The Murder of the Part-Time Wardrobe - a holiday fun mystery in 500 words!

Four Art shows!  Count'em - four!   And no sales from this venue of the previous five years!  A lifetime first- no sales. Alone now, and thrilled to be running around and doing life in full health after a disability that could have been fatal, the need to recover the MONEY to full health was now the key.

And so it was easy to slip the charge into the back of the large gold frame that enhanced my entry in the largest of the shows!  

My art had won prizes since girlhood, church and state, all the way to the White House, and so the zero sales were NOT okay.

 For five years, the huge gallery had been "home" - so much time there, setting up, screening, doing drop-offs and pickups and receptions, promotions  and related side-shows!   The place had become a wardrobe of a sort - the contents inserted and removed as needed - changed all the time,  but not entirely,  and provided a magic portal to world-class events, thanks to the very hard work of all involved.  A Part-Time Wardrobe, Indeed!

No sales directly associated with the place - NONE. A lifetime first- NOT ONE SALE!

Life had been good, then tragic , then redeemed, but not really unless the money would redeem as well.

NO sales? No sales meant NO redemption in this real world.f

I am a redcrosslady and non-violent, but gee!  So poison charges in the frame would do the trick - nothing deadly,  and triggered at pickup, the art would be fine and no one hurt -  but fogged enough to stink the place up, to high heaven, till Spring! 

YES....

I got busy helping with the take-down, and enjoyed the “wardrobe” one more time - taking in all the art, as the artists collected them at show’s end. Then as I took hold of my own “part of the art” I released the stink bomb capsule into a corner not visible to anyone who did not already know it was there.

Bye Bye - Happy Holiday! So good to see you all again - was quite sincere- they had been good and kind and great fun and restored the dead to life with their art and its related work for five years with me as a respected member!  Bye bye- and hit the “on “ switch to my stinkbomb , then the “off”switch to my “Tempoary Wardrobe” and danced happily off to fine family holiday reunions.

Leaving art events smiling , with me, usually means that people liked the work and bought some - even a little.   

I left smiling - and let them think so…….

This story fun to pass on from a facebook game begun by actor Benedict Cumberbach - click to join, if it is still there...if not, here, at least, is a screenshot to help you understand "what on earth?" 

INK and Hartford's 28th Annual Open Studio

Wish me luck!  - I am part of the art for   The 28th Open Studio Hartford events  that wind up this weekend - my fifth year with this “Art meets Disneyworld” wonder!

Come to the closing show this Saturday - details at the link above.

But about the INK -  media coverage was not what it should be - so the sales were less that we had a right to expect for all our hard work and investment.    A steady stream of  really charming visitors arrived in spite of a cold snap in the weather, but much  less than would have been there with DECENT coverage. 

Open Studio Hartford is VERY popular and very worth it!    300+ artists at a dozen locations all over downtown Hartford is a BIG BIG BIG deal  ... and YET...  there were zero tv spots to let folks know we were here!  I was there and TV and other media were NOT - NOT ONE CAM to video the event at startup to bring visitors!  Not one reporter panning the room with questions and attention - attention we EARNED.

And so, much of the Public  missed  the fun and extras - and that hurt the event folk at every level - after all that work in organization, prep and really beautiful setups at every art venue, with free and reduced parking, and free shuttles through the locations !  

An old hand at artstuff, I PROMISED to Act and find ways to see that  OSH  is  respected in the media,  responsibly.   There is still time for them to redeem themselves this year and promise better for the future!   

This weekend, we are still having grand fun with Ekphrasis and the Saturday event After Party !   The event opening/closing party is getting famous as an All-American event with folk from jeans to evening formalwear in attendance - free admission and often 500+ attendees during the evening. See the link for details - art , food, wine/un-wine , music, performance!  Please come !   Family-friendly.

But the "ink" - When biz leaves Hartford,  it is most certainly in part because Hartford is  just plain lazy supporting it dynamically.   Nothing comes from nothing and support is NOT that difficult to generate.   Let's do better!   The work shared represented honors in schools and conscientious self-starting work for years - years!   Can you imagine how we felt, after placing faith in the famous event , and setup to share really fine things - only to be left chatting among ourselves? 

I am going to get real action on this topic  - the show Admin was grand - but not the INK.    I love Connecticut  so, and Hartford specially -  and am media-active lifelong - I can help   ^_^         What about YOU?     28th Open Studio Hartford !   Pass it on!  

Poirot Marathon-ing

Poirot's  famous Boutonnière Vase

This is late being posted because of "'Air-kyool"  - Hercule Poirot.    And I feel fine about it.  Some things are important. Marathoning a series is valid in this case - my life is in flux and it is a fine and affordable distraction; and a lesson in authorship for any writer, and  a quality engagement.  To me, it is an honor thing - he completed the entire series, a thing not easily done! Bravo!   But for me, it is just the epression of it all at this phase of things, of my passion for the mystery-thriller of quality since childhood- so do not gloat, Monsieur! I just happened to be going that way.

At ages 8-10, in the late 50s, I was the one in line at the LIbrary - no Google - for the next episode of Nancy Drew Mysteries!  How would it be this time?  Never disappointing!  Never bored, curled up with a exciting Nancy Drew Adventure Mystery !   Days were sunny for me and in Nancy Drew land.  We'd spend a Saturday or rainy afternoon companioning along as her chums and I followed her lead,  immersed in one more challenging scenario to happy conclusion!    No other girls my age on the block just then,  Nancy was a handy friend and inspiration for so much in spirit and goodness.  

Then, hooked on mysteries, I'd raid my brother's Hardy Boys and Tom Swift, then, back to my "Trixie Belden"  nurse sleuth stories.   And then it was  TV and  "Mr. &  Mrs. North", "The Thin Man", and favorite "Charlie Chan" - my Father was Charlie Smith and so we'd come tearing in from school or play and call out, with Key Luke's enthusiasm,  "Hiya, Pop!" as Charlie's many children did in old China and US Chinatown.  Dad was a fine one,  and would return the fun at us, mimicking "yeh, yeh, but..." Chan's longsuffering love for his "number one son" and  'number one daughter".  

At fourteen, the crush I seemed to be dealing with, for the family friend and local beach lifeguard, enjoyed some satisfaction, when I asked him about the book he was reading and it was Ian Fleming "Bond, James Bond" - brand new in the movies!  He , his steady girfriend and later wife, and I read all the books - such fun to talk the good and bad of it....always that excitement in realizing some of such things are true!  

Soon it was on to college and cutting study hours for "The Avengers" and "the fuge"  ... "The  Fugitive"  Some things were more important than - there was the place for mysteries;  the appeal to the intellect and skill set and the way all issues are resolved at stories' end.  Life ahead, no matter how well we prepped, was a mystery, still,  when it came to the core of it all.

Then  into the core, indeed, with no-joke time:   JFK's assassination , Martin Luther King's, Robert Kennedy - serious bad guys , right in our back yard!  Worse:  instead of John Wayne wars, it was about Americans as idiots sacrificing our own in unwinnable conflicts and Agent Orange of the insidious kill.  

Lucky me - bride to the son of a Federal Agent / whose job in Viet Nam after college was getting rid of chem warfare/ Agent Orange, with USACE's special ops, while I spent my first hours with wonded soldiers and  felt honored to serve....while others were fighting for peace with pot and dancing in the mud - horrors!   Dangers notwithstanding, I felt the lucky one.   My brother too, in berets jumping out of planes chasing enemy in the jungle.   The day they came home from war in one piece remains te happiest day of my life!

This go-round , we won thru nicely!    

And sooner than we ever hoped, at the mysteries again -  Husband relaxing in the den after his work day with Wellcome making medicine, and our son asleep and helping our little girl in her wiggly age, by NOT engaging with her , but quietly rocking along side her crib, crocheting a coverlet for her, or reading a book - this time  the COMPLETE Sherlock Holmes stories.    

Then it was winter and I was critical of me because I'd finished the Holmes and now what?  Winter reading hunting,   I met Hercule - and  I ran to the mailbox when "Curtain" arrived from my book club - after going through the Poirot stories  and looking for more of the Herculean ouevre...50 years of works about Hercule Poirot!   Better.

I wrote sometimes and so I was impressed with the 56 years of Agatha Christie's stories about the wonderful Belgian sleuth !    

 I always wonder - did the Herculean name inspire the Herculean achievement, or the other way around? 
And why is there not more said  about the famous Boutonnière Vase of such romantic origins in "The Chocolate Box"?  He was rarely without it.  Like the famous swan cane.

Then there were the years with NO TV and no fun reading: but that's another story.   

Lucky  me today! The past few days, "In " for me - resting a toe-fix -  I have just completed marathon viewing "Agatha Christie's Poirot" videos at Acorn TV !     I cried at the final story, "Curtain" then realized that our hero, Hercule, and his world,  was not dead but sleeping - not "Sleeping Murder" as one of his mysteries was called, but sleeping mystery chum -  and I could revive him at the click of my trackpad!  Thank you Acorn TV !  Well Done!   

David Suchet, the actor who played the role, spoke my thoughts, when he stated that the idea was to faithfully portray and  that was certainly done so that Dame Agatha would be pleased if she could view the results. In fact, Ms. Christie's  daughter found the David Suchet portrayals  perfect, and said so !     Me, too!  Thanksomuch for the immortality of it for us.   And most of all thank you,  David Suchet and the book he has written about the world-class achievement of the complete Hercule ! It is worth the read for fans !      

They say that we immerse in someone else's mysteries to remain calm when we cannot work on my own, and get back to solving our own puzzles with renewed energies for it.   Life!   I am non-violent so I always wonder why it must be murder mysteries, then decide that the author feels that if it is not life and death, when it's only a story, and not real,  we might not be interested.  

I don't know: for me it has become part of grief recovery -   before Hercule,  the last time, it was Jessica Fletcher all 268 (  I think ) episodes , they helped when my Father died and now it's Mother at her last days and Poirot and Phryne Fisher - yay girls CAN!  and when my FBI godfather passed, it was NCIS.   Unique validity in it I guess  :-D  since,  finding a thing to companion along during such testing times, is better than "biting the lifesaver' in it all.

Thank you three times, then!  

There remain so many places in my life, where my reply must be:  "It's still a mystery to me" !   Notes for my own mystery next?  okay.  I realize that I can actually solve a few of them - do you not agree, Captain Hesssteengs?   Hein?  

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercule_Poirot_in_literature