Showtime.

Friday morning I took these three stones down to the Clark Estate mansion in Santa Fe Springs for the 2022 SFS Artfest show. 

Hauling these things around is a pain in the ass. That's one of the ironies of driving a pickup truck with a manual transmission. I can carry the same number of passengers as a motorcycle. The truck bed is great for carrying furniture, or bikes, but useless for something like a sculpture. I had all three pieces in the cab packed in with blankets, T-shirts, and half the cushions from Mary's backyard furniture. It would have been easier in Mary's sub-compact Yaris.

The one-day festival looks like it's going to be a big event. They're having film, music, dance, photography, and all kinds of stuff. There will be live performances by some pop music performers. I don't know any of the names, but from what Mary was told, I'm assuming they'll be county fair level performers, folks who had a big hit back in the 90's, or something. One of the joys of post-middle age is being tragically un-hip, and out of touch with what's cool. Or even what used to be cool.

The festival organizers are asking the artists to be there for the duration of the exhibit, which will go from 3:00 in the afternoon to 11:00 at night. Sounds to me a lot like getting detention. Too, the "fine arts" exhibit is in the mansion on the grounds. Most of the foot traffic will, of course, be for the videos, and live performances.  Nobody wants to pass up a live act to go look at a bunch of paintings and sculptures. Even so,  I have become unaccustomed to socializing over the last couple of years, and I'm not looking forward to having to make small talk with strangers. I get this weird tingly feeling like I'm going to say or do something horrifying. Maybe spin some ridiculous story just to amuse myself.

 "Where do you get your inspiration?" 

 "Well, it's mostly from drugs, and kinky anime..."

Or start bullshitting in improvised art-speak, and throw in a lot of really esoteric verbs, and high flown abstract nouns.

But I won't do any of that. I hope.

So anyway, here's progress on the second Anza Borrego stone:

 

A lot of excavation on that top figure!

I'm on the home stretch with this, and it should be on the shelf by the end of next week, maybe sooner.