A Week-end Visitor and a Painting

If I sold paintings by the pound, this one of my living room would be worth a fortune. I put the paint on so thick it is actually three-dimensional. I had to, because I couldn't get the values right and kept piling it on until I could accept the results. Since it is oil paint, each layer had to be thick enough to sit on top of the existing one without mixing into it. Of course I could have waited for it to dry before I went back into it, but that is not in my nature. In the end, I like the painterly quality. It was interesting to try to give the impression of stained glass. I think this falls into a "what else could it be?" category rather than any real representation of the window. I will probably try the subject again in some other medium, but I am quite fond of this one.

Diana spent the week-end with me. We ate hash and eggs, which used to be a favorite of ours when I used to visit at her house, now next door. This time the eggs were fresh from my chickens. We had them again with bacon for breakfast. We had our usual companionable visit, each working on our own handwork projects as we talked over tea. On Saturday night we went to the "International Dinner" at the Arts Center where I stuffed myself with wonderful food from other countries. It's an annual fund raiser. People can contribute a dish from a foreign country or just enjoy the food. The price is less for those who bring a dish to share. There were over a hundred people there, I'm sure, eating under a crisscross of flags hanging from the ceiling. It is quite elegant, with tablecloths and candles. There is live music with an international theme.

On Sunday we took in the movie, again at the Arts Center. I wasn't able to hear the dialogue very well so it was pretty much lost on me. On both days we went over to Diana's house for a few hours and painted together. She wanted to spend some time there even though the house was basically shut down for the winter. The wood stove made it very warm, which probably motivated Diana as much as anything else. My house is quite cold, and she spent the entire visit dressed in a turtle neck, a sweater, a down vest, and a jacket. The jacket had a hood, which she pulled up over the knitted hat she wore. I tried to accommodate her somewhat by turning the heat up to 62 (an extravagance), but evidently it didn't do the job.

All in all, it was a very pleasant week-end with enough vestiges of the past to create that same aura of escape from real life. So many times we left our usual homes, fleeing everything that passed as our normal routine, to heave a sigh of relief as we settled into our alternate life. It was often a desperate move, but the time spent immersed in art and friends rejuvenated us time and again. We are older now, and less desperate, thank God. Those past extremes of emotion and experience had their charm, though. It takes suffering to experience relief, and the relief was wonderful.