"Steelhead" -- oil on canvas -- 30x40" -- Margie Guyot
Last week I had to drive down to U of M Dearborn to pick up 2 paintings from a show. On the way home I was taking the back roads, snaking along the quieter streets, avoiding the freeways. Saw a sign for an estate sale (one of my weaknesses). Ooo-la-la! It was a redneck's estate sale! As I walked through the house, all I saw were piles of junk. Old, musty, dusty junk that should have just been thrown out. Oh, the pain of disappointment! I went down into the basement, into more junk. On the wall was this big stuffed fish and a very dusty stuffed Canada goose. A sign said Not For Sale. BUT I WANT THE FISH! I yelled. The guy came down and said he'd sell it to me for $10. I slapped the 10 bucks into his hand, grabbed my treasure and fled.
I got home, laid the fish onto the kitchen table and looked at it. What have I done??? Good Lord. I'm supposed to be cleaning out my house, getting it ready to sell and now I've added to the junk! It laid there a few days and I tried ignoring it.
Then I got an idea: why not try putting it into a still life painting? Right away I just knew it would be perfect atop the zebra fabric. And what better way to use the molto expensivo, new Japanese scarf I'd splurged on at the Santa Fe Flea Market? Only the day before I'd found the beautiful blue glass vase at a garage sale for $1. Aha! I envisioned something in orange and blue.
There is a market a few miles north of here called Strawberry Hill. They have the most sumptuous assortment of flowers. Just the other day I'd seen these fabulous red-dyed sunflowers. So it was back into the traffic again, in search of Things Orange. The checkout clerk rang me up and said you bought everything orange! Good eye, girl!
One thing I found out: carrots wilt miserably fast. Within 1 day of having laid out on the table, they looked like something that had come out of the Mummy's tomb. To finish things up this morning I had to go pull one out of the refrigerator, to get a second look at how a carrot should look.
Still stuck with the problem of what to do with the fish! Sell it on eBay?
I got home, laid the fish onto the kitchen table and looked at it. What have I done??? Good Lord. I'm supposed to be cleaning out my house, getting it ready to sell and now I've added to the junk! It laid there a few days and I tried ignoring it.
Then I got an idea: why not try putting it into a still life painting? Right away I just knew it would be perfect atop the zebra fabric. And what better way to use the molto expensivo, new Japanese scarf I'd splurged on at the Santa Fe Flea Market? Only the day before I'd found the beautiful blue glass vase at a garage sale for $1. Aha! I envisioned something in orange and blue.
There is a market a few miles north of here called Strawberry Hill. They have the most sumptuous assortment of flowers. Just the other day I'd seen these fabulous red-dyed sunflowers. So it was back into the traffic again, in search of Things Orange. The checkout clerk rang me up and said you bought everything orange! Good eye, girl!
One thing I found out: carrots wilt miserably fast. Within 1 day of having laid out on the table, they looked like something that had come out of the Mummy's tomb. To finish things up this morning I had to go pull one out of the refrigerator, to get a second look at how a carrot should look.
Still stuck with the problem of what to do with the fish! Sell it on eBay?
posted by Charlevoix Sax Quartet at 7:16 PM
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