Old Friends in Sedona

We drove into Sedona yesterday afternoon, an “artist community” in the Arizona mountains that Evelyn has wanted to visit for years.  We arrived early in the afternoon, allowing plenty of time to peruse the art galleries.  First stop was lunch at a small deli recommended by a timeshare salesman at an info booth.  The sandwich was fairly good, but they only had one choice – tuna salad.  Literally everything else was sold out, including only one bread choice remaining…

Wandering town, we felt like we were in a resort town with the cruise ships having just docked.  Tons of tourists, and most of the shops were T-Shirts and cheap native pottery crafts.  We finally spotted a “real art gallery” across the street, only to find it boarded up and out of business.  This was a major letdown, since we were expecting something more akin to Carmel.

We headed out in search of some good sunset photographs.  The first possibility we had heard of was a local park, which turned out to want $9 to enter for the last half hour before sunset.  Given that the lot was crammed with cars, we decided to pass and went to the other sunset location we had heard about, up near the airport.  We did get some reasonable landscape photographs on the drive around that area though.

 

This gave us a vantage point overlooking the city and a nice mountain range.  Unfortunately, low shrubs were overgrown and blocking the view, and a couple hundred other tourists (most with point-and-shoot cameras they clearly did not know how to use) crammed into the site too.  We got a couple interesting photos, but nothing to hang on the wall.

After sunset we called Cathy and “Stedy” – two friends we have known since the 80’s from Oregon that moved to Sedona to retire 15 years ago.  They suggested we get together for dinner at the airport restaurant, since we were already just a few blocks from there.  It turns out the Sedona local airport built a new restaurant just a few months ago, and the food was excellent, as was the reacquaintance of old friends.

Cathy invited us to her home for breakfast the next morning.  Driving to their home, we realized there was a lot more to Sedona than the tourist section, and the town began to appear more livable.

Evelyn had really wanted to see Cathy’s artwork, since Cathy is an art instructor, and Evelyn has been taking painting classes for the past few years.  I must admit that I was prepared to be polite about Cathy’s artwork, since I had never seen it before, but have been mostly underwhelmed by the “open gallery” artists we periodically tour.  Instead I was blown away by Cathy’s work. 

She seems to have mastered both painting and sculpting, with many dozens of outstanding pieces in her house of both types, in a wide variety of styles.  After leaving, we realized that we had both neglected to photograph any of her work, which would have been a good addition to this blog.  Instead, you will just have to take my word for it, and if you ever see “Cathy Stedman” listed as the artist, grab it up fast.  She is not currently selling her works, but if she ever does, I am convinced she can compete with the best of the artists we see in galleries in Carmel, San Francisco, or similar places.

After a breakfast of gourmet omelets, Cathy took us on a hike around the hills and favorite plenair art spots, along with her dog Asia.

After leaving Cathy and “Stedy” behind, we drove to Page as a stop-over enroute to Zion.  Before leaving, we discovered that Page was the location of famed Antelope Slot Canyon, so one more unplanned stop was added to our trip…

————————

You can’t change the past by worrying, but you can ruin the present by stewing about the future.

Photo Galleries

At the top of this page is a menu that will take you to a variety of galleries showing our favorite images.