Sidetracked Charley

The title is the closing line of my last blog. And I confess I did not believe it was going to be this much later. Things just got in the way. That is excuse one. Excuse two is that nothing moved quite as fast as I thought it would. But I suppose that is better than faster than what you hoped. A friend urged me a few months ago to go for a refinance of my house.  It came at a time when I was considering other changes in my path, no let's call it what is was, my rut. I was getting along with my rut.until a couple houses in the neighborhood sold and I realized I was not taking advantage of my assets.  So, nothing ventured; nothing gained. There are things I want to do like turn the apartment into and AirB&B, add a shower to my half bath downstairs, stain the outside of my house, and take a vacation to Maine with my sister next August. So I took my friend's advice, and it lowered my payments and gave me some of my equity out to be able to do all of that. But it took s...

Artists work alone. They work in studios and closets and what was once the guest room. The remodel garages and garrets and garden sheds so they can work at their passion. When forced to by patrons, gallery owners or economic necessity they dress up and make nice. But we are introverts. We are most comfortable with ourselves and some medium to make art with. But we are happiest in those rare arrangements of artists called workshops. I was lucky enough to be one of an arrangement of eight this weekend. Only two I knew before but like birds of a feather we know our kind almost instantly. For me the excuse for the weekend was the risers on my flight of steps I am redoing. Have been redoing for seven years. Okay maybe more. And when I heard about the workshop in tempered glass mosaic I found my medium for those 12 risers. No expensive tile. Just cheap recycled tempered glass from the Restore store. The kittens had already demonstrated how easy it was to break. In the workshop I learne...

Gateway by J. Binford-Bell Creating a painting, I realized today when I at last finished my latest, is exhausting. And exhilarating. You want to shout, "I did that?" when a plan comes together and a painting achieves a marriage with the image you have carried around in your head. And then there is this huge let down not unlike drug withdrawal. Specifically withdrawal from speed. Photography does not do this. It is so immediate in comparison and is not the manifestation of an internalized image but an image you internalize. Nor does painting in a formula manner. Yes, you may sit down to do your 14th church painting for a fair or a retail order and something surprising happens. But to conceive of an idea for a painting. Refine it in your head over a number of days or weeks. Then finally commit the idea to paper and pencil, and at last to canvas. Only to go over the colors again and again in your mind before putting paint to canvas. That is a horse of a very differe...

I have always rather disliked the week between Christmas and New Years. It is such an abyss generally. Especially in the corporate world; everyone is on vacation or out. And socially all the Christmas parties have been given and attended and nobody wants to waste social chits on a pre-New Year's Eve bash. Besides the weather is generally dismal this time of year. But this year my sister arrived on Christmas Eve morning and stayed through the following Monday. Weather was in the 40's daytime and we 4-wheeled almost daily. She no sooner left than the good weather crashed and we got plunged into snow and sub-zero nights; Never Never Land. Huddled under lap robes in front of my new computer I sought escape from reality. Not easy when the indoor/outdoor weather gauge sits on the corner of the computer desk and reports the temperature. Burrr. Just as an aside the temperature outside as I type this predawn missive is already higher than many of the day time highs of the last week -...