Monday, October 12, 2009

Doggie Disaster


The overlooked paint can.


What's left after the disaster.




Some of the evidence.



More evidence. (Breena doesn't ordinarily sport white toenails)


Introducing the culprit: Breena


Last Friday evening, we made the trip to the Tucson Art Museum for the opening of the Ansel Adams exhibit.

After some discussion, we decided to put our neurotic black lab, Breena, in my studio for safe keeping while we were gone. In she went, with her bed, water bowl, and the iPod on shuffle mode for her musical entertainment. I carefully opened the curtain on the glass door to half mast so she could look outside. I made sure everything she could destroy was put up out of her reach, or so I thought.

Off we went for a lovely evening of viewing art and dinner out.

My plan upon our return was to prepare for my teaching my community college class that was meeting the next day and in which I was totally unprepared.

Upon our arrival home at about 9:30 pm, Jim went into my studio to retrieve Breena. He called me inside.

What I saw was my beautiful, epoxy painted concrete studio floor, covered with a maze of white doggie paw prints. Over by the window was an overturned gallon of Navajo white paint. Out of the gallon of Navajo white paint had flowed, yes, nearly a gallon of Navajo white paint.

In her hysteria at being left alone while we went out on a "date", Breena managed to knock over the can of paint with enough force to dislodge the lid. She proceeded to race around my studio for who knows how long, stepping through the paint and making paint paw prints literally everywhere.

I spent the next several hours cleaning up. First I used the spilled paint to paint the door frame. That's why the bucket was there in the first place, only I'd never gotten around to doing this little chore. Then I scooped the rest of the pool of paint back into the bucket. Next I put on my trusty knee pads, and got down with a scraper, water and paper towels, and attempted to clean up the mess.

When I had scraped up all that I had energy for, I called it quits and proceeded to my desk where I spent another couple hours getting ready for class. At 1:30 pm, I crawled into bed.

So much for a fun night out on the town.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi, great work, interesting blog, and lovely Breena!!
I´m a brazilian artist, if you have time take a look at my painting work too. www.argenide.com
Greetings,
Argenide

Barbara Cowlin said...

Hi, Argenide,
Just sent you an email, but I thought I'd reply here, as well. I enjoyed looking at your website. Love your work, and the way you handle your subject with different materials.

Stay in touch.

Anonymous said...

And while you crawled around on your hands and knees clearing up, your partner did what? ;-)