31 October 13

BOO!

And that is the extent of my participation and joy on this fine Halloween!  I hope all the urchins get their sugar high tonight and all the adults get to fill their wine glasses at each stop.

So much for the editorial comment of this dribble.

One of the neat things about participating on Fine Art America is the ability to see what other artists are doing and what is selling each day.  There are some really great people doing some pretty great things out there and we get to interact with each other via comments, blogs and forums.  I enjoy all of them but cannot participate to much as my time is spent in editing, posting and promoting.  

But, please take a look at some of these individuals by clicking on their links.  I will include a couple of people as I go along with my posts here.

http://fineartamerica.com/saleannouncement.html?id=1acfd5609637d41c9a4cf0dfe0e539b1

That's a sale announcement page to get you through Thanksgiving and help prepare you for one of the Real holidays!

This gal is one of the most prolific of the artists there.  She also is a pretty consistent seller as well.

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-sharon-cummings.html

And finally, because I always do things in three's, a gal with some Maryland ties.

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/francie-davis.html

But we all know that the only work you really want to see is mine, I leave you with this.

A marsh dweller that flashes, like an old man in a raincoat, his colors every time he sings.  The red winged blackbird.  

Happy Hallo all you weenies!

29 October 13

Well, back to normal!

Beginning to warm up here after our little cold snap.  Normal!

Somebody hacked my ATM card...the new Normal.

  And that's a good reason not to have any money...none to lose!

The trash people are working their way up the street and that has the dogs on alert and ready to bark...Normal!

The front line warning system (cockateals) haven't gone off yet, but will....Normal!

Sitting here (again) in my virtual office and daydreaming about walking a stream or climbing a mountain....Normal!

Planning dinner......chicken probably....Normal!

Have a lot of images to edit.....daily Normal!

And a bunch to list.....again Normal!

God I love my life!!!

Now have to go outside and set the snares for all the little gremlins that will be coming to the house for candy and stuff.  Just love to see them hoisted overhead in a snare yelling "Trick or Treat dammit!

Now that's NOT Normal!

But it's where the birds are!

26 October 13

 Chilly Willy!  

A hunerd years ago I was known as Willy.  A nickname which really didn't stick created by some of my high school friends, or maybe it was college.  At any rate, it's 36 degrees warm here this morning and we are "Chilly"!  But, then again it's October or at least it was the last time I looked. 

We had the opportunity to visit old Cape May, New Jersey last week and it always amazes me the extent to which people will go to keep their residences looking nice.  It's the law there! I mean, a hunerd miles up....who cares.  But down here it's paint and groom constantly.  Now this community is the end of a great bit spit of land bordered by salt water on basically three sides.  Sherwin Williams loves this place!  But those old Victorians are a drawing card for the tourists.  They're kept neat and spit shined to use an old army term.

I am not real sure what it is exactly, but I think of other spits of land extending into oceans that draw of tourist dollars is a driving force in lawn and building maintenance.  I mean there's Provincetown on Cape Cod and the ultimate end of land in Key West.  All similar destinations sticking out into oceans. All with similar life styles.  I love them all and all offer fantastic photo ops.  Great restaurants.  And even something called "Nature".  Places where the oceans dictate the daily game plan and not the humans.  Places too where "Time Goes By".

Penn State Vs. Ohio State today...so you know where I'll be!  Great weekend all!

25 OCT 13

We survived another journey north to the Garden State (NJ for those of you who live west of Camden).  The weather was just a normal spectacular weekend with cool temps, drizzle on Saturday and bluebird skies on Sunday.  Sales for this NJ Lighthouse Challenge were off as were the crowds but the friendships were outstanding.  Ronny and Sam drove down just to visit us.  Sam, whose foot is about to fall off due to an old man, self inflicted, dropping of a sign onto said foot injury was in a pergiment (again for those of you west of Camden that's probably a misspelled drug) induced haze.  So the only thing to do was to reinvent the old man shuffle around the place.  You know the type of walk!  Stooped shoulders.  Hands out for balance.  Eyes on the ground in front of your feet and one inch strides repeated as quickly as possible for old men.  I do hope he gets better soon but that's just the way we roll.  Not even change for a quarter given or received.  Love the guy.  Visited with a  High School bud, Carol and her husband Jim on Saturday evening and had a great time free loading.  Nice people them!

Sheri (on the left) established bonds with Nancy, my erstwhile FB buddy who paints, interior designs, photographs and writes little books for little kids and is otherwise all around good people.  She and Carl are a wonderful addition to the lighthouse family.  Of course all the usual suspects were on board and it was wonderful seeing them all again.

We stayed two nights at a Bed and Breakfast in North Wildwood, a place I found out later was supposed to be haunted.  Can't tell ya!  Saw nothing strange.  But if anyone is ever in need of a place to stay in Wildwood or North Wildwood, New Jersey....The Candlelight Inn is the place to go.  Easy commuting distance to Cape May and even Atlantic City.  AND, the breakfasts Bill serves are killer!

As some of you know I ordered two 20x30 images printed on metal for the show, and they were the hit.  Didn't sell, but then again nothing much else did either.  Both images drew people from a hundred feet away and all the appropriate oohs and aahs were emitted.  So....If you need images and would like them printed on metal, do so with all the confidence in the world.  Fine Art America does a fantastic job!

The inventory reduction effort continues and I did get rid of a bunch of stuff.  I will not be doing too many more shows like I have in the past and will hence forth venture out only on invitation.  And therefore am selling, selling and selling.  I even sold one of the WWI ammo boxes you see on the table in the foreground.  I am thinking that a digital booth may be in order, but have to look at that further.  In the meantime, we continue to have fun.  

My daughter, Heather, visited all too briefly on Sunday and even help to pack us up.  That was appreciated but I would have like to spent more time with her.  We left Sunday afternoon for my son's place in Middletown, DE and spent the night.  Grandkids are on some kind of drug or fresh air or something that makes them grow, but I guess we all know about that.  Monday and Tuesday at the beach house and then back here on Wednesday. Another whirlwind 2,000 mile trip.  Next a winter visit with the kids and grands in December.

I did manage to get some new images which you will be seeing in the near future on FAA.  One of which was the Cape May LH.

This one is unedited and will be one of the ones to be listed soon.  I had the good luck on Friday evening to have a great sky filled with all kinds of cloud action.  The setting sun is behind the tower which created a shadow of same right over the top of my head.  An interesting take on a normal setting sun image.  Later the more traditional sky color developed, but a lot of the clouds were gone and the set was, well, not so much.  I wish that I could report to you that I had been in touch with the meteorologists and planned to arrive under the conditions you see....But not so.  In the planning stages any good photographer must consider that he/she can just get plain lucky.  We were headed for dinner and just happened to stop by the spot.  The old "Blind hog finds an acorn" rule applied. 

Have a great week end y'all!

16 Oct 13

LOOK OUT ANGLESEA

Anglesea is the small community of North Wildwood, New Jersey where the Hereford Inlet lighthouse calls home.  And where we will be headed tomorrow.

I have been attending and showing at the light for 13 years and have developed some meaningful friends there.  Hence, looking forward to it.  But today and tomorrow morning will be spent in preparation and cannot therefore hang around online too much.  But some of the other lights on the challenge are fun places too.  The ideas is for people to make it to all the lights on the tour in one weekend.  The lights will be open for touring and also will have people displaying all kinds of things.  It is a fun week end for all.

You all fly safe now!

14 October 13

TRIVIUM

The weekend was calm here, with not much going on except the best football game I have seen in years.  Of course I am biased, but the Penn State/Michigan game went to four overtimes with PSU prevailing.  Sweet!

Sunday was another successful day of avoiding pro football on the telly.  Just not as exciting as college, but then again I guess I am biased once again.  We did take a mini-road trip up to the lake to see Sheri's cousin's place which is under construction.  Looks like a Junior High School .... yup that large.  We took Missy with us and she loved to get out of the house and her own back yard.  However, the floating dock was a whole nother thing.

You might have to zoom in a bit to see that she is splayed on the deck with front paws holding on for dear life.  Hey, stuff I'm walking on or laying upon is not supposed to move.  She flat out did not like that part of the trip.  There is a little bit of color in the trees, but we just don't get the mountain colors down here.  Too bad.  And we probably won't get a decent chance at the fall colors next week as we will be Jersey Shore bound from Thursday this week to the same next week.

I do love to free wheel photograph as you know and found two places of great interest.  The first being some old Texaco pumps at a little store along the way.

The other image (s) I made were of an old barn or shed on a little dirt road (Country Roads).

This is an unedited image of the barn.

As you can see the edited image looks a lot different than the original.

  I happen to feel the final product is more attractive.  Remember, I am not here to massage my own ego.  Some would say that it is large enough already.  No, my purpose to to create something someone might want to hang on a wall.  If someone doesn't like the final image, well congratulations....you have a mind of your own.  And I go onto the next image.

  A very wise man of the sales type once said this to me.  "Of the universe you are selling into, you will always get a particular percentage regardless of how good, or bad, a salesman you are.  The trick is to take away part or all of some other salesman's percentage."

  So that's the trick.  And proverb number 1,123 of Skip's almanac of garbage knowledge and other useless trivium.  Oh and I have no idea whether Trivium is a word or not, or means what I want to say.  Just a piece of trivial info!  That's my definition and I'm sticking to it.

OK, I looked it up and it's not quite what I thought it would be. But then again it might fit in a twisted sort of way.

  

"An introductory curriculum at a medieval university involving the study of grammar, rhetoric, and logic."

Have a wonderful week and work on those percentages.

12 October 13

Morning all!

 The weather God has seen fit to treat us with a calm, clear day with the temperatures in the low sixties.  It's quiet an the dogs have not yet begun to stir and are getting into their "Feed me, feed me" mode.

The stupid birds have not even found that it's daylight yet.  And that's a good thing.

This is the kind of morning that brings to mind flat lakes, small boats and fishing rods.  Well, to me anyway.  To you it may be mountain passes, snowy peaks, or wide beaches with quietly lapping surf or a mountain field full of wild flowers.

A sunrise so inviting that even emergence from under warm and downy blankets isn't the chore it often seems to be.  Pike Place perking in an old percolator pot and the smell of bacon turning a crispy brown.  Sounds and smells.  It's funny what the mind can conjure up when it is free wheeling through the memory chips of the fastest and largest computer that only God could make....the human brain. 

 We do that when we have no sticky notes before us.  No shopping list on the fridge.  No to do lists made the night before.  And no pressing issues in that sometime over used structure on our shoulders.  Given what's going on around us, we probably should exercise that structure a little more often.

I guess we seasoned citizens tend to roam through our mental library's more than the young.  We at least have shelved more books than the young and should, should I say, have those significant memories that allow us to actually sit back and enjoy the moment.

Days like this, in quiet and leisure thought, I am reminded too of the serenity prayer.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

If I could have lived that prayer all my life, I think that I would have been a better person.  But alas I am human and well those old memory chips can also give us problems as well from time to time.
It is however, a delightful day here in Shangra La South and right now I would not have it any other way.

Stay well read my friends.