shshshhhhh!

a Mardi Gras self-portrait

studio elf

Do any of you have studio elves?
Or is it just me?

Elves are hard to peg.
They ride the fine line in between things.

So while you may not necessarily
want them on your team,
you sure as hell don't want them
playing for the other side.
Just sayin.

I inherited this one.

He previously lorded it over two other studios that I know of.

I am the only surviving artist.

Hmmm...

Meet MoJo Jim.

fish on the floor

After forty-four years here,

my oldest best Boulder friend up and left town.

Put her dog and her cat and her fish into her car

 and moved to Apalachicola,

 of all places.

The fish were so thrilled,

 it took one of em just a couple of days

to launch itself up out of the bowl

and onto the floor.

I used Caran d'Ache pencils 

to memorialize the poor little tyke.

mask raid

blind alley

vision quest

Two days ago,
Ken Elliot generously posted a YouTube
 about the blind artist Sargy Mann.

I'll see you and raise you, Ken,
 with Lennart Anderson.

WK

When the sumac by the garage turned,

we started calling him Wolf Kahn.

WK for short.

the reefer door

In our house, there are few photo albums.

Any image worth saving winds up on

the refrigerator door.

Once there, it becomes a part of an ever-changing collage,

Now and then, I take a picture of it.
The top right one was of an especially fine door. 

Here's part of this week's incarnation:

I think every reefer door should have 

at least one piece of kid's art on it,

In this case, the artist is my grand niece, Julianna.

The Zappa bumpersticker 

is the only political schmear I can stomach.

What's on your reefer door?

heart of the matter

This is the heart of one of our heirloom tomatoes.

Here it is, past the middle of October, 

and we still haven't had a frost,

so the garden is producing like a jungle.

Strange fruit.

Not to belabor the point, but I still can't see well.

Next week, I have an appointment with

 a corneal specialist.

I'm hoping he can get to the heart of the matter. 

As they say,

 the emeffing saga continues.

the dark side of the sprinkler

Not a painting painting yet,

just proof I'm still here.

seymour

I know it's corny,

 but he says his name is 

Seymour.

He popped out of the depths

 of this last underpainting.

I'm hoping he's right.

piece of cake

Shelley Smart grew up just up the coast from me.

Or down the coast, as they say on the coast.

I never met her there. Still haven't.

That's because I met her here in blogland.

When I had mentioned Day's lobster rolls in a post, 

she popped up like clam squirt.

Said she grew up with the Day's kids,

went to school with them,

while I was growing up on their lobster rolls. 

Wicked small world.

Shelley comments that she's also having 

cataract surgery in a couple of weeks.

If I were there (Oxnard, I think), we'd do lunch.

 I'd buy you a lobster roll, Shell, 

and tell you it's 

a piece of cake.

How ironic... there's an eye in the window.

facing the day

This underpainting will have to do for now.

Actually, I think I like it as is.

Best not touch it.

I don't know... 

near as I can tell, it looks fine.

Yah?

tenacity

One month after cataract surgery,

my right eye is still wrong. 

In addition to blurry, it's now also red, itchy and swollen.

Turns out I'm allergic to the eye drops.

Tenacity 

will keep me hanging on until I can see again.

This simple reminder is my gift to you:
Take nothing for granted;

get grateful now!

just another rainbow

I know, I know.

A rainbow.

But it's never just another one

when it lands in your yard.

Stranger than strange

when viewed with 

a clear yellow eye and a blurry blue eye.

Sort of an experimental

 twisted sister color school.

new blues

Last April, I switched to abstract.

Just as well.

I had cataract surgery this past week.

Only my right eye, this time.

My left-eye vision looks old and yellow; 

the right eye shows bright new blues.

Didn't Monet see new blues before his lights went out?

Now Google insinuates that my account's been hijacked. 

Never a dull moment.

sugar plums

Midsummer dreaming...

A neighbor's artful Barbie collection

 hangs on her garden fence

so dogs can dream 

of dancing sugar plums.

Makes my dog

positively lecherous.

Halle-agua!

After spending the last 10 months

waltzing with the waters,

pumping and drying and digging,

running from it and chasing it,

the new well up at the ranch is finally in

 and there's finally water in the house.

Did I say "finally"? 

Finally.

Sing halle-agua!!!

paradise

This being Thanksgiving,

 my goal was to post about gratitude,

but it seems the wifi is sometimes what we call

 mudbound.

Well, we'll give 'er a go...

Don Gray is a masterful artist and muralist
now living in Portland, Oregon.

His blog is a delight.

When I once commented to him that I had 

a 50cent bird-of-paradise plant trapped in a tiny pot,

 Don gently suggested that I transplant the poor thing.

That was four years ago. 

Thanks, Don.

And thanks to all of my blogging friends.

Your kind and attentive messages are treasured.

I'm very grateful for all of you.

Bless us all.

swept away

My mind is shot.
I really can't remember how to do anything.

Certainly not post or paint or play.

I'm stunned by how thorough the flood damage 
and its permanence.

The studio and house here in Boulder 
are almost dried out but are still a mess.
The river up at the ranch has lost its way, 
and the power is still out.

Worst of all, 
our dear neighbor Paul's funeral is on Thursday.

Things will never be the same.

Though today is hard,
 I know tomorrow will be better.

looking for meaning

Just a few observations...

I don't doubt that there is a reason, some meaning, 

for everything, big or small, that happens.

The dictionary's third definition of "meaning" is thus:

"have as a consequence or result : the proposals are likely to mean another hundred closures
 heavy rain meant that the ground was waterlogged."

You've got to be kidding.

Exactly one week before the 100-year flood,

 I did the following drawing on Scribbler. 

I had no idea where it came from or its meaning; 

it was just a scribble.

No kidding.

direction

The sun is out, and I am healing. 

At this point, there is nothing to do but

turn the corner. 

flood

Boulder is flooded.

Most of the Front Range is flooded.

People have evacuated and some have died.

It's all overwhelming, 

but nothing matters to me as much as this.

My studio is flooded.

I looked down the basement stairs, 

and all I could think of was Carol Marine's 

burned-out studio in Texas.

treatment

I refused Vicodin for the pain.

This being Boulder,

my doctor suggested cannabis cream or Calamine lotion

 and agreed that 

maybe a little wine would be okay.

Shaken not stirred,

I am the big pink drunk.

shingles

And I ain't talkin' rooftops. Arg! 

Will be off the air for the duration.

Again... Arg!

(Giraffe checking for and finding shingles 

on my rooftop in the doc's office.)