 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|
||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
Traveller Goes Gallery HoppingJuly 20, 2008 Actually it was only one hop -- one-stop hopping? -- but it's true: Trav just went to his first art opening. We flew back from the barn so I could shower and change (after doing barn chores and going for an hour-and-a-half-long trail ride, this was a must) and get to the gallery before the opening ended, i.e., before the bar closed, at 7. Travvy snarfed his supper while I cleaned up. Leave him at home, in his crate? on the deck? He wanted to come. OK, come along. The Granary Gallery isn't far, a couple of miles, maybe less; with more time we could have walked. It had cooled off enough that Trav could have stayed in the truck -- a couple of goldens were barking away in an SUV near where I parked -- but why not let him come along? So I walked into the semi-enclosed patio with my escort, who immediately started attracting attention. The bar was still open, but they'd run out of beer. After a friendly conversation with a complete stranger about the malamute-shepherd cross that she'd lost custody of in a divorce -- during which Travvy sat and had his own conversations, quite the model puppy -- I entered the gallery proper. Coming out were Samantha Look and Kristian Strom, owners of Crow Hollow Farm, where Allie used to live, and their almost-year-old son, Taz. Kristian had a beer bottle in his hand; I wasn't too jealous. Taz was all smiles; Sam said his first word was "doggie," and now everything was a doggie. They hadn't seen Trav in about a month. He's grown. So has Taz. I'd just started looking at Ken Vincent's new work -- my reason for going to the opening -- when the artist came up to me and said with a grin, "Do they allow dogs in here?" I said they hadn't thrown me out yet; so far, so good. We caught up, then Ken's wife, Cathleen, noticed Travvy, whom she hadn't met yet. Through all this meeting and greeting, Trav was great, though he was a little too interested in the rolled-up rugs at about his eye level, and, a little later, in the painted-cat doorstops clustered under a table. Short leashes make good puppies. Someone said Trav seemed very well socialized; I said we were working on it. "Socialization" is quite the word in dog-and-puppy circles these days. At first I thought everyone must have read the same puppy book I'm using (How to Raise a Puppy You Can Live With -- very good book), but now I think it's because they all watch dog-training shows on TV. When Rhodry was little, no one talked about socialization. What I did was just take Rhodry with me wherever I went. I'm doing this same with Travvy, but now it's called socialization. Some people seem to think I'm virtuous because I'm socializing my puppy, the way other people think I'm virtuous because I don't have a TV. I've already given up saying, "No, I'm not 'socializing my puppy' -- I'm just taking him with me wherever I go," the way I've long since stopped explaining that I don't have a TV because I never think about getting a TV. Shouldn't "virtuous" be reserved for stuff that's more difficult? But I digress. Ken's paintings are, as expected, wonderful. His subjects are nearly always Vineyard-related, and in his shows there's always at least one tractor. I found the tractor right away; the tractor was small, but the sky above it was an eye-catching, even startling red, which I loved. It was echoed nearby by a painting of flaming autumn trees. Liked that one too. I'll go back when there are fewer people around, to spend more time with Ken's work, and also to look more closely at Heather Neill's paintings. I hadn't heard of her before, but I was drawn by what I saw: moody fantasy figures rendered in a realistic style. For the duration of the show (two weeks), you can sample the art on the Granary Gallery's website.
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
Home - Writing - Editing - About Susanna - Bloggery - Articles - Poems - Contact Copyright ©
Susanna J. Sturgis. All rights reserved. |
||||