Thursday, July 11, 2013

The Horse With No Name Studio & Gallery on Chincoteague

At 4163 Main Street in historic, down town Chincoteague, one sees a small white building with colorful Adirondack chairs scattered nearby for weary shoppers to take a load off their feet for a few minutes.  Inside the shop are items of wonder - original oil paintings, sculpture, stained glass, fine art photography, hand-made jewelry - all crafted, painted, or photographed by local Chincoteague Island artists.  The store is owned by Zebie Zay Hursh, daughter of Maureen Beebe, one of the main characters in the Misty book series by Marguerite Henry.  Paintings by local artists, including Dawn Tarr and Cap'n Barry Frishman, are offered at modest prices, and so are absolutely marvelous photographs taken by Zebie, herself.    Zebie takes great pride in the fact that all items sold in the store are crafted by the local population and that they are sold locally, helping out the island's economy.  (One of my favorite photos that I own is a large, matted shot of an American egret, standing on one foot in the salt marsh on Assateague Island - and Zebie took the photo, matted and framed it for my husband and me...)  If you're visiting Chincoteague, try and stop by this great gallery - the items for sale are interesting, fun, and they all have a background story...  and the folks who own and run the shop are some of the best on the island!
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maybe I'm just getting older, but I am occasionally loosing my patience with people who don't follow directions...  Our local grocery store opens at 6 a.m., but no cashier arrives until 6:30.  The guys who do the night stocking take turns running the register for the first 30 minutes each morning, while still trying to do their main job, which is to stock the shelves.  There is a very large sign at the check-out register to ring the bell for "register assistance once, loudly" and that help will arrive as soon as possible.  This morning, a girl in her teens, with her mother, wanted to purchase some drawing paper at 6:10.  I had grabbed a fresh blueberry bagel and had followed them to the check-out.  The teen read the sign out loud to her mother, and then punched the bell about 40 time in about 60 seconds.  She and her mother exchanged smiles as she was doing this.  That rattled me - I wanted to pick both of them up by the scruffs of their neck and toss them outside.  The man who checked us out arrived at the register as she rang the bell the last time.  He did not look impressed or happy, either.  Why do people do such idiotic things?

No comments: