Show at the Gallery

I'm copying here the statement I wrote for my show of the Epping Road series at the gallery. The reception for the show was Aug. 25, and I meant to take pictures to post but forgot my camera. It was a good opening and lots of people came. Toni and I played the music we had rehearsed and that went well also. In fact, several people came just to hear it. Some of them stood around to listen and then clapped for us. Many more ignored us and talked so loudly in the background that we could barely hear each other. Their lack of enthusiasm cheered us, since we knew our mistakes would not be noticed in the din. We had seven short pieces in our program, and after about four of them we had exhausted the attention span of our audience. Next time we will consider that and either shorten or divide the program.

Just as the reception was beginning, a couple from Atlanta bought two of the paintings, and later in the evening another one was sold. Over the next few days two of my fruit paintings in the Food Show were bought by a local resident. Each one was priced rather low, but the number of them brings up the amount of money to a significant (for me) level.

By now Toni and I have happily moved on to other composers...Loeillet and Telemann. It was amazing to see how much we have slipped in our ability to sight read after playing the same thing for so long. I had almost forgotten, too, that I was new to the alto recorder and was shocked at how many notes I haven't learned to finger yet. Humbled, I put my shoulder to the wheel.
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EPPING ROAD

All of these paintings depict actual places along one road just off Route 1 in the town of Columbia. I discovered this world by accident and was so totally enthralled that I spent a whole year doing pastels of it. Over and over again I returned and immersed myself in the timeless, raw beauty all around me. I never met another human being in all those visits. The place became mine, and mine alone. I hoarded it, never wanting to share it with anyone. I studied it in detail and in its entirety, always feeling that I was in a very special place and allowed to experience something breathtakingly unique. I dreamed about it, thought about it, talked about it, and immersed myself in the paintings of it.
Well, Epping Road turns out to be simply one of hundreds of side roads that traverses one of hundreds of blueberry fields in Washington County. Since I found it, I realize it is not so unique, and no more beautiful than so many others. Nevertheless, it will always be a magical place for me. In my own mind and heart, there will never be another place as wonderfully serene and timeless as Epping Road, or another place where I can be the only person in the world, content with my solitary existence, wanting nothing more than to look around me and marvel at the spectacle offered by nature.