Only in Colorado…I just went out to shovel yesterday’s few inches of snow, still wearing my light pajamas and a light sweater – no gloves. It was only 5 degrees F, but the sun was out and I was never cold!

Okay, now for the Best and Worst of my driving experience in Ireland — you decided which is which. (At the end of this post is a picture of the current painting I’m working on – horses from Ireland.)

It’s always best if my husband is the navigator/map person on our trips, so I became the designated driver (DD) for the week. Steve would have gladly spelled me from time to time, and Katy certainly was willing to drive, but we discovered that it would have doubled our already ridiculously expensive car-rental rate to add a second driver!!

It was so strange walking to the right side of the car to get in to drive:

I had to learn (fast) how to shift with my left hand. Not only that, but I had to look in all the wrong places now for my mirrors. My rear-view mirror was now to the left, and my side-view mirror was now on my right.

The accident rate has dropped dramatically in Ireland, they say, ever since they added a little sticker to the windshield in front of the driver, telling us to “Drive on Left.”

Having never driven on the left side of the road before, I needed all the help I could get. Steve was my left-side eyes and was constantly telling me if I was too close to something, like a parked car (the roads were extremely narrow and were often shared with semis and RVs!). Many cars we saw were all scraped up on the left side, or their mirrors were broken off!

Katy was my rear-view eyes. She alerted me once (shrilly, thankfully) just before I backed into a castle!

But without my trusty Backseat Drivers to keep me awake during our many lo-0-0-0ng excursions, I could never have done it. (Except when they were BOTH asleep!)

Present: After snatching a few minutes here, a few minutes there to work on this painting, I have observed it for awhile now and know exactly where I want to end up after my next stint with it.

Lately, I have been spending my time reworking many of my paintings. Hey, if they haven’t sold yet, then I can keep improving them whenever I get the urge. I have been getting the urge.

Change of plans. I just can’t get interested in writing a travelogue (if you haven’t noticed) of the trip we took to Ireland a few months ago. But I have promised several people that I would, including myself.

So, I told friends in my Salon group that I was planning instead to do a “Best Of” sort of thing. One of the artists added, “And worst!” Now, that fits much better with my writing style! (Thanks, Pixie.) So here goes.

This is the closest I will get to a travelogue. Your geography lesson for the day: MAP OF IRELAND

Our itinerary was very easy:

We started in Dublin, on the east side of the island, and did a counter-clockwise loop around the island, ending back in Dublin. We did not make it to Northern Ireland or Donegal (where singer Enya is from) – just not enough time.

We stayed just outside of Dublin, in Howth (rhymes with “both”, but they say it more like “Hoat”).

Then west to Shannonbridge, where my husband’s ancestors are from.

Then the rest of the way west to Galway, Connemara, and the Aran Islands.

Then Kenmare and the Ring of Kerry.

We did not see nor kiss the Blarney Stone – it wasn’t high on our list, but especially not at 10 Euros (1 Euro=$1.365) per person!

Then over to Waterford to visit Curraghmore Castle and our painting friends.

1 night in Kilkenny, perfectly timed, unbeknownst to us, for their busiest weekend of the year.

Then back to Dublin/Howth.

I will start in tomorrow with pictures demonstrating the Best and the Worst of my Ireland trip!

My paper nemesis has finally met its match. And it’s all because of a helicopter.

A helicopter?

Yes, a helicopter.

I’m sitting at the island in our kitchen Friday morning, eating breakfast and reading Andre Agassi’s new book Open (which is why I’m writing in the present tense, like Agassi’s book – my brain is stuck there) and I hear a very loud sound. I figure it’s the loudest truck I’ve ever heard on the highway below our house. But the truck never goes away. And all of a sudden it’s right outside my kitchen window!

It’s not a truck, it’s a helicopter, and it’s hovering at eye level just a few feet from my window. It’s a police helicopter, I think. Geeze, did I do something wrong? I feel like I’m in a scene from “True Lies.” I expect Arnold to come swooping down on a zip line and throw a bag over my head and haul me away.

Then I look around my house and realize that the helicopter people can see into my house (I live in a glass house, basically, but have never considered this a problem before). Horrors! I wouldn’t mind normally, but I have just spent a week pulling out every piece of paper in the house. My dining room table is covered, my entryway is covered. I am very neat with things, but when it comes to paper…let’s just say I have issues with paper. It’s the bane of my existence.

What if the helicopter people take pictures of my paper mess and put them on the Internet?! It’s the big fear of my life. Someone will see my paper!

Normally, my paper is mostly out of sight, or at least in one place. But now it is all spread out so that I can see it (and the helicopter people can see it) – in an attempt to get rid of it.

So, following Murphy’s Law, it only stands to reason that this is when a helicopter finally comes to peer around my property and maybe in my windows!

I determine right then and there that something has to be done. Paper just grows out of nowhere in my life. I don’t bring it into my house anymore, but it is always there – more and more every day…it’s like the Thing, and it oozes into every area of my life.

I call my daughter and ask her to, please, come help me with my paper!!! This is a task that has been tried by many, conquered by none.

I tell her I’ll buy her a Cold Stone. She’s in.

It seems that our relationship has become defined by ice cream, usually Cold Stone. Whenever we decide to meet at a certain parking lot to carpool, for instance, the description is always, “The one next to the Cold Stone.” When we plan an outing to get fabric for new pillows, we say, “Then we’ll get a Cold Stone.” Or, “I’ll let you buy me a Cold Stone.” Any excuse is a good excuse when it comes to Cold Stone.

But I digress.

Hillary decides to spend Friday night at the house and help me with my paper over the weekend. We stop at Costco on the way home to load up on pizzas and other sustenance, and Hillary feels that we also need ice creams, carry-out ice creams. So she orders up three monster cups of ice cream (everything at Costco is monster-size), and we head for the receipt-checking area at the exit. Hillary is holding these three monster ice creams, me the spinach. I say to the guy, “That’s why she’s so skinny.” He laughs and lets us pass. We’re armed and dangerous.

Ice creams and pizza – a beautiful combination.

The weekend is so productive, and she is so effective and helpful, that we come away with a plan. After handling the first pile of paper she says, “I see your problem, Mom. You’re afraid to put anything away, because you’re afraid that you’ll forget about it.” Bingo. (That’s an understatement. I’m not just afraid, I know for a fact that I will never think of it again.) Consequently, my paper is all over the place, no piece totally hidden.

She comes up with a brilliant plan. Put all the visual paper “reminders” on a list, one list, then put the papers away or throw them away. Duh.

Why didn’t I ever think of that?! I have paid oodles of money over the years to try to find a fix for my paper problem (including, most recently, hypnotherapy), but none have addressed the root of the problem and my basic fear: out of sight, out of mind. And the irony that if a paper is IN my sight, I can’t function.

At least the money got me to the point where I have wonderful systems in place. Hillary and I are able to zip through the piles and put things away/throw things away in no time!

She makes me promise that I will do at least three items on my list every day. Deal.

I am looking over my new list right now, and it’s like Christmas! Each line on the list is like an amazing present. Brand new, sparkly. It’s like I’ve never seen it before. And it looks so easy and uncomplicated. I can do this!

Give me a month to get the hang of my new system, and I think it will be life changing.

I finally remember to tell Steve about the bizarre helicopter episode. He looks at the Saturday paper, and there on the front page is an article about the police, in a helicopter, on Friday morning, looking for a lost police dog. My first thought is, Maybe the dog likes to eat paper…

Onward and upward!

I recently took a trip to Ireland…oh, alright, it was in May. I was going to blog about it right away, but I came back with over 4,000 pictures and got totally discombobulated. So, I’m going to try my best to put my trip into a nutshell for you, in words and in pictures.

Now that I’ve had time to think about how to present this trip to you, I have decided to make different posts over the next several days, on at least (but not limited to):

- The Itinerary

- The Driving Experience (they think they drive on the left side, the rest of us think they drive on the wrong side)

- The People (very tall)

- The Bathrooms (always an adventure)

- Storming the Castle (lunch with the Lord)

- The Weather (it didn’t rain on us once!)

My painting friends were going to be there for the whole week, painting at Curraghmore Castle, near Waterford. But my friend Katy and I decided that, rather than paint all day every day, we would rather photograph Ireland and then paint, paint, paint when we got back. So Katy joined my husband and me, and the three of us toured the island for several days on our own before meeting up with the castle crowd.

To be continued…

RedShift Gallery, Denver

Is there such a thing as etiquette for an art-show opening? Not to be Miss Manners, but the thought occurred to me after my opening Friday night. What is the proper behavior?

Let’s say you go to a friend’s opening. What is the first thing you do when you see your friend? You say your hellos, get a glass of wine (well, that’s what I always like to do), and then what? Don’t you then say something like, “Where are your paintings” or “Show me your paintings”? That’s always a good starting point.

But what is the proper etiquette if you don’t particularly like their paintings/artwork? Do you find something nice to say about the pieces anyway? Or do you just ask lots of questions, like, “What was your inspiration for this piece?” “How did you choose these colors?” “Tell me about this,” etc.

I actually welcome people’s comments and suggestions. In fact, I had someone offer a critique of one of my paintings Friday night. (Strangely, I’d never even met this artist!) He pointed out an area of my painting that needed an improvement. I had seen the same thing and had thought I’d corrected it, but hanging there on the wall I could see that my fix didn’t work like I had thought! (I’ll have to sneak my paints in there next week…)

What do you do when someone comes to your show, at your invitation, and tries to be the star of the show, telling everyone about their work and their galleries, their shows, etc.? Have you ever had that happen?

I am reminded of a friend who came to a show/sale I had at my house. He brought some of his work to show me. It seemed like an odd time to show me his new work, but I tried to steal a little time to be interested. Then he proceeded to use my show to show everyone his work and drum up business! Very strange – I had to chalk it up to ignorance.

Have you had strange things happen at your openings? What do you like to have happen at your shows, i.e. what do you think is proper etiquette?

I just found out that I have a show opening tomorrow night! And I just got the invitations last night. Hmm…

So, it’s time for another one of those glitzy opening parties. If any of you are in the area, please stop by and say hi!

The last step I had to do to get my 2010 calendar ready to go was to add whiskers to Patches, the cat in my painting, entitled Shady Patches. I always say that my paintings aren’t done until they’re sold, and since this one wasn’t sold I could still play with it. In fact, I practically repainted it this year!

It’s amazing how much more I can see as time goes on. I thought this painting was done. Heck, I had already had it made into notecards! And then I started to see things, like angles that weren’t quite right, or a need for more sunlight, and other things, all of which I corrected.

But then, here I was designing my new calendar a couple of weeks ago and realized that Patches was missing her whiskers! OMG! She now has her whiskers.

My calendar will be going to press this week.

What a frustrating dichotomy we artists live with.

We’ve all heard the words: “I love your work.” “What kind of work do you do?” And then there’s the actual word, “Artwork.”

Yet, the common (mis)conception is that artists just play their days away, making pretty pictures (or whatever their chosen art form is), and living a fun and carefree life. They are the envy, or disdain, of all the people who actually “work” for a living.

Fact: we love what we do. What’s the saying? “If you do what you love, you will never have to work a day in your life.” But it doesn’t necessarily follow that the opposite of work is play.

Is our work just play? Is our play work? I know, for me, this is the hardest work I’ve ever done. It might look like just a pretty picture, but I have to have a vision, and I have to make my vision a reality. I have to draw on everything I’ve ever learned, everything I’ve experienced, seen or felt. Every brushstroke is, in some way, a decision – expressing a feeling or a thought. It’s all-consuming, it’s a challenge, it’s a risk, it’s an experiment. My best paintings come when I risk the most, and they are often when I have the most fun.

But is art play? Simple answer: No.

People see only the end result: the piece of art in a gallery or show, or the glitzy opening parties, with wine and hors d’oeuvres and people in fancy clothes. Lots of fun!

What they don’t see is the unglamorous stuff, the “dark side” of our art: the hours it took to complete the paintings, the application forms we had to submit for the chance to be juried into shows, the countless miles we spent driving around to the photographer or to the framer, the care it took to get our work to and from the show or gallery without damaging it! Yeah, it’s pretty glamorous alright (more like a pain in the butt!).

Yet, in the day-to-day realm, we all have friends and family, who still think that we just play. For example, a relative of mine envies me, because I just hang out in my house and “paint beautiful paintings all day.” And I have friends who want to chat on the phone, but, sorry, I can’t paint when I’m talking on the phone. They don’t understand why; after all, I’m just painting. But when I paint, I am totally absorbed. I can’t even listen to music that has words, for crying out loud!

I was painting the other day, when a neighbor stopped by to get something. I came to the door, wearing my Starbucks “painting apron” and my purple nitrile gloves. We chatted for a little while, and then I told him that I had to get back to my painting. He said, “Oh, that’s what you were doing.” (Do people think these paintings just appear out of thin air?) I guess he figured that I spend my days doing dishes – you know, the apron and the rubber gloves… Actually, since I work at home, that is part of my job, too. And the laundry and the grocery shopping and the cooking. And plowing the driveway when it snows…

Even my husband, supportive though he is, says things like, “You get to play tomorrow,” referring to any activity in which I paint, rather than do my office work. Yes, it’s enjoyable. Yes, it’s fun. But, no, it’s not play. I have to concentrate and expend huge chunks of my self during the process. It takes a lot out of me. It’s intense. It’s draining. But there’s nothing I’d rather be doing.

So it is with us working artists. We cannot not do our art. It is our passion; it is what completes us, makes us whole. We are empty without our art to fill us up. We strive to make each piece better than the ones before it, to constantly grow. The real art is to make it all look effortless, easy – like play…

Let us not forget that an art masterpiece is proclaimed to be:

A WORK OF ART

And now you know why.

Mother Nature dumped more than 3 feet of lemons on us over the last 2 days, so I have to make lots and lots of lemonade. Here’s how an artist makes lemonade.

Start with a nice scene that you’d like to paint someday:

Nice scene without snow

Procrastinate until one day you see the scene with snow – lots of snow:

Maybe TOO Much Snow

Wait until the sun comes out the next morning, and voila , there’s your painting:

A Winter's Morning

Now we have to dig out -

How can I barbecue tonight???

View out my studio yesterday

Now, back to painting. I have to put some whiskers on my cat…

How did I get my groove back?

Plain and simple: I hired an assistant – finally!!!

I got clearance from my accountant last month to hire someone. I told him my theory that my art business would be much more effective if all I had to do was the creative part (and quit spinning my wheels with the business part – I was not meant to do paperwork).

I’ll be in deep doo-doo come tax time if my theory/wimpy solution doesn’t work. But what is it that Julia Cameron says in The Artist’s Way? Jump…and the net will appear.

Well, in just 2 days (I thought my assistant had lost her mind even suggesting that it could be done that quickly. Maybe 2 weeks…), here was the result:

Room to work

Room to paint!

It’s actually even neater than in these pictures now. What used to be “a place for everything and everything all over the place” has become “a place for everything and everything in its place.”

Really, everything is out of sight, in the home I’ve always had for it. OMG, I can actually find things now! Rather than my old system of “knowing exactly how far down and in which pile it’s in.”

I can even hula hoop in my studio again!!! Don’t laugh, it’s a great stress releaser.