Sidetracked Charley

California Poppies Summer seems so short. So frantic. Not at all like the old song, Summer Time. The living isn't easy in a tourist town. Or if you garden. There is this brief window of opportunity and all are competing for your time and energy. I feel as if I am cheating if I just sit down for a cup of coffee on my deck. Yesterday I was able to do that if I took my sketch pad. I am working on a new concept for two paintings. The year is 7/12th over and I have only finished two paintings. When I was an active art fair participant I had to be painting almost constantly during the first third of the year to have enough inventory to carry me through the summer and fall seasons. And yet I still tried to garden. Note: only possible with programmable drip irrigation system. So shouldn't the living be easy? But it is raining and the grass is growing. Maybe I need a goat or two. I manically tried to keep up with mower and weed eater. While at the same time pushing to paint mor...

I used to paint small watercolors on paper. College training. And then the art suppliers came out with watercolor canvas. And I could paint larger. But my studio furniture was all designed for small works. Most watercolors are painted on the flat because water drips. I expanded to folding tables which seemed to never get folded up and were sometimes still too small. And as I got bigger I expanded into more mixed media like oil sticks. While my flat work was poured and so took less time. I am creative. I jerry-rigged an easel using my flat shelves and clamps. I finally gave up and bought an adjustable easel. It will lay flat but also stand up. It frees up a lot of work space in my studio. Work space which seems to be constantly over run with other projects like painted chairs. And dogs I take in for vacations while owners are away. Every once in a while it occurs to me I was going to make this studio at one time half the size it is currently and only had a 3 x 4 foot stoop ...

I think this is it. I believe it is the last time 50 states will celebrate Independence day together. It is clear we are no longer independent. And we are no longer together. The divisions have been widening for some time now. It began in very quiet ways. The mountain west does not feel represented by the eastern establishment. And now that DT has declared war on our western lands more openly the chasm is growing. They believe they can sell off our public lands to foreign mining interests (including Russia) and then allow them to ruin the water. Since we won't let them steal the water they will poison it. There is a phrase about being related to people you would not cross the street to meet. As citizens we are united to people we really don't want to know. We don't hold the same values, watch the same television shows, go to the same movies or sports events, even eat the same foods. A  friend from another country asked what is American food? I found a list forming...

Storm Coming by J. Binford-Bell In my family I was the crazy one. I know because my brother told me so. A lot. In fact, I stopped talking to my brother decades ago because of that. A psychologist told me to. No body needs someone who constantly tells them they are crazy. Words have power. There is no truth to the childish chant of Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me . Words hurt. Words sting. Words heard often enough re-shape us. Some call it brainwashing, some re-programming, some the truth. Jackie Gleason was very popular when I was young. I was taunted in during recess as being Jackie Gleason and being too fat. I graduated from high school weighing 85 pounds. I believed an art teacher who said I had no talent. A fifth grade teacher who said I was too lazy to excel. Mother convinced me to never attempt to be a writer because I could not spell. I knew I should take the first offer of marriage (if indeed I got an offer) because I was ugly or so pep...

Cimarron Cemetery January 2017  Just finished watching the documentary The Polar Sea. I have been watching a lot of documentaries lately. When I am not watching the news. The news, my sister informs me, just makes me depressed. And I find that my love for who done its has waned unless they are British or Canadian. I am just so tired of the killing in US films. No, it is not the killing. I think I have become immune to that. Tharned out to the body counts whether it is real or make believe.  It is the meanness of spirit which seems to pervade fiction. And sadly reality.  It is not just the people who do not care but those who must blame others; make it someone else's fault. Abuse others for what they have done themselves. It is a waste of time to play chicken vs. egg. I find it creeping into me. And so I avoid the question by watching documentaries.  This morning I finished the series The Polar Sea which is available on Netflix streaming. The photograph...

When I first moved back to New Mexico I lived in the small town of Questa. It was on a state highway from Taos to Colorado but if tourists stopped it was just for lunch at the Seville Restaurant or gas at one of three stations. It had no visible means of support beyond the Moly mine, some small town ranchers, and a barely under the radar drug trade. When I had lived in New Mexico before it was mostly in Albuquerque which was on Route 66, which became interstate 40. It had two bases, a major federal laboratory, and the University of New Mexico. And sure, some tourists. But they were under the radar like Questa's drug trade. In short I was totally unprepared for Angel Fire, New Mexico, especially since I had not moved to that town but a small rural backwater five miles south. I was looking to hide out in Black Lake. Silly girl. Income depended to some degree on Angel Fire. I taught skiing there. In Black Lake I made Mardi Gras masks which I shipped around the country at the A...

As an introvert artist I have the tendency to live a very quiet life on the rural fringes of a small village. I like it that way. I don't even get many visitors to my open studio. Social interactions seem to be limited to talking to pet sit clients and the monthly meetings of a couple organizations I belong to. Oh, and chance meetings at the market or post office. June was looking to be so overloaded with pets to sit and art events I chose to bow out of a part time job I had managed to not quit over the winter. I thought I was making space for me. But it seems it is for more of the above. New tenant bowed out of agreement and so I was thrust into interviewing new possible tenants. And then suddenly a new pet client. And an art student. And then extra meetings with one of those groups I belong to. And new tenant wants to move in tonight. And ran into that tenant who bowed out at the post office and she wants to sue me. Other friend in line acted as a buffer. Then off to mark...