Sidetracked Charley

A long time friend of mine, some 40 years, and I were talking about our misspent youth yesterday. Though our lives, even when separated for years, have largely paralleled each other, we have one major divergent path. She got married and stayed married for forty plus years. Longest I have ever stayed married - nine years. But we are both attracted to pirates. So yesterday's coffee was about the pirates in our pasts. And since it was Valentine's Day we discussed that too. Her mate of all those years made a big deal of VDay. To look at my past you would guess that VDay had something to do with victory in Europe during WWII and I was on the losing side. I have only been sent flowers once. The man involved with the nine year marriage and much longer friendship knew to buy my truffles instead; when he remembered. How, one has to ask, can anyone miss Valentines? Trust me it is possible. I never much liked the day to be frank. I blame that on two things 1) Mom and Dad never see...

Bryce Canyon Ten years ago this August my sister and I took our first Utah Thelma and Louise road trip. Part of it we were camped at Kodachrome State Park, a twenty minute drive from Bryce National Park. We made daily excursions to the hoodoos and to check on our cell phone messages. Only at one or two overlooks could you catch a cell phone signal. Can you hear me now? became the trip's battle cry. Oddly we had gotten the cell phones for emergencies. Two women traveling through unknown country. Sounded like a good idea. But they were useless on the slot canyon trails. And only hit and miss to stay in touch with friends and relatives. BTW the new smart phones are not any better in this area. Debbie began the trip with a digital camera which was smashed running from lightning strikes in Arches. I clung to my film camera. And we diverted to St. Charles to get Debbie a film camera. It would have been sad to be in Utah without a camera and digital cameras were way more expensiv...

Now that we have computers, Megapixel cameras, software and smart phones we think can all be website designers,  marketers or even freelance writers. Where we once hired professionals we have become do-it-self misfits. I notice this most in Call for Entry notifications. I find my internal editor kicking in whenever I get an email about a new exhibition to enter or a notification from the last as to my acceptance or non-acceptance. Please people, proof read. And have another person proof read to see if you said what it is you thought you said but didn't really. Try not to be cruel and insensitive when you email "sorry" notifications. Be sorry. That works. Never, ever use all caps and bold in an email. And especially not in sorry notifications. And when sending out call for entry emails do have all the hot links work not just look like they should. And do describe the show you intend accurately. Artists base their submissions on the description of the show. Try to b...

Plants in May 2009 I have this widget on my bogs that links other similar blogs the reader might be interested in. This photo was from my blog about the plant table which I had just completed. Could not believe how small the plants were. Yesterday I took some photos of the same plants now. Some of the original cast in 2014 Not a totally fair comparison because the crown of thorns on the left had two feet pruned off of it. The euphoria in the center of the top photo is on the right in the lower photo. Most of the plants got so large I pruned and germinated. The euphoria in the lower left is just the top of one which got nine feet tall. And my one little jade plant in the far right of the upper picture generated three other jade plants from leaves. They got so large I gave them away. And the mother plant is now three feet high and almost two feet across. Obviously in the almost five years since the original blog the studio has been good for my prickly friends.

At Last  - Snow Chatted with our county plow guy at the post office last week and the subject, of course, was the lack of snow to plow. The county snow plow had not been moved since December 19th. For a ski area this is bad but it is even worse for the approaching summer Fire Season. In March the forest service measures the snow pack to determine fire danger and issues in the watersheds. The snow pack recharges our aquifers. And with the prolonged drought there are dry well issues. If the drought continues newer wells will be knocked off. So when snow fell on the 31st of January everyone was happy. It was a very wet snow but not much off it. Maybe two inches, when here in the mountains, a foot would be more ordinary. But not this year. Or for much of the last four years. And the temps this winter have been 15 to 20 degrees above normal - recorded normal. That is the problem with weather forecasts at the moment. We are so far from normal that none of the computer models based...

Cloud Spinner by J. Binford-Bell 29 x 20 Mixed Media on Canvas $1300 I realized when I set down to write this weekly blog that it has been more than a week since I wrote a blog for here. It raises the question of what have I been doing with my life lately. Painting. Cloud Spinner was at last completed this week though I will always think of it as January's painting. Some compositions just take longer. And it was not just the detail in Cloud Spinner which ate up time but that the image was not totally formed in my mind, but seemed to develop through the month. Sacrifice, however, was begun this week and will probably be finished today. I had been giving half my mind to it while finishing Cloud Spinner. The photo below is of it not totally finished but close. It seemed to almost jump onto the canvas. Especially the Raven in the opening for the celestial window. Through the drawing and painting of Sacrifice that window was empty. There is empty as nothing but sky and empty as ...

Been reading several articles about art pricing while the Artists Guild of Northern New Mexico has been debating the donating of art to nonprofit organizations. A couple of the articles I was researching addressed what your work goes for at non-profit auctions. We are all a bit depressed if our art does not sell for what we feel it would in our studios or galleries at these functions. And the non-profits are depressed about what our art brings at auction these days, and the reluctance of artists to donate and have their work devalued by what it sells for. Your art can sell for less at a charity auction for the following reasons: 1) No non-profit is as concerned about the display of your art as a gallery or you are, so chances are your donated piece is not being shown off to its b est. Charity events are about how much they can cram into a space to raise money. Too much art in the conference room makes it look trashy. And a poorly run live auction can look like an estate sale....