The gardening season is winding down, unless you count leaf raking - and a couple of hundred daffodils I still haven't gotten into the ground. The Fall bird migration is nearly over, though there were a few White-throated Sparrows singing today, some largish striped sparrows - likely Fox Sparrows, and of course a thousand Juncos scratching through the leaf litter. So I moved my screwing off projects into the Growlery. A year ago I had a beer cooler that failed. I had mounted a slightly smaller picture, 'Sioux Warrior' on the door, but I could not find a same brand cooler replacement to save the door. This cooler is a slightly wider, which required cutting down all the adjacent drawers and drawer cabinets. Sounds easy. It wasn't.
This was a little tricky. Both the top and bottom of the door moldings are curved. The picture, Sioux Warrior, is an Alphonse Mucha print on canvas. After carefully measuring and cutting I taped the print in location, then peeled back one corner and applied contact cement to the door panel and back of the picture and waited for it dry. "Contact" means contact - when they contact they stick, pretty much forever. Once I had one corner anchored I worked my way around the other three quadrants.
I then masked the print and spray painted two coats of red over the black door. In hindsight this was shortsighted - no, it was stupid. Why not just paint the damned door red and then stick the print on it? I dunno, but I didn't.
Alphonse Mucha was a Czech, working in the early 20th century, and looking at the profile I am guessing he never met a Lakota in his life, but that was what he named it. Whatever, I like the design and colors. I call him Orville, after Orville Bluelegs LaPlant, as close to a Sioux warrior as walks the earth these days.
Here's to Orville and the beer he guards - Gunnar
