Travelling the I-80 Trail

Professional artists are almost always working solitary and I don't know there is any better way to be creative.  The quiet needed for inspiration to come visit will, much of the time, not be there - if there are distractions of any kind.

Growing up I had nearly perfected the skill of mentally travelling inward just so I could be in a world where inspirations and ideas would visit.  I was accused of "being a daydreamer" for that reason, perhaps.  Daydreams were a refuge from a childhood that was ...let's just say, something that made me pretty tough.  Not hard or unkind or inaccessible to others kind of tough (although others may disagree with this), but inner resolve 'sure of what I must do' kind of tough, 'it doesn't much matter what the "tribe" thinks,' kind of tough.

This is a type of tough an artist needs, I think.  So while much of my childhood I will bemoan - it did, if fact, prepare me well, and especially for something like I am doing this week:  sharing with anyone what I do to create what I create.  I will be at Turpin Gallery in Jackson, Wyoming demonstrating how I sculpt. 

For me, it's real personal, not really how I sculpt...but why I create what I create.  Especially the horses because "why" I create them is all tied up with my early life...if I could have transformed myself into anything then, it would have been a horse.  I would have run far, kicked hard and done it all with all the grace and beauty that a horse possesses.  If I had had a horse, I may have saddled up and ridden off into the sunset.

Give me a Black Stallion book.  I'm good.

But...this is boring.  Enough about me.

I started the project I will be working on enough to make it travel safe. 

We got a hatchback for a car rental and that was just what we needed.  Everything seemed like our road trip would be smooth and uneventful.

Until, once in Wyoming and on I-80 Mark said,

"Hmmm.  The oil light just came on."

We happened to be close to the famous Buford, Wyoming (population 1 ) town and they had a gas station/convenience store.  Mark opened the hood of our lovely rented hatchback to discover an engine covered with oil and no oil cap on the (for lack of what the more technical name might be) thing where you put the oil in :)

Mark (very luckily) found the oil cap still in the engine wedged between some unknown to me engine part and another, purchased 2 quarts of oil in the service station and were on our way.

We have made it to the beautiful city of Rock Springs and will be travelling on to arrive in Jackson, Wyoming later today.

Hope you are having a very good weekend.  I'll be back writing when I can.

'Til then -

~Alex