Jumping In With Both Feet

This past weekend was a busy one! Things got started Friday night with the opening reception for the "Eggistentialism" Exhibit at Tipping Paint Gallery. Since I had a couple of paintings on exhibit and another entered in the silent auction for Urban Ministries of Raleigh via Tour d'Coop, Steve and I made a brief appearance at the reception where we had the opportunity to view the spectacular array of varied artists' works and chat with some of the artists themselves. As this was my very first tentative step into the public eye with my artwork, I was incredibly nervous, but the Tipping Paint artists were truly delightful and had been so helpful and encouraging during the signing-up process that I was put at ease almost immediately. I still have a difficult time seeing myself as an "artist" (and to be honest I was too shy and insecure to actually wear the label pictured below other than subtly attached to my purse), but I saved my name tag in the hopes that someday in the future perhaps I'll eventually become what I consider a "real" artist and can look back at my current hesitancy and just smile.

There were so many beautiful works of art at the exhibition, including those on the auction floor, and I was more than a little anxious to see that there were no bids yet on my auction painting when we first arrived. Of course, there were several paintings with no bids at that point, so at least mine wasn't the only one. However, I nearly jumped out of my skin when Steve informed me right after we left that he noticed a bid on my painting as we were leaving! I have no idea who placed it or for how much, but I got a bid and that's just the best feeling right now!

© 2014 Tammy Kaufman - Ginger - soft pastels on Uart 500 sanded paper 6" x 4.5", silent auction submission

The only thing that would top that would be for my two exhibited paintings to sell too, but at this moment, I'm pretty much still walking on air after seeing a couple of my paintings hanging in an actual gallery and having a bid on my silent auction entry. The Eggistentialism exhibit is running through April 26 at Tipping Paint Gallery, 311 West Martin Street in Raleigh.

And all that was just the start of the weekend! I also had a 6-hour mountain bike race on Saturday, but it ran from noon until 6 p.m., so at least I got to sleep in a little. Realizing I am extremely out of shape, having not been biking much at all with this seemingly never ending winter we've been having (I'll be the first to admit I'm a fair-weather-biker), I still elected to attempt the race on my rigid singlespeed. Right now, it's the smallest, easiest to maneuver bicycle I have, and the race course was on a relatively flat and flowy course, so I figured why not? The first couple of hours were fine - at least after I changed to my padded gloves after the first lap; that rigid fork and unpadded gloves equaled a bad combination. However, by lap four, I began to experience skeletal and muscular pain, and I mean real, severe pain. My left elbow kept going achingly numb, both big toes developed a deep throbbing pain almost like stone bruises, and my knees - particularly the right postsurgical one - were screaming. And that's not even thinking about my back, neck and even chest that were hurting as well. Considering this race was only six hours and on a fairly easy trail, I can only attribute all that to an egregious lack of fitness from not riding hardly at all over the entire winter, and being seriously overweight (damn you, Costco Tiramisu!) By lap five, I was honestly considering switching over to the geared full suspension bike, but my stubborn nature said NO, and I stuck it out to the bitter end with the unsuspended nongeared bike, eventually turning in six laps, the last two of which were just tormentingly, painfully slow. I probably should have been embarrassed by such a lackluster performance but oddly enough mentally I felt great during the whole race, especially for a, as my doctor put its it, "Triple F" - "fat, 50-plus, female". My final finish time was 5 hours and 40 minutes, with my bike computer showing a total ride time of 4 hours and 29 minutes. Had I not taken those three long breaks, I would have had time to get in another lap and mentally I probably could have done that, but in all honesty, I really doubt I had another lap in me physically.

Regardless, between being able to complete the race, having such a fun time at the art exhibit and then even finding a little bit of time to paint on Sunday, overall I'd have to call this weekend a Win.