Have you ever had one of those days that just made you happy to be breathing the air? I had one of those recently It was on the day we celebrated my father's 80th birthday.  I'd been working on a painting of Evelyn, my second mother:

I was going to give this one to my brother. I'd started it before Christmas, and it wasn't dry enough to travel when he went home, so I thought I'd meditate on it to see if it was really finished...it turns out it was, and it turns out the Muse thought it'd be the perfect gift for my Father's 80th. So that morning I woke up early and worked out, then started working on one of the paintings for the Motorcycle Museum, which I'll post once I submit them to the Museum.

All day that day I just felt lucky. I woke up happy could give them a 'picture for their fridge'... It was a beautiful day, I had been artin' a lot...I'd even gotten back in the gym. Working out always straightened out my attitude, but that was a special day.

Now, all I had do was to make good on my promise to my brother, because I have a second chance; he's coming home  in a few weeks. This new one started differently, and I think it's going to be a much better portrait:

If my luck continues, anyway...

The catch all

I haven't posted in a while; there has been much going on and my little brain takes a while to process these complicated things...

I've got almost all of the paintings for the Motorcycle museum finished, submitted, and, I believe, accepted. I'm working on one more for this show, then falling back to try to catch up on gifts I 'gave' to my brother that I've never finished.  Sorry, but I'm not posting those until they are hanging in the show: that'd be bad mojo.

Moving on; I spent most of the day in the Bronze studio yesterday, SoliloquyII is really coming along. As the goddess Helen says, 'Shiny!...

I just put in applications to the Greater Columbus Arts Council for a supply grant. I'm thinkin' I make too much to qualify; actually, I'm thinking I make too much to be applying, but I do want those folks to learn who I am, and this seems to be step 1...they really oughta have an operating manual for 'how to be in artist in {insert city}'...

One of my coworkers's SO had an accident some time back, and they asked me to create a sculpture with the rods they used to hold her legs together while she healed. That's the kinda piece I love, but I warned them my process could be glacially slow. I've come up with a concept that takes a couple of long steel rods and imbeds them in a rock, then attach the rods to the two rods in a sculptural fashion...Here are the raw materials, arranged in a random fashion:

Speakin' of operating manuals, I'm about to go get one of those, too. I'm finally back in the gym for real, and now, it's time to figure out how to eat. The problem for me since surgery has been that every time I make some progress towards fitness goals, my back would go out, or my hips would jack me up. My little pea brain finally realized that the only way I could change this cycle is to lose some weight...lots of weight. So, my dude Ric Stewart hooked me up with his Doctor, and I'm off to see the Wizard. Video comin', but don't expect P90x...I'm not THAT dude...

Back to Artin', as my fried Daric says

Peace