Mobile blogging

Now this is weird. It’s hard enough to type on a computer keyboard and now I am pecking away with just one finger. I have to admit I got tired of the one finger approach so I turned to my computer to continue this story. I had hoped that I could be able to jot down ideas for art as I walked in the park today. It is a splendid day in Chicago. Sun and not too cold. The view I see from the Point is Lake Michigan and down town Chicago in the distance. It makes me so happy to know that I was able to walk here and enjoy the place, the walk, and the park.

I got inspired to come home and continue working on my flower paintings.

I’ve been going back and forth between abstraction and the flowers but I need to finish 100 paintings before I can allow myself to explore another idea.

 

A Visit to the Renzo Piano Addition to Chicago’s Art Institute

Yesterday Talia and I visited the new Modern wing of Chicago’s Art Institute. For me, it was visit number six. Each of my visitors to Chicago gets to go on a tour of this spectacular place with me. I’m not perfect as a guide because I am hobbling around and moving slowly because of having fallen and fractured my pelvis this last winter. But my enthusiasm more than makes up for any deficiency in my movement.

Each time I visit the museum I am just as excited by the space and beauty of this new museum as when I fist saw it in May when it opened. Everywhere you look there is light and space. The art is showcased perfectly. Different paintings have been placed carefully on walls adjacent to other works in such a way that they enhance each. Yves Klein’s Blue painting is across from Mark Rothko’s Orange and Yellow painting. You can look at both of them and the juxtaposition makes each color stand out even more dramatically. All the familiar paintings I’ve seen during my many years visiting the museum, starting from childhood when I was a student at the Saturday school, now look fresh and new to me.

Let me say right now that a trip to Chicago just to see the new museum and visit Millennium Park is worth it no matter what the cost. Of course, it is only 15 minutes away from my house, so it’s easy to say that. But, I mean it.

 

Vegetable Goulash

My granddaughter Talia is visiting me and we decided to cook an interesting veggie lunch. There are lots of recipes for this kind of meal but we are just winging it. Adding ingredients as it grows. Talia says it was not so much a decision to make a vegetable goulash as it was a throwing together of whatever was in the refrigerator. The result happened to be vegetable goulash—with long brown rice which she cooked on the stove next to my pan of veggies.

I found myself in the kitchen, unsure of what to have for lunch. Peeking into the fridge, I saw the bunch of celery I bought early in the week which had been disappointingly bitter. I thought cooking it up could only help its situation. I also noted onion and green pepper standing out on the somewhat empty shelf. I started by chopping the onion, celery, and pepper and mixing them together in a pan drizzled with oil. The different shades of green sizzled nicely together. Then I remembered a lonely can of sliced organic tomatoes, I would have to add that, for what is a goulash without a saucy tomato? Sea salt and paprika complimented the vegetables. Lastly, I discovered half a zucchini waiting patiently to become a part of the lunch festivities, which I quickly sliced and added to the pan.

After all is said and eaten, I can attest to the fact that it was a success in every way.

 

Trouble with FedEX

I decided to buy a used computer on Ebay on July 27th of 2008. This was my first mistake. I bid on it and my bid was accepted. At the time, I was pleased and looked forward to receiving the computer within a few days.

When it arrived via FedEx on August 5th. I carefully unpacked it and plugged it in. It didn’t work. Not only did it not work, it made a very loud hissing sound and a bell kept bonging while the light flashed on and off. It was an alarming display of non-performance.

The Second Mistake

When I discovered that the machine did not work I immediately repacked it and my grandson and I carried it to FedEx Kinko’s at 1315 E. 57th Street to have it shipped back to the seller. I sent the seller an email telling him about the problem and told him that the machine was being returned.

When we got to FedEx Kinko’s I asked the clerk what to do about sending it back to the shipper. I pointed out that the shipper was located in Tennessee. She was very accommodating and said she would take care of sending it back to the shipper.

The next day, August 6th FedEx returned to my house and delivered the computer again. I told the driver that it was a mistake and should have been sent to the shipper in Tennessee. He said he would return it to the terminal and ask the dispatcher to send it back to the shipper. Unfortunately, the machine was not assigned a new tracking number and this action set in motion a series of events that resulted in the package going missing.

Since FedEx had given it the same tracking number again––044696510351554–– the package did not know where it was going and it got lost. Really lost. I learned that the computer had the same tracking number twice when I tried to track it. I began to call FedEx –– 800-463-3339––every day from then on, some times two or more times a day, to inquire about the missing package. Each time I called I repeated the story of the mistake made by the Kinko’s clerk that resulted in the computer being delivered to me twice which required me to refuse it the second time.

The FedEx customer service people were very patient and listened to my story each time. They began to keep a file on the search for the missing package but each time I spoke to another customer service person so I had to tell the story over and over again.

One time I talked to the personnel at the terminal in the Chicago area and talked to someone named Nancy. She talked to the driver who said he had returned the package to his dispatcher and that the dispatcher had placed a new label on the package and sent it back. Another time I talked to the personnel at the terminal and they said they needed an address to send it to so I provided the address of the seller in Tennessee.

Finally I was assigned to a representative of the Customer Advocate Team by the name of Gail Evans in Atlanta. Ms. Evans began her file about the problem and she assured me that she would try and resolve it. I then began to call her every day.

Gail informed me that the package had been shipped from a company that had a contract with FedEx called Postal Connections and the return needed to go to them instead of the seller. Because this company had sent the package, they needed to file a claim with FedEx for the loss, which they did.

I was told by Gail’s office that FedEx needed to determine the value of the package before the claim could be settled. She asked me to send a fax to Mr. William Cobb of the Claims Department listing the value of the computer according to the Ebay purchase price I paid. I now had a reference number #0815823205.

In the meantime, I filed a claim and asked for a refund via PayPal and was communicating with the seller about the situation. The seller said that he would definitely not give me a refund because the package had not arrived and he had no evidence that I had returned the computer to FedEx. He also said Fedex told him that they NEVER would have assigned the same tracking number twice and that he was told the driver in question no longer worked for FedEx.

I assured him that I had the receipt from Kinko’s but that is all I had and it referred to the original tracking number that caused the problem in the first place. I also told him that I had seen the driver on August 27th because he delivered a package to me on that day and I asked the driver about the lost computer. He told me he had sent it back to the original shipper.

Gail Evans is still “looking into” the situation but nothing is happening there. I have contacted the people at Postal Connections and they, too, are looking into it. At this moment my only recourse seems to be to rant about it in my blog. So that is exactly what this is all about.

I’d feel really happy if Fedex would either find the package or honor the claim made by Postal Connections because Fedex lost or misplaced this computer because of a mistake made by one of their affiliate companies and there is every reason why the claim should be paid.

If anyone has any ideas about what I can do next to solve this problem, I would love to know about it.

 

How to Have a Surprising Party

My granddaughter Talia recently visited her sister Mira in Pittsburgh to celebrate her birthday. Talia and Mira’s boyfriend Yuri threw a very successful surprise party for the special birthday girl. Limos were rented, a private room was reserved on the terrace of a fancy new bar and lounge in the city, and the treatment was VIP. Mira says it was everything she could have hoped for and more since it was all a surprise. If you hadn’t already guessed it, this isn’t really a “how to” on throwing a party, or a surprise party, or even a surprising party. It’s just a little story about my granddaughter’s 21st birthday.

Giving someone a surprise party reminded me of the one and only time I tried to give such a party. It was for my husband’s 65th birthday. I had arranged for my three daughters to come to Chicago and be here for the surprise. They arrived several days before his birthday and he knew they had come just to celebrate with our immediate family. What he didn’t know was that I had invited a lot of other people to come, too. For some reason I didn’t think that he would wonder why I was baking a large quantity of pastries and cooking a very large amount of food for our little group.

On the day before his birthday I had asked a friend of his to invite him to listen to music at his home. It happened that this friend picked him up and would also have to bring him home because our house was about a half hour drive away. While they were listening to music all of the invited guests came to our house and waited for his return so they could shout “surprise” when he entered the house. All went according to plan except for one thing. When the surprise occurred, my husband was not really surprised because he had figured out that there would be no reason for me to cook as much food as I did unless I had some other plan in mind. Of course, he didn’t mention the fact that he was not surprised until afterwards.

So, this leads me to wonder how many people who are given surprise parties really know ahead of time what’s going on.

 

Letting People Know about my Art Products

I’ve had fun using the tools on the Zazzle web site but I am not very efficient at spreading the word. I am a little shy about sending messages to friends telling them about my latest product. Most of the people who have been buying stuff are strangers to me. I love that aspect of this new world, but it would also be nice to know who those people are so I could thank them for their purchase.

 

Notes from Opinionated Artist Printmaker

Personal comments about making art, particularly fine art prints.

read more | digg story

 

Selling Reproductions of Original Art

My years of experience as a printmaker set me up for a certain point of view that is very different from that which I now find myself interested in. The availability of websites that will print and sell original images on line is very tempting so it isn’t very hard for me to come around to the opinion that it is fine to reproduce original art and sell the prints just as long as the buying public knows the difference between original art and a reproduction. These web sites do all of the work. The only thing the artist needs to do is set up their own gallery on the site and upload high quality images. Fine Art America is one such site that specializes in printing art for posters and framed giclee prints on fine paper and canvas. Zazzle also reproduces art for posters and prints as well as for many other products I’ve mentioned previously. A new site I have just joined is Red Bubble. I haven’t set up my images on this site yet, but it looks very promising.

I do have a problem with artists who sign and number these reproductions and create the illusion that the individual who purchases these object is getting something special. It is special in that it is an image they like and want to decorate their home with it, but it isn’t special in terms of increased value because there is a signature on in. And the number don’t mean a thing. Unfortunately, there are some well known artists who have this kind of art on the market. This is where the deception can occur.

 

From Black to Blue and onward

The series of paintings I created after the black series was blue. I called it“A catalog of Virtue” because these shapes and forms represented the images that I had been using in different ways for my entire art life.

 

 

Where the paintings come from

This is one of my favorite paintings. It was part of a series of paintings that I had decided to make using a black ground and a limited number of large shapes. The plan was to create an illusion of transparency and movement. More paintings in this series can be seen at my web site http://www.julierichman.com