PROJECTS AND PROGRESS.

I'm beastly busy as I get ready for my family & friends reunion over Independence Day weekend. Got the tubes out to be patched and blown up with the compressor.

Getting some long neglected yard clean-up done, since some people camp in tents under the trees. My old fruit ladder needs a new home. I hate to take it to the dump, but it is too heavy for me to use anymore.  Twelve feet high. Any takers?

No matter how busy I am, I have to take time for fun projects. It's just my nature.  To do that, I gather everything on my table where I won't put it aside. Like this old purse, dreary old khaki color, but with the amazing pockets handy for all items I like to carry, especially when I'm on the road with Jim and we are out for the day, hiking or wandering. My housemate can't understand my logic of forcing myself to complete a project by leaving the mess, paints, papers, etc. on the table. It works for me.  I finally completed the paint job, a cat on one side, some background brown.

Sad and happy faces on the front pockets. And, I'm blaming this need to paint on my friend Pam Munn who got me painting again, and now I've got the itch.

The end pockets are still pretty plain, but a painting is never finished. I can always go back and add some decorations when I have more time. Ah, me. To foil oneself into fun projects.
Now, hopefully, I can make progress on shopping for a comparable car to replace my electric.  The possibility of a "total" is hovering.

ANOTHER LAZY DAY.

Look at that grumpy guy. I interrupted his reading. We were supposed to meet Jim’s friend, Bill Dob, but that fell through so we again enjoyed the weather and the park. I walked the two miles in 30 minutes at the recreation center with the Leslie Sansone video. I like it. It also gives some upper body movements that are beneficial and definitely gets your heart pumping.

This park is really beautiful with so many palm trees. Painting them will be a challenge but I took 40 pictures of palm trees yesterday with that idea in mind.

And this morning, I’m blogging on my new system 7 computer. I spent several hours learning the difference between the old one and the new one. This computer has programs that came free with the computer, some interesting stuff that I explored as well.

The palms have such individual character when you really look at them.

My friend Pam says you have to think of them as living beings, which they are.

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Today is laundry day, and packing to return to Murphys. We move to within range of the airport at Ontario tomorrow. Hope we have a signal.

THE JOYS OF TRAVEL.

Another painting lesson with my friend Pam left me energized and excited. Now, let us see if I can do this at home on my own? Maybe I can find another friend to paint with. Would we have done this if we weren’t in one place on the road where I could visit her two days in a row? No. Pam lived in Mountain Ranch, and I live in Murphys.


Around 2:00 in the afternoon, our friends, Pat and Bruce Borad drove up from Jamul to spend a couple of days. They were having their driveway re-surfaced and brought Diego with them, a sweet dog. He had never ridden past the Vets and was very well behaved in the car.


Bruce is an attorney, but quit practicing for his first love, teaching. He teaches a computer class, but is retired as of yesterday. Hey, just in time to fix my computer glitches and give me legal advice. Everyone should have a friend like Bruce. We had a nice dinner at Coco’s, close by.  We talked so much catching up I nearly forgot to take any pictures at all.  I guess that is a good sign that I’m enjoying the company of very dear friends. The years since I’ve seen them slip away like we had just seen each other yesterday. I love it.

ART LESSON.

I love art and have always been a wanna-be artist. Pam at one time taught art and offered to give me two lessons. She said, pick a picture you like and I'll teach you. I'm always attracted to paintings of people, so she suggested I choose from one of the homeless people pictures I took. I have a homeless brother and I tend to do that wherever I am.


I took two the day we were downtown Palms Springs, but, they make me sad. We considered could I turn my interest into a political statement by painting homeless people? No, the pictures make the statement. I want to paint something happy and beautiful.


I like my bird picture I took.


I thought the saxophonist made for a fairly simple people painting.


Among people photos, this is the one I liked best, the woman taking a picture of her friend modeling a hat.


Hedging the bet, I chose a simple desert scene as probably an easier place to start.


The night before my lesson she said think of the tree of life, your life. And see if you can look around and find 20 different shades of green.  I thought maybe I could do some palm trees and mountains. When in the desert paint desert pictures, that  kind of mentality that I've heard from various artists over the years.


She loaned me a book on color charts.


In my long ago past,  (early 60's) I tried painting with oils and it was enjoyable, but not very successful. Recently, I tried a papier mache' sculpture and couldn't understand how to use acrylic paints and gave up and put the thing in a box.


After talking it over, she decided I should paint on a student canvas a person, not a tree, not a desert scene. We chose a picture of her's of a little boy. He has a long way to go, but the palette board for acrylics is very different. The brushes, too. I learned gobs and came away energized. I'll try and finish this painting today, or at least get it in better proportion. Not only did I get a lesson, but lunch.


Pam made this killer soup with mushrooms, peppers, chicken breast and fennel sausage with a small amount of noodles. Delish.

On a different note: In the morning,  Jim and I walked the park, looking to find my bike, both of us knowing that this is a park full of mature people, unlikely that we would find our bike lurking under someone's canopy. It was our morning exercise anyway, and we learned from talking to people we met that bike theft is very common in this park, especially men's bikes, which mine was. It seems, the thieves jump the fence, choose an unguarded bike, and ride out through the gate. The next weekend it will be for sale at a flea market. We went to find a White Sheet, (sales paper) but it didn't list flea markets. We might try a regular newspaper today. But, I've mentally given up the idea that I might find that bike. There must be 300 in our park alone. And, another 70 parks like ours. It is probably a very lucrative business.

GREAT PLAINS INDIAN MUSEM AND BLACKFEET HERITAGE CENTER.

Browning, Montana is home to the Great Plains Indian Museum which covers all plains tribes. The list includes Blackfeet, Arapaho, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Nez Peirce, Lakota, Sioux,  Ojibwa, and Apache.  The museum exhibits are owned by the United States Department Of The Interior and no pictures are allowed. Even the map showing where each tribe came from was off limits. The map above gives their range, but not the individual tribes location. I got the map on wikipedia. Not hard to tell we are in buffalo country.

Bear Bull is a Blackfeet Indian. His image was also taken from Wikipedia where they refer to Blackfoot, rather than Blackfeet. The Museum has an absolutely beautiful collection of Plains Indian clothing, their craftsmanship in building decorative tipi’s, buffalo skin boats, drums, sticks, racks, back rests, the many items that can be made with buffalo hide. It explains their  religious rituals and especially the decorative clothing, saddle cloth, saddles and beaded quivers, toys, baskets, papoose carriers and feathered headdresses. The bead work is stellar, made from the tiniest glass beads and it seems a shame that we are unable to share it. On one side of the Museum is a working artists gallery.

Ernest Marceau gave permission to photograph his work. I liked this water color.

Ernest paints watercolors from memory. He doesn’t copy from a picture. He is Blackfeet. He also works in oil. At the Heritage Center across the street from the museum, he has paintings for sale in decorative wooden frames he makes to go with his paintings.

Stacey Gilham Keller displays and works at the Museum Gallery. This shield is her work. She likes to do masks and pony sticks.

She takes inspiration from the size and shape of a piece of driftwood she finds. It is decorated with horsehair, a bridle, buckskin and bells.

The sticks are affordable and you know it was crafted by a Native American and not mass made in China.

I liked her pony sticks and bought this one. Modern Indian Arts don’t compare to the quality of  items in the Museum where time and experience gave the old timers an edge. This museum is well worth the stop and very educational. It explains the dances, customs, how things are made, the knots used, materials used. Really nice. Across from the museum is the Blackfeet Heritage Center and Gallery.

An installation near a resting spot with picnic tables was open to photography. The pieces are steel.

Animals and people arranged in a circle with the Medicine Man the center of attention.

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When I asked Stacey if she is Blackfoot, she answered vehemently, “No, I’m Blackfeet.” I believe Wikipedia has it wrong. But the steel foot is from the medicine man sculpture.

The Blackfeet Heritage Center Gallery can’t be missed. This huge steer wrangling statue sits in front of the building facing Highway 2. Inside, no pictures are allowed. They have a baby Tyrannosaur complete, coiled up in a circle with everything intact. It is from his “wishbone” (and others) that archeologists know birds are descended from dinosaurs. The fossil was found on Indian lands and can be studied by scientists, but it remains with its finders, the Blackfeet Nation.

John Isaiah Pepion is a Blackfeet Artist who works at the Heritage Center. He is painting on an old ledger page instead of a clean piece of paper. I asked him why? He told me that tribes painted on stones, then graduated to buffalo hide and during the time when the government controlled them and imprisoned them, they were given old ledger sheets to draw on. Those are now called Ledger Art. He buys his sheets at antique sales or from flea markets. Work from several ledger artists was on display at the center, also very affordable.

John Clarke is the Blackfeet, mute artist from the Cut Bank Museum we visited yesterday.

He painted his people.

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While I was rummaging around through yesterdays picture file, I remembered the one item I had never seen before was this Rapid Washer, a plunger used to agitate clothing in the wash tub to help clean them. (I forgot to post it.) So, there you are. The Native American people had their life style, their land, their heritage, even their food stolen from them. I can’t blame them for not wanting their designs stolen as well by refusing to have pictures taken in their cultural centers.

IMPORTANT PREPARATION.

Since I’m detained at home, I’m using my time productively, catching up on neglected chores and projects. Some fun, some not. The house appeared to be in good shape, but it needed painting.
I hired Jube and Joel to do the prep work. Joel worked nine hours one day, and the two of them worked 10 hours the second day. I had forgotten how much work preparation  work there is. Joel would explain, “to do it right, all of this loose paint has to be scraped, sanded and primed. ” Kind of like the seemingly endless medical tests I’ve been undergoing before surgery. To do a good job, they want to make sure you are in good shape. Of course, I want to move things along instead of all this waiting. It’s looking like I won’t be able to fly back to the motorhome and resume travels until after Christmas. (groan).

Yesterday, my son Doug came with his airless and roll upon roll of masking tape and started spraying the eves.

It takes little repairs along the way, some of which Jube and Joel did.

A cracked and rusted spot in the downspout.

The house settles and needs caulking and other stuff here and there I’d forgotten about. I guess the same is true of the old body. I could stand a bit of scraping and caulk here and there along the way and I guess I’ll get it.

The house and I will both be better off for the makeover. And, I won’t be inclined to let things deteriorate so much this time around.
It will be nice to come home to a pretty house when all is said and done. And, it will be nice to think my good health will continue with a bit of an assist. who knows, if it weren’t for the accident in May, I wouldn’t have known I had a health problem at all, as strange as that seems. We have to prepare for the future.