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Via Colori and the Rain

November 18, 2007

It is Sunday, the second scheduled day of Via Colori, and I don't doubt that they are rained out. I wasn't able to attend - I have to keep my foot/leg up until I see the doctor tomorrow. But they are all probably snafu'd today. Terribly sad considering yesterday was a semi-nice day. I don't know if they completely rescheduled or if they did a one-day deal. I'll alert you to further developments and do hope they simply chose their stand-by weekend (that would mean I actually get to attend!)

November 6, 2007

Via Colori, the street "painting" festival, is coming soon! I had a 10' x 10' square, two fantastic ideas and a whole weekend of great art planned for myself. I gave up my square. I don't get this cast off until the Monday after the event and, even if I were to have my doctor remove it the Friday before, I still doubt he'd appreciate my dragging a still-healing foot around on asphalt for two solid days. I was glad to hear there was a waiting list of artists ready to take over the square, so this year I'll just be a visitor. Not nearly as much fun, but definitely worth the trek up there to see all my art peeps.

It is great for the whole family, and you will see whole families working on their squares. There is also a place for the kids to do their own chalk squares in Via Bambini! Two stages of live music, several bands, Starbucks (!! great for those early morning chalk-ups!) and tons of fabulous foods.

I will see you there!!!

Cabin Fever

October 25, 2007

As my leg atrophies, my beautiful little abode experiences entropy. I sit and watch as the dust gathers and things seem to just disintegrate. Well, maybe not that bad, but slowly the solidity of my material world softens and sags. My little illusion of reality takes on a messy cast, but as this occurs, I paint. I graciously thank Mindpuddles for reminding me of the Box Show, that I had 3 boxes stowed away from last year's show that I did not participate in, and I am about 80% finished with my pieces. They are SPLENDID! If I can, I will pick up a few more boxes (4 more maybe - 7 was always a good number for me) and do those as well. At least do one more because these have such a cool, retro, cosmetic theme to them.

Monday they took weight-bearing x-rays, but cut off the cast before realizing they were to leave it on, so they had to put on yet another cast ...., and the doctor said "looks perfect" so I said "yay! lets take this damned thing off!" to which he said "um, not quite yet."

4 more weeks. Well, 3 weeks and 3 days at this writing. 3 more weeks of crazies, of cabin fever, of atrophy, of dependence on some of the most fabulous friends I could ever have asked for. I have some very special people in my midst. I am truly blessed. To the gills. These are the ones who will keep me from going insane. I also figured out that painkillers aren't for pain, they are for the cabin fever, the "cast claustrophobia" (a very real condition) and for the sense of wanting to crawl right out of your skin. I sit here and learn an enormous lesson in compassion, empathy and care.

My friends have taught me much about caring. They have been here for me and I am forever indebted. Happily, too. So much real love going around. There is nothing in this world quite like it. It becomes everything and I know things I didn't know before.

This afternoon I go in to have this third cast removed to put on a fourth cast -- this one is crooked. It hurts to put my foot down, hurts my entire leg, and now my knee is all cattywhompus. NOT a good thing, considering I am trying to get to where I CAN walk again, not to where I can't. Before the spill, I had been running. Well, walk/sprinting. I would walk about 50 yards, then sprint for 20 yards, as fast as I could. I got into shape SO fast, my legs were transformed. They were becoming strong, steel-like, sleek again. I felt like I could take on the world.

Now I feel like I could just kick my own ass with my good foot......

The Marfa Photos

October 16, 2007

Here a few of the Marfa photos. If you email me, I'll send you a link to the whole lot... http://laceycrawford.com/marfa07/marfa07_01.html



Click to open a larger shot of each cast.

The Marfa Story

October 9, 2007

We're back from Marfa at last. 10 hour drive there that turned into a 24 hour trek, but an actual 10 hour ONLY drive back. On the way to Marfa I picked up my ultra-techie friend Steve in San Antonio and we ended up staying in... Junction? on the way. He'll have to remind me. There are about a thousand little towns we passed by and decided, at around 9 or 10pm, that we just couldn't go on safely through the night so we stopped.

The best thing about that was leaving again early in the morning, watching the world wake up and the landscape change from central Texas to west Texas. As we were driving down from I-10, taking highway 67 to Alpine, a BOBCAT ran right out in front of us. Fortunately, it was a good 20' or 30' ahead of the car so we didn't hit it, but we came very close. It must have seen something on the other side of the road (why did the bobcat cross the road?) because it was hauling bobcat ass.

We slid through the little town of Alpine and made our way into Marfa (about 20 minutes west.) These little towns will slow you down. The speed limit just about everywhere inside the towns is 30 mph. On the highways in west Texas -- 80 mph. I guess the highway department knows we cityfolk want to come and go quickly, but stay as long as we can while there.

The first day was great, filled with trips through the little town and artists at The Marfa Camp who had come early to help hang/install the show in the building of the International Women's Foundation, this old army facility with living quarters, a kitchen, partially refurbished and partially still a beautifully ruined relic. The place was magical. I'll post photos just as soon as Steve and I get our acts together.

A big party was planned for both Friday and Saturday nights at our camp so the games were soon to begin. I had all the accoutrements I needed to survive, even picking up a tent and some sleeping bags in case Steve wanted to camp outside -- I had a spot reserved inside with a ton of other artists. How truly Bohemian. Sometime during the afternoon, Wayne Gilbert of G-Gallery came up to Steve and suggested we take over one of the art rooms at the front (after everyone leaves in the wee hours, of course) so that we could have privacy and a little more cleanliness than the "VIP Room" in back. We gradually let on that we weren't a couple (!!!) but what a delightful offer for a girl a little unaccustomed to a lot of dirt.

The party commenced on Friday at the Marfa Camp as the townspeople and art-goers converged. We were a popular gallery in the midst of more established environs throughout the town. We were about a mile or so from the epicenter, but we seemed to have become our own center of the Universe. Of about 60 artists in our compound, I seemed to be about the only female artist to have shown up. Gus Kopriva's wife, Sharon, and Wayne's wife, Beverly, were there as were some girlfriends of other artists, but I felt rather like one of the guys, made completely welcomed and at home.

And to think I hadn't wanted to go. Silly me.

As the party went on, the night became electrified. As I was snapping a shot of some art in one of the rooms, a couple of guys wandered in and realized I was shooting, so one of them moved out of the frame. I asked for him to please get back IN the shot and he turns around and says "Lacey!??" ... it was my old friend Neal! There he was in Marfa, Texas, taking a look at the art while I'm snapping a shot of him. Funny little world. I later went partying in the town with him and his crazy friends, eating beef jerky and perusing the other galleries. They ended up standing in line to get into some club and that's when I decided to take my leave, having Neal haul me back to Camp Marfa.

Upon arriving there, I continued my own partying into the night and at one point decided I needed to get my phone out of my car, where it was charging. I'm not quite sure what my intentions were with the phone because it was probably close to midnight, but I wanted to get it anyway before going any further. Steve had found me and we were chatting a bit as we walked out the front door of the building.... I took a step off the front concrete slab and my ankle gave way, sending a searing, sharp pain up my leg and sending my whole body crumbling to the ground.

The pain was excruciating. Steve came right down after me, worried that a limb had fallen off, I was shouting so loud. I began crying for the pain. It was horrid. Tommy, wonderful Tommy the artist who "installed" my own undies art at the exhibit, came to see what was up. He CARRIED me to the sofa in the front room while so many others began to help me get comfortable. Mit, one of the artists' partners, grabbed a big ice pack and immediately wrapped my ankle, then found a potent painkiller that helped me ease into my situation, but the shock had already sunk in.

My ankle swelled, my entire leg ached with sporadic stabbing pains and the world wouldn't be the same for a long, long time. For the remainder of the evening, people came and went and all were so kind and concerned and real. These were some of the most fascinating and talented people I've ever met, and they all had heart. I am blessed to have met them all. This is an open Thank You to everyone I came in contact with during the Marfa weekend. Angels all.

I ended up sleeping in the front room after all, clean, cool, comfortable, on my new air mattress with my new injury. The next day was spent convalescing on the various sofas that were dispersed throughout the building. One sofa was in the shade of the back courtyard (where music played the night before) and one was in the VIP room, fan blowing, windows opened wide.

Steve and I went out for a late breakfast, me gimping along slowly on a swollen ankle... in flipflops. Not exactly the way I should have been getting around but it wasn't like I had many choices. After dropping me back off at our building, he went out in search of a cane or walking stick, and came back with one of those aluminum walkers (!) Too funny but it worked for getting me around without stressing my ankle any more than it was already.

The gorgeous afternoon with its light breezes and cumulous clouds slipped into evening, when everyone decided to go into town for the free dinner and concert. I stayed back because my ankle was worse than ever. I was on Aleve, Ibuprophen and hope. Neal visited to check on me and a few others dropped in to see about the artist-clutz. I got to where I felt I was becoming a distraction and didn't want any negativity to emerge from my mishap. Although too late, I certainly didn't want to be remembered as the girl who busted her ankle at the Chinati art thing in Marfa. I decided to leave first thing Sunday morning and drive straight through to Houston where I could truly rest and get a great shower and a decent night's sleep.

Drive we did (well, Steve drove the first half, then I took over to San Antonio where I dropped him off to fly back to Dallas) and I made it home by 5:30 on Sunday evening. Monday morning I made the appointment with an orthopedic surgeon.

After an ankle x-ray he poked and prodded me, bending and shifting with no real decision on the source of the swelling and pain. Standing up, I told him of this clicking toward the top of my calf, on the outside, that bothered me. Just about every step I took brought on this weird popping but there was no pain there, though there was swelling. He sent me back to x-ray then back to the exam room. He and the PA walked in with this Ah HA! look on their faces -- they showed me the leg x-ray and there was a clean, perfect break, right there at the top of my leg. I had broken my fibula, the smaller of the two bones in the leg.

I am now in a cast -- I chose red for how pissed off I am -- almost up to my knee. A hard, un-removeable cast. In two weeks I see the doctor again to determine if I'll need pins put in.  I hope not.  He said the break was so clean, the alignment so beautiful (even after me slogging around for two days with it popping, bone end against broken bone end) that he would hold off on pinning it in hopes that it would mend properly and we could just rely on the cast for healing.

I'll post photos of both the Marfa show and my cast shortly. For now, I've got to go put this thing up because it is swelling madly behind all the hardened gauze.

Wait'll I tell you about the Black Widow spider and the Scorpion, fighting for their lives while the artist guys placed their bets.....

Here are a few shots you might like to ponder.......

Marfa Bound

October 3, 2007

After much contemplation, I've decided to make the 600 mile trek to Marfa, Texas for the weekend. The instructor of my foundry course, David Medina, said that I should go because I have pieces in the exhibit. I will be in the G-Gallery's portion of the Chinati Foundation Annual Art exhibit . I sort of lucked into it but am glad to be there during the weekend's festivities. I'll take plenty of photos. I'm working on my Flickr cell phone capability so that I can send photos to that, as well. I'll send a link if I get one.....

You will find the G-Gallery's catalog, Camp Marfa, here.

As usual, art on!

Rattletree at the Artery Saturday

September 24, 2007

Rattletree (myspace) (Rattletree website) was great. They are a group of semi- geeky guys mixed with a little surfer-wannabes, with a lot of white-boy-gone-Zimbabwe. They play conventional drums and conga drums, but the other instruments in their repertoire were four hand-built marimbas and a Matepe. Fabulous sounds. Fascinating seeing these lily white guys sing and play African music with as much passion and talent as if they were from the continent. I was very impressed.

Behind

September 5, 2007

I realize that I am so behind in my blogging but there is little (but to type) that I can do about it. I admire anyone who keeps a daily blog. I keep an almost daily journal. You don't wanna see what I write in there.... or DO you??? Yeah, prolly.

A lot has been going on. The best and most public thing I can write about is my new association with an organization called S.I.R.E. It is a horse therapy group here in the area that is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. I finally joined the Texas Fillie's Racing Club at the track, per the urgings of my girlfriends who have been with them for eons, and the speaker the very first day I went (okay, the only day I've been, at this point) was from S.I.R.E. (helping people since 1983. ) What a group. I had been praying for God, the universe and my angels to drop the Next Big Thing into my lap. My mentoree, Lucy, is in college and doing so very well and it is time to move onto my next volunteering experience.

Plop. Right in my lap.

This is a most profound organization, and there are around 800 like it in the United States. I urge everyone out there to look into it or the others. Please. Just going out there last Saturday (after attempting to talk myself out of it because of impending rain) did me so much good. I won't start the volunteer training until winter, but I want to work with them in fund-raising, awareness, etc. This is huge.

They've discovered, though the insurance companies won't participate, that this type of therapy is far and beyond the efficacy of conventional therapy. Seeing these kids, clients they call them, get on the horses and respond immediately to the moment, I knew they were right. There is a waiting list to be a client, but we would like the organization to be at the point of having a waiting list for volunteers. I feel so honored to be scheduled for training -- I can hardly wait. But, as important as this is, I want to be ready. I want to get my feet very wet, soaked, by helping out in other ways first. These kids are remarkable and I want to be the best that I can be for them.

When I see them in wheel chairs, stove up and contracted, not speaking, not responding to human touch, get onto these horses (sometimes with the use of hospital lifts because of their weight or the bulk or difficulty of their frames) ... then smile, laugh, SHINE, I cannot help but laugh and cry. This is amazing. Amazing. Pure magic. It was all quietly, gently and graciously dropped right in my lap. What. A. Gift.

I will pick this up and run with it. I must. If you would like to help, there is so much more information on their site. Here is their wish list, and here is their volunteer FAQ. There is so much more all over the site, so please take a look.

There is much more, of course. But I've got to get back to work. As usual.