Art Gallery......In the Past.

A few years after Della and I married we built an addition to the old house.  It is new and modern looking inside.  We opened the room as a place of business selling artwork.  My wife had the studio space to create work and we hung it on the walls.  The public, knowing more about art galleries than us, required us to become picture framers.  They would bring in things and as us to frame them. By 1986 we were in full gear of being an art gallery and frame shop.  We were open ever Saturday for almost 25 years.  I would teach all week and frame in the evenings with my wife and always had work to frame on Saturdays.  We made a lot of friends through those years.  The shop also brought in a lot of commissioned artwork for Della as they viewed her work. She worked year round in the studio and I would join her in the studio to create paintings.

During the summers we would travel to the north shore of Lake Supeior and paint daily for a couple of weeks. We sat on beaches and rocky cliffs painting in Pleine Aire. When my father-in-law moved in to live with us 14 years ago, things all changed.  It was to be expected but the framing business and the making of art for sale slowed down down for both of us. Della did get connected with art sales on the internet and her whole sales as an artist changed. She did still get commission work but that happened more on the internet than people coming to the shop.  I became a professional packer and shipper of work that still goes all over the world.  Hong Kong was one of the most interesting places that my wife sold work of a painting of a bunny. During our packing and cleaning last week we had to send a painting to North Carolina.

During our cleaning out and packing periods in the art gallery, I found a couple of paintings of mine.  They had never been framed.  That way now they will be easier to be packed and moved. Along a highway near Grand Portage there is a drive-off place so people can look out at Lake Superior.  It is on an Indian Reservation and I do believe people live on the other side of this bay. We have stopped here many times.

A lot of the bays along Superior look alike as you can see here.  The difference is there is not a sand and pebble beach along here like the one in the above photo. I see that I did sign it but there is not a date on it.

Things are going to be melting a lot today as we are looking at high temps of 45 degrees F.  It will be called our  spring thaw but I don't think it will be as drastic of thaw as some that we have had in the past. The ice dropped from trees all day yesterday making bombing sounds on to the roof of the house. Barney refused to go walking last evening as he doesn't like walking on all the ice bits that fell from the trees.  Today they should be gone and he will be happy.

Busy day again today.  Dropping off mor books again as we pass the Goodwill store.  We need to buy groceries as we have been iced in since Sunday.   Thanks for stopping by today.