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I’ve been teaching a plein air workshop this week, and the air is unusually hot and heavy for Maine. Being a lifelong resident of the northeast, I don’t like heat and humidity. In addition, I promised my students from Virginia that it would be cool here, and Mother Nature made a liar out of me. (To be fair, it’s still cooler than Virginia.)
Years ago, my friend S— moved to Maine from California with the assistance of her mother. She loved her new house until the first really hot day. She flipped the switch on her thermostat to ‘cool’ and waited. And waited. “Mom,” she wailed, “the air conditioning is broken!”
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“Welcome to the real world,” her mom said. “You don’t have air conditioning.” My California born-and-bred friend had no idea that there were houses in America without it.
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Our old New England farmhouse doesn’t have it, and I generally don’t care. It’s insulated, which helps a lot. We use fans, we cross ventilate, and shower in cool water. That works great for in the house. But outdoors is a different story.
Outdoors, hydration is key, but I couldn’t keep ahead of it this week, as hard as I tried.
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Student show, Friday July 12, from 5-7 PM
Today will be warm but breezy, so it should be perfect weather to come by my gallery for a show of my students’ work from this week.
We are located at 394 Commercial Street, Rockport. If you’ve ever wondered what kind of painting gets done in a workshop, this is an excellent opportunity to find out.