What would it be like...

to sit in a chair and read a book? I know people who do that. Sit. For hours at a time, reading. I envy that, yet I can't seem to get myself into that chair. I read in bed before I go to sleep, or while I'm eating lunch or breakfast. If I have to wait for Ray somewhere I read. I have most books on my Kindle these days and I can read them on my phone as well, so I always have my book with me, but still it takes months, sometimes, to get through a long one. I have been working on The Woman in White for at least a month now. It is very good—I am just reading it very slowly. I think I am doing too many other things. I think I need to make time to sit and read.

The house is bathed in dust and the eery plastic hanging in the hallway has become part of the decor, but it doesn't keep the dust out of the rest of the house. The bathroom remodeling continues. No more ugly surprises. It is moving along smoothly. The old wall is out, the new wall is in. The sheetrocker finished up today. This weekend Ray and I will paint, then next week the floor goes in and the sinks and cabinets.

 I have not spent much time in the studio. I need to stay around the house to answer questions when the workmen have them. Besides, I need to be at my computer gathering and organizing the registrations and photos for the Open Studio tour. I am the registrar. The registered artists are to send me three photos of their work to be used on the web site, in the catalog and for publicity. There are clear instructions for what we need. Artists are terrible at this. Terrible. They do not name their photos as instructed. They do not send them in the correct size or resolution. This is all spelled out for them. They ignore the directions. They do not know how to attach a file to an email. It takes hours to rename and resize and resave all those photos. My patience grows thin, but there is a small reward when I open a photo of something exquisitely beautiful and I can almost forgive someone who makes something so gratifying for being a technology illiterate—almost. They really need to learn to do this if they want to be in shows or have their work published online.

Last week I presented the last Art Literacy lesson for the year at Sofia's school. It has been a good experience and I have learned a lot, especially about the limits of a Kindergartner's attention span and their vast range of competency with art materials and tools. Last week's lesson was on Louise Nevelson, who is really a favorite of mine. The art project was a wall sculpture made from wood pieces and found objects. The kids chose their objects, arranged them on a small piece of cardboard and glued them in place. I brought the pieces home and spray-painted them all silver.

They turned out great.

Here is a photo of one of Nevelson's sculptures:

The kids' work really captured the essence of the artist, I think.

So that is all part of why I am not getting much reading done. The days are full. So, now I shall turn off the computer and go off to bed and I may get in 15 minutes of The Woman in White before I am out.