The Tuxedo Effect

I can't do anything without a deadline, so with company coming tomorrow I finally decided to replace the seat covers on my dining room chairs.

These chairs are survivors. They were part of a dining room set given to my grandmother by Les Watson in 1919, and eventually passed along to me. So the Mary Elizabeth Watson Jewell oak table and six chairs have lived on Southern Parkway in Louisville, they've migrated to various institutes of higher education, have made lateral moves across Kentucky, have survived a divorce, and lived alone with me and a dog named Maggie, they crossed The Great Divide, and along with a truck load of other items I could have done without, landed in San Francisco.   

My first choice of replacement fabric was a pricey cotton brocade (also indigo) that I spied at The Satin Moon on Clement, but the solid linen I found in The Mission has a reasonable amount of elegance for half the price, and going down there in the pouring rain and standing in line to buy it Saturday was fun. Really.

Also this afternoon, continuing to ride the creative wave, I dug out a couple of unframed paintings, small watercolor/ink works, and matched them with frames that had been sitting in our basement since Aaron Brothers last frame sale.  Of course I only had one mat that fit, so that necessitated another rain-soaked trip downtown to Flax, art supply heaven, between Castro and the seedy end of Market.

Now the chairs look so fine that I don't want to sit on them because the linen may wrinkle, who knows.

And the drawings...floating them in a deep beveled mat and classy frame has the tuxedo effect (anything looks good in it)-- but heck, I don't have a single wall to hang either of them on. So here's an idea, the paintings can sit in the chairs. Yes, that works, and now order has been restored to the universe.

Untitled Experiments

Today I'm home-bound by a pouring rain, so I've gotten into the creative mode. I'm trying to teach myself how to digitally merge ink drawings on flat illustration board with watercolors done on 140# cold press paper.

Yes, I am definitely too old to get a scholarship, but it's fun (sort of) to see if my sieve-like brain can master something altogether new.

A couple of years ago I was asked by a friend to do a freelance graphic-arts project--basically a set of colorized ink drawings of composers. Yes, it was a stretch for me.

Illustration board and an 005 black Micron pen worked great for the drawings but adding even minimal color to the set was a challenge-- first because illustration board isn't made for watercolor and second (and most important)--there was no room for experimentation at all. Put the color on the paper, and like it or not, you're done.

So today I finally merged Beethoven (above) with another watercolor painting, just to see if it would work. It's not too bad by my standards, which are low.

I spent the afternoon working on some small (5" x 7") abstract ink drawings and merging them with watercolor paintings of the same scale. For someone like me who is not a tech-head, it was hard work. But way more fun than doing the laundry.

It Isn't Easy Being Free

Only three full days in San Juan --  two for sightseeing and people-watching and today, the third, for beach and sun.  For me the difficulty is slowing down and enjoying doing nothing.

The El San Juan is a hotel where you learn that Scott Fitzgerald was right: the rich are truly different.  Those to whom money is no object sit down for a pricey breakfast inside the hotel, but we stride forth carrying our Starbucks coffee and novels out to the pool, or more accurately one of the pools.




The little coqui sing their hearts out for us, and when we get tired of doing nothing (which happens pretty quickly) we walk for an hour on the beach, passing a row of hotels, swerving around  beach-walkers in all shapes and sizes and stopping to photograph a sea-side cemetery that is in eerie contrast to the excess and revelry along the shore.

At lunch we exit the hotel grounds and I finally sample mofongo--a Puerto Rican staple--in small local restaurant nearby. It's plantain, that bland and starchy cousin of the banana, cooked in a little oil and garlic and molded into a flat and circular shape.  It's bland. I take sidelong glances at other diners and see that most have ordered their mofongo surrounded by chicken soup and shrimp. Next time.

By afternoon all chairs, poolside and beach, are full. No one at all is in the pool. Lavender towels are issued to all the guests, so even though the posted "resort dress code" for humans is totally ignored, the chairs are all tastefully draped in matching lavender towels.  Poolside bars have lengthy menus of mojitos and coolers, and of course, no prices are listed. If you have to ask, you really don't belong here.

Before dinner we check out the televised news, see photos of the snow in Boston and footage of political riots in Cairo. We haven't had a cloth-napkin dinner since we arrived in San Juan, so on this last night we take the elevator down to the hotel restaurant for the prix-fixe. The waiters are overly attentive, swooping down on us to refill our water glasses each time we have taken a sip, but the salmon has a lively fresh tomato sauce with capers, and Caesar salad is cold and crisp, and the dessert is chocolate. Need I say more?