St Dwynwen part 2

Wasn't expecting to be back here in this idea so soon, but events continue to evolve.  For this story, we need to go back a few days, or even a few decades.

There was a time when it was common for people who could afford to do so to get a new car every year or two.  I am have never been one of those people.  I've been a car owner for close to 30 years, always having one, never having two at the same time, and currently on my third, so I've averaged one every 10 years.   My current vehicle is a 2008, so later this year it will be 10 years old, but I hope to keep it going well beyond that.  One thing that people who tend to keep cars longer have to deal with that short time owners don't, is that eventually headlights, like any other bulb in the world, can burn out.  My first two cars both lost at least one headlight, which I only realized when a police car would pull me over to inform me.  Just warnings luckily.  I've lived in places with lots of street lights and missing one headlight was not as noticeable.  For that reason I didn't mind getting pulled over, even appreciated the information so I could deal with it.  Getting around with one headlight is not hard, but when your down to one, if something happens to that one, then you got worry.

Anyway, a few days ago I was at my parents' house, arriving in the afternoon, but left at night.  Parked right behind my mother's car, and when I turned on my headlights before pulling out, the light shining on her car didn't seem right.  When I got to the next location, I left the car running while I ran out to check, and sure enough, my driver side headlight was dark.  There was enough street light to see my way home, and enough other lights on the car that I felt there was no danger of not being seen, but this had to be dealt with soon.

When I lost headlights in my other vehicles, I replaced the bulbs myself, but it isn't always easy. Car designers often have many demands to meet, and convenience of drivers may be low on that list.  Lost both headlight bulbs on my first car, and getting to them required extreme contortion of one's hand, reaching down into the engine compartment, twisting, extracting the bulb, disconnecting it from the wiring, plugging in the replacement, carefully inserting it back into the slot without breaking it (or even touching the glass), and locking it into place.  Only had to replace one on my second vehicle, all done from the outside, just a matter of taking out a lot of retaining screws, and making sure I didn't lose them before I put the replacement piece in.  The owner's manual for my new car gave the instructions for replacing a bulb- 8 steps, including removing something from the engine compartment first, and since his happened on a Saturday night, I couldn't get the part if I knew what it was, and I thought it a bad idea to do it in the rain, which ended up falling for 2 days straight.  Decided the best plan was to wait until Monday and just see if I could get it done at the dealer.  From what I remembered, many of the customers in the service department struck me as less likely to be able to handle such a task as I was (and I had successfully done it 3 times before in different vehicles so I guessed the mechanics were used to handling it.  Stopped by in the morning without an appointment, but they said they could fit it in soon and in about 40 minutes it was done.  The $10 labor cost was worth it to not have the hassle.

So what does all this have to do with art?  In my hurry to get out of the house this morning (had other errands too) I hadn't brought anything to read, nothing to keep me occupied while I was in the waiting  room.  Did have a sketchbook in the car, so I ended up working on ideas for this St Dwynwen print.  As I said last time, I had decided that this would not be part of my Everyman series, so the format that has served me well for several dozen saint prints would not be available this time.  Good thing I'm an artist and designer and can do more than just one format.  Put some ideas and notes on paper.  Nothing I'm going to show here right now, but I hope to start working on a block next week, possibly my contribution to the East Meets West exhibition, a print oriented show that I am helping to guide toward existence in Belmar.  More on that soon.