The Friday following Santa Fe we made it to the LoPine again as well, well…

to see beyond the suburbs to the valley

…and across it, one rainy eve after another…

until Monday, a day of table-making and preparations for Allison, Cristina, their three year old

boy and soulful beagle for what turned out to be a late night.  The next morning all of them

had to fit into a Honda Fit and head for Pittsburgh just minutes before we

vacated the premises ourselves, less than a week elapsed since Albuquerque,

for the longish

but not entirely lonely road

up to Denver where Wazee, site of our various destinations,

was in disarray.

Linda nonetheless successfully delivered two ‘models’ to her gallery

before we checked in to our hotel for a rest, then made our way to the MCA

where we particularly liked Derek Velasquez’ installation…and other stuff.

Avelina afterwards was excellent, most particularly the squid.  The remainder of the evening

went to TV’s ongoing Trumpathon, a circus without bread to keep the masses at bay.  After a somewhat sleepless night due to dinner’s extraordinary panna cotta, breakfast at the nearby

railroad station and checkout we spent an hour and a half checking out the cellphone lot at DIA before collecting Christine, Luz and Izel, heading south to the Springs and ultimately

George’s Hat in Pueblo for puzzlingly slow service although

 

the much-anticipated pork and avocado burritos did not disappoint.

Subsequent serial shoppings in the 100+ degree heat

and a most trying trip south due to a car fire on I-25 didn’t get everyone settled in until nearly six…an extremely long day for all which young Izel weathered most heroically.

Thursday’s salami delivery to Dean’s afforded a look at some new work and the two and a half

year old [not shown] again before prepping the toolbox for Daisy, who rolled in mid-afternoon with her boyfriend Don and his charming five year old daughter to visit, meet regarding Linda’s

[not toolbox]

[not Colorado]

2018 show in Colorado Springs and, below, a calm before the storm.

Said storm blew in with the addition of a considerably more manic five year old, rendering the scheduled after-dinner discussion of a separate but contemporaneous Libre/not Libre show all but impossible even before it stalled out in polarization over differing ideas as to direction, punctuated by increasingly demanding toddlers.  An unpromising beginning…

Morning after, more discussion over coffee, the dissenting view not present, less broken toys than expected but no resolution.  In the aftermath I got to thinking that the investigation of the plurality of artworlds evident in even this small sampling would be beyond the scope of the exhibition at hand which, if it happens, needs a curator independent of the community [Daisy; her venue, after all] to select work which gently traverses the spectrum from rigorous “4D” abstraction to self-indulgently encrusted hippy assemblage as discreetly as possible.

To be [or not to be] continued…

 

M