Flatlands

Down in the Texas valley, rich soil and flat land meld into fertile fields enhanced by a temperate climate. A freeze in the valley is rare, rare as a 10 inch rainfall.

I saw the thick distinct wall of black clouds as I blithely crossed the international bridge at Progreso. Since it's rained almost every day this year in Dallas, I didn't give it much thought except to hope that I got to my car before the rain hit. Indeed I did, and got almost a mile down the road before the wind burrowed under the car, sliding me into the next lane. Then the rain. When I couldn't see or control the car, I pulled over at a convenience store at the exact moment lightning struck and knocked out the electricity. Recent thunderstorms in Dallas have produced tornadoes, so I called my Dad to see what the weather reports were. I was still a good twenty miles from his house. He reported rain, but nothing else dramatic, so when the wind died down a little, I crept back to the road, only to stop a block later, under the awning of the Holiday Inn. There I waited, but not long enough.

The highway through there has been under construction as long as I can remember. The road travels up onto the interstate surface, and then back to the frontage road repeatedly. On my right hand side was a concrete barrier, on the left 18 wheelers whizzed by drenching me with overspray. Saying the road was flooded is an understatement. In some places there were rivers to cross. I had visions of all those news stories on TV about vehicles being washed away. For the brief seconds I allowed my eyes off the car in front of me, I saw that the whole area was flooded. Those plowed fields got a good dose of rainwater. By the time I neared my dad's house emergency crews were out closing down the roads.

I walked into my dad's living room, soaked to the skin, with my pink hair stuck to my head, and said, "I never thought I'd be this happy to be at an old folks home!"

All in all, it was a good visit. Dad complained that he is having trouble remembering names, but heck, I'm impressed with all the things he remembers! I really hope I'm in as good shape as he is when I'm 92.

I took the whole weekend off from anything artistic. I didn't even take my camera to S. Texas. And once I got home I continued with my purging efforts, and now my closet is cleaner and more organized than it's ever been.

I bought a new shredder, in an effort to dispose of all these papers that have personal information printed on them, but still it's not heavy duty enough.

And I bought an Uninterruptible Power Supply for my computer system (finally). Actually, I got two, so that everything is covered. We've had too many electrical storms around here for me to be so negligent in that regard.

Daniel Byron Walker, age 7
Dec 31, 1970 - Jan 29, 1991
KIA Persian Gulf
US Marines
my son, my only child, my love, my pain

Buried in Clutter

My biggest organizational challenge has always been paper. Newspaper, magazine, bills, advertisements, junk mail, everything paper. That's part of the reason I started doing collage work, it "allowed" me to buy even more paper. So now I have hundreds of old magazines, etc. etc. etc. I know I should separate them into reference and garbage, but at this point I can't even do that. I've been on a purge all week, and today is another day of being ruthless. It's been a case of "do I own this stuff or does this stuff own me?" Out it all goes.

It feels great!

I'm not painting today, but I'm putting the studio in order. I only have a few days this week since I'll be spending a few days in south Texas visiting my Dad. Then June 2 I leave for the photography workshop in Oregon (yay!).

Regarding my previous post about the hotel company looking for artists, read this.

More Self Discovery

Forest Fern, 8" x 16"

One of the things I learned at the workshop in Mendocino is that my work is (generally) very orderly. I wouldn't have described myself as orderly however. My office area is a wreck, and my studio is the same.

This weekend I continued the purge. I dumped out the contents of any drawer that was too full to open, and started throwing things away. If I forgot I had it, it went in the trash. Did you know that up until fairly recently lots of bank statements and medical bills had your social security number printed right on them? Consequently I have several bags of trash that can't be thrown away. It would take me days to shred using my home machine. I might wait until my bank has another "shred day".

So the point of all this is that since I determined that my work is organized there must be something about me that's organized. I think I have discovered the secret. If I have a place for something I can easily keep it there, and labels help a lot. It's all the things that fall into that grey area, that don't clearly belong in one place or another. Those are the things I have to tackle.

With all the chaos going on around here, it was very soothing to work on the new Spa series. I have fourteen paintings completed and ready to send to my rep, Capstone Art.

Less is More

When the bulk trash pickup was postponed from last week to this, every day I had to look at four toilets lined up on the sidewalk across the street from me at the house that's being remodeled. The longer the pickup was postponed, the more I wanted to throw things away.

So out it went.

I threw away huge boxes that computer monitors came in, a five foot tall teddy bear I've had for 25 years, a huge leather chair and ottoman out of my bedroom (too big!). I went through closets, and threw away luggage that's now too heavy for airline regulations, and paintings! Yes! Paintings whose energy I no longer wanted around me. Could I have painted over them, yes. Did I want to? No. Out in the trash!

I went through the bathroom cabinets and threw away a hundred tiny bottles of hotel shampoo and conditioner, cosmetic bags, old medicine, Qtips, bars of old soap. Why do I have six curling irons, anyway? I haven't used one in years!

By the time the trash collectors came around this afternoon I had looked in every hiding place for more things to add to the pile.

What a sight when the toilets were picked up by giant steel jaws, and crushed into porcelain fragments on the way to the landfill.

Besides that I have prepped 14 sheets of paper for the continuing series of photo paintings, maybe more in the Spa series.