Some of us love our faces plastered all over the web, on cellphone screens, in photographs.
My gal is camera shy.
I have to be sneaky.
Well, I dislike being photographed as well. I rarely like the results. Too old. Too short. Too pasty. Too...?
Some people are photogenic. My daughter for instance. It just is.
So camera shy - you and I - I'll catch ya when I can.
The third floor of the new place.
Dormers and angled walls.
Quiet and views of roofs and trees.
I have a huge studio near downtown but here I am on the third floor working in a space the size of a small rug. I click in Mozart on the mac and it's all magic.
A painting I thought I had ruined comes back to life, a little tougher but better than before.
Like I said: it's all magic.
How many years have I been doin' this??
Suddenly, it's all acrylic and fairly small.
The same subject repeated with small variations on the theme.
Here they are. My private Idaho.
To me they are a magic window. I know that the moment I put them out there...
the criticisms begin. The suggestions. The complaints. Like so many artists my age,
I've been in retreat.
But now I'm itchin' to get out there again........
My gal has a cold and I reach for a super weapon: my friend Sue's spicy garlic soup. Three heads of roasted garlic, fresh roasted and crushed cumin seeds, chipotle pepper.
It was sunny and almost fifty degrees this first Sunday in February. What a winter! Despite the sweet weather it was time for soup medicine.
I'm not much of a cook and this took all of my concentration. Garlic and onion: what a miracle.
In the end not as spicy as Sue's but still homemade good with a kick and a hope that the head cold might be diminished somewhat. Soup made with love for love.
The second month in the new place and it's starting to feel even more like a home. Settling in to things and having less to fix up or pick up or pack up.
Sometimes I think that I could live almost anywhere. Especially with a sweet sweetheart and a teen teenager....such as I have. And two cats - one of 'em wonderfully nutty.
This becomes home and shelter. A fort to remember beauty and love in while watching the madness everywhere roll on as it always has.
