Cool, huh? This particular tree is ringed with these marks, so it must be a favorite snacking tree. I love to listen to the woodpeckers pecking.
We had a few errands to run Saturday morning. I needed to pick up my trial contact lenses from the eye doctor (Ach! my contact lens woes, having a prescription such that that I can only have expensive, custom-made contact lenses, which means that I've not had lenses in 6 years or so). Anyway, two pairs were ordered, but one was wrong, so I only came home with one pair.
But before that, we stopped and had breakfast at Tia Betty Blue's, a local cafe. I had a breakfast bowl that was eggs, carne adobada, potatoes, red chile and, somewhat inexplicably, Fritos (I gamely ate a few). Dave had huevos rancheros with calabacitas. It was fast and tasty.
We came back to the studio after that and worked for awhile, then I was on the verge of exhaustion (not sleeping well at all right now), so Dave went home and I went to bed for a few hours.
Eventually I got up and rejoined the living. I fed and walked Crunch, and then we went out back to the studio. I didn't see Dave again as he went off to Passover dinner with his mother and then back home.
Anyway, this is what I worked on in the studio:
Right now she's little more than a dress and some bodacious tatas.
I took that photo before I put in a few more hours of work, so the flowery design on the dress is 99% done (tedious work but effective I hope--I'm waiting to see where the arms go before I add more to the sides where the arms are going to come forward), and I started in on more painting, adding orange and violet mainly. At one point, I told Dave that the head and arms seemed so daunting and the sculpture itself so far way from my original idea (an exuberant, flowery paean to spring), that I was contemplating just leaving it as a headless, armless torso and starting a bust instead. But I'm intrigued by the idea making a two-part sculpture (this is so tall that the head will have to be built and fired as a separate piece since it wouldn't fit in the kiln otherwise).
After a few hours of work, I came in and sucked up some mindless TV. (One of the great charms--and curses--of house and dog-sitting.)
I finally got back to sleep around 1:30 and had a disturbing dream that woke me up again a little after 3:00 a.m. The dream was set in my childhood home (but different, like dreams do). It was dusk and Dave was leaving the house to get something but he kept hesitating. I finally asked him what was wrong and he said that there was something in the yard. He didn't know what, he couldn't see, but he didn't want to leave. I went to the door call in the dogs. (We don't have dogs in real life.) But one of them--a big, black dog--wouldn't come in. She kept pacing back and forth in front of the door, looking out into the yard, so I said, very, very loudly, "You better come in, you stupid dog! Don't make me get my gun and shoot you!", a warning to anyone listening that I had a gun. (I don't have a gun in real life.) Finally, the dog came in and I closed and locked the door. I went to talk to Dave and as I was about to speak, he turned toward the window and said, "There she is." And that woke me up, terrified and breathless, heart-beating fast.
Freaky. But I'm not worried. My ever-alert Crunch is a good guard dog. See? This is him in studio with me:
Here's a poem:
Warm Summer Sun
Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night.
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