My friends are good to me

I was having kind of a bad day today. First of all, I received a show rejection that set me back a bit and made me grumpy. Plus I haven't really found my groove since we arrived home from Minneapolis. I feel like I am spinning my wheels with too many phone calls, errands, meetings, and other catch up activities. When all I really want to do is sequester myself in the studio and paint like a wild woman.

But I digress. Because 2 of my friends were so wonderful to me today.

Shown at the top is a gift from my friend Missy and I have no idea what I did to deserve this treat! Missy made this tiny framed collage for a swap called Artvent that I participated in last year. Regrettably, I had to face the music this year and admit there was no way it would work with my nutso schedule; making 34 hand crafted and wrapped items just wasn't gonna happen. So I dropped out. But they are all swapping now and unwrapping their new treasures which I am following like a deranged voyeur on Denise's blog. And consequently I have had some regrets. So it was super sweet of Missy to share an "extra" that she had made. What a lovely surprise.

And then there was a package from my friend Shari Beaubien that contained this incredible painting called Inspire. Shari and I became friends over the internet. She is on a Yahoo group I am part of which is how I met her. She has been picking my brain (what's left of it) about the art show biz. Through all our emails we have discovered we are kind of twins/soul sisters/like minded princesses or something like that. Anyway, Shari sent this painting as a thank you gift for all the time I have spent "mentoring" her. How sweet! Truly, all I really want is her to freely mentor someone else when the time comes. And, as I told her in an email, I should say, "oh, you shouldn't have" but of course I can't say that because I just love this painting and the sentiment behind it. I wish my picture did it better justice. If you want to see more of Shari's art, check out her website and blog. She not only makes lots of cool stuff but she writes interesting accounts of her path as an artist. I am so happy we have become friends.