Howdy blog! Here I am dressed up yesterday for the art show. I wore a cute 60’s-ish little stretchy dress I recently thrifted, matte black stockings and black suede wedges, a necklace my Aunt Lisa made and some dangly mother-of-pearl earrings. I enjoy a wedge shoe–all the height without any of the pain. Although I did wake up in the middle of the night with a crippling Charley Horse in my left calf…still, I don’t blame the shoes!

We fed the pets dinner early and stopped at a donut place near the New House (verdict: I still miss the Korean donut shop BOOOO!) before driving to Seattle. Before the show, we stopped at the Wooden Boat Center on Lake Union for some gifts.

Josh’s father built this boat, sold it, and the person he sold it to then sold it to the Wooden Boat Center, where it now resides. That’s it on the left, the green boat. Impressive! I like the color.

What a beautiful day! Josh displayed his Seahawks spirit along with my plaid polyester Old Man pants that I’ve had since high school. Those pants are the gift that keeps on giving, apparently.

Hey Seattle, have I told you lately how much I love you when the sun is shining? Hmmmm?

Stopping at the Center was a nice little break before the show, finishing up a long workweek. Although I did have to work this morning…only for a couple of hours. No big whoop.

Owen the family tattoo artist had asked me to be a part of this show about a week ago. It’s an annual open house event at his studio in downtown Seattle. As I always love to show my art anywhere, I said YES!

They let me have one big wall and one of the entry walls, which was a great set-up. I brought a whole bunch of paintings and hung up most of them, with Josh’s help. He’s handy, that one.

I didn’t sell any paintings but that’s never stopped me from enjoying myself!

Owen told me that he thought my work was “progressing”. That’s nice to hear.

The show included a silent auction to benefit Real Grrls, a cool non-profit based out of Seattle that’s a media-training program for girls. Each artist was asked to submit something that could fit into a 12 x 12 inch square–I offered up my neon glitter octopus, which was not purchased for auction but I later traded it with a cool girl named Izzy for a painted rock and some homemade stickers.

This artist was fun. She had leanings towards graffiti art, which Josh and I have always loved. Her friend Izzy, who had a cool mushroom painting in the show, went out for fish and chips with Josh and I and regaled us with lots of stories. She was a lot of fun.

The black dog mosaic caught my eye! Arf! The artist did sell this piece.

One of my favorite designs by Owen, which he told me was a felt piece he put together for a tee-shirt design. I asked him if he had any of the tee-shirts left, but this was an older design and it was long gone. Too bad!

This portrait artist was so talented. Apparently the Key Arena had commisioned her to paint Princess Di as a gift for Elton John, but after she painted the portrait and was ready to give it to Elton they announced that he wasn’t accepting any Princess Di portraits after all. So here’s this absolutely gorgeous painting of Diana just sitting at the art studio. I’m CERTAIN someone would buy it if she put it out there, but I’m not sure she wants to.

Everyone opened up their studios and you could wander around inside each studio, meet the artists and talk about their art and eat snacks. It was a lovely way to spend 5 hours on a Friday night in downtown Seattle.

I met a lot of fun people, and everyone I talked to was nice.

In Owen’s studio. Later in the evening a bunch of 20-somethings took turns sitting in Owen’s tattoo chair and had their armpit hair dyed. Geez, if only I had known! I would have grown mine out!

Perhaps someday we will buy an Owen painting.

Nice chair!

The portrait artist’s print of Tura Satana caught my eye, naturally. We had a nice conversation about balancing work and art and painting commissions versus painting what you love.

This wire necklace made me think of my friend Lisa, who was always making fun little pieces of jewelry like this…which I kept, of course!

Towards the end of the evening, one of the artists and I were talking about making the art show a once-a-month event, instead of just once a year. I am not only all for it, but would absolutely LOVE to be involved! Being in a show every month would really encourage me to keep creating, and being around other artists is always invigorating. There’s something about seeing what someone else is working on in real life that just makes you want to work too! We exchanged numbers, and I’m now following three new artists on Instagram, so my night was successful!

Today was a beautiful sunny day, and I’m glad I was able to spend some time outside walking the pets. Currently I have beef stew cooking in the crockpot, and I’m drinking my Late Afternoon Give Me Some Energy Please cup of coffee. No plans for the rest of the weekend except to finish up the last bit of Christmas shopping and wrap presents, which I always enjoy. Maybe some more blogging tomorrow? Perhaps? Lord knows I have pictures waiting. Happy Saturday, blog-logs!