Movie reference: The prime minister speaking to the general in Saudi Arabia, describes the position of Lawrence. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to be him. He’s riding the whirlwind, you know.”
Well, that about covers it for what Mary and I have been going through since we made our decision to return to Texas. We’ve logged over 5,800 miles of travel on our Camry, the first of two cars we will bring down to Texas as we move forward with the sale of our house in Las Vegas, NV. There are several stories within stories here, too numerous to recount them all. We’ve been out to the eastern sierras to say goodbye to our friends out there, then on to Monterrey to spend a couple of nights in Carmel, and from there to Sacramento, picking up my brother George, who joined us for our Uncle Nathan’s Celebration of Life(RIP) Event, which was totally awesome.
A quick turn-around back to Las Vegas to rest and catch up for the next leg of the trip. Across the southwestern states of Arizona, New Mexico, driving through a non-stop dust storm and down into central west Texas to San Angelo, where one of my new works in clay was accepted in a national ceramic competition and we hand delivered it. Down from San Angelo to Llano and on to Enchanted Rock to do some of my first “real” rock climbing in three years (I’m getting stronger) and meet up with old climbing buddies and eat great barbeque! On to San Antonio, staying with sister and brother-in law, whose beautiful property overlooks the incredible Cibolo Canyon, and make cold calls on tile and stone suppliers and contractors, starting to look for work. Whew!
Next we came down to Houston to move my mother in-law out of her apartment so that she could move to an assisted living facility in San Antonio. Our tight deadline for the opening events of the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts exhibition forced us to return to San Antonio and from there on to Georgetown, a quick evening with my sister, and then drive to San Angelo State Park where we camped on the ground the first night with the bright light of the moon keeping us awake until well after 2 am. The next morning was crisp and breezy but I was able to close my eyes and listen very carefully, identifying a slew of bird calls, most notably, the wild turkeys that were all over the area.
The events of the opening night of the exhibition with entries from all over the country, the ceramic symposium, and the after parties were terrific. We found an amazing community of artists who were visiting from areas around Texas, and each was great fun to meet. The entire group was very welcoming and I send my personal thanks to my original contact, Bridget and her husband Bill who introduced us to everyone. We are very excited about taking part in future exhibits and visiting new and established studios. I hope to add links here once I have more.
Of note to our friends in Las Vegas, I am proud to have been one of two artists whose work was accepted in this very prominent exhibition, and both of us came from working in Clay Arts Vegas in the Las Vegas Arts District. Below: my accepted work “Wing”
