Art Sitter

This afternoon was my day to sit with the art. Well, sit outside with it since they had a meetings going on inside both rooms. They split the one big room the art show was held inside. A writer's conference was being held. I remembered it from last year and was kicking myself because I would have loved to have gone to it. They even had a poetry section. But I can't do everything.

I saw Nancy L. S. who I went to high school with. She is my hygentist now. She is a friend of one of the 3 lady artists that was sitting with the art before I arrived. They knew me, but I did not know two of them.

I knew I would be reading the guild's notebook with the artist's bios in it. Many of them have their own websites so I wrote their addresses down to view them later.
I saw a lady who was in a writer's club I used to be in back in the 80's. Rosa is also a member of the Church of Christ. We were in the Columbus Writer's Roundtable which later was called the Chatahoochee Valley Writers Round Table. I had not seen her in over 15 years. She was attending the conference & said she missed our old writers group. Me too.

I talked to one writer who had on a pink cap. She asked which artwork was mine & wanted to hear the story behind it. I told her what I used... makers and painter markers and other mixed media. I did it at the Phenix City Art Center in a little over an hour. I did it around the time that Genie's father was dying. I knew it looked like an intersection to me. I'd like to think that maybe Mr. Johnston saw these colors and floated above an intersection on his way to heaven. Rhett wanted me to change it to "Highway to Heaven", but it just didn't feel right to me.

When I was in elementary school I went to the library a lot. If you read so many books during the summer, you got a certificate which I did. There was a young girl working there who always remembered my name, but I can't remember her's now. She was older than me. I'd seen her many years ago after she just had gall bladder surgery and she did not look well then. She writes poetry and wants to find a market for writing medical journals.

Prof. J. was there! He remembered me. Dick McM. was also there with a hat on and a camera around his neck.

I felt like I had been there a year in just an hour. I'd watch the clock waiting for Melissa to come pick up my art donations for the auction. There was a nice older man in the writers group who told me we had such beautiful art that I could be his guest in their hospitality room to get myself a drink. I took him up on his kindness.

Then I was bored so I pulled out all the markers & crayons I had in the bottom of my purse. I borrowed a black magic marker from the nice lady in the bookstore. I figured I'd try another type of "intersection" in my art journal Genie gave me. Gotta thank her yet again for that! It is amazing what you can do when your colors are limited. I had a turquoise marker, a red one, a navy blue pen, a yellow crayon and a blue crayon. Once again I realized I draw feminine lines. My blacktop road is curved like a woman in one section. It reminded me of a tree I drew entitled "Stryker" complete with words. I thought it would look more like stained glass, but then I got really creative with it. Because there are lines in the book, I started playing off the lines. Because I like the turqoise & the red markers best, I used them the most. Then varied them to make stripes. I drew the black keys of the piano on them. This got good to me so I repeated the pattern as I know I am supposed to do. I left one area uncolored so it does actually look like part of piano. Didn't take me long at all. I haven't taken a photo of it yet.

Melissa came with her mom & daugher. She was very friendly. I had 3 pieces to donate. The blue collage which was the 3rd piece of art I did back 3 summers ago when I first began this journey as an artist. It is the one I gave Penny for her birthday this year. I had my pumpkins in the orange frame complete with a ribbon to hang it. I had an unframed, but matted photo of
a pink Necco sweethearts candy heart that said "love" on it in the palm of my hand. The photo is entitled "Love in the Palm of My Hand". Melissa said this was fine unmatted. I'd looked for a small version of "I Love Ewe" from last year's art show, but all I had was a magnet. I hated to part with it & couldn't bare to let it go. I need to get copies made of the photo. I did show it to Melissa. She and her mom really loved the blue collage the best. I told her I have more if she wants to buy one! Of course she may bid on that one herself. She gave me the 3 free tickets to the auction. She prints them up so it wasn't a problem. Now her mom was asking me how to do something artistic!

Prof. J came out, saw I had all these markers on the table and was amazed that I could do art from just those fewthings. When the lady in the book store came out, I showed her what I created today & she loved it.

I am FINALLY about to upload pics so prepare to be bombarded! Today was a good day for me. Hope your's was good.

Becky, artist