After writing about my imminent departure for the Grand Canyon in my previous post, some readers are wondering, What's happened to Michael? I apologize for the silence, but I am still, in a sense, traveling to the Grand Canyon. The event doesn't start until Friday evening with our orientation, but I am, indeed, on my way.
I left Campobello Island on Monday (Labor Day) and flew out from Manchester, NH, on Tuesday. It took six hours longer than expected to reach Phoenix because of a variety of initially exasperating but finally entertaining delays in Denver. (It got to the point where you just had to laugh.) I arrived in Phoenix in time to drive through the tail end of rush hour, and I didn't reach Sedona until after dark. I had been up for about 22 hours.
So, now I'm in Sedona. Although I did a certain amount of preparation in the studio several months ago, I've found lots of small details to attend to. As I mentioned before, I really want to make sure I have everything I might possibly need. Framing tool with extra points, hanging wire and d-rings, plenty of frames, boxes for the frames, studio painting for the exhibit, the right number and size of painting panels, wet panel carriers, masking tape, backup paint, maybe a tube of dioxazine violet - well, it's quite a list. And as I go through the studio, I inevitably see something I might need. Yesterday I came across my Coleman LED headlamp, and I thought, Maybe I'll want to paint a nocturne.
Here are a couple of photos of the pile thus far. (Clothes, snacks, six gallons of spring water aren't included.) Hopefully, it'll all fit in my Ford Focus rental. Tomorrow morning, I drive up to the Canyon.
