Back In Pisticci

I have only been back a week and been busy catching up, tidying up and trying to finish a very large( for me)  portrait of four people , but I still managed to get out for coffee and take photos. Also been getting my studio  set up for colder weather - found the rugs under a bed and spread them about, tested the gas heater, found my hat, hung up the blanket in the doorway and moved my internet connection to the small room at the back..Have two more portraits to get started on from Monday so am nicely busy.

sad reminder of summer and my exhibition.

So just posting photos today. Will get back to writing about life here when I get back into it.(Soon!)

life may be a little boring without my ape'

yesterday was a flattening sort of day. got my ego a little bruised. maybe artists are just a bit more easily cast down

so was feeling a bit flat. set off for home in my ape telling my self that tomorrow would be better and after a glass of wine everything will be better. it was before dark ( lights not working again. so there i am rattling along, literally , up and down and round the hair pin bends when i began to notice that the engine was losing power. my usual reaction to that sort of thing happening is to think i must be imagining it but as i was at the bottom of a very steep and winding hill i pulled in to a layby just to check it out. ( last week i got stuck half way up the hill in a violent rainstorm and couldnt get out because i wasnt sure the brakes would hold and i would run backwards into the middle of the road.)

so i went back and forwards in the layby and sure enough there was something wrong. i considered getting out and kicking it and and then thought about just sitting there and crying cause someone didnt like my painting and now my ape was broken again. but decided against these options , as one i once kicked someTHING out of frustration and got an ingrown toenail and bruised foot, and crying in an ape just didnt seem very intrepid.

so having phoned my personal rescue service, to whom i am well known, i got out to see if anything obvious had fallen off this time. i considered that maybe i had run out of petrol, so filled the tank up from my spare can. no, no change.

then i looked underneath and this time i noticed a hose thingy had come off its connection. this had happened about a year ago and been fixed.

aha!! so rubbing my hands in a suitably mechanichy, i know what i am doing manner , i pulled out all the stuff in the back till i found a bit of string. and then i tied the two bits together as tight as i could, got in and hurray power returned.

the funny little moral of this story was it wasnt just the ape that got its power back , but me too.

so onwards and upwards.

end of the summer

been way too busy to write here all summer as i surprisingly sold about 60 paintings averaging about 30 euros each. since then all my transport has broken down so after getting scooter fixed and ape' fixed am now penniless ( more or less again). thanks to my good neighbour angela i wouldnt starve as most days she delivers food from on high, ( her balcony above) by means of string and a carrier bag , but it would be comforting to have a regular income of some sort.
this week i am working on a portrait from a great photo of a really pretty girl with lots of swirly hair and what a treat that is being. am also painting a second larger painting of a view of the village which was commisioned so i will get paid.
once i work out how to put photos on this i will display what i have been painting as well as anything else i think might be interesting, but not portraits cause they are personal.
i spend a lot of time in my studio alone so am partly writing this so that i have to go out to find interesting things to write about and not turn into a strange lonely wild eyed artist, well perhaps not that bad, but have heard on the radio that if you dont get out and meet people on a regular basis then you may get ill. its something about hormones or similar that you cant get from a computer. and i would like to be healthy as far as possible. also have noticed that just walking up the street and saying ciao and buon giorno to people really makes me feel good. also to touch on "my life as a story" i love being called signora. its so very not scottish and rather romantic and interesting, which is what i have always dreamt of being but never really thought i would acheive. but now i must go finish these paintings so that i can get paid. it may be true that money does not buy you happiness but not having enough matters.