very good at finding the sources of news and even entertainment I do not have to pay for though sometimes I have to wait overnight to view. And I love Youtube and Google. So once longed on I frequently, right after Rachael Maddow, open my Facebook window to check up on my few close friends there, and update my Binford-Bell Studio  fanpage with the newest photograph of the day. I also have a couple secret groups I belong to there. Have have...

So in January I get this letter informing me that a financial institution is holding some unclaimed funds for me which will be turned over to Missouri if the don't hear from me soon (there was a specific date all that much closer because it had taken some time for the letter to reach me.) As a child of the Nigeria hoaxes I approached it very cautiously. First I called the number on the letter. They answered appropriately. Then I looked up the company on the internet. Highly respected and having the same number as on the letter. I called back with my questions. They were going to give me information before I gave them any. To this point all was in a prior name at a prior addresses in regard to pension funds with a company I used to work for. They seemed to have more past information on me than I did. I just had to verify I was that person. Do not ever throw your old passports away. I got reacquainted with the box which holds "important" documents. I do not know h...

Thicke on his throne in the sun It has been four weeks since I did a Sidetracked Charley post. Obviously words have failed me. But have been involved doing lots of things including sharing the afternoon sun in the studio with Thicke. The Source 28 x 20 Mixed Media on Canvas $1250   I have begun and finished a new painting. Well, it still needs the hanging hardware installed and inventoried. Maybe even still playing with a name. Like I said words have failed me in the last four weeks. And that seems like an odd time to begin a note card campaign. But note cards don't take a lot of words. Just some inspiration on what to paint on the front of them. But I confess I have also just used photographs. And did I mention the cold. The worse cold I have had in a decade laid me low. I didn't even pick up my camera for eight days. It just seemed beyond my level. But when I did it was for an awesome dusk. And a tiny yellow orchid in my studio. I ...