This week, I didn’t get enough painting time. When I did, I went as slow as molasses falling out of the jar upside down.

I basically have part of the weekend and Monday left to squeeze in some work. Today, I have to go out to Rancho Mirage to do a pre-anesthesia check at Eisenhower hospital. Then, I’m off to lunch with Kelly Witmer, and onto Melissa Morgan. By the time I get home this afternoon, I’ll be totally spent.

Hannah and I are sore and tired because we went to see the Courtney Barnett concert. She was so incredibly awesome. I was truly blown away. I didn’t know, or realize, that there weren’t other guitar players in her band. I had no idea how she crazy shreds on the guitar. I mean, I knew she wrote her own songs, but I didn’t know how amazing a guitar player she was.

We saw her play outside at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center, and the sound quality was the best Hannah and I had ever heard from a live band in an outdoor venue. Many hats off to her sound people. The opener had god-awful sound with a lot of low-frequency feedback during most of the songs. I won’t mention who it was since we both did not like it. Me especially.

It was standing only. No seats of any kind. I wound up sitting on a dead Joshua Tree for most of the time (a big no-no). Since that made me feel terrible, I stood up a lot and even sat in the dirt after Hannah got me a towel from the car. That part was bad, but after the long wait, Courtney came on and rocked the fuck out of the place. I had to stand on my feet and bounce around in small intervals.

So yeah, I can’t do much artwork before I go into the hospital. I have a bit of time on the weekend and some time on Monday. I still haven’t transferred all the drawings, which was my goal before Tuesday, which will be spent doing laundry, packing, and a bunch of other administrative tasks. We have to leave around 4:am-something on Wednesday to be at the hospital by 5:15.

I’ve only worked on the couch part of this piece, which is called Intermittent Gratification.

And even the couch isn’t done yet. It needs a few more little spot details. But since it’s drying now, I should get back to Frisbee Cake since that one is definitely dry.

It’s the patterns on the backgrounds that take so long in these. Actually, everything takes a long time, like I explained in my last post.

I have three more pieces to transfer, and I think I can get that done before I leave. I was just hoping one oil painting would get completed, too. But I just might be a man out of time now (Elvis Costello reference).

I’ve also been trying to brainstorm a new title for my show. I’ve already handed in my PR text to Craig Krull, but I am not 100% happy with it. It’s Discarded Snapshots: A Hapless Family Portrait. But now I have a pretty long list of alternatives. Like twenty titles that I’ve honed down to a few, which are: Relative Strangers, Technicolor Disappointment, and Genetically Yours. If one of those calls out to you, please leave a comment below or email me.

Until next time, though I do not know when that might be.