Pay Off Time

Sidelight, 2005, Oil on Panel, 9x12 (Jenny and Randy's barn)




Ok, writing this blog has finally paid off! Big sale? Nope. NYC gallery representation? No. A show at the Whitney? Ha. Tickets to a Midnight Ramble at Levon Helm's recording studio and home in my very favorite place, Woodstock, NY? YES!!!

This is how it happened. I have a friend, Jenny, who lives a few miles up the road from us. She and her husband, Randy and their four children live in an old house that is very similar to ours, full of character, crooked floors, beautiful woodwork and bad 80's kitchens with fluorescent lighting. We had renovated our house before we moved here and when I met Jenny, she was preparing to renovate theirs. So we've spent a lot of time discussing counter tops, wall colors and light fixtures. Jenny is also incredibly appreciative of the arts, her home is filled with wonderful art, much of it created by her mother, artist Nina Bentley and she also has a few paintings of mine (they have wonderful barns on their property that I have painted often, so often that I stopped telling them when I did one because I didn't want them to feel that they had to buy each of them), one of which has its very own spotlight. I didn't really know very many people as we were kind of new to the area and Jenny knew I was painting every day and was trying to get some kind of career thing going. So, she suggested I have an open studio (that was about a year and a half ago) and she invited her friends to come, meet me and to see my work. I sold over 20 paintings that weekend and I still have the urge to thank her every time I see her.

So all of this time she and Randy have not had a computer in their home. I have offered to email her some information or direct her to a website and she'd have to remind me that she didn't have email OR a computer. So retro! But I was at her house last week and noticed a big shiny new computer on her desk and while I was marveling over her entrance into this century I was also writing down my blog address and tucking it under her keyboard. Always thinking of getting those stats up.

Last night Randy called and offered us two tickets that they had gotten the chance to buy through a New York Times lottery. They couldn't go and were trying to think of who might be interested in buying the tickets from them when they just so happened to think of us, after having read my blog and the entry about me and Bob Dylan and The Band. Randy told Doug, we could let him know, no rush, but I insisted that Doug call him right back to tell him yes. So he did and we are going. Holy cow!

Now I wonder if the Whitney would call me if I were to write a post raving about the Biennial......