The wisdom is in the eyes III

Happy 4th of July folks!

Unfortunately a great deal of the celebrations are cancelled as far as fireworks are concerned. 

Chris and I really enjoy driving to friends house, and walking to one of the bluffs to watch the show.

This year, we planned to have our grand with us to watch the show.

Maybe next year we can all enjoy the shows.

Wear your mask please!

Anyway, I painted the third turtle in this series, The Wisdom is in the eyes. 

The first one I created has already found a home here in Fairhope much to my delight.

The galleries are all starting to sell the pieces they have on hand. 

Of course, that means they need new ones!

Fortunately we still have a good amount of the stretcher bars we got from Habitat for Humanity.

When we picked them up way back when, I had no idea they would come in handy sooner rather than later. Chris is taking them, nailing two of them together and adding the shadowbox in the center. Originally, he was going to just make ten, but he got a bee in his bonnet and put them all together. I don't have room to store them in the studio, so they'll have to reside in the barn until I can put canvas on them. They'll get painted and taken to galleries or packed up here for shows later this fall!

Speaking of shows,

I got accepted to the National Shrimp Festival again for mid October.

We already have our camping reservations as well at Gulf State Park.

Hopefully the show will go on as planned. One year, a hurricane named Michael messed up our plans and we lost one day of the show. Last year, we had a late start on Saturday because it was pouring down rain. It flooded the show site and we could not enter because of the possibility of electrocution because all the booths have power at the show. There was literally electrical boxes floating, so they cut power to the entire show. We managed to get in a little late, and the show went on. 

You never know what the weather will do at any given day. 

We have endured 120 degree heat indexes, tropical waves with lots of rain, 

bitter cold in April, tent damage from a downdraft storm, 

and the ever present overlapping and over saturation of shows in an area.

We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall.~Proverbs 16:33

I still miss the shows, the interactions between collectors and artists are hard to beat!

Alfred is slowly progressing on his piece.

The fisherman will be very nice once completed, I'm sure.

We've had numerous conversations through Whats App about the presence of God in his life now and in his past history. Alfred was in a gang that was a cult basically and managed to escape them to a normal life. He was a teacher for 20 years in the government school system. Somehow, his retirement pay has been taken and he cannot get it. He has a friend that is working on getting it returned to him. I don't know how much good it will do though, right now the Zimbabwe dollar is in rough water. The US dollar is preferred but hard to get. Right now, the US dollar is worth 90 Zim dollars. A loaf of bread is about $1 US right now. Most people are not able to work at this time though because of the covid crisis. If you're only making $3 a day and your rent is $90, how do you eat?

The country as a whole is not doing well. 

This is not finished, although Alfred tells me the fisherman is done.

He was unable to send it before the power went out on his phone.

This saddens me, as one of the things I wanted to bring on the mission 

was solar chargers that can be used for phones. 

The pandemic has taken a lot from a lot of people. 

Can you imagine it in a third world country?

I cannot, and yet, I've been there when the power was out and internet down.

No power, no water either! No shower after a hot sticky day on bush roads.

But day in and day out?

Could you?

The wisdom is in the eyes, Acrylic on shadowbox canvas, 24x24

Day 6 of the 100 days~100 paintings 2020