The Joys of Living

"As long as you can see each day as a chance for something new to happen, something you never experienced before, you will stay young." -Sadie Delaney

Last winter the mother of one of Shay's classmates at the Arts Academy was having coffee with Christy at our house.  This woman saw some of my art work that had been sold for art festival posters.  (I always take prints of the posters in lieu of cash.  The posters are more valuable to as I can use them as gifts to friends and donations to civic organization fundraisers.)  This woman loved the posters and as the co-chair of the Utah Arts Festival asked Christy if she thought I would consider being a juror for the festival.  Christy told me she wanted to say, "Are you kidding, my Mom would probably pay you to let her jury!"  Having been reared to be socially more astute than that, she actually said, "My Mom would probably be honored to be selected a juror for such a prestigious art festival."

So, it came to pass that I was invited to be a juror for the prestigious Utah Arts Festival.  In April all twelve jurors met at a computer lab where we viewed all the entries in all media and disciplines (more than 500 pieces of art) and, using a grading system 1 through 5, chose the entries for the 2011 Utah Arts Festival.  Actually, none of us knew who the entrants would be.  The scores were tallied by the Festival Committee and the exhibitors were notified of their acceptance or rejection.

Fast forward to June 23 through 26, 2011 when the Festival opened in the downtown Salt Lake City park at the center of the complex that houses the City-County Building, the beautiful new Main Library and our civic theatre.  There were over 200 stalls housing artists, commercial exhibitors and food purveyors.  The 19th century architectural gem that is the City-County building was the center and streaming entertainment was presented on the enormous granite stairs by local university groups and civic performance troupes.

My job this weekend was to walk the festival and grade 159 art booths for general appearance of the booth and quality of the work presented.  Christy was with me, of course.  Along the way, we ate lunch, drank various liquid concoctions of coffee or fruit and yogurt, watched the performances and bought more art, jewelry and pottery than we needed.  

We capped off the day by attending a dinner at a friend's home for another friend who, like Dean and I, had left Salt Lake City for retirement, and was visiting.  Our visiting friend, Mary's husband, Mike, died a few months before Dean from bone cancer.  Mike was also a pilot who flew for Delta.  Christy, of course, knows all these folks well and was as happy as I was to see them and visit.

At home, it occured to me that on most days I don't feel the ravages of 74 years on this earth, but on Friday, June 23rd I was acutely aware of every one of them and enormously grateful for all that I have been given; life, years, talent, enthusiasm, family, friends, humor and good health!