Angels Among Us

Angels Among Us / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 unframed

sold! 

LAST WEEK, I RECEIVED an email from a  jeweler friend (Hillary Burkett, whose website is https://camerashycove.com/) announcing that she was holding a Labor Day sale. 

What a great idea! 

I sent her a note, thanking her for spurring me on, and she told me that she'd received an email the day before from an artist friend of hers, announcing a Labor Day sale, and so she, Hillary, had done the same thing, decided, on the fly, to hold a Labor Day sale. 

So there was Angel No. 1. 

Angel No. 2 was all of you, who got online and bought paintings from me. My down-and-dirty one-day Labor Day sale was a big success! Thank you. 

Angel No. 3 was a couple who are very dear to me, who, out of the blue, sent me a check for $1,000 to help me pay for the $6,000 heat/AC unit, which I had to replace last week. 

Angel No. 4 got my son-in-law Paul to have a stress test with a cardiac camera somehow looking at his heart. Turns out he has a big blockage, and is scheduled for a cardiac catheterization and stent procedure on Monday. They found the problem before the problem found him, and I am thankful. 

Angel No. 5 is my galleries, many of which are selling my art like it's going out of style. I couldn't be happier or more grateful. 

Last and most, Angel No. 6 is my family and friends, all of you who support me with your love and kindness, your visits and phone calls and cards and letters, your help and laughter and walks with the dogs - and most of all, with your belief in me. Two of the most prominent members of this group, Mom and Peter,  are gone, but I know they are with me, maybe one on each shoulder. 

Yes, I have had a terrible loss and a bleak, difficult, depressing year. But we all have had a difficult year, and we are getting through it together. I am grateful for all the angels, for my higher power, and for the good fortune I have had throughout my life. 

My angels help me daily, and inspire me to be a better person, more generous, kinder, more forgiving - and remind me to be grateful every day. 

***

Second Friday

I AM SOMEWHAT AMAZED that we are already the second Friday in September, but apparently, we are. And that's important, because I'm the featured artist at Red Queen Gallery, during Onancock's Second Friday walk. It's Sept. 11 (gulp), from 4-7 p.m., at the Red Queen, 57 Market St., Onancock, here on the Eastern Shore.

 

Some of my art at the Red Queen

***

A Last Thought

300 Goats

In icy fields.
Is water flowing in the tank?
Will they huddle together, warm bodies pressing?
(Is it the year of the goat or the sheep?
Scholars debating Chinese zodiac,
follower or leader.)
O lead them to a warm corner,
little ones toward bulkier bodies.
Lead them to the brush, which cuts the icy wind.
Another frigid night swooping down -
Aren't you worried about them? I ask my friend,
who lives by herself on the ranch of goats,
far from here near the town of Ozona.
She shrugs, "Not really,
they know what to do. They're goats."

- Naomi Shihab Nye