news – Gerry Mooney Illustrating Dickens

How to Scam a Commercial Artist

I’m taking a break from my Dickens projects to talk about a recent attempt to scam me as a commercial artist. While it seemed like a real job at first, there were warning signs along the way that just bemused me until the scam was revealed.

This job was a referral from a former artist acquaintance who I knew too many years ago to count, and we are now Facebook friends. He’s legit, I have no reason to think he was any more than an innocent dupe. But it spiraled pretty quickly!

TORNADO!

Dear readers: I’ve been remiss in posting here and I wanted you to know why. It’s been two months since the tornado but the process is continuing, with FEMA a regular presence and debris cleanup ongoing. Regular posts will resume soon!

On the night of Saturday, May 25, there was a tornado on its way to Claremore. This was a rare event, in fact when the topic came up at all it was, “Tornadoes never come to Claremore!” and the conversation was over.

We retired to Oklahoma in 2016 and bought our very first house in retirement in Claremore, the location, as it happens, of the very first scene in Vicki’s brilliant BROKEN HEART LAND trilogy, as Claremore was the main location of the Dawes Commission in 1907.

We have gotten into the important habit of watching the local TV weather when storms are on the way, sometimes late into the night, as really bad weather usually requires continuous TV coverage.