Friday

For the past week and a half I have been up at the cabin painting the landscape of Heber and Kamas valley.  The Midway Art Association put on a small plein air competition and in the back of my mind, like all artists I was hoping to maybe win something or sell a painting or two.  But noooo that never happened!  But I can’t really complain too much about that, it was fun after all painting with some of my art friend.  Like most plein air events it is more about bonding with your fellow artist out in nature. In this case it was the wind, which for some odd reason would pick up to gale force status in the afternoons.  Evidence of that was in Rick’s umbrella, which snapped like a twig.  After that we figure it was next to impossible to put those things up any more, better to either paint in direct sunlight or look for a shady spot.  We also had a couple of smoke filled afternoons dealing with the brush fires in other areas of the State, the winds carried that smoke over our direction a few days in a row.

Here is a 12x24 barn I did not far from our cabin

This was a small 11x14 along the Provo River, the wind was howling that afternoon.

The show itself was on Saturday evening; they had a nice outdoor picnic table barbeque for the artists.  After that the ceremonies in the Midway town hall, where they announced the winners and those lucky few who received the purchase awards.  When it was all done, about eight of us retired back to our cabin for some libation under the stars on the porch.  There some of us got into heated battles over religion, politics and the artists way of life until two in the morning.

Monday and Tuesday they had plein air events in Heber and Midway.  We had about three to four hours to complete a painting within a certain boundary limit of the town.  So on Tuesday I painted an old house on Main Street in Midway. Robert Duncan was in the front and I was on a small street to the side of it capturing a different view.  His sold and mine did not!  Well I guess when you have a name up there it helps!

Now I’m back in Salt Lake dealing with our small laptop, since the big desktop decided to die on us.  The computer repair shop said it was the motherboard.  Basically they compared it to the spine going out on a person: it was dead and not worth fixing.  Damn, now it’s time to fork out more money for one of life necessities. 

Gone are the days when you could be content churning your own butter in the barn!

Richard Boyer