Rust and Rain

Sunlit Rust

Mixed Media

9" x 12"

I’m in the airport waiting for my flight home. It’s raining, and most people I’ve talked to here are darn sick of it. Not me. I love it. We don’t see a lot of rain in Wrightwood. When we do, it tends to be a torrential downpour that scours tons of earth, boulders, and dead trees off the ridge behind us. Here, it’s been a steady light rain, with a glimpse of sun here and there.

The desert rains are much like ours: infrequent and full of gusto, going from dust to raging flashfloods in a matter of minutes.

The rust on these milk cans weren’t the result of a drizzle, but probably several years of pounding desert rain. This wasn’t a gentle rusting. But then the desert is rarely gentle.

Diamonds of Rust

Miner's Machine

Mixed Media

12" x 9"

Long after I'm gone and all my paintings have been disbursed through thrift stores and garage sales, I’d like to think that someone might have kept a piece or two from my Rust Period. Yes, Picasso had his blue period and I, rust. You see, lately I've been obsessed with the rainbow patina of rusty relics rescued by desert rats. 
 

Out at Goffs, where the old school house still stands, a band of RV-snowbirds and members of the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association volunteer their time add to or fix up the growing display of desert detritus arranged outside the museum. It has evolved from a run down building to a full-on compound with rows of cool rescued buildings, equipment, coffee pots, sewing machines and other signs of life left behind in the Mohave. 

The gates were locked when we arrived one Saturday morning to check out this interesting collection of castoffs. We studied a glass case filled with sun-bleached flyers, one of which told us the gates should have been open. We called the number "to make an appointment."

"What?! They haven’t opened the gates yet?" squawked the woman who answered the phone. "I’ll send someone right out." 

Less than a minute later four golf carts (Goffs’ carts?) manned with extremely serious senior citizens roared up, dust tails spreading out behind them (the carts, not the seniors). It took pretty near all of them to open the gate, requiring so much of their attention, not one of them responded to our "good mornings" until their mission was accomplished.

As we wandered through the rows, we came across a stamp mill that had been rebuilt by the volunteers. They fire it up every so often and it makes a tremendous noise, the docent told us. The talented volunteers are piecing together an even larger one they hope to have finished this year. By the looks of the chunks of metal lying about, it’s going to be a monster. We'll definitely go back to see it in action—I want to feel the ground shake as it stomps on ore-laden rocks.

The piece you see at the top of this post is a mix of three media. First, I laid out a foundation of values with sepia ink. Then, I added color with watercolor, and finished it off with Prismacolor pencil. I like the texture of the pencil on the watercolor paper; it works well to recreate the bloom of rust on the metal.

A Letter to My Art

Dearest Art,

I've been neglecting you lately. You've been cast aside for many reasons, one of which is Freelance, which frankly my dear, pays a little better than you. Don't fret. You are my first love. You may frustrate me at times, being the illusive ethereal, fickle you that you are, but nothing like Freelance. You release me, you relax me, and you let me be as expressive and out there as I wish.

You quietly wait for me to express the ideas and images circling around in my noggin while I wait for Photoshop to save a file the size of New Mexico. You don't judge—you just let it happen when I'm there to pick up the reins. You don't crash when I have too many paintings going at once and you never just freeze up for no reason.

Know that I miss you and hope it snows like hell this weekend so that once through my chores we can spend some time in the studio together.

Love,

Me

PS. I do have something new to show you all, but I haven't had a chance to photograph it yet. Stay tuned.

S

Musings on What's Next

Towering Sycamore

Acrylic

11 X 14

 

I haven't had much time in the studio lately and it's starting to make me a little crazy. As a result, I couldn't sleep last night. I started to think about how I haven’t had time to paint and I started getting an anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know—why would I be anxious about that? Not working. Not painting. Not creating and adding to my inventory—many levels of why. I'm hanging some paintings in a local bank on Saturday for a month-long exhibit. As I looked around last night to choose my pieces, I realized how small my framed inventory is these days.

So then, I had the burning urge to go up to the studio. Yep, 1:30 am and I’m thinking maybe I should get up and go paint. Not a good idea. I had plenty to do the next day and I couldn't afford to be fuzzy from lack of sleep. Eventually I drifted off and dreamt of deer with wide racks of sharp-pointed antlers running towards me.

I think some of my anxiety is that I don't know what to do next. I just know I want to do something different. I took a few minutes to look through my photos last night and I'm drawn to images of rusted junk and broken glass from the desert. We went out to Goffs a few weeks ago, a semi-ghost town where there is an old school house, a few rescued buildings, and lots of desert junk (oh and several retirees that zip around in golf carts). 

It was the desert junk that intrigued me most. Shovel blades and rusted frames of car seats, with springs spiraling out every which way. Santa Fe rail cars with ruddy peeling paint; old stamp mills from the mines, sewing machines, giant bolts, military helmets, and tractor seats. Ornate dresser pulls, broken glass in milky purples and cobalt blues—and a spilled bucket of coke-bottle-green marbles cast across the sandy soil, beaming brightly in the sunlight.

But those kinds of subjects are the paintings that people walk past with just a glance, thinking, "What the hell is that? And why on earth would I put that over my sofa?" So you see my dilemma.

I've got some new relief printing ink to try. It's a delicious burnt brown and it might just be the perfect thing for rendering rusty objects. Maybe that's where I'll go next. Even if it's not marketable. I never wanted to be an art whore anyway.

But first, we will head back to the desert for a quick visit. Revisiting the wild places where the horizon is far away, the sky is bluer-than-blue, and the Mud Hills, which despite the drab name will show us their rich color and texture. A rainbow of layers upon layers of ancient sediments and stones pressed and folded and weathered and twisted into soothing stripes of celery, sage, cocoa, cinnamon, cumin, and cream.

We'll explore colorful canyons, sit by the fire, take in the night sky's show of stars, and if the wind Gods favor us, sleep the peaceful sleep the desert brings during its moments of quiet calm.

A Happier Place

Morning at Manter Creek

12" X 16"

Watercolor

Our campsite by the creek sat in a pocket of trees that had escaped the terrible fire. After scrabbling over and under the broken bones of trees for a few miles, we came upon a broad glade drenched in cool, blue shade. There, the creek widened out, running mossy green and earthy black, a lullaby of sound between overhanging banks of grasses and mint.

It was the perfect spot, with logs encircling a campfire ring and plenty of stubby branches to hang our gear. As we started to set up camp, Clint sent me down to the creek, knowing I was itching try out my new fishing pole. It was one of those spots so lovely you could just sit and absorb it for hours. Ah, Domeland!

We did more fishing, than catching. The few little trout we caught were gently returned to the water and bid farewell until our next trip. It was heaven wandering along the bank, while taking in the glorious fragrance of the creek: mud and decaying vegetation—that rich, sweet smell of living things reuniting with the earth.

This idyllic creek soothed us to sleep and flowed through our dreams. When the sun came up, beams of color broke through below the canopy illuminating clumps of grass and casting fire upon the water. At the end of the day, the soft coral light of sunset kissed the creek good night.

The Sycamore Saga

The original sketch

In November, we took our belated honeymoon. We spent time a lot of time between Flagstaff and Durango exploring pueblo ruins, desert mesas, and mountains that are very different than our San Gabriels. I can’t wait to go back. There were places with a spirit and vibration that was unlike anything I've experienced before.

As we worked our way homeward, we stopped south of Sedona to camp for a couple nights at Wet Beaver Creek (yes, that’s the real name). We had a lovely spot along an olive green creek framed by sycamores hung with glowing yellow, gold, and bronze leaves. Their trunks of creamy flesh curved upward like slender elfin creatures. These trees looked as though they were frozen mid-dance in a graceful tableau.

I’ve been struggling to capture this grace, starting first with a monoprint that was a miserable failure. It looked more like a Rorschach inkblot than any kind of recognizable image. 

I moved on to watercolor, but that came out too heavy-handed and didn't reflect the shapely form that initially attracted me. The leaves were nothing like the golden mantel draped over the limbs. Although the painting might be salvageable with a little more work, I decided it was time to move on to acrylic.

The watercolor...meh

 So, here I am, again sharing something unfinished. This is risky, because it may not turn out. It may end up being a do-over. It’s too early to tell. Yet pulling aside the curtain to share my adventures in art—even when things don't turn out as planned—allows you see that it’s not always as easy as it might appear to be. The “struggle” in struggling artist has many meanings.

The acrylic version. I'm not too far along yet, so it's too soon to tell if this will be a keeper.

A Tah-Dah and The Next Big Thing

This one?

This past Sunday marked the 1-year anniversary of this blog. Yay. Wow. It’s been a year. I hope you have enjoyed my art and stories as much as I’ve enjoyed sharing them. Thank you to everyone who encouraged me. And thanks to Clint who patiently waited for dinner while I obsessively “got my post up” for the week (well, most weeks).

What’s next?

Well, this year, in addition to ongoing adventures in art, I want to set up a link to a storefront where you can buy prints of my work online. Yikes. It’s in writing now, so I guess I have to follow through on this. This step is easier said than done. Starting the blog was a piece of cake. It’s far easier to blather on about art than it is to set up a shopping cart and the logistics of my offering. 

Or this one?

In fact, I had intended to make put this post up on Sunday, but I ended up spending the entire afternoon trying to figure out the new archival-ink printer. It’s one of those helpful models that makes printing “EZ”, but the reality—it’s darn near impossible to print something outside of the pre-sets. Maybe if they spelled easy correctly that wouldn’t be the case. I’m always a little leery of things that claim to be EZ. Despite that, I’m making progress. So, untangling the process of getting prints up online is what I’ll be working on in between paintings.

Or maybe this one?

Here’s where you can help. 

Tell me which pieces you like best. Not everyone has the same taste, but there will be some pieces that are more popular than others. I’d hate to waste that expensive paper on something no one likes. Choose as many as you like (oh please say you like at least one) to help point me in the right reproductive direction. Feel free to tell me your choices by making a comment on the blog, sending me an e-mail, or shooting an arrow into the front door with a message tied to it, whatever works for you.

Thanks! Now back to that painting of the sycamore I started…

Sunrise on the Meadow

Sunrise on the Meadow

20" X 16"

Acrylic on Canvas

Just before dawn, we woke to the yips and snarls of the coyotes. We tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use. The sky was beginning to lighten, so we shuffled into our jeans and crawled out of the tent.

Mmmm. Tea around the morning fire, waiting for the next batch of water to boil to bring our breakfasts alive. Our campsite sat in a bowl shadowed by a ridge of rock. It took a long time for the sun to peek over the edge of the Domeland.

And when it did, the world went from cool blues and greens and grays to a riot of color. Gold light streaming through the breaks in the clouds first lit the tips of the trees guarding the meadow and then the far ridge tops. The liquid light slid down as the sun slid up, igniting the day.

Getting There

I am transported when I paint. There are two activities going on in my head as I push and dab and smear the paint around on the canvas. One is a running patter about technique and color...no that's too red, this shape is too thick, yes, that's the right value, I need another glaze of blue...

The other is the sensory equivalent to being there. I'm standing on that ridge, my cheeks cold in the pre-dawn air, I smell the campfire, and listen to the ravens calling, "Good morning".

I escape. I've done this since I was about 13, when I would recoil into my room from a world that was nothing like the books, magazines, or television shows. Teenage-dom for me, like a lot of people, was no picnic. One of my escapes was painting. I devoured National Geographic magazines for subject matter, and I'd go to those places when I painted them.

When I was fifteen, a magical thing happened that changed my life. My uncle and aunt arranged a summer job for me in Yosemite. It was like going to heaven for 3 months. When I'd leave, all I could think about was when I was there—and when I was going back. Going home. That’s how I thought of it. In between those summers, the out-of-body travel became more a more frequent occurrence. I retracted like a raw nerve from my surroundings. I had three glorious summers there that got me through high school, kept me from jumping off a roof.

For some reason, when I was working on this image from Domeland it made me think about that time in my life. There was one painting in particular I remember that I worked on for a long time—until it was perfect. It was a beautiful, gnarled tree, stark against an electric blue sky. After each painting session, it was as though I slowly awakened from a vivid dream. Then it struck me why this memory came to the surface: the tree in that painting looked like many of the weathered trees in Domeland.

Painting isn't just about getting there in terms of finishing a piece, it’s also the way I mentally and emotionally return to the source of my inspiration: the wild places, the places I love best.

Now for the update on the painting: I'm getting there, in fact I'm really close. I just need to make the foreground become the same place as the background. The warmth of the sun peeking over the ridge and the light on the grassy hill rolling down into the meadow is not quite where I want it to be.

If the art gods smile down on me, this weekend I'll finish it and start another piece. What next? Maybe back to making monoprints...I have an image of a sinuous sycamore that's been hanging out in my head.

PS. This is my fiftieth blog post. Yay me.

Return to Domeland

It’s time to go back to Domeland. The wilderness area no one’s heard of tucked between places that sound vaguely familiar. I have to dig deep to recall exactly where it is...somewhere near Brigadoon, I think.

What I do remember is its beauty and wildness—and the fun we had—the four amigos. I still laugh remembering as one of our hiking party—who shall remain nameless—high stepped like a cartoon character, legs-a-spinning as he hightailed it down the trail away from a very pissed off rattlesnake who’s sunning was disturbed. Funny? Yes, if you weren’t the one running.

Domeland feels like a secret place where somehow you’ve been lucky enough to gain entrance. You can hear yourself breathe there and feel the spirit of the place—its trees, rocks, and wildlife.

From a painter's perspective, the Domeland is a Maxfield Parrish painting. It’s saturated and oozing and dripping with color and contrast.

So, what to paint next? I had one more of those special canvases I fell in love with and an image of the sun first lighting the meadow—the perfect subject. I broke out the new brushes and acrylics, in hopes of achieving rich and brilliant color pushed to the point of surreal—just like I like it!

This painting is early in the process, not much more than an underpainting—so together we’ll see where this goes.