September 2014
A relatively uneventful month until the PaintOut on the 20th. The one luminous day was when I looked at Peter Van Fleet’s art works in the Royce Real Estate office across from the Varsity Theater. I had been to see him in Medford, where he was recovering from a terrible bike accident in which he fell and smashed his left tibia and did some damage to the left humerus. He is off his feet for 3 months, two of which are past. He is pretty depressed and I try to visit once a week. I bought the piece immediately, it just looked wonderful. Took it home and as I entered the living room I saw where it should hang. Here is a photo.
The month progressed along as usual with the PaintOut very much on my mind when not birding or painting or lunching with friends, etc. And suddenly Heath was here and the big event about to occur. It had all gone so smoothly I kept thinking something was sure to blow it up at the last minute. Nothing did. The weather was perfect and by 9AM there were 38 artists set up all over the park doing watercolor, oil, acrylic and pastels. Heath wanted to do the sycamores in Lithia Park and several others also went there, but most were clustered or scattered around North Mountain Park. Jim arrived around 9:30 with camera, planning to stay a few minutes, and left several hours later. As expected, he knew half the artists so there was lots of chat along with the photography. The paintings were due back at the rotunda in NMP by 1PM for selection by Judy Howard of 20 of them to hang in her gallery for 10 days. Heath and I dashed out for a quick lunch and by the time we returned it was all over and most of the work had already been transported to the gallery. Heath’s pastel was not chosen, altho later when we saw the show there were many paintings not as good as hers and some of the others that did not make the cut (we thought). But we understood Judy’s problem – she couldn’t take them all. At 5PM we got to the gallery for the show and it was jammed! Nest door at Standing Stone Brewery Pub we had a room reserved and snacks for everyone, with a no-host bar. It was a magical day and I have since heard from so many people how good it was and what a great community event.
There was one delightful event involving the two kids who were painting. A 10-yr old boy named Jacob was an official entrant and was there with his Dad, a very well-known local sculptor/painter; and 8-yr old Nadia was just painting alongside her mom. She came up to the table with a question after a few hours and I asked if I could see her painting. She was totally willing and brought back a really nice little watercolor of flowers. I told her we would like to exhibit it and she ran back and got entry money from her mom. I said no, we would just hang it. I told Libby (NMP director) and Judy who were fine with that, as was everyone else, so her painting and Jacob’s were hung together. And a red dot appeared on her painting while we all milled around – it was the first to sell, and a real bargain at $20. It was supposed to be an anonymous buyer but Judy confided to me that it was Jim. He was smitten with the kids and took lots of photos of them. Next year there will be a children’s paintout, either in conjunction with the adults or maybe a separate event.
I was aglow for 3 days just thinking about what an upbeat event it was and how marvelously it went. I was so glad Heath was here to share it all. Next day she wanted to paint Grizzly Peak so we did, then went to the movies in the evening. A memorable weekend. Here is the link to a selection of Jim’s photos http://wwwphoto.org/2014/09-Sept/paintout.
And here is the link to my the Thoughts and Events category on my website: http://www.bmassey.org/category/personal-life/current-thoughts-and-events