My aching back!

Interior windows looking from front gallery into my studio with my smaller paintings

Featured art in the front gallery, my latest large painting, "Grateful", 48 x 48", oil on canvas

Another of my newer large paintings, "The Calm Before..", 40 x 40", oil on canvas

left side wall in front gallery, my painting "The Vortex", 40 x 40", oil on canvas

The inner gallery/classroom space and art by other studio artists

Back wall in the gallery, another large painting of mine, "Chroma Sunset", 48 x 48", oil on canvas

Aaron in the main gallery

Me talking with a high school friend I haven't seen in 10 years!

The show opening on Friday went very well. We added several new names to our mailing list and had a few sales. It was a long weekend as we had to sit the gallery for our posted business hours for the first time. The weather was cloudy and rainy, so not many visitors on Saturday and Sunday. The bottom two photos above were taken by one of the photographers in the show, Susan See. The others are pics I shot before the show opened.

Monday morning I woke up with a major pain in my back. Actually, it feels more like my hip. I can't tell if it's out of place or if I just pulled a muscle. Either way, the pain is making it difficult to get anything done today. I had planned on painting, but it hurts to stand at my easel. So, here I sit, blogging and basically avoiding pain as much as is possible! 

UPDATE: It seems after talking with my brother and mom, that a may actually have a kidney stone! Yikes! My brother suggested I try drinking some cranberry juice, which I did, and the pain subsided almost instantly! This stinks! Any other suggestions out there? I don't have health insurance, so I can't go to the doctor.

Introducing......Chroma Studios!

Here are some photos of the new space.

Reception area

My Studio

My studio, looking into the reception area

Aaron's Studio
My husband and I both have our studios here, plus there are 7 other studios.

One space left!

Currently there are 6 other artists with one empty studio. 1 mixed media artist, 2 photographers, 4 painters and 1 musician. I have someone coming to see the last space tomorrow. I will get links up to all the other artist websites soon.

Multipurpose room

We are planning our grand opening show for the first week in May. Not sure about the exact date yet. I will keep you updated on that. We also have a conference room/classroom/gallery space. Let's just call it our multipurpose room.

One of my favorite spaces is the patio out on the roof! We sit out there on sunny days and eat our lunch.

Day two of photos!

Day two of posting photos, today, more Grand Canyon and on to the Sequoia National Forest! If you didn't see the photos I posted yesterday, be sure to scroll down. I'm discovering that I am way too camera happy when I'm out with my camera! I still have a couple hundred to sift through! Stay tuned for day three! :)

This one I took of another hiker to give you an idea of scale!

After the Grand Canyon, it was on to the Sequoias, first photo shows the scale! huge!

I can never resist taking photos of pretty fall leaves!

Tomorrow I'll start posting the California coast and San Francisco photos.

In closing, I have to say it's SO GOOD to be back in my studio. I'm working on finishing a large painting that I've posted about before and I'm very pleased with how it's turning out! Can't wait to finish it and get some feedback! So, back to painting I go!

Home Sweet Home!

We arrived home last night and today I'm finally back at my studio! I'm so inspired by our trip that I can hardly wait to get back to painting. Seems there is always something to delay that. All in all we had a wonderful trip, check out a few photos below. I am going thru all the photos a little at a time. I took over 300 pics! These first few are from the Petrified forest and Grand Canyon, both in Arizona. Tomorrow I will get some more up. It's hard to pick which ones to post!

I hate to even mention it because I don't like to dwell on the negative, but the only bad thing that happened on the trip was having our van broken into while we were staying in the city! We ended up spending one of our days finding a place and waiting to have the window replaced! They only got Aaron's book bag and our hiking backpack because we took everything of value with us to the hotel room.(not that Aaron's music theory books aren't valuable, you just wouldn't figure anyone would steal them!) We're from Albuquerque, NM, we know better than to leave valuables in the car!

On the way home we stopped in Gallup at the House of Lyndon Gallery where I show my work. We dropped off new work on the way out and picked up the old work on the way home. I will be showing more new work at a show there in December. Lyndon now has the painted guitar, Universe and several other pieces. If you live in the area, please drop in and take a look at the new work and say hi to Lyndon while you are there! They have recently expanded the gallery to another room and it looks amazing!

OH AND DON'T FORGET this Friday is First Friday at the Factory on 5th. I will be showing the paintings that just came back from the gallery which will be new to the Factory since they've been at the gallery since before I moved in! :)

The first three were taken in the Petrified Forest National Park.

The rest were taken at the Grand Canyon. First and second are your typical tourist shots, the last three were taken on our grueling 4-5 hour hike! It was so awesome!!!