Stinkin wet dog

It’s 6:30 in the morning and I’m out on the front porch to investigate the unusually dim dawn light of this day. Something is missing on the horizon and the light bulb in the sky needs changing. The sun has been furloughed.

Turtleback mountain didn’t just borrow Table Mountain’s tablecloth, a phenomenon which happens sometimes when air currents in the Rio Grande river valley conspire to make cloud pour over the volcanic Caballo mountain range like draping cloth. No. On this morning the mountain on my horizon, which many call Turtleback but maps label Caballo Cone, has completely disappeared. A hint of opalescence teases my eyes as they probe this foggy absence of sunrise and mountain. When is a mountain not a mountain? When is a bear not a bear? When does what we think we know to be true become illusion?

I drink a cup of coffee, corral my madness, bank the awe and retreat inside to work on making another batch of Path With a Heart flags. There’s rain in the forecast all day, so I can’t hang the freshly printed cloth outside to cure. By afternoon the shala is carpeted with only narrow paths for me to pick a careful way through from room to room.

I’ve just returned from one of the wettest art markets I’ve ever done and everything, my car, my hair, my house, is stinking like wet dog.

Even though it was raining at 8 am on Saturday when we set up for the print market part of Southwest Print Fiesta, the organizers kept us outside, clinging to the hope that the rain system was going to be brief and move through fast.

Turns out hope is a traitor and none of us are qualified to even wash meteorologists’ feet. We were drenched in rainforest climate zone Hilo/Puna kind of warm rain showers all day.

My displays were desultory, had to be compressed against the periodic Itsy Bitsy Spider downspout inundations from rain pooling on market tent. I was on the grumpy side from the outset, didn’t even unload the 250 plus hand block printed cards from the car, didn’t want to risk exposing them to all that ambient moisture. Displays were further compromised, mutability forced upon them when it became clear that my market canopy was leaking along its seams. The shelter dripped all over the place,. Water had a flow fest, endlessly finding new places to breech, proving my oft repeated “everything’s completely washable.” Puddles and then rivers formed under the tables threatening the health and wellbeing of vintage suitcases normally stashed out of sight. In a very short time I didn’t have displays, I had piles of stuff on tables. My booth felt more like a yard sale than an art exhibition.

Thank you Big Daddy with the Texas drawl from across the way for your 20/20 hindsight observation that I should have sealed the canopy seams before ever using it. I don’t usually do markets in the rain. I live in the Chihauhauan desert. My market tent usually provides shelter from the sun. Big Daddies just have to do their Big Daddy thing wherever they are and I am grateful there’s someone who has got it all figured out. But yes, seal your tent seams before going camping in the rain is probably good advice. I should know this. I’ve done a bit of camping in tropical and sub tropical rainy season downpours.

Despite the rain, print curious and print hungry people came in crowds to the market. There were some disgruntled mutters when I completly sold out of strings of rainbow milagro flags. Only one person complained about raindrops on the cloth they wanted. Fortunately I was able to find them one from lower in the pile where wetness had not yet found its way. They are kitchen towels. Made to get wet, intended for drying things….. . Sometimes, even after all these years, I can still be amazed at the lack of situational awareness of the General American Public. Who finds fault with a single raindrop on an item in an outdoor market in a rainstorm?

Before I forget, I need to get on the soapbox and preach the gospel, again, about people who bring dogs of any kind, but especially huge wet St Bernard type, Very Hairy, Very Slobbery dogs into an art market (very small) booth in a rainstorm. Do you not see your wet hound is going to do natural wet dog things like shake and wipe itself all over everything, not to mention those drooling jowls (fit for a king on a magazine cover) leaving glistening snail trails of slobber on my hand printed offerings? People! Please think canine and by that I mean understand your canine better before you force it into canine unfriendly, people spaces. It’s not fair on the dog and kinda proves my point that some dog owners in this country need their own listing in the DSM. Sigh.

El Sol was just not in the cards for this year’s print fiesta. You play the hand that’s dealt. Most of the vendors in my section spontaneously packed up couple of hours early, with or without organizer’s permission. At least my cloth only presents a management problem, (plastic garbage bags become knights in shining armor sometimes), can be washed and dried, unlike art prints on paper which are ruined by rain.

The best part of day was driving back over the mountain pass with a rainbow in the southeastern sky dancing me all the way home so I could wake the next morning to find Turtleback Mountain playing hide and seek.

It was an interesting fiesta.

In many desert cultures, the word for rain is the same as the word for a blessing.

I am grateful for stinkin’ wet dog days.