Working

I’ve managed to finish several small paintings during our stay here, despite not putting in the hours I expected to. I completed ten pieces; well, actually eleven, but I managed to ruin one trying to put on a protective clear coat. Painting has not been without its challenges here. The lighting in the house is poor so I usually paint outside when possible, but that sometimes means contending with the wind or the mosquitoes. I also have to deal with ants crawling over my pallet and fruit flies making fatal one-way landings on the wet paint surfaces. And sometimes the heat and humidity is such that it just sucks the motivation right out of me.

Deborah’s work is somewhat less glamorous, but certainly more useful. She prepares the main meal of the day – usually lunch – and oftentimes breakfast or a small dinner as well, all without the benefit of an oven or microwave. She also makes hot tea, iced tea, and lemonade. She washes the dishes an numerous times throughout the day. She cleans and organizes the kitchen, puts away the groceries (not easy with our tiny fridge), cleans the bathroom, sweeps the floors, sweeps the outside decks, cleans up gecko poop, tidies the desk area, organizes our laundry, hangs the wet towels on the line, washes the windows, even scrubs the mold off of the outside wall surfaces. She also feeds our neighbor’s dog (probably more than she should) and occasionally bathes her. And there are an untold number of other small thankless tasks she accomplishes on a daily basis. Yet she still finds time to kill the multitude of ants that appear in the kitchen sporadically throughout the day. If I offer to help she usually waves me off saying she has nothing else to do. Such are the benefits of being an artist who is married to a domestic goddess.

Blake "working"

Shade


Tree of Wisdom

Life and Death

Watering

Smile