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Do you ever have one of those weeks where some stupid thing just seems to take over and muck up everything? Yes? Well, my stupid thing this past week has been the dreaded vacuum cleaner.

It went something like this, over the span of several days:
"Hmmm, its not picking up, it must be clogged." Take apart, clean out icky gunk and dirt, put back together.
Use vacuum, its still not picking up, have a fit involving bad words and a good deal of stomping around, figure I need to buy a new one.
Put dead vacuum in corner and forget about it for a day or two.
Dead vacuum is getting on my nerves and the rugs are getting funky, so instead of going to buy a new one, I think "thrifty" and decide to go buy new filters for it instead.
Pay a whopping $35 for 3 new filters at the store with the nice vacuum cleaner man, but figure that's better than buying a new one.
Let vacuum sit another day because I can't deal with it yet.
Rugs are getting scary, I decide to put the filters in and get on with it.
Turn on vacuum with new clean filters fully expecting it to act like new again, but IT STILL WON'T PICK UP.
Have another fit, worse than the first one. Not pretty.
Take vacuum apart AGAIN. Clean out more dirt, clean roller, figure it has to work now, or else.
Doesn't work. Not only won't pick up, but there's a distinct burning smell now.
Open doors to air out icky icky burning smell. Call vacuum man. Vacuum man says "bring it in, I'll look at it." "How much is that going to cost, should I just buy a new one?" "I won't charge you anything to look at it."
Lug vacuum to vacuum man's shop. Vacuum man takes off the bottom and finds a broken rubber band thingie (hence the burning smell) and also an embarrassing mass of gunky dirt, the kind you only find in a vacuum, in a place that I hadn't even thought to look.
$10.38 and about 20 minutes later I was on my way back home with a hopefully functioning vacuum.
And today I finally mustered up the courage to give it a go, and praise the lord it worked.


I don't know that there's any lesson in there, I just had to vent.

And somehow in between all the fits and aborted vacuuming sessions and all, I managed to get a couple of pieces of art done.

This first one is another in my new series which doesn't have a name yet. "Stripes" seems lame. "Diversity" is sort of the theme, but I don't want to call them that. I'll think of something.




5 x 7 on illustration board with Polychromos and Prismacolors.

The palette in this one is so subtle. I started with greys, both Polys and Prismas. Then I added grey green, and a little something else here and there, and just kept going. Its inspiration is the climate ~ both literally, and figuratively speaking. Its Winter, but also a little gloomy over all with the economy and all. I guess this is the mood I'm in, sort of. I did put in some green and red, which allude to life and prosperity, even though they're a bit muted.

This will probably go up for sale when I get my new "art for sale" blog up and running. I'm tinkering with it, and have managed to figure out the 3 column thing ~ I'm so impressed with myself!

And this is an assignment I just finished. I blocked out the signage on the building to protect the innocent.
The challenge in this was to eliminate all the snow (which completely covered the landscaping and made it impossible for me to tell what's really happening there) and try to show it with a little green. I thought I was very clever coming up with the empty grass area, just outlined in green. It makes a nice design I think, drawing more attention to the building, and also got me off the hook trying to invent "growies" that aren't really there.


This weekend is going to be a major "find and sort" couple of days. I have art safely packed away that needs to come out and be sold (and apologies to those of you reading this who've asked me about art you're interested in...I'm getting to it, please bear with me). I have art in filing cabinets, in IKEA flat files, in portfolios, in other portfolios, in big packing boxes intended for mirrors or paintings. You get the idea. Little pieces, big pieces, in between pieces. In my dreams I have a Martha Stewartized filing system that's perfect, where all the art is labeled, wrapped, and has its own little drawer or special place, and its all easy to find. HA
Well, I said it was in my dreams.
Wish me luck.

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