Significant changes in my life have been happening this summer and it all threw me into a sort of cathartic state the last few weeks. I spent August and September preparing for, and attending two motorcycling events which have been on the books all year. August was the annual Hungry Mother Rain Ride to Hungry Mother State Park, Virginia with some of my old R1150R buddies. September was the Twin Valley Riders (TVR) rally at Willville Motorcycle campground near Meadows of Dan, Virginia which is right on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

After doing the TVR rally, my Georgia riding pals headed back to Georgia and I headed east to visit my daughter and her family in Virginia Beach, VA. I was there for about 4 days then rode back west and southwest, through Georgia again and parked Lil Chubb at my son’s house. From there I drove my truck home to Atmore. All the riding gave me plenty of time to contemplate my problems and work out some solutions in my head.

Long story short; I no longer have a wife but I do have more time and am re-energized to do some art work in the studio for the fall. I have been promising a granddaughter a portrait for 3 years now and am just getting that started with a nifty new idea. The drawing I’m doing is not what I expected, so I probably will do another portrait for her, but the one I started is quite nice and I will continue to complete it to integrate into a multi-media display. Sort of an experiment.

The other project I just completed was more utilitarian and practical than artistic, but I built a frame and printed a pattern on fabric to act as a panel to hide my water heater in the corner of the small mud room by the kitchen entry way. My sister-in-law sewed the panels for me but the concept was mine and it worked out fine.

The imagery used for the pattern on the panels comes from some silkscreen stencils I had left over from a tee shirt project a few years ago. Also in the works, printmaking wise, is silkscreen (serigraph) print I am re-doing. The first version I did back in 1980, called “Flaming Ford” from a photo of an old Ford car front end grill work. I have reprocessed the separations on the computer and made the stencils just yesterday in preparation for a 4 color print on paper. The image is 9 3/8 x 14 inches and I think I will print on white Rives BFK paper. I hope to do 20 prints. It is a process re-learning things I learned 30 or 40 years ago but using modern materials and technology. This time the learning curve is being taken at a greater speed and if the image is successful, I will move on to a new, completely different image.