My photographer friend Barbara called today from her pickup truck. Barbara is one of the artists I have gotten to know in my travels doing art fairs. My artist friend Chris and I were in Sun Valley ID in 2003 for the Sun Valley Art Center's festival. Barbara invited us to her place nearby for a dinner party. As we got a short tour of her house, I caught sight of a piece of pottery on a table that was created by my wife Susan.
"Where did you get the pottery? My wife made this!"
It's a small world after all, or so the song goes. Barbara had once worked for an attorney in Orlando who had bought the piece and given it as a gift. Barbara comes to Florida a couple of times a year to participate in the spring and fall art festivals. In between those and other shows in the west and midwest, she returns to the Idaho mountains for gardening, horseback riding and making her art. Not a totally bad existence.
She was on her way today to the Main Street Art Festival in Fort Worth, day two of three alone in the truck. She said she was going down her cell phone directory looking for someone to talk to since, while the landscape of northeast New Mexico was interesting, she didn't recall it being so long lasting. Bach, being only a B name, left plenty of contacts for the vast stretches of prairie ahead of her. You can only drink so much coffee.
I can identify with her road weariness. My daughter and I took that road home in 2007 from the Cherry Creek Art Festival in Denver. Northern New Mexico and the Texas panhandle were beautiful and well, forever. Though somehow, when you're not in the experience of road boredom, you can't wait to be out there again. It's mind clearing and for an artist inspirational.
For me, it's observation I hope will show up later as paint on a brush. I mentally file away what color the shadows on the mountains were as the sun set. I know that color will reside there somewhere in my brain though I will only recognize it when it appears by accident on the canvas.
Barbara may cycle through her phone directory to the B's again before Ft Worth appears in the windshield. Your call is important to us, Barbara. Stay awake and good luck at Fort Worth.
"Where did you get the pottery? My wife made this!"
It's a small world after all, or so the song goes. Barbara had once worked for an attorney in Orlando who had bought the piece and given it as a gift. Barbara comes to Florida a couple of times a year to participate in the spring and fall art festivals. In between those and other shows in the west and midwest, she returns to the Idaho mountains for gardening, horseback riding and making her art. Not a totally bad existence.
She was on her way today to the Main Street Art Festival in Fort Worth, day two of three alone in the truck. She said she was going down her cell phone directory looking for someone to talk to since, while the landscape of northeast New Mexico was interesting, she didn't recall it being so long lasting. Bach, being only a B name, left plenty of contacts for the vast stretches of prairie ahead of her. You can only drink so much coffee.
I can identify with her road weariness. My daughter and I took that road home in 2007 from the Cherry Creek Art Festival in Denver. Northern New Mexico and the Texas panhandle were beautiful and well, forever. Though somehow, when you're not in the experience of road boredom, you can't wait to be out there again. It's mind clearing and for an artist inspirational.
For me, it's observation I hope will show up later as paint on a brush. I mentally file away what color the shadows on the mountains were as the sun set. I know that color will reside there somewhere in my brain though I will only recognize it when it appears by accident on the canvas.
Barbara may cycle through her phone directory to the B's again before Ft Worth appears in the windshield. Your call is important to us, Barbara. Stay awake and good luck at Fort Worth.
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