Sold to the Ritz

While I am lounging in Chicagoland, my Dallas gallery is working for me. On Thursday I sold ten photographs (22 x 16) and five paintings for the Spa at the Ritz Carlton (Dallas). Even though the hotel has been opened for over a week, artwork is always the last thing, and this is no exception. All the paintings were some variation of my popular mixed media photo painting series. Interestingly, they did not buy the two abstracts that I painted especially for them.

Since I've had such a good experience with the Dallas Ritz, I visited the Chicago location to check it out. The 12th floor lobby is heavy and old fashioned, not in a good way. It has desperate need for renovation. I'm fairly sure the rooms have been redone, since I took the elevator and stopped on every floor to check out the public spaces artwork. Each floor has wonderful abstract paintings in the elevator lobby.

Chicago has turned out to be even more of a work break than I imagined. Our second night Nancy's conference sponsored an event at the Field Museum. We were bused there in torrential rains and crackling lightning. As the bus pulled up to the front of the museum we gazed out through spattered windows to see about a hundred marble steps reflecting lights from the the lobby, and shook our heads. Too dangerous to run up those steps in such a powerful storm. The driver agreed and drove us around to the side entrance. That journey had it's own danger zones, as a canopy of trees was a possible impact point for lightning. We were scared and ran as fast as we could to the waiting door. I looked beside me to follow Nancy's progress, and she went down in a heap in the slippery grass. I thought of nothing but the constant lightning and dragged her to her feet and made it to the building. We didn't know at that point if she was hurt, but a wheelchair was waiting for us in the lobby. Her ankle started swelling, she couldn't walk on it, and museum personnel iced it down. She sat in a wheelchair and continued talking business with her colleagues.

We got back to the hotel in a taxi, and the hotel provided a wheelchair and everything else we needed to get Nancy into bed with her ankle elevated and iced. We just knew she'd be better in the morning. She wasn't. The hotel limo took us to the hospital and xrays revealed three broken bones. So she's down for good. She'll have to have surgery when she's back home on Monday.

But it's Nancy after all, and she's not one to complain, that's for sure. Last night our friend Dave Becker came over to the hotel and wheeled Nancy back to his office. Both of us were interested to see what he does in his day job at a prominent advertising agency. It was fascinating! We had dinner and Dave walked us around downtown telling us the history of each old building, and the new ones, too. He's a great city guide.

We wanted to get out today and maybe take a boat tour, but it's raining again. Like I said, this is a real vacation.