The opening of These Foolish Things seems like only yesterday, but time has flown by and my hasty departure only one day after the show left me with  many things undone. Mostly the chance to thank everyone who not only made the opening a wonderful and successful evening, but helped in any way before , during and after. That includes all the lovely volunteers at The Kerr Arts and Cultural Center, friends and family, my secret lettering artist,  Kevin Tully and especially David Smith for taking down the show in my absence and getting it all safely back into crates and storage. I thank ALL my special art patrons and hope you will enjoy your new purchases… it is an honor to sell a piece of art.

I am embarrassed to say I still am not prepared to post the full body of work on my site, as I’m at the mercy of those with technical skills that are beyond mine though I do hope to have it up by the end of this month. Good things take time you know.

In the meantime, I will attempt to post a series of shots on my blog taken by Kevin Tully, who graciously volunteered his talents on opening night.

With endless thanks again to all!

(photo by Kevin Tully)

This is the time of year I start to pack up my Nevada life and drive back to Texas for the winter. In truth, I started packing things up over a month ago – anticipation, you see. We all have things that we look forward to in anticipation. Vacations, grandchildren, children, promotions, holidays, weddings and for some, just the next day. We can look forward in anticipation to both big and small things.

For me it’s a road trip.  

I’m not sure anything  compares to everything that leads up to the excitement and pleasure I derive from planning a road trip. This year the trip has the added twist of a scrapbook documentation of  3 days on the road. I find pleasure in those small things as mentioned previously, like the driving snacks, packing the car just right, organizing the maps by each days progress. We all have our little road trip diversions and my husband has an abnormal fascination with mile markers. I like the roadside oddity. Other travel companions I have had love their music library. Researchers say that talking about your upcoming ‘anticipations’ , be they vacations or weddings or the like, increases your happiness level – so I blog on!

The WELCOME TO signs along the interstates and WELCOME CENTERS are another favorite of mine. You can drive across France, but you are pretty much always in France. I love the uniqueness that driving across the United States affords as you pass from one distinctively different state to another, each welcoming you with open arms and also letting you know when you are leaving. WELCOME! You can live here if you want, or just passing through is alright with us as well, so goodbye – YOU ARE NOW LEAVING…

And yes, I anticipate my time spent in Texas. It’s a time to immerse myself  completely in my art. This year I’m beginning a new body of work and I have even more anticipation regarding what that holds. Ideas and visions for the paintings live in my head for now and occupy mile after mile of the upcoming road trip. I’m never bored when I drive and think I would have made a pretty good truck driver in another life.

What else do the researchers say about ANTICIPATION? They say that anticipating the future delivers more happiness than reflecting on the past.

Given that, even if the road trip holds disasters ahead, or the body of work I envision in my head disappoints, I will have had plenty of excitement and positive expectations built up to offset things that don’t quite come to pass.

” THE COLOR OF SPRINGTIME IS IN THE FLOWERS, THE COLOR OF WINTER IS IN THE IMAGINATION.” Terri Guillemets

Enjoy your winter friends, wherever you are.

I’m standing in my garage looking at everything that was previously in my Reno studio. The sight of my ‘ art stuff ‘ relegated to a cold , dirty, dark, garage makes my head hurt. It’s a nightmare begging for organization. By choice I have given my studio space up to my step-son while he finishes his last year of college.

I have been without a studio before, so I am not terrorized by the loss of the work space itself, rather the assembled stacks of what I have deemed  necessities to create art. My first inclination is to pitch it all. My second is to organize it and find a way to walk out there and find it a pleasing environment. My third is simply to spend the year creating art outside of the studio. I am choosing the third option, though it will still necessitate me organizing the nightmare somewhat.

It’s easy to get too comfortable with our life. Stay in a routine … after all as humans we naturally look for patterns to organize our life around. So throwing my creative environment up in the air and seeing where it will land is alot like standing on a piece of ice as you feel it breaking away from the shore line. Still, I am, as is my wont, more excited about how I will adapt to the year rather than losing what was and standing outside of my comfort zone.

We get used to having  the familiar around us. It comforts us. It can also make us lazy. Forced out of the routine I created in my comfortable studio, I am now going back to the spontaneity of life drawing, location painting, photography and letting the outside world become my inspiration again rather than creating from within the walls of my studio. It’s suddenly exciting again to be working within a living , breathing event as it happens. And this summer when it’s time again for camping, the woods will be my studio. In truth, it’s like a rebirth of wonder to be free of the studio and engaged in the world outside.

So, I’m rolling with it. Do you have something in your path that seems like an obstacle? Life is now in session – don’t waste a minute of it.

You still have choices – go left or go right … or roll away the stone.

Today was the annual Italian Festival in downtown Reno. There are numerous ethnic festivals throughout the year here, celebrating the Hispanic culture, the Greeks,  and more, but the Italian festival is the last big street fair event of the year before the town rolls up the streets for the long winter ahead. In my 5 years here, the event has always been lucky enough to have had a simply gorgeous Fall day, and today was no exception. Before you even park the car you can smell the garlic and food preparations and hear the music. There is of course a ‘best of ‘ cook-off for sauce, and fresh pesto is being made from one end to the other with giant vats of sauce  bubbling up and down the street,  all competing for the honors.

The smells are nothing short of heaven.

My father was a first generation Italian and the Italian side of my family was how we leaned . It was large and wonderful, teeming with Aunts and Uncles and a small army of cousins. Family mattered when I was growing up  as a child and  nearly every Sunday was spent at Gramma & Grampa’s house. I have nothing but wonderful ,  sweet memories of that part of my youth. Gramma spoke hardly a word of English, though it didn’t matter to her or us. Her goal was to make sure we were fed as often as possible before we left her house in spite of my mother’s protestations of, “Ma, they just ate! ”

There was always room for another bowl of my Gramma’s pasta.

I have only two dear Aunts left now, and all but one of my cousins. Sadly, I hardly ever see any of them, and when I do it’s to hear of yet another passing of these lovely people who made up such a big part of my young life. I’m sad to have grown so distant from my cousins and regret not being in touch as we now grow older.

They say every journey begins from home. I ventured out into the world as a young adult very confident of who I was and where and who I came from. I had a  solid home base as a launching pad in life. I had a culture and a family with a history to relate to. They gave me so much by simply  being there. I’m sorry that so many are gone and I no longer have the opportunity to thank them for that. And if they were here,  I would let them all know, that  family mattered  – very much.

(featured photo , canvas collage – WISH YOU WERE HERE , by Catherine Massaro)

I wished for love – I have been loved.

I wished for money – it came and went.

I wished for a car – it was freedom!

I wished for long hair – then cut it all off.

I wished for a job – I got a paycheck.

I wished for a warm winter – I still do.

I wished for excitement – and found it.

I wished for a divorce – and got it.

I wished for peace of mind – daily.

I wished for wonder – and it surrounds me.

I wished for escape – and learned how to leave.

I wished for a studio – dreams come true.

I wished for New Mexico – days of heaven.

I wished for connections – where is my tribe?

I wished for friends – they give me joy.

I wished for a road trip – to never end.

I wished for my youth – and I got a grandchild.

I wished for a good nights sleep – and to die peacefully in it. 

I wished for art school – where I found myself.

I wished for a pony – but never got it.

I wished for my period – most of the time it came.

I wished for a girl – and got a boy, with no regrets.

( see ART tab for  WHAT I WISHED FOR  canvas collage)

Damn it’s hot! 

Go bite some water.

(photo by Catherine Massaro)

Where did I get it?   JUNKEE CLOTHING EXCHANGE, 960 S. Virginia Street, Reno, NV

Boy there was a great write up in the Sunday New York Times travel section on the beautiful Texas Hill Country. It’s filled with many of my favorite places around the area, but with only 36 hours and lots of roads to discover, many left out. Fredericksburg, in the hill country, happens to be the location of my winter home/studio. I don’t do winters anymore as it  seems I’ve spent a lifetime escaping winter. If New Mexico had no winter, I’d surely still be there, but Texas is where I would rather be when it gets cold. So around December in Reno, NV, I pack up and head to what Jeannie Ralston refers to:

“the Hill Country—being Texas at it’s finest—is like nowhere else in the world.”

Amen to that , sister.

(featured image – HILL COUNTRY HOMAGE , canvas collage by Catherine Massaro)