Today my daughter and I drove to Pittsburgh for a day's outing. Wednesdays are her only day off and she wanted to do some clothes shopping for my niece's upcoming Sweet Sixteen party. We had a full day planned starting at 9:00am and with the help of several map-quests printouts we managed to go to two upscale consignment shops, noshed at an Ethiopian restaurant (Abay), a quick purchase at Barnes and Noble for some reading materials, $38 worth a bakeries goodies at Gluuteny (a Gluten-free bakery for my daughter who has Celiac), take out at a Greek Deli and a visit to the Fein Art Gallery to see my paintings. We had a great mother-daughter day, laughed, talked, played a silly word game and listened to our ipods ("Keith and the Girl" Podcast (mine) & a variety of music including Grease", Black Eyed Peas, Annie Lenox and Nine Inch Nails.The visit to the gallery may have been the high/low of the day. Viewing the art without a crowd makes little things that are wrong stand out. Without going through the list of minor complaints I will move on the disappointment of no sales for me. The high of the day was walking past each painting with my daughter where she identified things from our lives. She hadn't seen some new pieces including "Jackson's Trip to Heaven" which she liked very much. Because of the autobiographical nature of my paintings looking at them tell stories clear as looking at a photo album. We saw "Family Album" which was done right after a trip to Disney World, she recognized a pair of pants I wore, we laughed at the painting with our deceased dog Jackson holding a sock in his mouth as it was one of his habits to pick up something from whomever just entered the house and hold it in his mouth. For a moment he was alive to us again.
