Exciting Day in the Life

Wednesday was an exciting day in my life. The Artist’s work appeared on the cover of a national magazine.

We had known that the owner of the dulcimer was writing an article for the magazine and she had notified The Artist that it would be in the Winter 2011 issue, but to have it appear on the cover (and the CD that accompanies each magazine) was a gigantic surprise and brought us both tremendous pleasure.

I give huge thanks to the author, a prominent banjo and dulcimer musician, Mary Z. Cox, for her very kind words and thoughtful insight into the true value of historical instruments. Mary maintains a great appreciation for instruments made in the traditional way and believes that musical instruments have real personalities and destinies of their own.  As The Artist said last night, “She really gets it!”

But… the day wasn’t over!

Wednesday evening was the annual Gail Rich Awards in our home town. The awards honor the abundance of creative artists—dancers, craftspeople, musicians, writers, artists, actors, entrepreneurs, teachers, clowns, exhibitors, purveyors—who make our town so culturally rich. This year, one of our good friends was honored. We had to attend and waited in line for a half hour before the awards began.

Of course, I took a copy of the just-received DPN magazine to show everyone we knew and some of those we didn’t! Turns out one of those we didn’t know formerly owned a well-known dulcimer shop in town. (People at shows still ask us if we knew the shop.) “Didn’t know that magazine was still in business,” he quipped. Well, it is and at volume 37, #1, it’s better than ever; in fact, I think it's the best one yet!.

A Long and Difficult Month

Life's a beach, and sometimes it's not.

It's been a difficult three weeks for The Artist and me. His mom was ill, recovered and became ill again with a different problem. She's getting better, but at 91, it takes a long time. She's so used to being independent and wants to return home, but must spend some time in a rehab center to build up her strength.

Making sure she's taken care of, visiting her and cheering her on to keep her spirits up and make her eat has taken a lot out of us. As my very good friend (who has two aging parents) says, there's a lot of mental stress. "Who will take care of me when I'm their age, since I have no children?"

Fortunately, she has a strong will to live. We long for her to return to her apartment and life to return to the way it was before she became ill. Secretly, we know that it will probably not happen exactly like that.

Work has been very hard and very difficult. Projects are due sooner, new projects appear from the ether to be fit in to normal workflow and more is expected with less staff. I try to tell myself that it is not age, just work, but my self-image suffers. I expect it to get harder and more difficult.

The show circuit has stunk this summer. The Artist has not done well, but neither have many other craft artists. Sometimes it's like that. The Economy.

So, what cheers us up? When the sun's out. Good food (but not too much of it). Reading. Working in the shop. Talking with friends.

One More Accolade for the Artist

More Pacific Coast Iris

The artist has been accepted into the Sausalito Art Festival! Three shows this summer. Lots of work to do to prepare for all the shows.

Interesting info I've read in the past few days:

• On elevators built since about the 1990's, the "close door" button doesn't work. It's only there to make people feel they have some control over the elevator. (New Yorker Magazine 4/21/08)
• Isotope signatures of elements in your teeth will indicate where you grew up. (National Geographic, March 2008)

The bathroom is almost completed. Just the commode, shower door and shower hookup are left. What color towels? I vote for chocolate brown.

Painting away

Life with an artist is exhausting when it's painting the new closet.

In the process of making a truly livable home out of our sometimes-livable house, we are in the final stages of making an office without a vanity and sink and making a guest bathroom with a sink. What a concept. A sink in the guest bath instead of the office. Our formerly-strange house had a "jack and jill" bath with entrances from two "bedrooms". What a very strange design was our newly remodeled house. How strange we must have been to purchase it like that. But, after all, it's half a block from the beach...sometimes you can put up with a lot of things when location, location, location is involved. But not forever.

How wonderful it is to have a rectangular room with bare walls. How wonderful it is to have a closet in the office. Which brings us to painting our wonderful closet. This weekend I painted our wonderful, new, 3x9 1/2 closet. Then we moved bookcases and stacks of books into it. The artist and I are exhausted. But we are very happy.

Now we can put more of his stringed instruments on the walls and we can put some of the artist's great drawings that I love so much into frames and hang them on bare walls. Bare walls. Oh, no. First we have to paint the office. Can it wait for a three day weekend?

By the way, yesterday was the 100th anniversary of my grandparents' marriage. They were not artists.