Day 8: Sunday Move

The past few days moved at a clip and grew together a bit as my earlier routine was upheaved. The family visit was wonderful though, and they all liked the place a lot. We shared a canoe ride on the lake in the late morning, Sunday, before they packed up and headed home. I worked in the studio for a while afterward, moved forward with the big water lily painting before I took it over the proverbial ledge and have been struggling with it since. I will leave it alone today, wanting more generous company, and head into the woods instead with some small wood panels for quick sketches of tree roots and boulders.

By 3pm yesterday I was worn out in the studio so turned my attention to vacating the Ice House and moving into the Watres Lodge, room 5. Clean up was quick and the move only 30 or so yards from door to door. I settled in quickly and had a chat with the other artist (Shannon Gilbert) who will also be here for the next week. I've also decided to leave on Thursday afternoon, a day early, so that I can drive to New Hampshire for the weekend. I haven't seen my brother's family for a year which for anyone you love is too long. His kids are young, and time is precious. My brother and sister-in-law have been very supportive of my work; they own pieces from over my entire 30+ year art-making trajectory so have a better collection of it than anyone other than me.

Shannon, Heidi, and I had a short chat before heading off for the evening, and reconvened for a shared meal at 7:30ish. Our after-meal conversation took us into and over personal, scholastic, artistic, and revelatory content. I'm 20 years older than they but that seemed less of a divide than an opportunity to share a wider perspective, and to bring some light and order to what one might see or experience as chaos. I'm practicing my inner/future crone.

A repeat client/friend texted me to say she wanted to purchase one of the water lily paintings. When I prompted her to choose soon so that she would have first pick of the four, she chose the 8x8" wood panel piece.  At $200 it was intended to be affordable, and to help me pay for the Ice House, which it will. I spoke with Shannon and Heidi quite a bit about how I manage the marketing and pricing of my work, and they spoke about what their experience and understandings have been, including the lack of or strange conversation in schools about what selling art could entail.

As a result of the dinner conversation, I made a connection (not for the first time) between my early sculpture and my current paintings, especially in regards to when one thinks the work over time lacks continuity.
At left - Untitled Landscape, 1986. Bronze approx. 42" high x 108" wide x 18" deep. Installed/Property of Walt Whitman High School, Bethesda, MD.
At bottom - "Forsythia on the Creek" 2016, 18x36" acrylic on canvas. Available.