Forest Royalty and Ostrich Egg

My new life here in Michigan is keeping me busy in a different way than my old life in Arizona.  My Tucson life revolved around my art and Southern Arizona Art Guild functions.  I worked the gallery a few times a month and was part of many art exhibitions and show openings. I spent many hours each day painting. We went out to lunch a few times a week with friends. We had church activities. We bowled a couple of times a week.  Roger kept busy with his stained glass commissions.

 Now that we have moved things have changed.  We spend much time with home renovations which include our house and two houses belonging to family members.  We attend church each Sunday and joined a bowling league which meets once a week.  Instead of leisurely lunches with friends at upscale restaurants we share many meals with family members mostly at our house or at fast food places.  Our art has taken a backseat to family and house projects but that is okay.  We are loving being so close to our family and we like the laid back feel of living in a small town.

 When we were younger and planing our retirement we always thought we would move to a small town and renovate a century house but 20 years ago when we retired we changed those plans and moved to a brand new house in an active adult community in Arizona and turned our focus to our art.  We now think of that as our first retirement.  This move to MI is our second retirement which fits the plans we made long ago.  Once we get the house projects done and build our new art studios we will once again make creating art main activity.

 I know that it will take awhile to get established  in the art community here and I have taken the first steps by applying to join the Three Rivers Artist Guild.  I will have to be juried in and that doesn't happen until January.  I also plan to apply to a juried show at the Carnegie Institute of the Arts which again, doesn't happen until January.  Hopefully I will be accepted in both.

 In the mean time I still make some time to paint and have finished two projects which I will post here.  The first is a painting I call "Forest Royalty".  I thought this would be a good fit for the area where I now live.  The size of this painting is 18 X 20.

The other project that I completed is the ostrich egg that I mentioned in a previous post.  I had a hard time getting a good photo because I kept getting a light reflection spot in the center of the egg. I finally gave up and decided to post the photos with the spot.  Here are two of photos showing the egg from different sides.

I am currently working on a tray for my grand-daughter Stacy.  After I complete that I have to work on refinishing a few pieces of furniture for my living room and also we are building some shelves for our new office that I will have to paint.

Thanksgiving is coming up soon and I will be the dinner host.  There should be 20 family members coming.  I am still waiting on my new kitchen to be installed which should happen next week.  I'm hoping it will be done in time for Thanksgiving.

One more thing, even though I no longer live in Tucson I will still have art showing at the SAAG Gallery Holidazzle show.  If you live in Tucson this will be your last chance to buy my work at the gallery.  After that you will have to contact me at rogpamd@msn.com  and order online.  I'll post more information on Holidazzle in an upcoming post.