I am sure I am not the only person in American simultaneously holding my breath and looking for a good hiding place. As such, it seems like a good idea to give my other bracers something to read besides the dreaded “news”.
October flew by, but I did not post anything. There is a good reason for that; I am working on a stealth project. Currently, I am working very hard on this project with a (self-imposed) deadline of this Saturday. I hope I’ll have more to report after that.
In other October news, I attended the fall Watercolor Society of Oregon convention. While neither of my paintings got in (clearly an oversite) the show was lovely, and the convention planners did a good job with the thousand details and decisions that go into planning a convention. I encourage anyone who is interested to check out the November Watermark and read all about it.
Upon returning from the convention, I received word that my painting “Modern Society” was accepted into the Celestial Creatures show at The Giustina Gallery, which is inside the LaSells Stewart Center at Oregon State University. This kind of “academic” show is a feather in my art resume, and I am happy to be included!
In the middle of the month I finished with the six-week class “Mixed Media Mondays” that I had taken through Artists’ Studio Association.
The class is a little hard to explain, but we explored Gelli printing, stencils, collage, spray paint, and the combination of all these and more. Along with the Kelly Santini workshop last month, it provided a great deal to ponder as I move forward (Saturday… Saturday… Saturday…)
In the middle of the month, I received some bad news about a house repair I have been dreading. I guess I’ll be finding time to talk to contractors and pick out new paint. I could have done without the whole thing.
Yesterday, Key and I attended our first Elite nosework trial. After years of struggling in “Level 3” nosework, Elite is the reward. While our score was not spectacular (we placed 21st of 30), it was a lot of fun. This was something of a test run for us. Key is now 12 and has been showing some signs in the last few months of aging. In Elite the searches are bigger and more complicated. By the end of the day, Key was exhausted. In fact, on the way home, he got tummy-sick, which has not happened before. I’m going to think about all this before entering more trials at this level. There are other options, and we might need to explore those.
I’m going to stop here. I’ll try to put out more regular posts, and right now there is a lot of fodder for them.
Take care of yourself, my friends.