Too Many Artists

   Pick a body, any body.  Odds are they are an artist or are related to one. Can there be too many painters?  Sheep Jones (a very successful artist) noted all the friends and relatives in their late fifties who have started painting.  I was in my early 50s when I jump-shifted from writing to painting.  So, yes, I am part of the problem.  But so is the ex-president whose only notable talent was for clearing brush.  Now, he is now wielding one.  (Badly.)  I work in an art supply store.  Many timid middle-aged women talk to me about their trepidations.  I  tell them how I had no idea I could paint and am now a juried artist in the Torpedo Factory.
   The market is flooded. I should stop encouraging them.  But then I think of those people who buy a house in paradise, claim it for their own, and rush to close the borders.

Vineyard Colors

The top photo is from a wonderful website, www.Vineyardcolors.com.  Two photographers, Yann and Moira, travel across Martha's Vineyard everyday at dawn, purportedly delivering newspapers.  The images they take are often breathtaking.  They are also generous with their bounty, allowing others to share the images, or in my case paint from them.  I have seen views I've never seen, despite my 63 summers on the island.
Check them out, you'll be glad you did.

Knowing it All

         "Come Blow Your Horn", pastel, copyright 2003

  It is universally acknowledged, by those who know him, that my husband pulls answers out of the air.    He sounds so convincing, as if he knows for a fact. These answers are rarely correct.  We've come to discount them wholesale.
   He is retiring at the end of April and will have to relinquish his government issued blackberry.  Most of the fun applications on the phone are blocked, supposedly for security, but more likely to avoid time wasted.
   My husband just bought his first smart phone.  A Samsung something.  It took him quite a while to figure it out.  I couldn't help as I have been all-Apple since 1984 (and never once used SIRI).  Once he discovered the voice response system, our worlds collided.
   After decades of  thumbing through dictionaries and thesauri for answers, I felt typing into Google was too easy.    Samsung has eliminated the need to type anything.    In a stentorian voice, my husband asks the phone difficult questions, and voila, the program takes him to a page of answers.  I never know now whether he is talking to me, himself or the damned phone.
   The other day I was reading about the limestone caves that hold the sprawling mess of government pension workers and their miles of file cabinets.  The article said the limestone had been excavated for the production of steel.  Idly, I said,  what's limestone got to do with steel?  Suddenly, this voice, deeper and louder than necessary in a coliseum, stated, "limestone", pause, "steel production" and up came the answer.  It was a bizarre answer, one that I did not want to believe.  Damn.
  

Reworked

              "the shape of things"  2014 copyright

            "the shape of things" 2013 copyright

   So, I gave it six months, as I promised Sheep Jones I would.  Six months is a long time for me to be minimalist.  It didn't sell (but these days that is hardly a fair indicator.)  When I came back from knee surgery, the urge to add 'stuff'  prevailed.  I added texture to the boat inner sides, added oars, and three dashes of red.
    As Popeye put it, I yam what I yam.

Handicap Hierachy

   Five dollars and a total knee replacement have allowed me to have a red, temporary handicap parking pass.  Handicap parking spaces are usually filled when I arrive. Occasionally, illegally.  I wish I had the nerve to slap a 'mentally handicapped' sticker on their windshield. Lacking the courage to do so,  I leave it up to karma, what goes around comes around.
   This weekend I found an empty handicap spot in front of Trader Joe's.  When I got out, I looked at the car in the next handicap spot.  There was a woman in the driver seat.  I didn't see a pass hanging from the mirror.  As I passed the front of the car I expected to see a handicap license plate.  There wasn't one.  I kept walking. The woman in the car rolled down the window and actually yelled at me.  I stopped and turned.  She shook her fist and said, "I have it right here" waving a blue handicap pass.  I said, "Fine.  No problem."  But the woman was truly indignant and continued railing at me.  Backing away, I said, "Really, it's okay."  This served to further infuriate her.
  Her last salvo:  "Besides, you are just a temporary cripple!"

Mistaken Identity

   Two weeks ago, in the cavernous hall of surgical registration at Inova Fairfax hospital, I sat with several dozen people waiting to be called.  It was six am.  No one seemed happy to be there.  When "Richsmargle" was announced, I waited to see if there was such a person.  As no one else seemed game, I went up to the desk.  A pleasant man with dreadlocks and a French accent asked if  I was "Richsmargle".  I said I was Cynthia Richmond.  He nodded, checked the photo ID on the computer and handed me the all-important wristband with the bar code which would be swiped by everyone from food services to blood drawing technicians. Routinely, he asked me to check the birth date and spelling of my name.  I looked.  "My" name was spelled Khalid Houmani.

Five years years ago, in the same hospital I was asked my name and birth date every single time a hospital employee entered my room.  It was quite tiresome.  The Monday to Friday staff was ever-vigilant.  Weekend staff was more lax,  which I appreciated.  Until the day I was walking the halls for exercise and one of my assigned nurses said, "Hello, Mrs. Miller."

   Technology in a hospital is a good thing, as long as you check the fine print..

Menemsha Blues (and Oranges)

             "Menemsha Blues (and Oranges)"
                    © 2013

Last summer, Susan Makara and I saw this  fishing boat, the "Unicorn" in Menemsha Harbor.  She claims she got the better photo, and she probably did.  But I love the one I chose to paint.  Yesterday, the "Unicorn"  nearly sunk, while docked because of a cracked valve.   Volunteers bailed gallons of icy water and secured the valve.