9th Year

This post was going to be several (innocuous) things. I wanted to celebrate the 9th anniversary of our house closing and the incredible saga of us moving in (amid three feet of crusty, frozen snow and all kinds of bizarre obstacles!) I also wanted to pay tribute to a new decade; a doubling decade! Happy 2020! May we see more clearly!*1
The hopeful little bowl of supermarket primroses*2 had cheered me up immeasurably: we keep having these dark, drizzly days (at least we're not on fire! Poor Australia!!) and despite the knowledge that the days should be getting longer, it really doesn't feel that way. I spent a day last week, laying in bed and reading seed catalogs and dreaming about this season's garden. That made me feel more alive!
But The Orange Menace and his cronies have other ideas and may have sparked World War III with some ill-thought out drone strike which will inevitably lead to retaliations... oh, hell do NOT get me going. You knew that the continuing impeachment saga was going to provoke tantrums and rash behavior and it did. No surprise! But really? Endanger life on this planet, why don't you?
I can't help it that I feel pretty grim right now. Despite having a house that I love, great companions- human and animal-, a show coming up and all sorts of exciting things afoot in my studio, I feel overwhelmingly troubled. Someone cheer me up... please!!

This bowl of berries has been holding its own since November. Minimal shedding and still colorful; I guess that's cheerful.
I don't know how, but I promise my next posting will attempt to be upbeat and lighthearted. Trust me!


*1 Why do I not think this is likely?!?!?!
*2 Supermarket primroses are the best! Cheap (usually on sale to boot) and if you plant them outside after the weather warms, they are hardy. I have a bunch of them in my shade garden and they come back year after year. Kind of amazing.

(Probably) The Last Post of The Year!

Good riddance to 2019! Only a couple of days left and what have we got? Pink sky at morning! And I mean PINK! And now there does appear to be a weather advisory. (The funny thing is that recently several friends have posted images (un-photoshopped) of pink skies... wonder if it's a Climate Crisis occurrence?
Anyway, out with the old! What a miserable year. I can assure you one man in particular is responsible and I will not utter his name; suffice it to say, I hope he's swept out of office soon!
This year did have good to recommend it: Both Bob and I were in several great art shows, we both created a slew of new work, Bob (with the help of our good friend Joe) replaced the sink in the kitchen, we got our front door open, and we located a handsome beau for Robin the Good. And we are in (relatively) good health. Not too much to complain about on the home front.
And it looks like 2020 will begin on an upbeat note. I just found out that I was accepted in a show at The Ely House Center for Contemporary Art (in New Haven) and the curator, Sharon Butler is an interesting artist and art blogger (check out her blog Two Coats of Paint). the funny thing about this show is that it opens in like two weeks! Talk about starting the year off with a bang! (Don't worry: the work's already done.)
I also am plugging along on a new book project, "A Pot To Piss In: What's an Artist Urn?" and I do mean plugging along. I felt I had to reinvigorate my collage muscles after a long break. I wound up collating and finishing a batch of horse collages that I started years ago. The resulting "Rita Valley's Horsin' Around" is funny and charming. (Hey! This is a way better title than my original idea, "My Medium-Sized Horsies". That was (obviously) playing off "My Little Pony" but it was too lugubrious for even me, not to mention Roz Chast printed a some-what similar cartoon title in The New Yorker recently. Great minds think alike!)

That's the title page! Very exciting! I complied a dummy version and hope to get it printed and bound soon. Stay tuned!
And can we please all set our minds to work to make 2020 a more hopeful, compassionate year???

Ice Nine*

Let's face it- does anyone like ice? I may complain about snow and cold (and yes, winter in general) but ice sucks. It took me and Bob a good 1/2 hour to chip 1/2 inch of ice from the car. Hell, I couldn't even get inside to turn the engine on and defrost it. It was that frozen.
And boy is it dangerous! Ice doesn't like artists, or anyone else for that matter (Remember the abstract artist Cleve Grey? He fell down on ice in Hartford, hit his head and died.) Going across our backyard is alternately very noisy (crunch! crunch! crunch! I was afraid I was waking the neighborhood when I took Robin out the other night) and slippery as all get out. Imagine me skating across the tundra field to feed and water Maggie. I've got 5 gallon buckets afixed to either arm as I take baby steps and make pathetic whooping sounds as I threaten to topple over. I warn Bob to come look for me if I don't return as I've probably fallen and spilled water- quickly solidified into Ice Nine- somewhere between here and the barn. Awful.
So here's a happier, warmer picture: our 2019 Xmas tree! Yay!!! (To remind my followers, the two things I retain an affinity for at Xmas time are 1.) the tree and 2.) cookies!) Our tree is a tad wispy this year but it came from our woods and I like it's slender aspect. Granted, I couldn't hang many ornaments or the chunky lights on it as it was getting weighted down and looked kinda unhappy.)

But it's lovely! And festive! And there'll be less to take down and re-box after the holiday season passes. And fewer needles to clean up as it has fewer branches and less foliage all around. I'm happy.
Hey! While we're at it... Happy Winter Solstice! Days are getting longer from here on in!

*Ice Nine for those of you who don't recall, is a substance that played a major role the Kurt Vonnegut novel Cat's Cradle. A character named Bokonon who starts a religion possesses Ice Nine; capable of destroying the world. If you haven't read it, it is highly recommended. I myself am going to re-read it I remember enjoying it immensely!

(S)Hero

Yes, major congratulations are in order to the brave Greta Thunberg. She's amazing: beginning her Climate Crisis vigilance alone a mere year or two ago, sitting in front of the Swedish Parliament and now at the age of 16 (!!), she is now the face of a movement. A much needed movement... as we all know, the planet is getting astonishingly little help from the powers that be! Greta Thunberg is the inspiration we all need and proof that one solitary voice can activate a whole movement.
So why am I seething? Because of the next image, and you know what's coming!



Okay so what moron, what asshole on The Orange Menace's re-election campaign team thought this was funny or witty or what? Inspired? I can't believe that I am still capable of being surprised by anything he and his evil cohorts do, yet I am. Everyday, they sink to lower and lower lows (Don Jr. shooting rare sheep? House rethuglicans refusing to admit to facts and attempting to thwart an impeachment that should have occurred months ago?) So The Orange Menace tweets vile nonesense at Greta Thunberg because he's jealous of a courageous teenager and then has his tangerine mug collaged onto her body? This a mere week after he posted that hideous mash-up with his foul visage collaged onto Sylvester Stallone's body? Delusional a little? Where are the adults? Who misplaced The Orange Menace's meds? Is this really the world I live in?!?
The world would (obviously) have been better served if The Orange One had taken Greta Thunberg's ideas and started a Climate Crisis task force. Instead, we get some travesty of "the power of promises kept". Just WTF does that even mean??!!?

Birthday Most Murderous

Here's Robin the birthday girl herself. She'd all growed up and 4 years old! What a splendid dog! What a destructive dog! What a murderer! Not three minutes after she received two lovingly chosen new dog toys, one of them had parts of his head ripped off and strewn about the upstairs landing.

This is actually a picture of Robin (who is doomed to be eternally represented by a black blur as she refuses to hold still) trying to eviscerate the second toy, which proved to be tougher material. (Note to self: only purchase dog toys WITHOUT stuffing.)
Just look at Robin running away from the evidence: (off to destroy other unwitting toys.)

She's like, "I didn't do it! And if I did, it just shows such shoddy third world construction!" I know what I'll be doing later today- performing emergency surgery on the poor victim. I am also debating contacting the company that manufactured this not very substantial toy and offer Robin as a toy-tester. She's brutal!

(I'll admit I bought this particular specimen because I think it's supposed to be some sort of elephant-inspired animal. I thought it might be fun for Robin to chew on a rethuglican-themed toy. I guess she did prove it to be a witless jamoke filled with fluff and no substance!)

Waiting For The End of The World

Well... maybe not the end as we seem to be receiving (thankfully!) way less accumulation of snow and ice than previously projected. Bob had run out on Saturday and stocked up on provisions and I'm glad he did. Despite there being less precipitation, it's a nasty, messy mix of ice and rain and snow and... remind me why we live in New England?!?!

I've been running outside to minister to Maggie and all of her needs- hay, grain (2x a day) and fresh (unfrozen) water. (Plus I like to go out and hang around with her for a while as I think she's bored. I offer her encouragement and break up the monotony.) Maggie does insist upon standing out in this unpleasantness despite 24/7 access to her lovely stall. She even goes in and drags her hay out; what's a horse owner to do??!?!

Robin and I see eye to eye. She wants to go out, but is pretty happy to return inside and get toweled off. In the picture above, she's imploring me to stop fiddling with the camera and PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR!!

I'm happiest in my studio with the wood stove generating almost too much heat. I call it The Florida Room. I finished sewing diamonds all the way around my latest piece yesterday and today I embark on a new-ish project. I am (finally) starting my latest book, "A Pot To Piss In (or: What's an Artist Urn? (Earn)) about income disparity and my lowly place in the economical hierarchy that is modern day America. I have actually been playing with these ideas for a couple of years but become so extraordinarily depressed when contemplating the magnitude of the situation that I have not gotten much further than a few trial images and then holding my head in my hands in despair. Alas! I like my artist book offerings to be funny (or at least trenchantly amusing) but this one seems dark and unrelenting. Perhaps I'll win the lottery before long and can change the timbre of of my tome to one of financial success and optimism! Fat chance!

Things to be Thankful For

November seems to have slithered away from me and here we are, poised to celebrate Thanksgiving. I reflect that this is a good time to stop and appreciate all the many things we have to be thankful for.
How about cheerful autumn berries, adorning a lovely Ilex outside my studio? I am happy that even in the late fall, color abounds in nature. Hell, I'm thankful for the persistence of nature in the face of so much man-made destruction. Melting ice caps, rising sea levels, species being driven to extinction... I could go on and on. But I'm trying to be thankful so thanks Mother Earth!

I'm also thankful for the mammal denizens of nature that surround me and enrich my life. Thanks Robin the Good! Thanks for being a good friend and a generally cheerful all around help. I can't be upset or mad for too long when Robin gives me one of her sublime doe-eyed smiles and steals my gloves and socks and indulges in other canine silliness. What a swell doggo!

And thanks to Maggie the Mexican Pony for not being dead in the field last week. I got a good scare but she's up and around on four hooves and enjoying the last warm days of fall. And thanks to the horses that I ride for my lessons. They seem to have decided I'm okay and worthy of a whinny of recognition when I go to the barn and they haven't tossed me off into a manure pile when I ask them to do something- often incorrectly. Fine beasts!

Thanks for all our illustrious friends! Bob and I know some really entertaining characters (ahem! I understand that we fall well within that spectrum!) like Andy, seen above in festive array. They're all fine artists and swell company. I am truly thankful for friends as they redeem my faith in humanity when it is flagging. (And god knows, there is plenty of evidence as to the stupidity, cruelty and capriciousness of people these days...)
And family; I could have done worse in the family department. They aren't rethuglican reprobates who make me question my sanity or whether we really share the same blood and parentage. I actually look forward to seeing them tomorrow on Thanksgiving day and sharing observations on the impeachment hearings, along with consuming heroic portions of food. No need to avoid politics. Yay!

And I'm thankful for Bob and me (pictured here in warmer times). We're the right kind of nuts!