Lunch, letters and art

My friend Ann has a great blog called a beautiful party, in which she mentioned mine the other day. Famous! Here is her blog, I want everyone to read it because it is fantastic http://abeautifulparty.blogspot.com/

Yesterday I went to town for some groceries and decided to have an authentic Tuscan lunch. I ducked into this fancy little eatery, because it promised air conditioning and was one of the only places still serving lunch. Apparently three is too late for 'pranzo.' Due to this, I had the entire place to myself, like I was rich and having lunch in my own personal restaurant. After I ordered, the woman in charge locked the door and dimmed the lights. Romantical. I sat alone drinking sparkling water and writing a letter to my boyfriend Steven, waiting for my ravioli stuffed with pumpkin, pear and pecorino cheese to arrive. Buonissimo!

Here is a work in progress. I have already used up my violet prismacolor on the background. The combination of prismacolor and stonehenge paper looks like velvet, the color is so rich. I love prismacolor pencils. I wish I had invented them, because then I would have an endless free supply. I find when I'm working in a medium other than printmaking, I tend to incorporate super repetitive images and process. The tiny triangles in the background wallpaper are an example of this. I'll start soon on the water in the foreground, I'm trying to make it appear as if it is made of cardboard cutouts, like the kind of waves you see in a low cost play production. Here I am without my trusty typewriter, and so I am attempting to incorporate text in different ways. We'll see if it ends up working out or not. I'm also planning these drawings partly in color, part in graphite. Like a converging of the real & imagined. This particular image is of a dream I had where I visited with my Grandma, who has been gone a long time. I 1st started drawing chickadees in '05, and here they have reappeared again. Hello, old friend.
A couple came into the studio today, we both spoke in confused italian for a moment until I realized they were American. They were actually form Chapel Hill! Close to home. I told them about the residency, explained the art show in the other room (glass sculptures of jellyfish, very abstract and beautiful) and let them wander around.
Walked past this on my journey back to the studio after the grocery store. The sun was blazing, there was no shade and the dusty dirt road seemed to mock the distance I still had ahead of me. I was carrying what felt like 10 pounds of groceries and had to stop here to catch my breath and take a picture.
Oh, hi. Lots of the roads here are only one lane, and the drivers zip around like they're Autobahn. This mirror is to keep people from crashing head on around the blind curves. If someone comes from the other direction, one car will pull off the the side, pass slowly, and then hit the gas again. I was listening to my ipod with one headphone so I could hear oncoming traffic just in case.