The Job Completed!

If "feeling the burn" is a good part of exercise then I did pretty good yesterday.  I feel it everywhere.  My effort to save the deer is finished, now they should just be embarrassed when they fail to jump the fence.
   I was reminded while working there that it was these same clients who just last year wanted me to make an iron base for a 20 pound piece of marble.  A piece of marble I could not lift out of their car!  That cancer stuff and chemo cure seem like a lifetime ago, a different me entirely.  I remember not being able to turn the key with one hand in the ignition of my little truck.  Two hands to start the car and I could barely walk a block.  What a difference a year makes.  I am so lucky!
   I have done most of my Christmas shopping too and the challenge I gave myself was pretty easy.  Buy only
stuff Made in U.S.A.  You can "Google" that and get pages and pages of content, tons of ideas, lots of holiday discounts and often free shipping.  I bought a lot of clothes this year mostly because I came up with the idea for this Christmas, "wear American or go naked"!  It is not going to be as exciting as I thought.  We make a lot of clothes!  We even make socks!
   I think we must be poor marketers because we do make a lot of stuff and no one is aware of this.  We need a naked Paris Hilton to push our wares.  Maybe naked but dressed in American clothes?  We have no spokesperson, no one telling us what is available or where to get it.  Don't get me wrong.  I like foreign things, exotic things.  I just prefer the days when French Perfume was made in France and not in a vat in a Chinese prison camp.  My Mexican friend, Oscar, tells me that all Mexican souvenirs are now made in China as are most American Flags!

 Stone Post with Light Fixture

   I liked shopping "on line".  There were no crowds, no tattered and littered piles of gone over stuff.  I didn't feel pushed or rushed and in a hurry.  I could leisurely read about the product and in most cases I was prompted.  If you liked that then you might also like this!  Clever, someone was paying attention to me!
   I think I enjoyed my Christmas shopping experience this year more than ever.  I spent no money on gas whatsoever and in fact did most of my shopping while in my bathrobe!  Now if we could only get Paris to do that!

I make Big Art, you can see it HERE

A Job Half Done

In the front of this property the deer are safer.  I would imagine that it is not all ideal being a deer.  There are coyotes and cougars around here and probably hunters too but at least this fence will no longer harm them.  I built this fence P.C. (pre cancer) years ago and it really amazes me when I see it now.  A Grand Entry and over 300' of ornamental iron fence.  I had discovered steel finials by then and unlike cast iron finials these will not break off.  The fence was designed to keep a couple Scotty Dogs in the property not to make it deer proof.  Sometimes a lazy deer would not jump hard nor high enough and would become impaled on the fence.

 One of my "Stone Posts"

   So I have added a "trip bar" over the finials and now a failed attempt will not become fatal.  The front of the property is completed and today I will complete the back section.

 Picture to prove it.

   For the record I wore boots!  It was cold, freezing and damp when we began and you could see the frozen spider webs along the fence line.
   I am so sore and so tired!  I won't even tell you about my hands; I don't want to hear it.  Today it will be done.

More of what I do is HERE

Sometimes Nothing Happens

Oh Dear, I am getting e-mails, "are you alright? you are not blogging!"  No, I am not laying on the beach in some tropical Paradise and I am not so engulfed in my painting that I am left unaware of the world around me.
I think I am in a "Winter Mode".  My little gallery is finished, warm and pristine in it's cleanliness. Everything is organized, three easels set up, brushes out and tubes of paint all in categories of color. I am ready but nothing is happening!
   I welded and cut steel and fabricated for three days, working on my "deer fence trip bar" and all of the pieces are at the powder coated being painted.  I like this time in a job.  What I can do has been done and I am waiting on other's.  My excuse.  I am waiting.
   Truthfully the thought of this fence makes me tired.  Over 300 feet, 37 pieces with different measurements
by maybe an eight of an inch for a precise fit.  Numbered and marked in a secret code I hope that I remember.  I will need to take ladders with me for the installation.  I am mentally making a list.  All of my battery tools and extra batteries, the concrete drill  for just the one single fastener that will be in brick, drill bits, tech screws and the level, of course.  What if I mismeasured?  I need a way to fix any error on the job.
Anticipations for when things could go wrong!
   It is going to be cold and I do not look forward to that.  I will dig my boots out from the back of the closet and curse because I know the laces are broken.  Always, next time, I tell myself I will replace them!
My hands hurt and the cold weather just makes them worse.  If I wear gloves I can't pick anything up.  I have always hated gloves.  It will be a three vicodine day, I am sure of that!
   At the moment nothing special is happening.  That is mostly the case while you are waiting.
   I am reading though.  I found a great book and will tell you about it when it is finished.  It is about America, a very great recession, about Cancer, about Grover Cleveland, the death of American Industry and bankruptcy.  Just like now in a way but 1895.  We have been here before!
   So I am hibernating, put away for winter like my garden, curled up in front of the fire with a good book.

A Room With a View

My  little gallery/studio room is finished, at least as much as anything is ever finished in my life.  Life is all about change, additions and subtractions, making things do and making them comfortable.  Sometime this Spring I will add a window or at least replace the door to the back with one that has a openable window.

 Three big blueberry plants outside the front entry.

The ventilation would be nice and I would have more natural lighting.  The main door has a window in it that looks towards the garden and my little plunge pool so I do have a view.

   I like my new room.  The floor (thank you SoozeeQ!) came out great, colorful, hodgepodge, historical and very much "me".  Two coats of "wet-look lacquer" will keep it nice and easy to clean.  More spilled paint will just make it even better.

 The room is waiting for me.

   Mostly it is warm and I love that!  Oregon has cold, rainy winters and it is freezing now.  I have begun the process of moving in, sorting this and that, finding places for things.

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 Soozee's Floor!

 It is my "shop side", the other side of this wall where I can make money and do the metal art I know how to do.  I have no fantacies about creating an income from this gallery side but it will be warm and inviting and offer me another opportunity to try something different.  It will also offer an enticing place to seduce customers!  I will find some metal art to put in this room.
I think my photos are getting screwed up so I will stop for today!  The last one which will probably appear HUGE here but I have lost it is one of my office door, the back door and the door to my "junk room" that I haven't entered yet! yipes!

You can always find me HERE

Don't Trust Anyone Over Thirty

That is my generation, who said that?  I am officially a "part of the problem" today.  It is my birthday and,
man o man, it creeps up on you!  I am 65 today!  and on... Medicare!  That is like saying I am a patient when I am not even sick!  I can get Senior Citizen's Discounts! and I think, a free fishing license!
   I remember my daughter once had a sign posted on her door that said, "Old enough to know better, too young to care!" and I want that sign now, it fits me to a "T".  I am liking this age and pretty much do what I want.  Some days I do a lot and other days I don't accomplish a damned thing and I don't criticize me for it.
I am lucky to even be here.  My year 63 was the battle of my life with Cancer and I won that fight and the year 64 was pretty much spent getting my strength back.  There were many days, months, where I couldn't lift 20 pounds!
   I am younger now for sure.  It is as if I discovered some secret of youth, each day getting a little younger instead of older!  That is pretty cool and I am thankful for that!  Today is my birthday and I am welding up a storm!  Working! and I love it so much, banging and welding and grinding and cutting steel and making noise.
I am Alive!
   If 63 was Cancer and 64 getting stronger 65 will be different again.  I have my Tom-Tom now, I told you about that.  I might just go someplace, hit the road this Spring and do some travelling.  I am thinking about that.  and my Gallery is done!  My easels set up and blank canvasses on the wall, calling me, teasing me.
We will see what happens there.
   I am still after "the perfect tomato", so I will be doing that again this year.  I always save the seeds from the very best of the previous season.  That is the secret to getting older I think.  Saving the seeds and knowing which to throw away.  So much to do.  This will be a great day and just the very beginning into this 65th year.
What I do is HERE

Walls Tell No Tales

 Two coats, "Wet-Look Lacquer

...and Floors Leave Every Single Step.  The walls in a gallery studio need to be plain and simple, a soft white that offers no competition.  I have worked in a lot of bars and fancy night club restaurants and those ceilings are almost always a flat black, blending a mechanical background into nothingness.
We watch where we step giving floors a significant meaning to a room, like a foundation on which everything is built.
   I left the scars, the old paint, the spilled grout, its colorful history and after a proper cleaning applied the two coats of lacquer finish.  I like it.  It will be easy to clean, has a lot of memory and a feel of "do what you want", you can't hurt me!

 View from my office door

This is my clean room compared to the shop half on the other side of this wall but it is still a space for an artist.  It will get dirty.

   I have begun to hang things on the walls, mostly blank steel-framed canvasses as an encouragement for me to do something.  I want a lot of open room on the floor so there will not be much permanent furniture there, mostly stuff displayed, benches and tables that are for sale.

 Sink Counter top

   My easels and painting stations are still stuffed into my office and are eager to get out, wanting to call this room home.  Soon enough the floor will be really dry and there will be a lot of organizing to do, places to put paints and the over 200 brushes that I found at a garage sale.  I still haven't plumbed the sink.  Much to do!

    The sink counter top is brand new concrete and has no history. no browns, no rust, no scars of past abuse and this is a photo of what the green stain looks like on such a virgin area.
I like it but it is missing the character found in the floor.

I get to work for a few days on my "trip bar" for the deer fence but soon I will post the completed gallery photos.

You can always find me HERE

The Deer Killer and updates...

The nicest fence and gated entry system that I have ever built has killed at least three deer.  It is in the country and over 200 feet of very ornamental iron with old Victorian Spear Points as finials, lots of little scrolls to make it even stronger and one of my original Stone Posts every 24 feet.

 Trip Bar added to center section

   It is not a tall fence, about six foot high, a lazy jump for any deer.  It was designed to be beautiful, keep some dogs in and people out.  Every season about 20 Elk practically just step over it to graze on the lush vegetation, always greener on the other side.  Deer attempt this too, a lazy high jump and a quick bounding leap and sometimes they fail misjudging the height.  Failure is permanent in the animal kingdom and the fence is unforgiving.  Three times the farmer has had to get his tractor out and lift off a dead, impaled deer from the fence.
   Deer have a path and pretty much stick to it.  A couple of years ago I added a "Trip Bar" to the central section of this fence, the area of the path and the place where the deer began to impale themselves.  It works great and actually doesn't look too bad, framing the fence and offering the deer an embarrassing moment of misjudgement when they trip over it rather than the final jump of a misstep.
   I think they are hunting for a new path now or maybe they are leaderless because they are attempting to jump the fence just about everywhere.  Mostly they succeed but failure is permanent and messy, painful and slow.  They just sort of hang there as if from a meat hook and bleed to death.
   So, I am out to save the deer and I got a job!  Not often one can be virtuous, do the right thing and get paid for it.  Nice farmer, huh?  and just before Christmas I've got work to do!  about 240 feet of "Trip Bar" to be added to the entire fence line.
   Okay, on a different note!  I solved the paint in my hair problem.  It is amazing to me how many people couldn't resist pointing it out to me.  I must have heard "you've got paint in your hair" about a hundred times!

 One little spot left.

Three days of this and lots of shampoo was enough.  It must be good paint because it wouldn't come out.

More fencing and Entry Gates can be found HERE