Tour de France
Time for my favorite sport!!! Every year for over 90 years now, this bicycling race has taken place in France. Now that Lance Armstrong has retired, of course, it's not quite as exciting for me....at least not until I pick another person to cheer on.
I WAS going to back Jan Ulrich this year, and today when I found out that he had been eliminated due to a drug issue, I was very disappointed. This drug thing seems to come up every year for someone somewhere in the bicycle racing community. Sometimes people take herbal concoctions which register as drugs on the tests, so there is always a huge kerfluffle about this issue. I remember that Lance had been accused of drug usage on many occasions as well.
Even back in the 80's when I first became a HUGE fan of bicycle racing, this drug problem would surface at the Red Zinger Race in Colorado. Most people know that race only by The Coors Classic, which it became after Mo Siegel's Celestial Seasonings tea company stopped sponsoring the race and Coors picked it up.
I don't remember the first year that I attended the race, but it was in the early 80's and we had a house only a block or so from the Boulder park where the last leg of the 3-day race was held. I was immediately in love with this sport, but what choice did I have since I was married to a bicycle racer? He was too old to be a pro, but one year he did take 4th in the Mt. Evans hillclimb in the senior division, and I was PROUD.
Every single year after that, my husband and I would follow the race around the state of Colorado...no matter where it went or what weather conditions were prevailing. It was our annual holiday which occured every August. I think the longest time we were out on the road following the race was possibly 12 days...either that or 11.
I would take hundreds and hundreds of photographs during these races year in and year out. I would scream myself hoarse every time. I've never been so fanatical about any sport in my life, either before or since. It was always our dream to attend the Tour de France, but we never made that journey. Back then Greg Lemond was the American to watch. Greg was a great racer, but he lost his popularity because he was so much of a whiner. He did win the Tour three times , which was a monumental feat, and became the first American to ever beat the Europeans at their own sport.
I got to see Eddie Mercx and Bernard Hinault in person. Bernard was still racing at the time, and he took his 5th Tour during that time period. Eddie also was a 5-time winner, if I recall correctly. The very first American that I can remember doing the Tour was Jonathan somebody....I wish I could remember his name.
I do know that I was at the Boulder Park the day that this Jonathan fellow actually lapped the entire racing field THREE times and won the race. It was one of the most dramatic finishes that I have ever had the pleasure to witness and I'm sure that I peed my pants that day.
Many of my most favorite moments of this lifetime have involved bicycle racing. I would have been blogging about it regularly if we had had the facilities to do so 25 years ago!
More in the studio
For once I had my work area semi-neat, so I took a photo of it. Trust me, my work station normally does NOT look like this unless I haven't been painting. So today I rectified that situation and finished up another Florida painting and have photoed it, too.
I will probably post that image in here later today, IF I decide that I am happy with the outcome. Even if that happiness is only temporary, at least I have the iamge captured for now.
Poo Art
We have a discussion and viewing in one of my online art groups about some of our bad art. I have to chuckle at this one because I have made so many that I think (now) are absolutely ridiculous. When I look back over my body of work I see many paintings and artworks that are not at all appealing.
People continue to say 'create what you love to create'...but I haven't found that that type of artwork will sell. It's not popular! After over 300 paintings and 4+ years of doing artwork, I haven't yet found one particular style of my work that sells regularly. I am continuing to experiment, though, because it is in my nature to do so.
The above artwork is called The Blue Chair. It's an example of one of my Pop Art series which I had fun making. That series was completely non-serious, fast and easy to do. And it wasn't popular with anyone! bwahahahahaha!
Lotus V
This collage piece that I did a couple years back consists of one 'ruined painting' on Crescent Board that was dismantled and glued onto another piece of Crescent Illustration Board. I used acrylic paints and some pastels to finish off the various lotus flowers.
We have a discussion going in one of our eBay art groups about collages and I pulled this old image out of my archived files to show them. I have a story that goes with each of the collages because they are usually comical and humorous. Each one is made from something else that went awry.
In the studio
I am fresh out of bright ideas tonite as to what to blog about, so I'm sticking in an old photo of me painting Phoebe that was taken two years ago.
For Miriam
Yesterday I received the news that another of my friends has died of cancer. Miriam was one of the cutest, funniest and most delightful people that I have ever had the pleasure to meet. When I was living in Portland in the early 90's, Miriam was a co-worker and a safe terminal for me to communicate to during a very difficult time in my life.
All hell had broken loose in this organization where we were working and I had moved 3,000 miles for that job. Miriam was so kind and understanding about the difficulties that some of us were experiencing and she thought nothing of taking the time to listen to our woes. No one else was doing that...just Miriam.
She laughed at my jokes, even when they were lame. She could make me smile when I felt as though my life were crashing around my ankles. I wanted to take this cute little cherub of a person home with me at night because she was so comforting and kind.
I got out of Portland as soon as I possibly could because I am a warm weather, sun-loving type of individual and had no business being in Portland in the first place. For the next 12-13 years we communicated via letters, cards and emails. There were time periods when we didn't hear from one another for a whole year, but it was okay.
She was visiting Florida two years ago and we spent an evening together and caught up in person. It was a fun and enjoyable dinner because we had SO many stories to swap with each other. We laughed, we cried. Neither of us knew, I'm sure, that we would not see each other again.
I knew that she had cancer last year and she and her husband had emailed me that a treatment was in progress. I continued sending her my bi-monthly newsletter and I expected her to contact me when she was ready to communicate. I know that her newsletters were being opened by someone because I could see it in my statistics.
I have lost so many friends and family members to cancer already that I have some reality on what her family is currently experiencing. My heart goes out to each and every one of them.
More Doodles
I've gotten a wee bit confused as to which Doodles of my ACEO series have been listed in here. Dee dee dee.
Creative Block?
Is there such a thing as artistic block? This hotly debated subject appears from time to time in all art group discussions. Some say yes, it does occur. Others say no way, jose.
Based upon many of the articles in mags and books that I have read over the years, truly professional artists do not stop painting/creating unless there is an emergency situation. Their viewpoints are that it's their J-O-B and they do it every single day. It's how they make a living and thus they must continue creating.
One fellow even stated that he locks himself in his studio each day, whether he wants to be there or not. And I can truly understand this reality....most people that don't want to work at their J-O-B as bookkeepers or telemarketers or whatever it is they are doing for cashola at the moment....they still have to punch the clock and put in the time.
It's how any professional can expect to get paid. He puts in the hours. For me and many others, this is what is so discouraging about being an artist, because you DO put in the hours and many, many hours at that. Maybe you will get paid and maybe you won't. People might buy your work, and they might simply tell you they love it, but won't buy it. Or else they can't stand it.
Some artists, like myself, must beat and badger myself some days to even pick up a paint brush or a pen. If I knew how to end that particular problem, then my art life would be much happier. It's not that I am lacking in ideas, because I am hundreds of sketches behind on that front.
Today, so far, has been one of those struggling days. I don't like what is coming out of the end of the brush, I have already ripped up several small pieces of art, and I have jumped back and forth on projects several times already. From one medium to the next and back. I have had pen, marker, paintbrush with oil, paintbrush with acrylic...all in my hands at various points today. It all looks terrible so far.
So what this means is that I have to continue on, push thru this major counter-intention, and work on them some more. Or even pick up one of the other incompletes that I have and work on it. Normally, I have around 10 unfinished pieces going at any given time. That number has gotten as high as 20 on occasion.
Fortunately, I like to write and that comes so much more easily to me because it's easy to ramble on and on with the thought processes and type them out as I do in here. This gives me a nice break from the painting frustrations, and I can continue to 'create' with words. After all, doing a little bit of creating each and every day....no matter what form it takes...is what makes one a professional. In my humble opinion.
$200,000,000
That's a very big number, isn't it? The other night I dreamed that I won $200 million in a lottery. My sister was with me at the time and we both were speechless. In the dream, I was shocked and stunned and for the first time that I could remember in my life....I had no problems.
This only lasted for a few moments, however, as I quickly realized that lots and lots of people were going to be trying to get money from me, and I would have to figure out how to keep from losing it all. Okay, so it would take a while to lose $200 million, but I'll bet I could spend it very quickly!
I also had a satchel stuffed with $1,000 bills in bundles. My three brothers showed up the next day and I was handing my sibs bundles of cash, while also trying to figure out how to be wise with the money and what would I do first?
In my dream, I ended up on the front page of some newspaper and this was alarming to me because complete strangers were recognizing me. This particular problem probably upset me the most because I would lose my anonymity! Some people might enjoy their '15 minutes of fame' and celebrityism, but for me that would be a nightmare. I was planning to move someplace where no one knew me.
Rarely do I dream. However, this type of dream was lovely. When I awoke, I felt rich and carefree. So I don't mind at all if I continue to have dreams like this!
Pennsylvania
I haven't spent a great deal of time in Pennsylvania, but it is a very beautiful and green area of the country. These photos were taken there many years ago when I was staying with some friends after my open heart surgery. I was also getting some Chelation Therapy and vitamin routines there to help my body recover....which was all rather monotonous and boring, so I would take walks outside and shoot photos.
Taking photos is such a pleasure! How can you go wrong with these new fully automated cameras? Good grief...it's merely a matter of point and shoot. Of course, not everyone has a good eye for composition and one of these days I will post some of my Mom's photos in here to show what NOT to do when taking photographs. I actually saved them all these years, just because they are so hilarious.
Ohio
These photos were taken up in northern Ohio. The flowers were in my Aunt Dee's yard where you can find her working away most warm and sunny days. What a spread of color and riotous beauty you can find there!
The other shot was taken on my grandparent's farm near Rawson. I'm sure that 99.9% of the population has never heard of Rawson, Ohio. My step-grandfather was born and raised on this farm and his brother had an adjoining farm. I think each of them had about 100 acres. Rawson has maybe a couple thousand people living there? And this farm was a few miles away from the bustling downtown center of Rawson. Okay, so I'm being sarcastic, what else is new?
We spent much of our childhoods on my grandparents' farm. I basically hated it when I was a kid because I wanted to be at my own home in my own room....in a city! This city that we lived in contained less than 17,000 people....hahahaha.
As I grew older and became more at peace with myself and my own inner universe, I had a much greater appreciation for the solitude and wonder of this little farm out in the country. I learned many things from my stays at the farm that I would never have encountered anywhere else in my life. My grandmother...what a gal! I have a pic of her someplace and I think I will dig it out and tell some stories about Gram.
More Reasons To Miss Utah
When my Seester sees these photos, she is going to flashback to this day immediately. We happened to be out in the middle of Utah together one time....some dinky little one horse place. Actually, it was only a gas station out in the middle of nowhere, and while she was on the phone talking with her boss inside, I was outside snapping shots of the sky.
Every time that I look at these photos, I find myself magically transported thru time and space back to that location. It was one of the most magnificent and beautiful moments of my entire life. These photos simply cannot do it justice. The panorama is so vast and awe-inspiring that a photograph could never capture it. As good as Ansel Adams was with his photography, once you see something like it in person it takes your breath away and a photo will never measure up.
Why I Miss Colorado
It's not JUST Colorado that I miss, but these photos were taken there. I love the West, and dream of revisiting various areas out there from time to time. I still can't get over how much fun I had last fall on that 7,000 mile cross-country drive that I took. There are dynamite areas of this country far and wide, but I am partial to the West, for some strange reason. I think these photos can explain it better than I can.
A Suicide
This is not a very uplifting subject, but it does happen to touch many people's lives. I have known 5 people in my lifetime who have committed suicide, and yesterday was the 5th one. My brother's step son could not deal with life anymore and left behind a wife and two young children.
You might be asking yourself why I would be posting about such a sordid, sad subject in my blog. I want to shout out to people to stay OFF the psych drugs, the anti-depressants. They DO NOT handle depression, but in fact make a person more depressed! Out of those 5 people that I have known personally? FOUR of them were on anti-depressants at the time that they killed themselves.
It's pretty obvious to me that the damned drugs don't work and that the public is being brain-washed by the media, the psychs and even their family doctors. Wake up, people! I'm not a big Tom Cruise fan....far from it. I'm sick to death of him being in the news and acting like a buffoon. But on this point I agree with him wholeheartedly.
Our society is drug-happy. We live in a dream world where we actually think that popping pills is the solution to all problems. And we scream and yell when the drug companies don't make their drugs affordable. Guffaw. Snort. Get over it! You don't need to take drugs to handle every stupid somatic that you have. For every drug that you take for one symptom, you get 4-5 side effects from taking it, which means that you need to take more drugs to handle those side effects. Does this make any sense?
Ask yourself some questions at least. Don't just blindly go along with what others tell you on this subject. Get some answers and don't roll over and die.
Making up for lost time...
Googling Debcoart
I just paid a visit to Google and decided to search for my eBay user ID: debcoart. You can imagine how surprised I was when I found over 1,100 listings that popped up in that search! Some are connected to my blog, some to my website, my newsletter, my eBay store, Cafe Press, and even the web rings that I am currently in.
Interesting! Of course, if you do a similar Google search for the word: art....you get over 2 BILLION results. So my eensy little 1,100 or so listings are less than a drop in the bucket, but it's still fun to see that I've got some presence on the internet.
Another WIP
This is a small 8 x 10" oil (alkyd) on canvas. I'm trying to get the bird image loosened up and more impressionistic...he's too tight right now.
Work in Progress
Not having much success this week in getting anything completed. My muse has left me high and dry...she simply walked out on me a while back. There is no shortage of ideas! I have dozens more of them every single day. But getting to work and finishing them? Hardly.
This piece is 2' x 2' on masonite board. I have several of these large pieces now in my inventory. Sitting and gathering dust.
Perhaps some people like to accumulate inventories, but I certainly don't. I don't enjoy having things sitting around in my environment....I like them moving out and making room for new things. Online sales have slowed and nearly died. Apparently this is part of the summer cycle, and many artists are yowling at present. Great time to buy art online! Deals are plentiful.
I just got an email today from a guy who sells on eBay. His sales are down 80%. He thinks that a huge portion of this problem came from eBay futzing with their search programs this spring, as did many, many other store owners on eBay. Apparently they were inundated with complaints about the new system, so eBay put it back to the old method....but did they really? Sales certainly didn't pick up.
Well, I need to get over to my storage unit where I have my art inventory and boxes of extra things to search for my Quickbooks program in there, so that my re-installation can take place once Lee gets my computer emptied out. I have my fingers crossed that I didn't throw out this software kit...I do have a tendency to get rid of things that I don't think I will need again.
Thank you again, Mr. Hacker. I'm truly enjoying this fun little side adventure.
Christine
Of all the people that I know, Christine is the ONLY one who will get up at 5:30 in the morning to take a walk with me on the Clearwater beach to see the sunrise. She has been visiting for 3 days, and each morning I have picked her up at 6:00 am to drive with me to CW beach and walk.
It's such a remarkable time of the day, and granted when we are walking together there is a LOT of talking happening. So some of the magic is missed because we get so absorbed in our communication. However, it's so pleasurable that I wish she lived here again sometimes so that we could do things together like we used to do. She moved from the area two years back when we had the Horrible Hurricane season.
Christine returns home today and I have no idea when I might see her again. This leaves me a bit sad and empty, but she has added so much to my life already that I can't stay that way for more than a few minutes.
How can women find so much to yak about? After years of conversations, emails and phone calls...we have never run out of things to say to one another. Christine has been a very positive factor in my life in recent years. After all, it was she who gave me Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" for my birthday in 2001 which started me on this whole artistic lifestyle change.
She has always been supremely supportive of my artistic endeavors and has listened to my tales of woe time after time as I struggle to work my way up the ladder of success with my art business. She helped me throw my first-ever Deb's Debutante Art Party in 2004.
We have laughed and cried together on many occasions. And lets not forget our mutual rant parties...particularly over George The Bastard Bush and this insane Iraq war. We have emailed each other in the middle of the night when we had to get up and pee.
This morning's beach walk was not as enjoyable as usual, however, due to the fact that we had had a huge thunderstorm last night and the bugs/gnats had taken over CW beach. So while we strolled and talked, we were choking and gagging on bugs and swatting the air to try to clear a path so we could see where we were walking.
A couple times I actually choked and nearly hurled up bug carcasses. But this simply does NOT stop the chatter! You choke, gag, and continue talking without missing a beat. I wish I had had a video camera of this whole scenario, as I think it would have made good material for Comedy Central. *Hack, gag, yakkity yak....*
|
|
Doodles 124
6:30 am on a Sunday??
Black & White image
Florida 59
Viacom vs Google
Tour de Chaos
Pet Video Contest #10
Klimt revisited
A lot to be grateful for....
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
July 2008
|
