Live by Art Alone?

These are the two paintings waiting patiently on my studio table to be finished. Then there are two canvases already stretched awaiting sketches to be done from the couple thousand photos I did on my Canyonlands trip. And four small panels. And yesterday I put together stretcher bars for five more paintings.

It had been my intention upon returning from vacation to hit the ground running as it were and quickly whip out another 10 or so paintings for the summer fairs then set to framing them and the eight awaiting framing. I have only a month to the first fair.

But my friend from Albuquerque, who had been up taking care of the fur kids, stayed to help me put together the apartment to be a vacation rental this summer and fall. That was necessary and it was great to have the help. The two bedroom apartment is now all appointed with furniture and cooking wares, etc. Need to take pictures of it this morning to post on a website.

Dianne left yesterday and I was free to paint and draw and stretch canvas. The above picture is as far as I got. Instead I did some tending of my plant collection in the studio, beaded a necklace and then sat in my easy chair and watched Brideshead Revisited while knitting a cabled shawl.

Oh, that I could live by art alone. I guess I imagine Picasso and VanGogh doing nothing outside the studio but sleeping. But I know this isn't so. Surely Toulouse Lautrec wasted hours in brothels and bars. And the vacation to Utah proved to me I cannot live by photography alone. I found myself itching to sketch or paint or even just knit -- all things I couldn't do because of time and packing constraints. I seem to need multiple areas of creative stimulation.

BTW my cactus orchid and orchid with all the buds did not bloom while I was away as I feared. Looks like both will finally open blossom one today or tomorrow.

Then there will be those to sketch and perhaps paint on those small panels.