Starting over again

Here's to new ideas, fresh starts and a dog on a bike. Who's the dog? And what's that got to do with wwindhorses and making the paint stick? Beats me but I think it might work. Its been a real long dry spell in the paint for me. Oh, I've still been an artist but settled on grey pencils and colored pencils and pencils of all sorts. Add to that bags of soft wooly fleece thats been spun and woven and knit and stored away from the dozens of moths, filling way too much space in my closet and studio. Shelves of colored glistening glass packed upright in wooden frames waiting to be cut and soldered into window delights. But no paint, no real paint that was retired many decades ago into a safe place. I used to think of myself as a painter. I went to college thinking I was a painter and I left college thinking I was a painter. I loved it and breathed it and obsessed with it. I was told by my professors that I would be a hell of a painter someday. I knew how to move the paint around. All I knew is that it was a large part of my identity and I enjoyed it but the smell of the turp was starting to do me in. Then something happened and the paints were sealed up in the old metal tackle box and left for dead. I got cancer, most likely caused by all the fumes of paint, ink and solvents. Too many badly vented studios, university art rooms with air conditioning but no open windows and no venting fans and little awareness of what could cause Non Hodgkins Lymphoma in a young person. Many, many years ago and I'm still here and still wondering about how to make the paint stick. I've tried bringing the paint out over the years but my heart wasn't allowed to get back into it. Each time I tried, I pretended, I thought I could jump back in and recapture what I had once felt about the paint. No luck...I crawled back to the graphites, the wax pencils, the oil based pencils and the spinning wheel. This blog is to start over one more time with the paint and this time see it through and become a painter again. One more time...

Now about the dog and the bike. The dog is Racki alias Raku, a almost 2 year old Samoyed dog. I bought myself a bike, a girls bike, something I thought I would never be caught dead on. But I went to the sheriff's bike auction one fine spring day and the first bike I saw was the one I bid on and I won. Its a GT and has a good brand of shifter, gears and brakes. I had no idea what kind of bike I was bidding on but I lucked out. Even the tires were new. Since then I found something called a "Springer". Its a bike attachment for dogs. Its made in Norway but can be purchased over here for under 50 dollars. It allows the dog to run by your side as you bike, the large spring absorbs most of the shock from potential squirrel chases so you don't get knocked off the bike by the dog. Its great and Racki and I have logged lots and lots of miles together. He loves it. If he sees me touch the bike without him around he gets very upset. As far as he is concerned, this is his bike. Biking with your dog comes somewhat close to riding your horse. You've got this great companion to talk to and explore the fields and woods with. Your a team, you look out for each other and its fun. Soon to come, pics of Racki and me and the bike.