Gallery Opening Tonight

After angsting with Martha Marshall the past few weeks -- I was the one in angst, she was just speeding along at her usual Mach 10, hair afire -- all her paintings were reading, shipped off to one gallery in Key West and hung in the Lyssa Morgan Gallery in Tampa for another show with tonight's opening. Martha shared the spotlight with another artist, Antonio Puri.

So I trotted out my finest uptown artist's togs, picked up Phyllis McEwan, and we puttered downtown to the show. Great art, saw some old friends, drank some wine and ate wonderful food from Cellini's. The photo above is just one of the walls showing some of Martha's awesome work. I love the little boxes on the left. They can be purchased separately or in groups. The texture is amazing in them! I wish you could really see the depth in them.

Martha is a working artist. Phyllis is a poet, actor, librarian and is teaching a class at the University of South Florida on Zora Neale Hurston. I haven't decided what I'm going to end up being yet. I've had lots of hats in my closet. The one for costumes is about to come to a close. I'm burned out on it. Forty five years is enough to stitch rags. I want to devote more time to my writing, drag out the several book manuscripts that lay gathering dust under my bed in need of just a final editing and then sending off, and want to research and finish the book I'm writing on the Civil War.

I'm also trying to get enthusiastic about the last few mortgage payments on my old girl of a house and how and what I'm going to need to do to get her refurbished and spiffed up. I'll be paid in full in a few short months. I've been struggling to send in mortgage payments for so long that I think the void of not having to do that will trip me. I know the look I want in here -- clean, white with blue ceilings, a wainscot of bead board and furniture for a beachy look, but you would have to see the condition of the house now to know how terrifying the aspect of remodeling is.

I've been watching BHG t.v. for inspiration, but am trying to figure how I'll juggle having my one bathroom torn out and rebuilt. Do I pee in the yard? Shower under the garden hose? Or do I have a small extra bath built first for the apartment that I want to add on the water side of the house? My kitchen is almost non-existent and there are many signs of the hurricane damage that happened two years ago: Sagging ceilings deluged down being held up under the prop of a 2 X 4, kitchen cabinets that 'float' because the rain dissolved the bottom boards and warped the doors, a hall that has every bit of wall cladding stripped out where I can see the underside of the roof from rain. The back end of the house that contains my utility and bath are sagging at about a 10 degree angle having been picked up by a tornado and slapped back down pulling away from the house.

Can I do this? Can I really make it through the remodel to have a house with real closets, a real kitchen and a bath that works? Time will tell. Until I have to deal with the nitty-gritty, I'll attend art shows and forget about it.