Oy, Portugal!

What a gorgeous country!  Also, rather treacherous (see below).  Portugal is a compact country, only 125 miles wide.  And as my husband believes in seeing everything possible, we logged 1900 kilometers on our rental Peugeot.  (And had only 340 Euros in damages.  The roads in Porto are about the width of a birth canal.) From Lisbon, we drove to both ends of the Algarve, up to Evora, Coimbra, Obidos, the Duoro wine region, Porto, Sintra and back to Lisbon.  All in 10 days.

The colors are deliciously riotous

The beaches at the Algarve are pristine. 

The wine country above the Duoro River with its endless rows of grapevines is a study in geometry.  I feared the wine country would be wasted on me as I am allergic to wine.   I discovered, however, that port(wine that has been fortified with brandy), goes down ever so nicely.

I went on steroids to tame my colitis for the duration of the trip.  Croissants every morning, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables everyday.  Oh how I've missed them.

The Portuguese are very fond of dried seafood.  Octopi dry on hangers (not all legs make it to the market)  and fish dry on flat wire beds.  The smell is as you would expect.

All in all, a delightful country.  But as I mentioned, there is an element of danger in Portugal.  Not roving bands of gypsies, but sidewalks.

Portugal is ALL hills.  Steep hills.  Steep, slick hills.  The side walks are made of old, slippery tile shards.  The roads, built in the 1800s, are composed of uneven 5" cubes of limestone.   Nothing in Portugal is even-surfaced, except the universally glassy marble/slate bathroom floors (are hoteliers unfamiliar with litigious foreigners?).  My ankle  is dodgy enough on smooth surfaces. On cobbled streets, I'm a runaway truck headed down the mountain.  My husband held his breath for nine days, sure that I was going to topple.  The quandary: how to be protective, without being dragged along in my wake.  

I am very proud to say I slogged up and down the endless hills without incident.  We returned to Lisbon with one day left for exploring.  My husband had to go solo, as I was laid up in bed with a wrenched knee.  The night before, coming out of the bathroom with damp feet,  I skidded on the marble steps and went flying.  I'm sure the  half bottle of Port had nothing to do with it.  

Outside the Comfort Zone

    When I was a child, my mother told me 'it's just as important to know what you can't do, as well as what you can."  I'm sure she meant this to be a comfort for I had a good deal to be modest about. Lessons in tennis,swimming, sailing, ice skating, skiing, dance, flute, life drawing, sculpture, golf,  you name it, I took it.  None of it stuck.  Mom professed admiration for my attempts until one  day she took another tack.
    I have been painting now for about 15 years.    The human figure still eludes me.  I've tried, I've really tried. The last figure class I took was 6 years ago, though even then I hedged my bets.  The class was doing figure,  and with Danni Dawson's permission,  I was off in the corner painting still lifes.  Homework involved portraits.  I did as best I could.
   Last week I stepped willingly outside my comfort zone.  I took a three day portrait workshop with Dan Thompson of the Art Students League of New York.  Dan was terrific.   The first day was grisaille (laying in the portrait with raw umber and white).  The next day was color massing.  But discouraged by how little my grisaille looked like the model, I started from scratch on a new canvas.  I was pleased with the result (bottom left). Day three, the class refined the features.  As I had no color masses to refine, I quickly added color  (last photo).
  If only I had stopped there,   Instead, I spent 4 hours hamfistedly 'refining' the masses.  If you think I'm going to show you the results, you're nuts.

Day one

To Thrash, Perchance to Sleep

                       The Blowhard © 2009 cindypackardrichmond.com

   In The Hours, Michael Cunningham writes "How was your sleep, he asks, as if sleep were not an act but a creature that could be either docile or fierce."
   I have met that creature, we go toe-to-toe nearly every night.  It has met my husband as well.  Neither of us sleeps well.  My husband has a snuffagufalous embedded in his sinuses that gets feisty when he lies down.  As near as we can figure, it is very rare for both of us to be asleep at the same time.  We compare notes in the morning.
    I don't drink because I think that may be tied to the Sleep demon. My husband refuses to give up beer.  I take a sleeping pill, melatonin and a benadryl at 8:30.  We go to bed about 10:30.  He falls asleep, I toss for about a half hour, then admit  Sleep is not on my dance card.   I go downstairs to watch TV.  If I eat something it will add to my woes later, but at that point I can't say I am entirely logical when it comes to peanut butter.  I try to manufacture yawns.  Back upstairs for a warm bath.  More enforced yawns.  Back to bed, thrash, thrash.  I pull on compression knee socks, hoping to quiet my crazy legs syndrome.  Nothing.  I go to the guest bedroom and thrash.  I sit up and peel off my compression socks.  I read.  Feet tingle.  Slap on some Salon Pas pain relievers on my arches  and hope my left foot won't seize up in a charley horse.  If it does, it's back to the bathtub to run very hot water over contorted foot.
   Round about 1:30 I finally nod off.  My husband's shift starts at two. I wake up as he is nodding off at 4.  Why is Sleep so bloody complicated?

Is This Any Way to Sell a Painting?

Oddly enough, the subject of this blog is the image featured in my last blog:

"Far From Home" copyright 2003

A man bought this painting from the Art League in Alexandria, Virginia.  He got a dealer discount, I got $950.  Still, I was thrilled, a dealer liked my work.  I was more thrilled when I learned the painting was in a gallery a few miles from my family's house on Martha's Vineyard.  (Somewhat less thrilled that he was asking $4500. ) Years went by.  Some summers, the painting wasn't there, leading me to hope it had finally found a good home.

The gallery floundered and became a trendy clothes shop.  (Lest you feel pity for the gallery owner, he actually owns the block of upscale stores. ) One of them, "Portobello Road", is a bookshop/artgallery/vintage souvenir shop.  The books are eclectic and to my liking, so I go there every year.  This week I was stunned to find "Far From Home" amid books, leaning directly against a white pole. (See first image)  

The price has dropped to $2500.  Perhaps he'll throw in the pole, if you ask nicely.

Lucky Me

          "Far From Home" © 2003  pastel on sanded Wallis Paper

   
     I am too lucky.  I was born into a  family that loved me (even after I made fun of  them in my first novel).  I married a good man and have two amusing, grown children.  I've never made much money but I have been able to work as I wanted, first as a novelist and then an artist.  Unfortunately, I've done nothing to deserve this good fortune, which means it can vanish in the blink of an eye.
    When I look at all the misfortune in the world, I am thoroughly abashed.  It's not that my life hasn't had it's rough patches, but that others have never had a smooth patch.
    Those that know me, call me a pessimist.  It is true that I complain, grouse, and bitch to excess. If something can go wrong, I assure everyone it will.  Actually, I am an optimist just trying to trick the Fates.
    I would like the Fates to know I don't take this grace for granted.  I am ever so grateful.

Bad Publicity

                                   " Roman Holiday" © 2009

"They" say there is no such thing as bad publicity.  I wonder.  Recently, I have "boosted" my Facebook posts to generate sales.  My paintings have been woefully lame when it comes to self-promotion.  And truth to tell, I'm not much better.  My parents encouraged us all to succeed in our chosen fields, but then we were to be modest about it.  It took me years to accept a compliment without batting it away with a sarcastic remark.

Facebook claims to boost images by sending them to the friends of my English-speaking friends.  And their friends, should I want to pay more.  I am worried for my friends.  Some of the responding Facebookers look unsavory.  One man's cover picture was of a pile of naked women, inked toe to brow with tattoos.  His own photo gave me pause.  Perhaps he was an actor on "OZ", but I suspect he was a guest of the state.  What was it he liked about my work?

People should keep their politics off Facebook.  More often than not, I am startled by people's political choices.  Especially people whom I once thought reasonable.  I learn from their mistakes, keeping mum   with potential clients in my studio, even when they are covered head to toe with tats.

Face Lifts

   
                                                "Librarian of Congress" copyright 2004

 Lately, I've noticed that women who are my contemporaries look a lot younger than I.  My jiggly bits are sagging.  By next year, my breasts will be even with my elbows.  I could do something surgical, but who am I kidding.  My father repeatedly told me when I was a teenager that "Beauty is as Beauty does."  I still don't know what that means, but I assume since I was applying makeup when he said it, he was referring to my weight.  I only wish I was now as fat as I was when he thought I was fat.
My mother, Virginia Packard, was blessed with strong cheekbones, a lithe body and a wicked sense of fashion.  I, on the other hand,  am saddled with thin lips and a thick body.  My sense of fashion is relatively good (I read Vogue, watch Project Runway etc) but tend to wear whatever fits.  My husband once believed the adage that a man should look his mother-in-law for a preview of his wife's future.  Who was I to  dissuade him?

   I watched a documentary about face lifts years ago.   The surgeon put his hand between the skin and the deep fascia to remove the tissue sheath.  I've done the same a hundred times, clearing the membrane of a whole chicken to add herbs.   The documentary  was enough to put me off surgery and roasted chicken.
   My mother had a face lift when she was 58.    My parents rented out their home in New Canaan every summer. One year, my mother's face lift coincided with an open house. I came home with my fiancé to visit her.  My father had stuck my mother in the smallest room of the house so as to not frighten potential tenants.  I thought him a cad.  Until I saw her.  She looked nothing like my mother but an enormous blue and black Kabuki mask, tottering on narrow shoulders.  
   Two weeks later, still swollen with the blue fading to yellow and purple, my mother gamely went to the Yale Club in New York City to meet my fiancé's parents for the first time.  I've never admired her more.