Reflecting on life in general and my art progress a little bit these last few days, I couldn’t help but travelling back to year ago, for almost to the day I went on this wonderful trip. First stop was Holland where I had not been since 1997 when my brother got married, and a big part of my family I had not seen since then.
I was with them for just over 2 weeks and had a wonderful time. It was bitterly cold most of the time which of course I was not used to anymore; having spent the last 9 years in sunny Queensland, but it was enjoyable getting dressed in layers and heavy coats again. Oh yes, I had a ball, it was great.
Then I flew on to Boston in the USA, from where I went to Haverhill, where I was scheduled for a 4day portrait course, aka Art Boot Camp, with Rob Howard from Studio Products.
It was an interesting time, I worked hard but was unfortunately, severely hindered by a nice dose of jet-lag plus trigeminal neuralgia, the latter causing me to have blurred vision most of the time and severe headaches. But I struggled on and it was all good. I learned a great deal from Rob’s assistant Victor, who guided us all the time during those 4 days and would come up with some really good pointers.
I had one more day in Haverhill after the course, during which I was going to meet up with Rob and Victor again, organise some products to take home and properly discuss the issue with a medium called “ The Studio Products Spray-Medium” which had gone really funny and which looked to have been from a bad batch, plus I wanted to discuss the dispatch of the paintings I had done during the course a bit more detailed.
The paintings were still too wet to be packed up and flown home with me so Rob promised to send them as soon as they were dry.
However, neither Rob nor Victor showed up that next day and I could not reach Rob on any of the phone numbers I had which was rather disappointing.
Over the next months I regularly inquired after my paintings and was always told that he would take care of them. When inquiring after them again, I was told they had been moved with all the other stuff to the new Studio location and would be sent as soon as they got organised.
And then; last December I was told that the paintings had been send to me as soon as they were dry about a month or so after the course, that being late April (!!!???) and that the Australian postal system must be to blame for not getting them to me.
A new bottle of Spray Medium had gone the same way, and is apparently also lost in the Aussie post system.
What really puzzles me though is that, apart from the Munsell book, no order I have ever placed with Studio Products or any other overseas company, nor any of the parcels my family sent me ever went missing, no matter which postal service was used. And they were always promptly delivered by our very friendly posties. Hmmm.
I have posted my paintings here, for sure, they are not particularly master pieces, but hey, they are mine, I worked hard on them and it would be nice to look at them in another 20 years from now and see the improvements I made since then. Right??
So if anyone recognises them, has seen them, or has found a parcel with my name on it that looks like it could contain some paintings, please let me know.
Of course the same applies for the bottle of Spray Medium, if you find a parcel from Studio Products with my name on it and the description “artist materials” please let me know, send me an e-mail or give me a call.
I would appreciate it greatly. Thanks
