A very sad day

Today an email was sent out that Stephen Huneck had taken his life.

I remember when we drove to his place in October. We thought we were crazy to drive 2 1/2 hours there and the equivalent back, to spend 2 hours on a mountain in Vermont. We weren't the only ones. Dog lovers from much further had come to share the joy of a day with your dog and the freedom of hundreds of dogs running up the mountain and swimming in the pond. They supplied hot dogs for the humans and I think Mulligan might have stolen a few. Mulligan was in her element. She was surrounded by mostly goldens and labs. Her kind. We were with our kind too. People who like to be with their dogs, people who joke about how bad their dogs are and people who know that they have the greatest dog in the world. It was a very, very good day.

I don't know if they will be able to keep the dog chapel open. It was a place where people sent pictures of their past dogs and reading all the notes was touching. It was a place to see his art work. There are very few places like that and very few people who are talented and generous as he was.

Today is not a good day.

Stephen was kind enough pose with Mully.

Making Mud-pies

In a previous life, my husband was a big manager and used to watch videos on how to be a better manager. I don't know if they ever worked and made him a great manager because he got laid off anyhow and we lost his fabulous parking spot.
One video, I remember watching, was about how to reward your employees. i.e. how to rate them and give bonuses, etc.
A question was asked "what to do if you have an employee that works really hard but the project fails". The answer was "we don't reward mud-pies" and the term kind of stuck in my head.
To day I worked all afternoon. Big sigh - nothing but mud-pies.

Carol Nelson is painting a portrait a day from pictures people have sent her. I thought I would paint along to improve my portraiture. I don't plan to keep them, I even will just keep painting over them (the advantage of acrylics), and I want to spend no longer than 1/2 an hour on them. I will use this will be a sort of warm up. She is ahead of me already. Of course the first one had teeth - another sigh.

I do miss that parking spot

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Mully
Oh and Happy Birthday Michael too.

Stick em up or the first time I called myself an artist

I signed onto my site and wow, there were 10 encouraging comments. I feel, well, encouraged and strangely naked. It's almost like the moment in the movie Julie and Julia, when she has a comment and it isn't from her mother. Thanks for the comments and happy new year to everyone. 

I am going to be in a show at the end of January with a theme of Montreal. I am trying not to do my usual procrastination, wait to the last minute and paint all night. Guess what I used to do in school. With great optimism I had plans to drive around the city and take pictures on Sunday because parking is free until 1:00 pm. I would just jump in and out of the car snapping pictures of the sun streaming through the buildings and beautiful shadows on the snow. It didn't quite work out that way. Parking was still free but most of my pictures were of machines cleaning up the mess that Mother nature dumped on us. I spotted this woman walking on the side and pulled over because I am a law abiding citizen and wouldn't want to cause an accident. See the car lights to left. That's the lights of the police car who passed me, drove on for 2 blocks, made a dangerous u-turn and headed straight for my parked car. "What are you taking a picture of" he demanded. I felt so guilty that I was ready to confess to any crime he could think of. I said the first thing that came to my mind "I am an artist". He looked at me paused and said okay and left. He then followed me for 13 blocks until he decided to put on his lights, showed his importance and sped off. I thought about this. This was the first time that I called myself an artist out loud to a stranger and it felt good. Also if you are an artist it explains any strange behaviours - good to know.