The Sky is Falling
and other big news!
Saturday night (night before last) a large chunk of space debris scorched across the sky over the San Fernando Valley, creating a lengthy fire trail lasting several seconds. This was followed by 2 sonic booms that shook our windows. This is what it looked like to many people who filmed it:
See Video: Reddit
The debris was reported to be a part of a SpaceX Dragon rocket “returning to Earth.” Returning to Earth like Skylab it looked more like. This is a funny coincidence because I’m working on a new painting titled “Pastoral with Falling Starlinks” about Elon Musk’s space junk falling from the skies. Art and life are literally colliding. Here’s the WIP:
OMG, I just had a flashback of one of my favorite movies, “Local Hero” where Burt Lancaster keeps asking “What’s happening with the sky MacIntyre?”
We certainly had something happening with the sky. I didn’t think a dystopian futuristic globe-encircling spy satellite complex owned by an evil, power-mad Bond villain would shower us with space debris, for real, in my lifetime. But here we are.
Any fan of Hitchhiker’s Guide knows when to deploy their peril sensitive sunglasses. I am now sitting on the porch with the dogs, enjoying a beer and watching the sun set. Space debris? What space debris?
I debated whether or not to tell you about our trip back East (is reading about someone else’s trip interesting or boring?) Lee and I went exploring “Charming Southern Coastal Art Towns™️” to see if any of them looked promising for a relocation. LA has been great for decades but now that fire season is 8 months a year, and we are no longer working in the film business, other zip codes are starting to beckon. Our criteria are: on the ocean, or a river that leads to the ocean, lower prices than CA, and a walkable, arts-forward downtown. We are leaning towards a couple places in Virginia or North Carolina. Do you know any arts friendly communities back East that you like? Tell us!
After taking 4 weeks off, I felt ready to get back into the studio and finish these 2 paintings that had (literally) been left hanging…
and
You can view these two paintings and numerous others at the
💥 Official Grand Opening of Vita Art Studios 💥
👉👉June 14th ↔️ I’m in Studio #6 👇👇
50 & 28 West Main Street
Ventura, CA, 93001
United States
805-644-9214
info@vitaartcenter.com
All of the artists in the Vita studios will be opening their doors, and there is also a 4-artist gallery opening in the main gallery.
🍄 But waity-wait, there’s more…🍄
June 14th is also GAME DAY for Game of Shrooms!
A fun annual event where artists from all over the world put free original mushroom art out in the wild for people to find (and keep!) When you come to the open studios, I will have some mushroom art hidden around campus and the surrounding area. Follow me on instagram to see what I will be hiding and to get clues on where to find them! See Maps to 👉 other participating artists around CA and the world here. 👈
Well, that’s all the news I have to tell you about for now. Please do try to visit in Ventura on the 14th, it will be a blast. Ventura has so many fun things in it to do ( If you arrive hungry I recommend Johnny’s for casual and inexpensive but delicious tacos and burritos, a 5 minute walk from the studio.)
I hope you all have a great Memorial Day Monday, and keep your eyes on the skies! ☄️
Watching:
I just went to see the new Mission Impossible and all I can think of to describe it is: stunt bloat. If you are not an AMC Stubs member I’d give this a hard pass until its streaming for free.
However, Murderbot Diaries has just made it to Prime and that is a lot of fun. I recommend reading the books first, if you haven’t yet.
Listening:
I discovered this new (2025) album “Gone Fishing” by Funkmammoth, from Lincoln Nebraska the music is described as “chill hop.” Now you know as much as I do. The name reeled me in, I started listening, thinking “do I like this or not?” and just kept listening. It’s kinda good.
A new Salif Keita album came out this year so thats an auto-play for me. I saw Salif Keita live at Club 88 in Culver City back in dinosaur times. It was an amazing show. Read more about Salif here.
and, William Elliot Whitmore’s 2024 “Silently the Mind Breaks” - American blues, country, folk.
Reading:
I picked up a short sci-fi novel by Adrian Czajkowski (also spelled Tchaikovsky) to read on the plane, Elder Race, about an Earth anthropologist, marooned on an Earth start-up planet, whose job is to monitor, without interacting with, the progress of the developing culture. Of course the plan goes off the rails. If you’re new to this author it’s a great starter book. Then I read Made Things, another A.C. novella-sized book about magical humanoid automata. I’m now starting Doors of Eden.
All of these books, btw, I got from the local library.
Time once again to dash —What are you watching, listening to or reading? Lemme know! Bye til next time!
This is a great post, Sarah! So much to respond to…but I’ll start with Local Hero-an all time favorite movie of mine. Thank you for bringing that into the front burner of my mind.
About places to live…I know it’s cold, but it checks off all of your other boxes and it would be so much fun to have you around.
I love Maine, but Lee wants to live “someplace south” - we are planning to find our spot, then get a boat to go up the ICW to spend summers up there, we like all the islands around boothbay harbor. 🤞🤞