work, spring, selfie, and a funeral

The window I face in the morning at my computer faces east and for certain months of the year for an hour and a half or so, the sun blazes in between the top of the shrub and the top of the window.

This is me trying to read.

We got home last night about 7PM and I was wrung out after three days in the shop, fingers numb and hand and arm achey. This new stencil material that we switched to about a year and a half ago is much stiffer than what we had been using, harder to cut which doesn't help the arthritis in my thumb joints and the last joints on the fingers of my right hand are swelling and getting knobby. Ugh and ugly. I hate that.

I still have some full size art work to do, the drawings for the third job and the last half of the second job, but I probably won't get to those until we get the fabrication done on the glass and drawings we already have in the shop.

It's very busy around here what with spring and all calling me outside and the current commissions and getting some cast work ready to submit two works for an invitational museum show. I've decided to finish 3 of the small Botanica Eroticas and one large one and send those as a grouping as one piece which means finally deciding how I am going to mount them for wall hanging. I have some custom sheet metal mounts being made and also a shallow wood shadow box prototype to compare.

When we left the city last week, a neighbor's japanese magnolia was covered with buds. This is what we saw when we arrived back in the city last Monday.

I seem to be stuck in two subject matters...work and nature. I actually have several posts partially or mostly written of completely different natures but they tend to peter out instead of finishing with a bang.

Well, one of the three remaining matriarchs of Marc's family died last night and I just got notice that the funeral is today at 2:30PM. Just what I wanted to do today after spending three days in the city and getting home late last night...drive in today for a funeral.

But drive in we must.

edit: All dressed up and no where to go. We were 20 minutes on the road when Marc's sister called. Turns out the funeral isn't until Sunday. In her earlier text to me she failed to mention the day so I assumed it was today, because, well, the jews like to get them planted quick. I did think that this was exceptionally quick, but what do I know?

So we'll go in for out work week a day early and leave a day early.