monday and money

Money is one of those things that rears it's ugly head in life and just comes up a lot. There are all different opinions on how to manage it, spend it, save it, enjoy it, avoid it, attempt to ignore it. I am currently using a cash envelope budget for a lot of my expenses. I take out a predetermined amount of money from my checking account every month after getting paid, and carefully divide it up into different envelopes, labeled with food, clothing, gifts, discretionary. This system has been helpful in keeping me from spending more money than I want to each month. The problem with the system is that it dosen't stop me from spending some of the cash in one envelope for things that should come out of another envelope, hence the problem this month. This month was the Art show in Mt Gretna. It was also the birthday of both Mom and Kelly. It was also the Elizabethtown fair where I bought milkshakes and a pumpkin funnel cake and paid my church for parking in the dusty back field. I also went out to eat about ten times. None of those things should come out of my food budget. Eating out comes from discretionary, but discretionary died quickly this month, hence Food literally paid the price. So I am getting creative for food this week. One more week until payday. I am digging out the food in the corners of the cupboards and cooking and combining so that I have leftovers to take to work for lunch. Tonight, a can of baked beans and tater tots and some little frozen veggie corndogs purchased sometime in January probably. So glamorous I know.
But I am intrigued by the challenge. Thankfully, I also have brownie mixes :-)

Robert Patierno

Here is my assignment. I am not even sure the title of this print, but I know who it is by. This is a woodcut print from one of my professors in college, Robert Patierno, or much more commonly known as Bob. I just saw him this week, exhibiting at the Mt. Gretna art show. He left his position at my school the year after I graduated, so we both left at the same time, and we both agreed that it feels like a lifetime ago. Four years in reality. Bob was the kind of professor that was more than a teacher, he was a mentor and a model. He taught us how to paint, how to make woodcuts and etchings, how to draw, how to live artists, how to think and judge and work like one. He was not easily impressed, especially not by fancy artist statements or complicated explanations of some sort of emotion that we were trying to express. So when he praised work that we did it meant a lot. It meant it was good work. We had dug in our elbows and made a beautiful, real image.
Bob Patierno has one of the most melancholic personas I have ever known. Not many comments were made without a sad sort of cynicism, but he said amazing things that have stayed with me. He once said artists are just like little kids. We make something we are proud of and we want to go hang it on the refrigerator and have some one say, "Good job, honey, that is so pretty." And there were his Christmas cards. He would carve a woodcut self portrait, facing dead-head on, unshaven and staring with dark bags under his eyes. What did the card say? JOY
He was intimidating at first, but underneath the words he said, he betrayed a gentleness, and we knew that he cared about us. And he loves making art. It is in his blood. Maybe it is the kerosene and oils and pigments that sank into his blood over years and years of work, but I don't think he could stop if he tried.
It is not hard to see how my work is a direct descendent of his either. Check out this one. I only wish I would have painted it first.

Blogging Assignment

So I was given a blogging assignment last night. Troy emailed asking me about easles and he ended the email with this freindly jab in the ribs...

"Finally, you should blog more. I mean, I know you can't force this kinda
stuff, but let me kinda put in a request (and please feel totally free to
disregard or delete this entire email). Pick one of your favorite paintings
by another artist, find a good pic on google, post it and describe what it
is that makes it one of your favorites (or something along those lines)."

I am flattered that I have a faithful readership, and I am aware that I have been dissappointing lately. The things about blogging is that it makes me be very honest. Or at least I want to be very honest. I don't see any point otherwise. The problem comes when there are things that I am not quite sure I am ready to post online for the whole world to see (not that the whole world is reading this), not quite sure I want to share, so then instead of making up something to be small talk blogging, I just don't blog at all.

So as Troy has pointed out, that is no excuse. There are plenty of ways that I can blog, things that I can share. Things about myself, not just what is going on, that are real, and that I would like very much for the whole world to know.

So stay tuned...

Saturday Afternoon

Today is a blissfully typical Saturday. The weather here is cool, with the first hints of fall. There are butterflies all over my garden and the thistles down near the barn. I counted 15 small brown butterflies on one thistle plant, each sitting on it's own purple pincussion.
The big news around here is that Kelly is staying. I am so glad and thankful. I went to look at the small apartment that I mentioned in the last post, and it was ok. It was better than I had expected. It was small, and a little bit dark, but it had a cool bathtub and some shelves built into the walls, so it would have been ok. But I drove back to this house and as I pulled into the driveway, I decided that I was not leaving. I love this house. I love the deep windowsills and the white walls. I love the doorknobs that fall off and the hardwood floors, and I decided that I would do whatever it would take to stay. I studied my budget. I cut corners and eliminated my savings. I pondered who else I could invite to live here with me. But it was all blissfully un-needed. Kelly is going to stay.
So today we cleaned and scrubbed and swept. We threw the old food out of the refrigerator and laundered the curtains. I took the rug from my bedroom outside and shook and shook it watching the dust fly past the butterflies.
And now I am resting, and enjoying the feel of the breeze through the wide open window.

Nothing Fancy

Today I am writing from my Mom's house. I am here after work to take out the dogs, Maggie and Mollie. Two long haired minature dachsunds, with a lot of energy and fuzzy burrs behind their ears. They are the most perfect mixture of beautiful, elegant canine femininity and downright dirty scoundrels. So after letting them jump all over me, and taking them out, and giving them supper, I laid down with a book and ended up taking a nap. Maggie did not forget that I was here though, and that she would rather be outside, so she cried out those pathetic intermitant barks from down the hallway, until I drug myself up and put them back out again. It is incredibly hot here right now. Humid and heavy, and I have used the air conditioner in my car as if the world will end without it.
So today I made a call from work about a new apartment. Kelly is going to be moving to South Carolina. It has been something that has been hanging over as a possibility for quite a while, but it is rather sudden that it is really happening. It has been a year and nineteen days since we moved to our farmhouse on Wood Road, and it has been such an identity shaping time. We have shared our milk, our electric bill, our friends and our faiths.
So now I must think about what is next too. Kelly will be starting fresh and brand-new, with all kinds of possibilties ready to roll and lounge at her feet. I envy this a little bit, but also find such a warm feeling in being in the place that I know. So this new apartment is in the same town. Perfectly situated between work and church and family, and with good friends close by. All I know about it is that it has one bedroom and that I can afford it, and with any luck, will involve no mowing of any lawn, no matter how large or small. There is something very intriguing to me as well about having a place of my own. It sounds so romantic and idyllic, much more than it really is I expect. I am sure that many times it is just lonely. But it would be my own, and a place where I could nourish myself, I hope. Both peaceful and strength building and me. Sort of like Maggie and Mollie, elegant and lovely without any effort, but certainly nothing fancy.
Speaking of the rescals themselves, I need to go make sure they are not running themselves to exaustion in this incredble, heavy heat.