Tuesday August 19 2008

Barn on the North Platte

14x17 Pastel

by Lynn Thomas

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This was about my first pastel and I really struggled with it.

That usually shows in the finished artwork, but it's always a good lesson.

Yesterday went fine. I left about 11 and got to town in time to get a few gift certificates from the Chinese Gourmet to give to some of the people who have helped me all this time. It's really hard to choose something to give, because it doesn't even come close to how grateful I feel for all the continued help and support friends have given to us. I'll never be able to make it all up to everyone. But.... it's a little beginning and very belated.

Judi and I had a nice visit at lunch. Rollie was there too. It's the last time I'll see her until she comes back from Houston next summer. She's going to babysit her grand kids while her daughter in law goes back to college. She's planning to get an apartment there, so has to take enough stuff to set up housekeeping. The food at lunch was o.k. They've changed lately according to State rules to more fat free, salt free and sugar free preparation and taste is definitely showing that. They give you a big portion, so I shared some with the dogs.

Went next to the meeting for the Community and Art Center. We talked for almost two hours. The plan is still all preliminary, but we felt we are closer to what the art portion of the building needs. It's changed quite a bit from the last set of drawings we were shown. By the end of the meeting we were all a lot happier with what is being presented now. Even though a lot of square footage has been taken away because of the costs.

The architect had a new still-preliminary drawing of the building exterior, which is needed to do the next stage - presenting the plan publicly. It was way too contemporary to fit into the Pinedale environment. Architects have to put some creative ideal into their design - something of their creative selves -and this one had a beaver slide-like portico sailing out over the main entrance - wish I had a picture of it - anyway nobody liked it one bit. We've always indicated a preference for it to be built from local materials - timber and stone - that will fit into the western lifestyle. Not that a beaver slide (primitive hay stacker from the horse drawn haying days) isn't thoroughly western tradition and not that we couldn't see where the designer was coming from with his thinking. It was just too far out and a big stretch from our more traditional concept for something to fit into the local natural setting. O.K. I'm done with the soap box. Just wanted to explain what we had seen and discussed. I totally forgot to go in and look at the art show that was hanging in the next room that Judi had recommended.

Then walking dogs, gas (still $4.06/gal regular - at nearly 90 bucks in the tank NO I'm not saying aren't we lucky it's down more than 30 cents a gallon). Then went grocery shopping and got my prescriptions. Home by 5:30. Joe had the leftover pot roast in the oven. I was really pooped and after getting the groceries put away fell asleep sitting in the chair. Ate a pot roast sandwich later. I just got into p.j.s early and went to bed and watched Man From Snowy River and Mrs. Doubtfire. If the TV repairmen don't get here soon, I'll run out of videos.

Today is another wonderful day. No plans to do anything special. Maybe get some things together for Round Hill, because tomorrow will be getting some of the food ready ahead of time. And because I'll have to leave pretty early, will pack the car tomorrow. Yesterday when I went to buy a new picnic/water jug (the old one wouldn't seal and kept tipping over and making a mess in my car) I saw and bought a lightweight "sleeping bag" to take, because we don't want to use the bedding there and have to wash it. It's perhaps 15"x 5" rolled up, looks like microfiber blankets with a zipper all around and will work just perfectly in the cabin with my small down throw and a pillow.

Got the dogs brushed today. Sparky's not quite so fluffy now. Got hair everywhere and it was an hour before I got it all out of my mount. We took a short walk, which they loved. I made Joe German potato salad and garlic toast for dinner.

This afternoon I had to email a few photos of feeding cattle with a team in winter to be considered being placed on a real estate booklet that comes out every six months. So had to look up and edit the photos. It gives a lot of visibility to the artist and is placed all over the county for quite some time . Then the emails wouldn't go to the gals address, she had been having trouble with it and I had to do it again. What a waste of time. Haven't heard if she got them the second or third time.

Monday August 18 2008

MAGGIE GETS NEUTERED TODAY!

GET WELL SOON, SWEET MAGGIE.

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My artist friend Jackie from a wheat farm near Waitsburg WA has a new puppy. It is time for her to be neutered. Jackie tells me all the news about Maggie, and how smart and sweet she is. They lost their old Rotweiler a few months ago and chose Maggie to be a new member of their family. I know she's going to be a special girl.

Jackie has been building her own art studio on their farm. She has had some help from family and friends and workers, but she has done a lot of the work herself. She's been keeping me up to date on the progress as it's happened. The studio is nearly done and here is a picture of it. Her sister Sheri from Ritzville came last week and they did the sheetrock, mud and tape themselves, never having done it before - and it turned out just great. I'm so proud of you, Jackie, because when you first started your dream of a studio of your own, you didn't think it would happen. And there it stands, nearly ready for great artwork to be created in your own space. It's an exciting thing to get your own special space.

JACKIE'S NEW ART STUDIO

I'm going in to Pinedale today to go to the art center meeting with Jo and the artists, maybe the architect. and lunch with Judi at Rendezvous Point - chicken enchaladas today. She's leaving for Houston for the winter in about a week, so I will miss her. She's been my most loyal companion on the trips to Jackson and always fun. Then grocery shopping and drug store so need to get myself going.

Thurs - Sun. I'm going to our Mixed Media Round Hill Ranch painting retreat. We have a wonderful time together and I'm really looking forward to it. Joe's resigned. I'm getting organized for that, what art supplies to take. We all contribute to the meals so I'll have to get something planned and prepared to take along.

Yesterday I got quite a bit more of The Nevada Years section of The Book re-re-re-edited. I think I've got that section about as finalized as possible. Gloria's sending me some old family photos I don't have, so I'll share a few with you.

Sunday August 17 2008

Irish Creek

It's over the hill to the North of us.

Yet another beautiful morning. Sure makes me wish I could be back in the high mountains again. Betty called yesterday and as always I sure enjoyed talking with her. She's going to come back for another visit here in the last half of September and maybe I'll go back to Nevada with her. Then Debbie wants to come back to the ranch in October and she can bring me home. That sounds like a good plan and all the travel arrangements taken care of for me.

All day yesterday I worked on the book. It helps to get other messes out of the way to be productive on something. I reread and edited about half of the Nevada section, and made it more readable. I'm always surprised when I go back and find things not as organized as they should be, as many times as I've been through it already. Part 1 The California Years has 102 pages. I consider it 95% finished, since I'm sure there will be a few additiions and polishing. Part 2 The Nevada Years has 107 pages - it is not finished completely yet. Part 3 The Wyoming Years is the one yet to be written, although all the journals and letters have been typed into the computer. It's going to be mainly editing.

I can't even estimate how much work and how many pages in reference and correspondence and investigation have been written in addition. I bet 25 times that much would be a conservative estimate. It's all organized and all the actual paperwork is sorted and filed, most of that is also copied/typed or scanned. I just need to get to writing the last of it. In fact, the blog will be fuel for the last years. Also many photos need to be scanned yet, and inserted into the proper places in the text. If anyone has any memories they want to share, it would be appreciated.

Gone Fishin' - Irish Canyon

I slept in pretty late today, but am feeling better now after the last chemo. The first few days it feels like I will never feel good again. But then the "sickness" gradually lifts away and I'm better - usually by Saturday. For sure I'm going to spend some time outdoors today, doing one thing or another. Tomorrow I'll go into town to the meeting for the Community and Fine Arts Center. I've missed too many of them. I have to get a couple of prescriptions filled too.

It's the birthday of actress and playwright Mae West, born in Brooklyn, New York (1893). She said, "When women go wrong, men go right after them. "And, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."

Saturday August 16 2008

Sacred Dreams of Father Sky

35x45 Oil Painting on Elk Rawhide

by Lynn Thomas

This painting sold yesterday to be placed

in the new Marbleton Clinic.

Thank you!

Shown before, but thought you'd like to see which one it is.
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No snow, although it could have powdered the mountains and we wouldn't have seen it from here. Deb said 108 in Vegas and Gloria said hot and humid in Green Valley. The wind came up strong from the north and nearly tore the back door off the hinges every time we tried to go out. It cleared off by evening and the full golden moon was exquisite shining through the dark remnants of the storm clouds.

Carrie and Lorraine came over late yesterday afternoon to see the art show. They had been interested in the painting on rawhide of the tipis in an aspen grove for the reception area of the new Marbleton Clinic. I'm very pleased to have it go there. It will be interesting to see how it is displayed - we discussed possibilities for framing or how it will be presented. They also took some prints.

Carrie also kindly brought us homemade soup, bread and jam. We had the bread for dinner and it's absolutely delicious. It tastes wonderful to my out of kilter taster, so I really enjoyed it. And so did Joe. Carrie gave me such a caring hug in the yard, it seemed like a special blessing out under our Wyoming sky. I enjoyed seeing her again, and meeting Lorraine.

For dinner I had made chicken and noodles for dinner from a Ridley's roasted chicken with Carrie's bread and Melita's fresh lettuce and Bonnie's greenhouse tomatoes. Nothing tastes as good as home grown tomatoes. The dogs got all the chicken skin and scraps so they had a good dinner too. Puttered around with different chores today, mostly still taking it easy. I got the last pile of scrap reference filed away into the file cabinets. It was tempting just to throw it in the trash, but I went ahead and saved them. The stack had been waiting ever since before I went for surgery. Another thing to scratch off the list. HA!

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Leaves in Late Summer

Cousin Iris called from Houston this morning and it was really nice to talk to her. Clayton is getting braces on his teeth next week. It's already time to go back to school and they have been shopping for new school clothes. Tayler will leave for college in Reno in a few days too. I think they said she wants to be a publisher. I know she's going to do well with her schooling and college years. They are all going up together, and Debbie and Curtis will stay several days until she gets all settled. There are lots of parent meetings and get togethers. She and her high school friend Angela? have a dormitory room together, so they will get that all fixed up too.

Last night I watched Lawrence of Arabia. I just can't imagine what it took to make a movie like that. Where ever did they get all the camels, wonderful horses and Arabians to act in the huge group scenes. It said they thought it would take 5 months and it took two and a half years. How would they feed and house all those people? Tonight it's Casablanca and then Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

On this day in 1977, Elvis Presley died at 42 in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis Presley said, "Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine."(I didn't admire his kind of ambition, but he had a good voice.)

Friday August 15 2008

Horse Creek - Near Dubois

12x16 Plein Air Oil Painting

by Lynn Thomas

Hmmm, here I am ready to blog with nothing much to say. August is half over. Not feeling the greatest this morning, but hopefully that will improve. Yesterday's blog was long enough for several days. Anyway got it started for today and will come back to write later. Carrie is coming over this afternoon to look at some paintings for the new Marbleton Clinic. We're trying to set up a meeting early next week with the artists and Jo and maybe the architect for the Community and Art Center. It's pretty cloudy, but not really suggesting rain. Cool enough for a sweatshirt to start off with anyway.

Was just thinking it's feeling like fall and then Sally had posted this so I copied it for you. Thanks Sally! This is us. - - -THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR WESTERN AND CENTRAL WYOMING..DAY ONE...TODAY AND TONIGHT SNOW SHOWERS ARE EXPECTED IN THE BIG HORN...SOUTHERN ABSAROKA AND WIND RIVER MOUNTAINS TODAY. THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS WILL BE MOST STRONGLY IMPACTED...ESPECIALLY THE EASTERN SLOPES...WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR 2 TO 6 INCHES OF SNOW ABOVE 8500 FEET BEFORE SNOW TAPERS OFF THIS AFTERNOON. LIGHTER AMOUNTS OF SNOW ARE EXPECTED IN THE ABSAROKA AND WIND RIVER MOUNTAINS WITH 2 TO 3 INCHES POSSIBLE THROUGH THIS EVENING. MORE ISOLATED THUNDER STORMS ARE EXPECTED EAST OF THE DIVIDE THIS AFTERNOON WHICH MAY PRODUCE HEAVY RAIN AND SMALL HAIL. THESE HEAVIER SHOWERS MAY ALSO TEMPORARILY LOWER THE SNOW LEVEL DOWN TO AROUND 8000 FEET IN THE MOUNTAINS..

Thursday August 14 2008

Big Horn Sheep

20x24 Oil Painting

by Lynn Thomas

One of the newly scanned paintings.

The darks are too dark and I haven't figured out how to

just take that out. The scenery is Shadow Lakes.

Yesterday I made Joe the recipe book he has asked for - some of his simple to make favorite dishes. It turned out to be about 50 pages. There are a few empty pages in case we think of something else to go in there. I can think of one of his mother's salad dressing recipes that I had forgotten about. I had bought a special notebook and plastic envelope pages to put them in. He wanted them to have large bold print so he could read them. I printed them off letter sized with size 18 font. That is another thing to cross off the list!

After I cleaned the carpet last week I cleaned my upholstered office chair which was absolutely filthy. It took about an hour going over and over it, and I finally sprayed it with Clorox kitchen cleaner which routed out a lot of the stains. It's so much nicer to sit down in now and looks quite good again. I was ready to trash it and get a new one, but this will do for a while longer. Off the list!

Today I got through a very large pile of paperwork that had been haunting me for months, What a good feeling that is. I have some bills to pay and then can go on to other things without that hanging over. Scratched off the List!

I sorted out all the art magazines that have piled up and will give about 50 away if I can find someone to take them. Guess there's always the Rendezvous Pointe art room. This will be the first time I haven't gone through all the magazines to clip out "scrap" for my reference files. It's hard to leave it alone. That is something I've done and saved since I was a kid but I don't need to do that any more. Scratched it off the list!

I waited until 2:30 for the the TV repair men and then called the TV place since I had to go to town. He hadn't heard from the repairmen recently. They were doing some installation. We will set up another appointment for them to work on the TVs next week. I need to be here when they come.

This afternoon I had to go in to Pinedale Clinic and get the chemo pump taken off. I sure didn't feel like driving in, but it turned out it was a good thing to just get out and take the drive.

While in there I got another long pending chore done, and that was taking all my paperwork on the book collection back to the Museum of the Mountain Man for a small correction in the agreement. I've had the paperwork since January. About 2000 they started putting a phrase into the contract that the museum could sell or dispose of things that aren't of interest to them in order to raise funding. But my wishes for the collection, books, slides and art reference, was that it should all stay intact. So Laurie the director and Peggy? the curator in residence and I discussed what is the best way to word the contracts and also what actually is the best disposition of the collection. That is fixed now to reflect my wishes for it all to stay intact. They were very helpful and agreeable. I'm sure the proper thing will be done. They are also happy to hear that Zane is getting all the slides onto the DVDs. At the same time we straightened out some questions about paintings that I had donated, and that should be in order now. A few more things to cross off the list!

We made a provision that IF the new Community and Art Center has a place for the collection , which is primarily an art reference collection, such as a library - and they want the collection there, that it can go from the Museum of the Mountain Man to the Fine Arts Center Library. By that time, I may no longer be here so I wanted to make sure that the right thing happens with the collection. When we started this process in the '90's I didn't think a Fine Art Center would be built in Pinedale in my lifetime. But of course now it is quite likely to be built and finished within three to five years probably. So my collection will either stay at the MMM or go intact to the Center, depending on currently unknown circumstances that will happen in the future. So far the plans for the new art center don't name a space for a library although the artists have requested one.

I took two paintings in to Melita's so she can keep them for Dawn who called and said she wanted them after they had visited last week. That was nice to have a reason to go see Melita. She gave us some fresh leaf lettuce out of her wonderful garden. I saw her spectacular flowers and the delphiniums on the south side of her house are as high as the roof. I got home about 5:45 and Joe was having cereal for dinner, so that's what I had too. And some strawberries.

Another really lovely day here - cool and some wind. Maybe some chances of rain in the next couple of days. But it sounds like that will be further east and south. Maybe only in the 50s for highs. We recently had a couple of nights below freezing already, and the flowers in the pots wilted a little, but seem to have come back.

Even though feeling very fatigued, I'm not feeling all that "bad". Same things going on that are usual. Food is tasting awful, but I eat it anyway.

Wednesday August 13 2008

What the Flower Bed in Back Used to Look Like
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Joe went to town early for his blood tests. Sure another nice day out there. I got up about 9 - I'm feeling better this morning than I did after the last treatment, although my eyes are still so sore. It's real hard to want to do anything that I have to use them. Even so, Joe has asked me to make him a recipe book with large print of some of his favorite recipes. So I might just work on that. He probably will never really use it, but he wants it so I'll go through all the recipes and pick some out. Otherwise, I will just take it easy today, but come back if anything interesting happens later.