Getting Ready

Yesterday David and I took the acrylics I've done for the Machias show down to the gallery. The floor is big enough to assemble the squares and see the entire paintings at once. The middle picture is David taking a picture of Demeter and the fire. At the top is Persephone getting ready to pick the flower, and the bottom is, of course, the herd of horses. I didn't get a picture of Demeter because I couldn't seem to get it in the frame. This one of Persephone is skewed, but still looks pretty much like the real thing. The horses painting is missing both ends, but not by much.

Today I picked out the Epping Road pastels that I plan to use in that show. I want to arrange twelve of them from summer to fall to winter to spring. This is meant to show the power of Demeter the Goddess of agriculture, of death and rebirth. The concept came after the drawings, which were actually nothing but representations of the blueberry fields in all seasons. With the show on my mind for so long, the pastels slid into the myth without much help from my consciousness and gave me what I needed to flesh out my contribution without extra work.

So, things are coming down to the wire. Details not involving the actual creation of the work are pretty much all that remain. The opening was postponed, but I believe I could have been ready for the orginal date without tearing my hair out. This is probably the first time in my life I have worked on a long-term goal steadily but unhurriedly and got it done on time. Of course I shouldn't speak too soon, and already I am contemplating extra work to fill in the gap. I want to make written explanations of what is gong on in the pictures. It's the same approach I always take when I am about to be on time. I misjudge how long it is going to take to do "one more thing" and end up scrambling to arrive a few minutes late.