Focusing

Sunday, September 1, 2013, 2 pm Art on the Divide Gallery, Georgetown, California

The above would be the opening for my show at our cozy coop art gallery. I've been a member for about a year and a half now, and have grown to love all of the varied personalities in our little group. A group that is dwindling to the point that we fear our ability to keep the doors open. But for now you can still find the "Open" sign on the big door right on Main Street between the firehouse and the American River Inn Thursdays from 11 am until 3 pm, and Fridays through Sundays 10 am until 6 pm.

The cool thing about our group is that it is completely un-stuffy. I have experienced nothing but a willingness to share techniques and encourage other's work. So encouraging that I am planning that my little show as September's Featured Artist will be made up largely, if not completely, of watercolor paintings.

I have a few paintings, childish splashings completed a few decades ago when a daughter and I took a few classes. I'm hoping to fill out the show with some fresh splashings, but keeping to the same childish style, since that is what is comfortable and fun for me. I don't consider them "real" watercolors, in the sense of those painters that seem to get the paints to flow and blend almost magically. Mine are rigid, almost cartoonish, the colors mostly imprisoned behind carefully inked limits.

Today I was able to focus almost 100 percent on completing another painting. Except for the 30 percent of the day spent attending to my day job and fooling my employer once more into thinking that I actually know what I'm doing, the 20 percent of the day spent hacking back the jungle of household entropy, 5 percent feeding and toileting, 10 percent napping, and 5 percent typing a letter to my son on the subject of comparative science fiction literature on a lovely, newly-arrived, Olympia SM9. and 25 percent of the day fretting about a tiny spotted fawn in our garden who temporarilly had lost its mother.
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Did I mention the 25 percent of the day spent on Facebook and typospherical web sites? So you see, finding time for art takes perseverance. In the end, I found constraining the virtuosity of my watercolor endeavor to the level of childish splashing to be no challenge at all.

More on that SM9 next time.