RANDOM MUSINGS

ART WORKS WONDERS

Tuesday I left Salt Lake with a neighbor joining me to help hang my show at the Anasazi State Park in Boulder Utah.  It always takes longer than I expect, hanging paintings in an attractive order, straightening them, cleaning glass, redirecting spotlights, climbing on chairs (I only fell off once), pasting wall labels and calling it done.  Having an accomplice made light work of it. We left the museum at closing time, not quite finished, but fortunately my neighbor has a house in town, so we could return in the morning to finish. 

My friend abruptly stopped the car outside a house with an  eclectic mix of chickens in the yard.  A man stood in the open doorway as we got out of the car.  "Got any eggs?" she called to him. 
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"You stoppin' '​cause you saw the chickens?"  His hat was pulled down close to his eyes, bushy beard and hands jammed in his pockets. No welcome here.  "I've been here before and bought eggs, got any?"  

He hesitated for an uncomfortable length of time.  "How many you want?"  "A half dozen, a dozen if you've got them."  She introduced herself and me, explaining that we've been hanging my watercolor paintings in the museum.  He replied with his first name. He disappeared into the darkness of the house behind him. We weren't sure if we were dismissed or he went to get eggs, especially when 5 minutes had passed.  He reappeared from the darkness and handed her a dozen eggs in a carton, the carton felt warm. 

This time he almost smiled "there's a show of nice watercolor paintings in the library, from some watercolor club.  You oughta see 'em".  I was dumbfounded, could that be true?  Could this town support a watercolor club? We thanked him profusely and waved goodby. 

The next morning we stopped in the library and sure enough, there was a wonderful show of the Utah Watercolor Society, a traveling exhibit out of Salt Lake City, full of my favorite artists’ paintings!  At 11am on a weekday morning there were 4 or 5 locals "oohing" and "aahing" over the paintings.  This is news in this town!  Art really does wonders.  (The eggs were delicious.)

Bessann