Monday, Feb. 1

Yesterday we finally made it up for a full day of skiing at Alta, and actually ended up with knee deep powder. We did the same scenario as last weekend, where Karin took the other two-wheel-drive family car to the base of the canyon, so they could leave after a half day's worth of skiing. We arrived up at the Albion parking lot just after they opened for the morning. Markus, our oldest went up earlier with his friends and naturally were some of the first on the lifts. They went off skiing by themselves for the day. It's a general rule for teenagers that one doesn't ski with the parents........"its just not cool!"

We took also Sean along, one of Victor's friends, so he had someone to ski with and of course they also wanted to take off on their own, so at least we agreed to meet for lunch. That left Karin, Lina and myself to try some powder on Vail ridge under the Sunnyside lift. Lina, being only nine wasn't so use to the idea of skiing in powder and voiced her discontent every time she disappeared face first under the snow. After several times digging her out, we got her to lean a little more forward, which made all the difference in the world for turning and keeping herself more in control. Enough so that she was willing to try it three more times down the same area.

We all met up for lunch at the mid mountain lodge and afterwards I skied the rest of the day with Victor and Sean. After the midday meal of burgers, Karin and Lina took the bus down to their waiting car at the bottom of the canyon. When the rest of us finally ended for the day, my legs were burning. It was a good feeling!


So today after moving the dog, I worked on finishing up the Stockholm Cafe piece. I made the guy in the middle smaller and lightened his tee shirt, some more work to the people at the right side and then I loaded up the paint brush to work on the cobble stones in the shade. Also some flowers were added to the potted plants to give it more color. Any comments or criticism would be appreciated ! The plants in the lower right were in shade, but I lightened up a portion of the leaves....not too sure if that was the best move yet?

This morning I opened the front door and saw eight large boxes from the Mystic Seaport Gallery in Connecticut, I guess the Fedex man thought it alright to just leave a collection of paintings on the front porch!

Several months ago I asked the gallery to clean out their storage and send some of the older pieces back to me. This gallery is notorious for not responding or giving me any feedback. Their artist roster is well over a hundred, so people like me just get lost or worse still just ignored. So for the past six months I've been sending the occasional emails wondering when they might get around to shipping a few back that they have had for several years and also to please send them the cheapest way possible.

The gallery is claiming a non-profit status and feels that the poor artist should pay for shipping his or her work both directions. The general rule is that the artist should take care of delivering the work to the gallery, but then the gallery should pick up the tab for the return of unsold work. So when I see eight boxes on the front porch with most containing one painting only, I begin to get a little pissed off, certainly paintings that don't even have a frame around them, shouldn't warrant a large padded crate for themselves. All of the old pieces they returned could have been done in three boxes, but nooooo...why would they care, the artist is suppose to pick up the exorbitant cost of eight boxes with crating charges.

I'll send of an email complaining about it all, but its like trying to tell a bureaucrat that their waisting too many tax dollars.



Richard Boyer