Fun, Fun, Fun

Ok. Saturday was a really busy day what with the kid's activities and preparing for the party. I basically cooked and cleaned most of the day, but at least I had help. Penny was so tired after all she did that day that SHE managed to get in a little snooze on the patio. At least someone was rested for the party (I didn't get a nap and felt a bit kooky all evening).

And I am thankful for Dorrie who helped out by anchoring down the strawberry box after I had emptied it.

Anyway, it was a great party. All my lovely friends came, bearing wonderful food and much beer. Despite a few threats, the rain held off and we were able to enjoy our patio. I gave many tours of our vegetable garden, my new studio AND the new shower in the kid's bathroom, because, well those are always pretty exciting too. Heh.

At dusk, Doug projected a silent movie (Charlie Chaplin) onto the garage wall that borders our patio. AND my silly music shuffle played all night. We heard such gems as Rock Lobster, I Walk the Line, Avalon, Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Jason Castro's version from American Idol) and I Think I Love You by the best singing TV family ever, The Partridge Family.

I had picked a full bag of lettuce from our garden earlier in the day, way too much for any one family, and so everyone received a party favor on their way out; a gallon size bag of fresh greens. Everyone enjoyed the irony of that; our kids all go to so many birthday parties, that we are all endlessly putting together goodie bags it seems.

And bright and early on Sunday morning (actually it was about 11am, but that sure seemed early) I began moving things up to my new studio. Tomorrow I will finally put up pictures of the remodeling process and discuss the wall color issues.

Still much to do up there but I am IN!

Summer Solstice Party Preparations

Yellow Dream, 2008, Oil on Panel, 9x9

I am completely exhausted this evening and I expect I will be even more so tomorrow. We are having a pretty good sized party (20 guests) tomorrow night which has been great motivation to get our house and yard cleaned up. Doug spent the day weed whacking and mowing the lawn (in between the rain showers) and I had to go out and spend like a million dollars on food and other important things for a party like citronella candles and fashionable vinyl tablecloths. Oh wait, there is no such thing as fashionable vinyl tablecloths. The best ones I could find have big images of fruit all over them.

Anyway, tomorrow I will be finishing up getting the house in order and cooking. It is a potluck but in true mom form, I am worried about not having enough food and so I suspect that I will cooking way too much.

But I just can't resist making my specialties:

roast vegetable lasagna
chicken salad
pesto pine nut potato salad
green salad (with lettuce from our garden)
strawberry shortcake with homemade whipped cream
apple cake

Oh and I have all this great cheese from a local farm that raises goats and they make the best goat cheeses ever.

I do plan to try to take a nap tomorrow afternoon though, so that I will be able to speak coherently with all of our lovely friends.

And did I mention the soccer games in the morning? Good grief, this is the season that will never end.

Party Pictures

At breakfast on Valentine's Day, I was chatting with a couple of ladies who have also been married to their husbands for quite awhile. We were laughing about how unlikely it would be for us to get anything on this holiday. Once in awhile Doug and I exchange small gifts for Valentine's but it is erratic and frankly, has fallen a bit on both of our lists of things to do. I hadn't even considered sending anything to Doug this year, mostly because the thought of getting something together AND shipped out while here seemed completely overwhelming.

At lunch I was standing in line and noticed that there were many more packages than usual (there is a shelf in the dining hall for incoming mail for the residents) in addition to a large flower arrangement. I smirked to myself about the poor girl getting that tacky gift; beautfiul flowers wrapped in all kinds of shiny frou-frou, tissue papers, cellophane, and ribbons imprinted with shiny gold hearts, blech. As I was getting my food, Becky (writer) from Madison, WI tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I knew those were my flowers! I went to check and sure enough they were for me (from Doug, duh). Who got the flowers was a pretty exciting event that day, and since Doug is already looking pretty good for taking over the household for a month while I play with my paints, this sealed his reputation as a good guy. Although, Nick (writer) from Florida pointed out that he was probably just "marking his territory". Much laughter at lunch that day.

Anyway, I am posting just a few of the pictures from the dance that we went to that night. My dear hubby got my overly sensitive laptop up and running again for me. What a guy!

From left: Erica (painter) from Saratoga Springs, NY, Seth (writer) from Talledega, Alabama, Amanda (painter, her studio is directly across from mine and she is the girl I went to the hardware store with on the first day here) from South Carolina, and Lucy (painter) from Ireland.

Me and David Grozinsky-before he changed into a very snappy black western style shirt with colorfully embroidered flowers all over the front.

Nancy (painter) from Texas has the floor!

Ron (writer) from Chicago. Ron is one of my housemates and is very sweet and funny. And maybe just a little drunk here given that he is wearing a pink petticoat and dancing with Nick (see next photo).




PS. Doug and I had a good laugh about how the flowers were all dressed up. He also hates all the crap that flower shops tend to add to an already beautiful group of flowers.

Visitors

Already there have been several visiting artists here at the Studio Center. The first one was writer and poet Dave King. He gave a reading from his book "The Ha-Ha" as well as two poems. Frankly I am not much of a poetry kind of girl, but I liked the excerpt from his book and bought a copy afterwards, which he signed. He came to writing rather late after a ten year sojourn as a painter in NYC, followed by a successful business which he sold and then a degree from Columbia in writing. He spent nearly two weeks here, mostly working with the writers, but I was able to chat with him at a few meals and he made time to visit a number of the artist's studios, including mine. Oh and I bailed out on Night Studio to start his book. I liked Night Studio but since I arrived here I had trouble keeping with it-too much art talk maybe? Anyway, I am liking The Ha-Ha, although I am not having much time to read.

On Monday evening, painter Julian Hatton gave a slide presentation of his work. I had been aware of his work for awhile and was very happy to find out that he would be a visiting artist during my time here. His talk was very interesting and I enjoyed hearing how his work has progressed over the years. And I almost fell over when he mentioned his home near Oneonta NY, which is just 45 minutes from where we live small world. (Further conversation in the dining hall the next day revealed that he has a place in NY that is literally around the corner from Doug's showroom in Soho. We had a good laugh over the coincidence of being dual neighbors.)

On Tuesday, he visited my studio where we spent most of the time talking about the paintings that I felt were the most unsuccessful. Great. The figures, of course, were the ones I was unhappy with and he agreed. Great, again. We took the elements apart though and discussed the various directions that I could take them. And after he left I was completely confused about what to do next and so I frittered away the rest of the day doing nothing productive at all. Later on after dinner, we talked again and he clarified a few points that he had made during the crit which was helpful, and he also gave me some information about applying for a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, which is on my list of things to do when I get home. And the next morning I woke up with the a clearer head about the direction of the figures and got back to work on them. Julian was here this past week and I have enjoyed talking with him further. There is much socializing at meals! Anyway, he will be having a solo show at Elizabeth Harris, opening March 13. I might try to go if I can manage to take another trip so soon after getting back home.


And the sculptor, John Monti gave his presentation on Tuesday. I liked much of his earlier work, which were wood forms and then later on he did these huge concrete forms which I also really liked. Lately he has been doing brightly colored plastic forms, and while I don't care for those much, I do appreciate the progression he has made. John visited my studio this morning and most of his opinions were quite the opposite of Julian's. He thought that the figures had a lot going on and that many of the elements were working. He did say that he thought my technique was getting in the way and that my paintings (meaning the landscapes) looked too "polished" and we debated that issue for a bit. I see his point, I guess, but while I do think that my landscapes are quite developed, I haven't really considered them to be polished. Mostly because I still really love my process, and am still challenged by each painting, by the subject matter as well as the technique. Anyway, he was very encouraging about the figures, especially the ones I had pursued since my meeting with Julian, so I was able to get right back to work without any sort of angst. Heh.

Good thing too, because I was fading fast this morning. The very social David Grozinsky invited everyone to a wonderful Valentine's party in some little town a few miles away. There was a great band and petticoats for all of the girls, well and for a few of the boys too. Since I don't drink anymore, I don't dance anymore, so I filled the memory card in my camera with amazing photos of the swirling skirts and the bright lights. After we left the party, around 11pm it continued on at the resident's lounge and before I knew it, it was almost 2am! I am way too old for all of that it seems. I had to get up early for my meeting with John Monti and I was really hurting. Sheesh! I took a nap before dinner and will try to get back on a better sleep schedule, kinda tough though with a house full of kids that I clearly cannot keep up with!

Doug and the kids are coming up tomorrow and while of course I will be glad to see everyone, I am feeling oddly put out by the intrusion of my family life into my life here. It will be fun though and I suspect we will be doing a few touristy things for the next few days. I will try and post on Monday evening.

Have a good weekend!