Stuff Happens

The title of this blog is Donald Rumsfeld's 'blurt' after the looting in Baghdad in April 2003.  It has since appealed to me as one of the most useful (and shortest) quotes of the 21st century so far.

Here's a little of my stuff from yesterday:

A message on the 'phone in the morning , in French, from a woman interested in one of my paintings in the local summer exhibition here in Argentat.  I'm getting better at French numbers, rattled-off with their usual sprinkling of 'quatre-vingt-somethings' but I still need one or two extra plays of the recording to be sure I've got it right.  Final proof came when she answered my return call and we agreed to meet at the gallery at 11am.

A forty-something woman was sitting on the steps outside the gallery when I arrived, smoking a splendid English-looking briar pipe.  This turned out to be my interested (interesting) buyer.  We concluded the deal whereby I would change the frame for a smaller, and deliver the goods at 7pm to her house in town.

I spent the afternoon working on a painting in neighbour Jim's 'studio' which he lets me use.  The picture shows the view from the studio doorway.  Paradise.  

A great-tit flew into the room as I worked.  It was not afraid of my presence and spent some time hopping around, pecking at my feet, hands and even tasted the acrylic paints, spread on paper plates on the table alongside where I worked.  It seemed to prefer red.  Jim's mother feeds birds from her balcony nearby so I suppose it was just after a free lunch.  I didn't really imagine it had any artistic tendencies.

Since the last blog:   There's been some feedback, which is satisfying.

Marina thinks I should have put quotes around the word "foreign" at the end of the last entry. She has a point; I was imagining an unknown English person reading it in some remote spot like Hartlepool or Hull, who wouldn't need quotes around this word but to Marina, who is Bavarian, it looks a tad condescending and almost rude.  Interesting.

Among further comments, not all recorded, were ones from Simon in Italy who thought it was too long, and Simon in Australia who seemed to enjoy it (he lived here with his family for a year and his comments are attached to the last blog) although the process of reading it appears to have been a dangerous one.

The interesting woman took delivery of the reframed painting with grace and the right sort of appreciative noises (for me) later, as planned and wrote out the cheque.

Stuff happened.

Mapmaker.