Oranges and Apples Take two

So I couldn't leave this painting alone. I just couldn't accept that I couldn't do better, so I went after it again. Now I'm happy with it. Obviously I changed the background, which I realized was dull. I let one of my dish towels model. Then I worked more on the orange and changed the color of the shadows on the peel. They were flat and colorless. The paint had set enough so that I was able to make the whites whiter. It took me more than two hours to get things the way I wanted them, but I'm glad I spent the time rather than doing another one. I did buy oranges, and I think I'll still do another painting of them. If not, I am still ahead of the game since they are the best oranges I have ever eaten. I had to get a whole bag of them, which I almost didn't do because of the cost. I have a lot of gastronomic pleasure ahead of me.

Toni and I have been practicing for our debut on recorders, which will take place on August 25 at my opening reception at the gallery. It's amazing how much work it takes to perfect a piece of music (or get as close as we can). We have always pretty much accepted our mistakes and moved on. I guess we thought it wasn't worth the effort to correct what we did wrong, which we assumed would take just a few more tries. How wrong we were. We have adjusted phrasing, tempo, and even the notes themselves, until the eight pieces we have chosen flow endlessly through our brains. Certainly we will be glad to bid Gastoldi, Morley, Johnson, Locke, and Boismortier good-bye.........and they can take their 15th and16th century music with them.

On another note (heh), I called Alice at her daughter's house in Connecticut. It was a meaningful step in the process of changing and/or ending our relationship. Her voice traveled to me from that far place and I had to accept that she was really there. She was happy, unpacking her things and setting up her new room. She sounded like her old self, and I had to realize that the sick Alice I have come to know had taken away the healthy one, too. Up till now it wasn't the person I had known who left me. It was the person she had become-- sick, emaciated, weak, dependent, listless and self-absorbed. When I heard her old voice on the phone, I saw that that Alice had taken my old Allice with her.

It was a shock that I didn't foresee.