Friday, September 22, 2006

Fried Brain Sandwich

I'm coming to the end of a two-week visit to Evansville, Indiana - a part of the country that I have never visited before and found quite interesting and different from what I'm so accustomed to in San Francisco. I have been visiting my youngest brother and his family.

Evansville was originally a German settlement and much of the people, architecture, and culture remains. Some of the more unusual food cuisine of the area are fried brain sandwich, fiddler (I thought the annual Fiddler Festival and Fiddler contest in nearby Newburgh was a music event - HA!) - a fried whole baby catfish, and burgoo (squirrel stew). In fact, many things that walk or move are fried and eaten here.

Evansville is very close to the Ohio river and Kentucky. This part of the Ohio river is very much a working river. In my several visits to the river, I never saw any tourists (might be past the season, but still) but watched the large old barges push humungous amounts of coal and metal scraps up and down the river.

The town along the river is called Newburgh. I bought my brother and his wife a painting in an art gallery along the river. Here is a picture of it (it is hung in their kitchen and looks great in that space):


I also got to see a painting I did a long time ago that they now have on their fireplace:


They also have some watercolors my mother painted. Here is one example:


I have had time to reflect upon my art here (while I have a break from actually doing art), enjoying art from other artists in a different part of the country, and I'm ready to begin more pieces when I return to San Francisco. It has been so nice spending time here with Amelia (11) and Elena (9) and Robert and Laura. Here's a silly picture that would have looked A LOT better had I been on the other side of them. I actually would have liked the shot...but it happened from behind so all I got was their backs. I was actually trying to take a casual photo and they all kind of turned to walk in the other direction just when I snapped it, not even knowing I was taking the picture.


I return to San Francisco this Sunday ready to leap back into my routine and continue to get ready for Open Studios. I'm glad many of my oil paintings have been busily drying while I've been away.


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Monday, September 04, 2006

House of Wax

I spent the past three days, 6 hours a day, on encaustics. I feel like I was in a House of Wax. I needed to get 4 small pieces ready for an October exhibit before I leave on a trip...and time was running out. They are relatively simple but have thick thick layers of wax, and I embedded things in them that only I know (which is a cool thing about working in wax as an art form). I wish I had more time to explore more about this, but the clock ran out. Tick tock tick tock.


I also did a little work on my oil painting seascape (though I didn't have the energy to face all that wavey foam stuff in the water, but the rocks are coming out pretty good), and finished up the final details on 24 4x4" miniatures.

I'm tired from doing art all weekend, but happy.

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