Sidetracked Charley

Return of the Yei   For an all too brief summer we had hope. We dared to plan arts events. And as we put in place the preparation for another Angel Fire Studio Tour we became aware it had been two years since we had done any of this. But we soldiered on with hope.  We dared to buy supplies and work on inventory to sell, dusted off the display cabinets and laid in supplies of N95 masks so we could keep ourselves and our customers safe incase the Delta Variant could not be contained within the boundaries of neighboring states. But since residents of those states escape the heat to come to the mountains so could the dreaded Darwin Covid. As it came time to pay the big bucks for brochures and advertising we caved. We could see the handwriting on the wall of the Governor's office. She might be playing nice because she was running for re-election but she considers art and art business non-essential. We cancelled the studio tour but not the studios. We opted to go underground as it w...

Cliff Pueblo The studio is still one of my favorite places in the house but it has not been where I paint. For most of Covid shut down my focus has been on fabric. First with masks to protect my sister and her fellow nurses and then my friends. Then there were scrub caps. Gradually I got back into fabric creations and the  Fabric Arts by Jacqui  page was launched. In the first months of forced isolation and the governor's pronouncement that arts were nonessential I wanted my blankie -- soft and comforting material. Canvas seemed cold. Besides I had just finished a couple of End of Days series of paintings. Cliff Pueblo above was my last. And I began Return of the Yei just before the shit hit the fan as it were. The Yei were  Navajo Gods who returned to the people to save them. Maybe I didn't believe we would be saved, but I stopped work on it until this week. In fact I forgot it was taking up space on my easel. I even forgot how to adjust my easel. Before beginning t...