March 31, 2009

Running with Wolves

If you read my March 31 post about getting lost twice in a row driving to Nicole's, I suppose you'd write me off as another old man whining about fears of senility.
So as a counterweight I'm running this self portrait to show you I'm not the floundering mess you envisioned. Or maybe it will just reinforce that vision.
But I think you'll have to agree the March 31 post was just an off day in the life of a guy who at 73 is still running with the wolves.

It's Melting

That isn't open water you see beyond the white ice near shore. It is decaying ice. I took this photo yesterday noon. Wind was lashing the rain and it was cold. A typical spring day in the Berkshires.
My lake walks are over for the season.
Earlier in the day when I returned Nicole's projector, I got lost - really lost. Last week when I picked the projector up I got lost too. And I mean lost. When you're 73 this scares you. It whispers - or shouts - the A word: Alzheimer's.
In the afternoon I finished a painting I had started Sunday. This was the first one I'd done in the last six weeks. I haven't gone more than a week without painting since I started 13 years ago. The six weeks were spent building stretchers and doing other things associated with my one-man shows that opened March 13 and 21.
If I was making $100,000 a painting, think how much money I would have lost. But if I was making $100,000 per painting, I'd have an assistant. Maybe two. Money or no money it was good to be doing what I do again.

March 29, 2009

Gallery Sitting




Friday afternoon I was at the new Berkshire Community College Art Gallery from 1 to 4 so the public could drop in. 

Lisa Yetz brought in an art class from BCC and I had a good time talking to them about my Dresden Firebombing paintings on display there. I'm going to gallery sit again next Friday afternoon.

Sue Rose and I hung around for an hour or more. Her show will follow mine. We found we had a lot to talk about. A woman older than I am stopped in later. She told me she had been looking at the paintings through the windows every day when she walked by and was glad to have a chance to see them up close.

While she liked them, another man said BCC "could have done better" than launch the gallery with my work.

I took this shot from the gallery before I left.