New work and the balancing act -- not always perfect!

Heading home

Acrylic on 2 canvas panels

4 x 6 feet,

Barbara Muir © 2016

Dear friends,

I do live by lists -- something I learned to do from my dear friend
and former boss Frank Daley.  In fact we taught list making as a
strategy in a positive psychology -- school success course.  But even
the lists, and their near magical perfection could only propel me so far
 last week.

I did. 1. Sit a show of one of my major pieces and two other
              landscapes for all of Friday and Saturday night.
          2.  I had just sent a painting, Dream Selfie -- Wonder Water
               Image #7 off to Italy,  to travel to the Louvre for a the
               Carrousel du Louvre Exhibition opening October 21 in
               the Louvre Museum, Paris.
          3.  The weekend before that I was in the Worp exhibition in
                Hooge Zwaluwe, The Netherlands with my painting
                 In the right place at the right time.
          4. I did get a large, rather glorious diptych landscape, Heading 
              home,  finished for a group exhibition opening at the
              Amsterdam Whitney gallery in New York City on October 8.
              And shipped it and two other landscapes to New York last Thursday.
         
But.... I did not manage to take a decent photo of that painting.  So
I apologize.  I was rushed in the last half hour before shipping the work.
The photo I'm showing you gives you an idea of the work.  I am
pretty pleased with it.

Now when I talk about people helping me, and how wonderful the
world is.  I should flip this list and start with that.  My friend
Miranda Brouwers in The Netherlands got me into the Warp
show, and stretched my work that I shipped off the stretchers for
me, in addition to working on hanging the whole show and
finishing her own huge and beautiful work!

My dear friend Raylea Lambert helped me sort out what to put
on my list for the Louvre show.

My over the moon kind gallery director in NYC offered to
photograph my work properly for me when it's hung (it arrives
tomorrow), and prepare postcards for me from that high res
photo.

My dearest husband, knowing I was over the top with work to
do and obligations and tasks still to stick on the list, brought
me home a dozen roses using the water container on his bicycle
to carry them on Friday night.  All of my loving family hung out with
me on Friday and on Saturday and made me soooo happy.

Now it's back to the lists.  And I've learned new lessons about
how to function under pressure -- always handy. I'll use
that when I teach Creativity at the University of Toronto
in November. More news about that coming up!

Have a making really good lists day.