Come for the weather, stay for the art

There are indeed many many murals in the Coachella Valley.  (6 traffic boxes are mine!)  Here’s an invitation from the Palm Springs Life magazine to go looking for them.

 

Primroses

Oh wow, just noticed it’s been so long since I’ve had time to blog.  It’s been a really** busy nine days.  But, in this I was able to write a poem when I was the art fair in Litchfield Park, AZ this weekend – about the primroses in bloom in the desert currently.  (Yes, I’ve been taking walks instead of blogging….)  And another sonnet towards beating Mr Shakespeare in his number of sonnets.

The one that got extra yellow…..

Desert Primroses

I never knew that primroses would grow
so close together through the desert dirt.
Amazing that from down there they will know
when one rain will be many, and they’ll spurt
up to the sun. Each little yellow face
so like their cousins from cool, wetter lands.
You would not think they’d grow in such a place
but there they are, amassing through the sands
wheat thick! I cannot walk around but tread
on primroses, most pale, but in between
one got some extra yellow for its head
to stand out from a crowd like none I’ve seen.
A wetter year has grown a primrose lawn,
but they’ll be battered down in the next storm.

Indian Wells – off the waitlist

Skyscapes for the Soul at Indian Wells.

Last Saturday I got a call to say I had been taken off the waitlist for the three day Indian Wells Arts Festival – and here I am in a great space!  Well, here the booth is – I’m behind the camera.

Jeni Bate at Indian Wells

The interesting part is that my booth has an unusual fung shui water element – a fire hydrant in one corner.   I later received a ‘virtual ribbon’ for not complaining about the hydrant.  Like what are they going to do – move it???  I put the mat bin in front of it.

Refractured watercolor with texture

Later in the afternoon, the oblique light across two of the paintings showed their texture to the best advantage.