Back To The Drawing Board

It has been back to the drawing board and also back to Square One this past ten days. 

I thought I was all done with twice daily trips to the barn since Scottie's lump has shriveled up to almost nothing, and I did have a week to myself. But, a little over a week ago, Scottie came in for breakfast very lame in his bad leg. We thought he had reinjured his tendon, so I resumed twice daily trips to the barn to cold hose his leg. The vet came out two days later and quickly diagnosed him as having another hoof abscess. She dug out a hole on his sole to let it drain and wrapped it and left directions for me to change the wrap every 48 hours or so. Since then I've been going to the barn daily to check on him, give him some sympathy and rewrap the hoof. As of yesterday, he is doing much better, and I'm hoping to stay home more again. 

Meanwhile, I've begun one new painting and am doing the preliminary work for another. These two are destined for the benefit auction for Second Chance Ranch and Rescue next month. I've got to hurry to get them done! The first will be a painting of our cat, Annie, which we lost three years ago. She was a beautiful cat, and this should be an appealing painting. I'm doing it in a quick, loose style like I've done the smaller paintings lately. I like working that way. 

The second painting is of two barn swallow babies, and I'm working from one of the photos I took at the barn. I had to do some work in Photoshop to compose the painting, and now I'm trying to figure out the Photoshop settings to  get a good print out of the photo. Yesterday was a small triumph in that I was able to use my big color printer for the first time with the new computer. I had to download a driver and was afraid that none would be available for this old printer, but there was one for the new intel based Macs. My Epson 2200 was a popular printer, and there must be a lot of them still chugging away. 

At the top you will see the photo of Annie that I'm using for the first painting. The canvas is toned, and I'll begin the painting today or tomorrow. Below is the reference photo for the second painting. The lighting and color aren't perfect yet, so it still needs some tweaking. 

It feels good to have new works started, and I'm also anxious to get back to work on the other three which were begun months ago. I'll keep you posted. 

How I Spent My Summer

Sketches of my horse, Scottie, from life

This past summer was certainly a busy one, and I am ready for a slowdown now that Labor Day is out of the way. Real Fall weather arrived with the holiday, with cool days and cold nights, and we even had frost in some local areas the past two nights!  

It seems as if much of my summer was consumed by twice daily trips to the barn to treat my horse's lump issues. As you may recall, Scottie had grown a huge, hard lump on the edge of his jawbone back in July which we thought was an abscessed tooth. But, a visit from the equine dentist ruled that out. 

Since my last report, the lump began to recede and then blew up again when he went off the antibiotics. To make a long story short, a second vet saw Scott, opened up the lump with a bigger incision and took tissue samples. He went  back on antibiotics, and I resumed twice daily trips to the barn. Fortunately, the tissue samples did not show any cancer cells or infection of any kind and I was allowed to discontinue the hot compresses and pulling off the scab each day to allow for drainage. Since then the lump has shrunken once again. I hope it's for good this time! 

The thinking is that Scottie got a sliver under the skin on his jaw at some time which festered into an infection. After nearly six weeks on antibiotics and the draining, it is presumed to be gone now. Good riddance, I say!

My trips to the barn were often rushed in an effort to keep up with all the rest of my duties, but I did manage to do some sketching one day while Scottie was in the cross ties. Sketching from life is not something I'm used to doing, but at least I made the effort and share my humble efforts above. 

On another occasion, I was lucky to get some good photos of baby barn swallows that were just learning to fly and hadn't acquired much fear of humans yet. They are gone now, but I have the photos to work from for some new paintings. I learned that the mornings are really lovely at the barn and plan to go out to ride then, take more photos and do some sketching and painting in the morning light. 

Speaking of which, I have committed myself to creating two paintings for a benefit auction for a farm animal rescue that our vet has established; Second Chance Ranch and Rescue. It's less than a month away now, so I must begin painting immediately! And, I'm really looking forward to painting for this really worthy cause. Normally, I don't donate art, but I do make a few exceptions for local non profits. 

Also on the Art front, I delivered two pieces of art to the Jordan River Arts Council for their upcoming exhibition, The Dog and Pony Show. "The Green Team" and "Kentucky Dreamer" will both be in this show which runs from September 11 to October 7. I got a sneak peek at some of the entries, and it looks like a good show. 

I have more to share from summer activities, but that's all for now. Perhaps I'll have a new painting to share with you next time. 

Day Tripping The Leelanau

Black Star Farms mansion

My daughter is visiting this week, and for the past two days we have been out gallery hopping. On Tuesday we went up M22 on the Leelanau peninsula to Suttons Bay and beyond. 

First we stopped at Black Star Farms and had lunch at the Hearth and Vine cafe which is well known for its scrumptious pizzas. I knew of this farm before it became Black Star because it formerly was a boarding and training facility. There are still horses boarded there and naturally I had to check out the barn and the horses. We peeked into the old barn and visited a few horses including a huge warmblood who appeared to be on stall rest. He must have been close to eighteen hands tall!   

Next we drove into the village of Suttons Bay and visited four galleries. I was most impressed by Treeline Gallery which has an excellent selection of art by many local artists and others in a cheerful, well lit environment. The owner was also very personable, friendly and enthusiastic about her artists. 

From Suttons Bay, we continued north to Tandem Ciders where Tina bought two bottles of excellent hard cider. That was her goal for the day. 

Suttons Bay park

On our way back down M 22 toward Traverse City we stopped at Gallery 22 which is a co op gallery. It has a very nice mixture of paintings, jewelry, glasswork and other artisan works. When the owner found out that I was an equine artist, she expressed interest in my work and gave me an application for participation. Whether anything comes of this is yet unknown, but it's definitely an exciting prospect. 

Yesterday Tina and I made our way down Front St. in Traverse City, feeling very much like "fudgies", the local term for summer visitors who tend to buy fudge. Meandering down Front St., we checked out many shops including the excellent Horizon Books, Evergreen Gallery, Spice Merchant and Art And Soul Gallery. 

Our next destination was Building 50 in the Grand Traverse Commons. Formerly a state mental hospital, this beautiful old building was built in 1885 and is in the process of being repaired and renovated into shops and living facilities. We checked out Gallery 50, a few shops and Black Star Farms tasting room where Tina got some wine. 

On the way home, we drove up US 31 north to a farm stand and got some fresh corn, tomatoes and the last of the sweet cherries. We ate the corn when we got home, and it was delicious!

Every time I visit galleries I feel twinges of envy of the artists who are in them. And I think to myself either, "I'll never be good enough to get in this gallery" or "I could do work as good as this if I just devoted more time to painting again!" 

Last night I had a hard time getting to sleep because I was still excited from all we had done over two days of day tripping, and my brain was on stimulus overload. Clearly, I don't get out enough. Tina's visit has been just what I needed to shake up my complacent world and get me moving in new directions. 

Stay tuned!

Back In The Saddle

Scottie's Abscess

Last night we went on our first trail ride in six weeks, and it felt awfully good.  I’ve been going to the barn but just not riding much. Between the awful heat and humidity we’ve been having and then Scottie’s lump issue, I haven’t ridden in almost a month. 

Three weeks ago, Scottie developed a lump on the lower edge of his jaw that sprouted almost overnight. It was hard and as large as my fist, and I suspected a tooth abscess, especially since he’d had a lump in the same spot a year ago that wasn’t nearly as big. The vet was called, and she concurred. We arranged for an equine dentist to come out this past Friday to do something about the tooth and see what else may be going on. 

In the meantime, I went to the barn twice daily to apply hot compresses to his cheek, and Scottie was put on antibiotics. The vet had tried to lance the abscess with an 18 gauge needle, but it only drained a llittle bit and then closed up. The following night, I brought along my husband the human dentist. With a small scalpel, he cut into the cheek tissue and got it to drain a little more. To our amazement, Scottie stood perfectly still for this procedure and only gave a small flinch at the first cut. After that the lump began to go down ever so slightly and has continued to drain. 

Scottie had not been seen by an equine dentist in over ten years. I depended on the clinic vet who does the Spring checkups and shots to let me know if he needed anything more than a routine float and she hadn’t. Up here in the hinterlands of Michigan, we don’t have a lot of equine specialists and no equine dentists, so we had to call one to come from downstate. As luck would have it, he was here for the week, so we got him to squeeze Scottie into his schedule. 

I was very impressed with Steve Shaver of Equine Dental Services. He espouses a natural horsemanship approach to equine dentistry and doesn’t have horses sedated unless they’re particularly afraid and unruly. Scottie was neither, even though the vet came along just in case. 

An examination of Scottie’s mouth revealed that he had no abscessed tooth. In fact, his teeth are in excellent condition for his age (26), but the molars did have sharp points on them from uneven wear, and they had worn a sore on the other cheek. Working quietly and gently, Steve floated Scottie’s teeth, removed a hook on a front incisor and removed tartar from his canines.  Scottie was an excellent patient and even seemed to appreciate the treatment to alleviate his mouth problems. 

Another view. I clipped him a few weeks ago to make him cooler so he looks a little wierd

My husband came along, and the two dentists chatted and compared equine to human treatments and kept the vet and I entertained. My husband was especially interested in the  oversized equine dental tools and remarked that Scottie was a far better patient than some of his own and that his mouth smelled a lot better, too. We got to stick our arms in Scottie's mouth to feel his teeth which was kind of awesome. 

In the end, the dentist’s assessment was that Scottie may have bitten his cheek which caused a piece of hay to be imbedded into the cheek tissue which led to the abscess.  It seems to be resolving now, and we are resuming normal activities. 

While Scottie had that lump and a possible abscessed tooth, I didn’t have the heart to put a bridle on his cheek and a bit in his mouth. But last night I decided it was time to get back to riding. Ann, Kathy and I went out on a lovely trail ride on an evening that was very comfortable. Since we stayed in the woods, the flies weren’t bad at all.  In order to stay in the woods we had to go down the steep hill, and although I could tell Scottie was stiff and sore in the hind end, he trucked down that hill with relative enthusiasm, only stopping now and then to grab a mouthful of leaves. He was obviously enjoying the trail ride as much as I was. We stayed out until almost dark, coming back up that steep hill to the barn, resting every so often, and Scottie was in good shape when we got back. 

Ahh, it’s good to be back in the saddle again!

PS Be sure to watch Steve's video!

Grass River Adventure

Grass River, Bellaire Michigan

Over the Fourth of July weekend we had a bit of an unplanned adventure that fortunately ended well. Our grown kids were up for the weekend, and on the Fourth we decided to take a boat ride up the Grass River in our aging boat which is something we only do every few years. Most of the river is pretty wild; in fact, it's part of a natural area that has been preserved from development. The river connects  Lake Bellaire and Clam Lake where we live, and it takes over an hour to traverse the whole length which is a no wake zone to prevent damage to the shoreline and vegetation. Because it connects the two lakes, boat traffic can be heavy at times, and since the river is narrow, it is tricky to navigate. 

On our way up the river to Lake Bellaire,  we passed a couple of muskrat houses and almost ran down a mother mallard and her two ducklings who insisted on crossing the river right in front of the boat!  The river was quite busy with boat traffic, but at times, with no boats visible, you had the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere with no civilization for miles. 

When we were almost at the end, the boat began to run roughly, so we turned around and headed back home, crossing our fingers that we could make it. The further we went the rougher the boat ran until finally it quit altogether. After a short rest it started up again but soon quit again. This scenario repeated three more times until it finally quit for good just as we got out onto Clam Lake. Fortunately we were close to shore and were able to hail someone in a nearby cottage who happened to be a friend of my husband's. He towed us home where we were very relieved to arrive. 

Hard as it is to believe in this day and age, none of us thought to take along a cell phone. By the time we got to Clam Lake it was dinner time, and all the boats had headed back home, so we were pretty much alone on the lake. And the marina down the lake had already closed, so we felt fortunate to have been rescued.

In spite of our misadventure, we enjoyed most of the trip up the river, enjoying Nature at her finest. It was a gorgeous sunny day with perfect temperatures for a leisurely boat ride. Some water lilies were in bloom and we also saw  flowers that looked like some sort of wild irises growing along the edge of the water. I took along my cameras and got a lot of photos that might turn into paintings some day. Bald eagles also inhabit the Natural area, but we didn't see any on this day. 

Here are some more photos from our trip. 

Our boat, a 1974 18 ft. Sea Ray and my son, Dan

water lily and reeds in the river

All decked out for the Fourth of July

This family of mute swans greeted us when we arrived home. 

"Lay, Lady, Lay" or The Chicken Dilemma

Mystery Chicken - Henry? Henrietta?

For some reason, a Bob Dylan song has been running through my head all day; the one that begins,  “Lay, lady, Lay”. Maybe it has something to do with the chicken that has adopted our getaway home in the woods and the dilemma that this poses for us.

You see, a week ago yesterday we drove over to mow the lawn and found this chicken hanging around the yard. He/she was afraid of us but clearly was used to humans. Where did “it” come from? Why had it adopted this particular house that is so far from the road and on the edge of a vast woods? How long had it been there, and how had it managed to survive all the predators in the woods?

As we left, we checked the neighbor’s yards along the road but didn’t see any evidence of chickens or chicken coops and fully expected that the chicken would be gone when we returned for the weekend on Friday. Wrong! He/she greeted us not long after we pulled in and unloaded the car. Over the next two days it gradually became less wary and let us get closer and closer. In fact, it was very curious about our car and kept checking it out. That makes us wonder. Did someone dump it off “out in the country” like so many morons do with cats and dogs? And was it hoping our car would take it home?

I managed to snap some decent pictures of him/her (there is disagreement among my chicken raising friends as to what sex it is) and hope to do a painting in the near future. But, now we’re wondering what to do about this chicken who has adopted us. Should we feed it? Provide some sort of shelter for it? Capture it and rehome it?

I’m not too keen on the latter since neither of us has any experience with chickens. Perhaps I’ll consult our vets to see what they suggest. Or, we could call Animal Control, if there is such a thing in that oh so remote county. 

I had planned to do some plein air artwork over the weekend, but the weather was so abysmal that I stayed inside and went through old art magazines instead. It was cold, rainy and very dreary, but I enjoyed the luxury of having the time to read articles and cut them out to save. I’m only about five years behind in reading my magazines, you see.

flower bed, June 2011

Much of my time lately has been spent in gardening, and the yard is really looking nice this year, thanks to all the rain and cool weather we’ve been having. The new plants that were put in last year are really filling up the new flower beds, and some have already begun to bloom.  It makes all the hard work of the past few years finally seem worth it.

I will share more in future posts as the summer progresses. But, that’s all for now.

Treasures In The Attic

"Beach Run" circa 1983

This Spring has proven to be very busy. There is always lots of yardwork to do, cleaning out of flower beds and planting new flowers and moving a few which didn’t fit where they were. But last weekend, I took a break from that to do a project which has needed doing for years now.

My kids (both in their thirties) were home for the weekend for Memorial Day, and I took advantage of the opportunity to draft some help with the job. While my son ran the Bayshore Marathon in Traverse City, my daughter, Tina, helped me clear out, clean and rearrange the attic. It’s a small space and had become so full that you could barely get through the door!

The studio full of attic discards

The door to the attic is in the studio supply closet which meant that a lot of what we took out ended up stacked in the studio and the adjacent room. Here is the studio with only a narrow path from the attic to the door. The library was equally crammed with attic rejects: mostly baby furniture, toys, children’s books and odds and ends.

Among the  treasures we unearthed from the far reaches of the attic was the painting above. It was done in 1983 when I was still in art school. I don’t remember having any help with it, but the influence of my painting courses is obvious in the  thick brushwork and unblended color. I did not have a photo to copy but made up the horse and background from memory and possibly a few reference photos to get the pose of the horse right. Well, sort of right, that is.

I’d been wondering what became of this painting, and there it was, covered with 20 years of dust in an entirely unsuitable environment for storing a work of art. Sadly, this is where many works of art end up when they are no longer treasured by their owners - or artists. Aside from the dust, it’s in remarkably good condition. It  is an oil painting on canvas board, which just goes to show that cheap canvas board is still capable of standing up to the extremes of heat, cold and unregulated humidity.

"Almost Home, Hunter Pace" circa 2007

The other thing it shows is how far my art has advanced since 1983,  and that is where its value lies. Compare it to another galloping horse painting, “Almost Home, Hunter Pace” (above) which was completed around 2007. By comparison, “Beach Run” is an embarrassment! The best part of the painting is the piece of driftwood in the foreground. For years I meant to repaint that awful sky but never got around to it. It’s just as well because it’s one of those paintings we artists call a “learning experience” which no amount of reworking will improve.

Another treasure I found in the attic was a shoebox of toy horses from my childhood. They’re smaller than I remember them; only about  two inches high; and there aren’t as many as I wish there were, but I’m happy to be able to hold them in my hands again and find them a better place to  live out their  “retirement”. Dusty and Cigarette and Blaze are now  resting on my dresser until I find a suitable spot for them. I don’t remember what I named the metal mare and her foal. Niagara, perhaps? That’s where they were purchased; at a gift shop at Niagara Falls.

After Tina and I had swept out the attic and moved things around, she and son Dan went through the toys and books and picked out what they wanted to keep for themselves. After they had left with their childhood memories, I spent portions of this past week cleaning the items to be rehomed. The Barbie dreamhouse and some doll furniture went to my husband’s hygienist’s two little girls who were thrilled with them. The baby furniture and other stuff went to Goodwill in Traverse City. They do so much good for the homeless that I’m only too glad to donate to them and be rid of what we no longer want.

I still have a bunch of toys to wash and books to vacuum before they are donated, but the studio is now almost cleared out. Before I can do any artwork, it will need a good cleaning. And once the Spring yardwork is completed, I will be free to get back to some artwork!  I have new references to work from and I will share some of those in my next post.