Happy Birthday David

Sat - June 30, 2007
Howdy! I’ve been away for a few days but I have been quite busy - plus - of course, it IS summer, which tends to pull anyone away from such things as blogging.
In any event, before I depart for an overnight visit to DC ( where I have been commissioned by close friends to create a large-scale digital portrait - I’ll be taking the photos today), I wanted to wish my OLDER brother Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday David.

Hey - here’s a photo taken in Boston the year that my brother was born (appropriate since we were born in Massachusetts).



Tsk, Tsk, look how OLD this photo seems. Look at the big OLD truck and the signs.

This is probably a typical look for nurses in the hospital the same year ...



Aren't those glasses considered "vintage" now?

All of this in fun of course. Actually, he's only a bit shy of two years older than I. More like 1 year and 11 months. So, "I ain't no Spring Chicken" either - though I was born in the Spring.



So - on that note, I'll simply say Happy Birthday David.

Tuesday, Tuesday

It’s Tuesday, June 26, 2007. The clock on my computer reads 1:44. I’ve walked to a local coffee shop, despite the punishing heat and humidity. It’s where I sit at this very moment by a window which offers an unobstructed view of car repair shop. It seems as if every available space in the lot is taken up with some sort of auto in need of repair. The light is glaring, white, and hazy. It makes the heat seem that much more oppressive.
I can’t seem to get it together today which is why I’m at this coffee shop to begin with. I don’t often come here, though it’s pleasant enough and only a short walk from my home. I needed a change of environment no matter how subtle or close by. So I choose this coffee shop with it’s bare pine wood floor, over priced lattes, and barely functioning air conditioner. As I wrote that last line, a somewhat frumpy fellow in line dropped a fistful of change all over the floor behind me. I could watch him slowly and silently pick up the coins out of the corner of my eye as I was typing.
I don’t know why I’m in this funk. Or perhaps I do, but I have chosen to ignore it. Or perhaps compartmentalize it. I would place it in the “things I am aware of but can really do nothing about at the present moment” compartment. I could then start looking for sub-catagories in that file, such as, “temporary malaise”, “general feeling of discontent”, “lingering yet temporary ennui tinged with disillusionment”. Nothing that I haven’t felt before. It will pass with the heated haze. Though, it is frustrating that I can’t seem to overcome it enough to get motivated to work in the studio. Though I have actually started a new work, I feel completely disentranced about the process. This, too, will pass. It’s like writer’s block with a paintbrush.

Edith Piaf on a Sat. Night

Happy Birthday Nick!!

Last weekend was lovely on several levels. I spent it at the beach with George and our dear friend Marnie was able to visit as well. It was a very full weekend and to document all of it into this entry would require more time than I am ready or able to devote to it. So, in order to catch up on the last 4 missing days so that I may move onto my the true subject of this post, I am going to create a little list here of experiences that have occurred since my last entry. This list covers the time between my last post from the morning of Friday, June 15 to now. This list is in no particular chronological order, and, frankly, not all of the experiences contained within the list are necessarily “positive” (though most were). Since most concepts of “positive” and “negative” experiences are relative anyway, I’ll leave it up to you to decide which is which based upon your own personal life experience.
Here tis...
▪ I watched the season opener of “The Closer”
▪ I picked fresh raspberries from the bush in my garden
▪ I attended an summer garden cocktail party with about 150 other people guests
▪ I finally watched “Batman Begins”
▪ Looked for sea glass on the beach
▪ Drank vanilla/blueberry vodka martinis
▪ Purchased a pair of linen pants at Banana Republic
▪ Received a royalty check from an art gallery
▪ Learned of the news of the sudden death of the father of a close friend
▪ Sketched in my sketchbook
▪ Met a man who’s partner was killed in NYC on 9/11
▪ Made a definitive decision to end a friendship gone bad
▪ Purchased and began reading “Manhunt”
▪ Completed a crossword puzzle
▪ Ate pizza
▪ Ate fried chicken
▪ Lost 3 pounds
▪ Engaged in stimulating thought provoking conversation
▪ Made 2 small flower arrangements
▪ Finally learned the meaning behind certain baseball statistics
▪ Danced in my living room
▪ Learned that people who drive vintage cars have to mix lead into the gasoline themselves
▪ Emptied sand from my shoes
▪ Went grocery shopping
▪ Was bitten by mosquitoes
▪ Woke up early

---

End of list. Now onto something else.
Today happens to be the birthday of my dear younger brother Nicholas. He was born on this day 29 years ago, and event that I remember quite clearly since I was 13 at the time. So, in order to visually put things in perspective, here are some images that came back as hits from the search engine at flickr.com when I put 1978 into the search field.
Enjoy.

Bob White. Bob White. Bob White

I ran across this disheartening story this morning on the CNN Science and Space page

- Audubon: Common backyard birds becoming less common -



When I was a child in Kentucky, I remember hearing the distinctive call of the Bob White so frequently that eventually they faded into the background. It was one of those things that I just never thought about disappearing. Now, I'm not sure if there are still Bob Whites in Kentucky or not (I'll ask my sister), but according to the article, there are now none in the state of Pennsylvania.
There is however still this -
http://www.carriagehousebrands.com/bobwhite.html

refreshed. regenerated. renewed.

It’s been almost 3 weeks since my last entry. What does that mean? Well, it means that I have been busy of course. That, and a touch of simply not being in the mood. Today is Thursday, June 14, 2007. In what I’ll will assume is unusual weather, the temperature outside is a brisk 55 degrees fahrenheit, making it 67 degrees in the house. I slept with the windows open, all of them, last night and feel the better person for it this morning.

One of the events that colored my brief sabbatical from this blog was the opening of my recent exhibit, “Expressions” ( I didn’t choose the name) at the Chasen Gallery in Charlotte, N.C. The show was well attended and there seems to be some strong interest in my work. We had rather a whirlwind trip there and back and didn’t get to see much of the city at all, but we did enjoy ourselves from little we did take in.

One of the other events that took up my time was the redesign of my web site, www.SPROUSEART.com.



Here is part of a promo piece that I sent out via email. I still like these treatment, though now I have some post email blitz afterthought. When I used the terms, “refreshed. regenerated. renewed.” I thought it was a clever way of pointing out that my website has been totally redesigned. It made sense to me then, and it still does, now. But it seems that I didn’t take into account other implied messages. I only make notice of this now after receiving a response email from an acquaintance that I haven’t seen or heard from in a while. It read simply “Where the hell are you ???!!!!!”.

I’m still not sure how to read it. Now, its true that I haven’t seen this fellow in at least a year. We used to run into each other somewhat frequently at different art events at the beach. However, my schedule has changed quite a bit since that time and I’m not at the beach on a full time basis now thusly I'm not at the amount of art events at the beach that I used to attend. And, frankly, some of those events were so stiflingly pretentious ("emperor's new clothes" type of exhibits) that I've marked them off of my list.

I’ll assume that he was making reference to the amount of time that has passed since our last meeting rather than ponder the possibility that he may have misread my email and my ad line “refreshed. regenerated. renewed”.

Though, my mind does wander. Is it possible that he may think that I am the triple R that is being referenced? Could he possibly think that I just returned from a peaceful stay at the sanitarium (is that the correct term?I guess it’s better than what my parents called it when we were growing up - the “funny farm”). Or maybe he thinks that I just completed a few months in rehab or that I am a free man once again now having been able to finally remove the facial bandages after a lengthy recoup following a marathon session of plastic surgery.

Well, I guess I’ll know the answers to these questions if people at the beach begin asking leading questions - and they always do.

"It is better to be looked over than overlooked." Mae West