only mad dogs and Irishwomen.....

My friend Jane has been in town visiting from Northern Ireland since May 25. These past 2+ weeks have been just about the hottest late spring weather anybody can remember. The daily misery index is through the roof and into the stratosphere, which is silly since the temperatures in the stratosphere would rival that of the Antarctic. We have had temps over 90 F with 85%+ humidity since she has  been here. Meanwhile Jane is absolutely thrilled to finally be warm as temperatures where she lives in Ballymena, 30 miles north of Belfast, have been cold and damp averaging about 40F. What is wrong with this picture?

People who know me are  well aware that my disposition gets worse and worse with every degree above about 75 when the humidity is over 60%. Needless to say during the past few weeks I haven't been my finest. Top that off with the wonderful fact that on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the past 2 weeks I have had a garden helper working to reclaim my long neglected yard from the wild honeysuckle, grape vines and dead shrubbery which have run amok for the past 6-7 years. My garden worker is the son of good friends and he is more than willing to do just about anything I can think of for him to tackle. Problem comes when it's about 73 or 74 at 8am and near 90 by noon. We have tried to work in the shade but there are times when that simply isn't possible. He wants me outside with him the whole time so I have done more exercise in the past 2 weeks than I have in the past 2 years. Not much visible progress as yet  so that gives a slight indication of how Herculean the task actually is!!

Back to Jane. She doesn't like air conditioning. I mean she really doesn't like it. so you can well imagine my misery when we went to visit a friend in Indiana last week and she wanted the car windows open. I managed  fine on the 40 minute  drive over there. I managed fine, just barely, when we drove a country road looking for some restaurant I had heard had fabulous birds' eye views above the Ohio River  - true enough. But after lunch at nearly 3pm with my car parked in the sun for nearly 90 minutes I insisted on AC for the long ride home. she kept her window open about an inch anyway!!

So now I find  myself wondering how menopausal Irish women  manage. Don't  they too get hot flashes and night sweats? Or is it so cold there most of the time that they are simply glad to have the extra body warmth?
I loved the summers I spend in Ireland and Northern Ireland because they were cool and the air was so amazingly clean. Now with the Icelandic volcano dirtying their air  and blocking the sun I still think it would be more pleasant for me than staying here and sweltering. Maybe Jane and I just  need to trade places for next summer.  The weather we have here now is only fit for mad dogs and Irishwomen!!

what friends are for

Last month my longtime friend Warren was in town for a professional conference. This was a treat of unbridled proportions for me. When we were neighbors in Cherry Hill, NJ during the 1980s we had dinner together at least once a week. Our relationship was always that of siblings since he had a sister my age whom he adored and I had 2 brothers, all living a distance away. It just happened that we because fast friends and have maintained a long distance contact through the ensuing years.

Warren  appeared at the very beginning of what was to become my professional art career. He showed enormous interest in the progress of both my oil pastel drawings as well as my clay sculptures and vessels. Eventually he began making very deliberate, highly selective purchases of my artwork. His enthusiasm and support, both emotionally and financially was invaluable. some things just don't change.

Warren contacted me to arrange a dinner date his only free evening in L'ville. When I asked what sort of food he wanted he immediately replied "Chinese" as we had probably eaten 100 Chinese dinners together in the past. I hadn't seen him in about 4 or 5 years but from the first moment on the phone it was obvious that we were in for business as usual. It's just so wonderful when time evaporates and the glue between friendships holds fast.

After a fabulous meal at the August Moon Warren asked to go to my house and see my newest work. Now he had seen much of this work online but he wanted to see first hand the progression I went through post surgeries and understand how I reeducated myself to maneuver from point A to points XY and Z. So I showed him everything I had, every scrap of paper, the good the bad the ugly as well as the "I can't believe I actually DID this!!". As is his way, he was deliberate and probative, asking thoughtful questions and making insightful comments as are only possible when someone is actually familiar with an artist's entire body of work. It's not that his interest was flattering. It's that it was gratifying for him to WANT to take so much time to study each piece and try to understand it's place in the continuum.

I am always surprised by what pieces of my work appeala to certain people. My friend Monica is my only "collector" whose taste I know so well that I have an over 90% success rate figuring out what she'll want to buy. Warren selected 2 small early studies. He and Ann have plenty of my work in their home. I really wasn't showing him these pieces with the idea he might actually buy something, let alone 2 pieces from the very middle of my 36 month struggle to recover. I always believe it is up to the artwork itself to select an audience, that's it's job. Once I sign my name to it the thing becomes a marketable commodity. But I was so deeply touched by

Warren's sincerity in wanting to purchase what were really just sturies, and imperfect studies in my eyes. But he saw something in them and that was that. So 2 landscape studies are now in Minneapolis getting acquainted with "Mc Bell's Fantasy" and "Pond Scene"  and "Good Day Sunshine" and the others whose names I have long forgotten as well as numerous ceramics collecting dust on horizontral surfaces in their very lovely home! But after all, that's what friends really are for.

strange business

In February I accepted the position of Artist Facilitator for ArtsWORK Indiana's New Albany programming. The organization aims to assist and promote artists with various disabilities. In essence I contact the selected artist pesenters for these monthly programs and collect information for a press release as well as learning what they will need in a physical sense for the presentation itelf. During their presentation I take notes and write a report about the program and account for the audience members' evaluations.

There was a hole in the schedule and I was the program presenter for May. My topic was "My Recovery Show and Tell" , another in a series of talks about how degenerative osteo-arthritis brought my 34 year career to a screeching halt in 2004 and how after bilateral shoulder replacement surgeries in 2007 I managed to reclaim my studio skills and my career. So what was different about this talk? For the first time I brought work, more than 2 dozen pieces, to share with the audience. I thought, if  picture is worth a thousand words...

Well that part was OK. I know how to tell a story as keep an audience fairly well entertained. BUT the strange business was that I had to write up and submit a report of my own program. Yes, someone else took notes while I was speaking but she left them for me to transcribe and elaborate upon. Just seems like mighty strange business to evaluate myself.