Friday July 10 2009

Group of Antelope in the field.

Very Pretty Angus Heifer with yellow earrings.

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This is the story of a disaster that happened while I was in Pinedale. Tuesday we painted at Charm's and I finished my painting of "Bob", a many on a horse. It's taken me several years to finish it for one reason and another - mainly not sticking to painting in the oils. I was soooo happy to have it done. The frame for it was at the Arrowhead house, where I stayed on Tuesday night. I fitted the painting into the frame, and then realized that the clips and wires I needed were at the ranch. So figured I could either take the painting to the ranch, or out to the framers and have her put the hardware on the frame. I leaned the painting near the door - purpose of that was not to forget it, telling myself: "Better not leave that there". Even told myself to move it a couple of times.

So come time to leave and the dogs got excited about going and getting into the car. Sparky, beside himself as usual, knocked the painting over where it tilted across the doorway. Then I screamed "Stop!!!!!!" which scared them both. Raven jumped right into the middle of the painting to get to the back door. The bottom quarter is ripped apart from the top with four big toenail holes right in the middle. I Just said "OH NOOOOO!! I did not even say "Bad dogs". They knew I was not happy with what they had done, whatever that was. They were VERY quiet for the next several hours, ears down, eyes wide. Nothing I could do. Nothing possible to be done. Just a heart sinking moment. Well, got everything loaded in the car including the broken painting and did the things in town we needed to do and drove on home.

It's with a heavy heart every time I look at it. But I started thinking that I have repaired small punctures or tears in the past and tried to figure how this could be possibly fixed. After discarding a couple other ideas, I decided to try to glue the canvas onto a board backing. The tear except for the toenail marks is pretty straight (photo later). When Ruth got back from her weekend going to a wedding, I called her and she also thinks we can fix it and she will help me do it. She is one of the artists who likes to glue the canvas onto a backing (in this case gatorboard) to paint on that (as opposed to using canvas on stretchers). We will try to fix it at Round Hill. and see if it will work. Ruth and I are both optimistic and I appreciate her help. She know more about everything than anybody else.

Quiet morning. On Friday afternoon I used the weed eater some more, on the other side of the garage. Tall thick grass grows between the garage and the machinery shed (where the cats eat). It was slow going. So even though a smaller area, it took a while to get that down to manageable height. It feels good to be able to do some work like this, and actually accomplish something. Its not as hard as some other things, like digging or weeding. Or washing windows.

Made polish sausage and potato salad for dinner with sliced tomatos.