Karen's Show at Shain Gallery

If it's October that means it time for Karen's annual solo show at Shain Gallery in Charlotte. This year was, I'm pretty sure, her biggest show ever. In number of paintings that is. A total of 30. A combination of new work and a few pieces relocated from other galleries.

It began as all of these trips do with an alarm clock, followed by a big bowl of food for the kitty, bagged organic apple and peanut butter sandwiches on Ezekiel bread, to be washed down with coffee in our insulated mugs, then select our destination on the Garmin, hit the play button for a little John Grisham on the iPod, and we're off.

It was a nice ride and fun to see everyone after a year away. We hung around a while and got reacquainted, and while we were hanging out a few "fans" came in for a preview of the the work prior to the opening.

Blind Trust

One of them bought Blind Trust on the spot! After that we went to have lunch at CO, another tradition while in Charlotte then downtown to check into our hotel. As it turns out our hotel card key not only gets us into our room it also gets us into the Mint Museum, so after a brief rest we headed out to the Mint. 

It's Never Too Late to Mend  |  Norman Rockwell

There was a lot of good stuff there, but for me the highlight was a Norman Rockwell.  I devoured every inch of this painting with my eyes. Man . . . 

We were there a couple of hours then it was time to get back, get cleaned up and make our way back to the gallery. The space looked great, the staff had done a wonderful job of hanging the show. A few guests had already arrived and wanted to meet Karen, so she dove in and I faded into the background to preserve the moment in pictures.

Lou beverage master for the evening

The evening went along smoothly, the weather was perfect, the guests were really happy to have an opportunity to speak with Karen. I don't think it could have gone any better.

Lou, Eli, Kimberly (and friend) chilling at the end of the night.

Lou, Sybil and Eli taking a break.

Sybil letting Karen know she had sold 17 paintings that night!

With the evening done and seventeen sold paintings under her belt Karen and I thanked Sybil, Eli, Kimberly and Lou for their hard work and returned to our hotel. The next day we decided to stay in town a little longer than usual to visit the Lark & Key gallery. Duy Huynh is one of our favorite artists and Sandy Snead, his partner in life and business, is always fun to talk with.  

We had a great visit then stopped at our new favorite Charlotte restaurant Living Kitchen. It's a totally vegan plant based restaurant with fabulous food, great atmosphere, and really friendly staff. Wish there was one here in Atlanta. Then it was back to  "the Rainmaker" and the road home.