The spirit is willing

A Memory Haunts the Place

While we're in the neighborhood of Abiquiu, let's drop in on Miss Georgia's old haunts.

The same trip that brought me to Zorro's house (in the previous post) allowed me to wander around some of the region Georgia Okeefe loved so much.

The tough old bird was a tough middle-aged bird when she finally moved to the high desert region of New Mexico in the 1940s. She lived at Ghost House on Ghost Ranch.

The Ranch is out in the country a bit from Abiquiu, and originally consisted of traditional adobe cabins. Abiquiu itself is just a blip of a stop off the secondary highway that goes on to Ghost Ranch.

I bring that up about Abiquiu because I'm always amazed when little places in the world can claim large amounts of renown in our culture. Most art students have heard of Abiquiu.

Ms. Okeefe was a survivor of the art game that won a seat for Modernism at the cultural table.

As I said, she was tough, sometimes ornery. Did what she was going to do, and devil be damned.

She first came to Ghost Ranch as a guest of the owners, who were patrons of art and culture.

The house she stayed in was dubbed Ghost House, which is also the title of the painting above.

I just wanted to encapsulate my whole Okeefe experience through this iconic reference to her visits and eventual residence there.

The artist is remembered throughout the region for her art and folks who are anywhere nearby tend to seek out the places she painted and where she lived, both at the ranch and in Abiquiu.

Ghost Ranch has survived as a place where art pursuits are maintained. Summer sessions are held there by universities and associations. The modern world keeps moving on, moving forward ... sometimes just moving.

New generations come and make their own acquaintance with the dry, spiky landscape.

But there was a time when outsiders didn't come here much. Georgia Okeefe and her generation of artists gravitated to the area because it was inexpensive and not as miserable as New York in the winter.

And their art showed the world why they kept coming back.

A New Pal

Zorro Leads the Way

Went along on wife's business trip to Albuquerque.

When business was done, we rented a place in north nowhere New Mexico, near the Chama River. A good place to be when you want to get away for awhile.

Abiquiu, home of famed, long-deceased artist Georgia Okeefe, is just around the corner.

Our rental is a horseshoe-shaped, owner-built home of amazing charm and utility. Adobe brick inner walls and large round river-rock outer shell. So well insulated we never felt the desert night chills. Water in the birdbath froze every night we were there.

The house is surrounded by miles of desert expanse.

An added plus to the rental is pictured above, "Zorro, Desert Dog."

Zorro belongs to the landlady, but immediately fell into a routine with me (or did I fall in with him?). He probably felt that renters were temporary loaner pals for his walks.

Every day we were there, he'd be waiting bright and early to go take inventory over the dunes out back. He proudly showed me all his desert brush, low trees, some random hares, wadis and whatnot.

I looked out the window one afternoon as Zorro calmly sat there. A herd of about 20 horses was moving from the desert toward the Chama to water. It was a regular occurrence for him, but it excited the heck out of me.

Calm seemed to be the bedrock of Zorro's nature.

Ahh, la Turk

City in a Forest

As I reviewed my stuff, I was surprised to find so many "wildlife" images in the works. I'm not a wildlife artist.

After all, I was a newsroom denizen for decades. Summer in the South ... speaks for itself. Who's ideas was it to combine Florida AND summer? Excessive, to say the least. Florida's winters last only a few months. So a lot of my waking time was/is spent indoors.

The reason so many of those critter paintings occurred to me is that our town is inhabiting a forest.

Go to the top of our highest buildings and you'll see a few other tall buildings and a lot of church spires sticking up out of a solid carpet of pines, oaks and and magnolias.

The city's practice of building holding ponds for flood control has set up wildlife oases all over town. And I've been lucky to live in a few neighborhoods that were very supportive of wild species.

The neighborhood we live in now has a network of ponds and runoff streams that feed to a large prairie lake (during a drought it's a prairie; in a wet pattern it's a lake).

Our lot also backs onto a 100-year flood plain. Sort of like Pooh's wood but much smaller than a hundred acres. Those woods regularly have deer munching their way through. The ponds are regular wading grounds for egrets, storks and whooping cranes. Early Bird specials.

Hawks, kites, owls and bats abound. All of this in a typical modern middle-class high-density suburb. I see these species regularly as I walk Mattie. And I'm usually knocked out by the sight of them. Naturally (no pun intended) the images become paintings.

The one above, "Blue Rondo a la Turk," came to me because Wife saw wild turkeys in the back last winter. She grabbed the camera and I wished her luck. I've heard stories again and again from photographers about how hard it is to get good turkey photos.

Well, the girl did it! Came back with several usable frames. And generously allowed me to paint from one. The one above, obviously.

The painting's title is also borrowed. Dave Brubeck wrote this wonderful composition with a fast, choppy beat that I though of as I worked on all the foliage and even the bird. That was fun.

We in this town are fortunate to have this Southern forest around us. So much so that a neighborhood evening's walk is like a walk in the woods.

I'll be posting more of the local wildlife paintings.

It's about time

The Way Things Change, and Don't

This painting was done in the early 1970s.

"Time Machine" came from my head. Made it all up.

This was a kind of Norman Rockwell-influenced take on the times.

First of all, the the obvious. Old pick-up truck, elder driver and young man.

The driver and the truck belong together, of an age and culture.

The young man is experiencing change, as befits that age. His hair is longish, but still country. It bothers the older man because that hair is getting longer.

And that shirt of his. Embroidered! Like a woman's blouse. Where does he get these ideas?

The truck has been around for three decades, and the old man longer.

The young man is in his late teens.

They sit quietly as they drive through space and time, their thoughts to themselves.

They're going to town in response to a letter from the draft board.

The painting itself has traveled through time and space with me for about 35 years.

Some days are up

Others, Not So Much

I don't know about you, but I can get overwhelmed.

Some days, it just doesn't look like we can get there from here.

This image, "Ophelia (Everything is Dying)", finally expressed itself on such a day.

The population seemed a giant gang of lemmings going into the abyss while snarling and clawing at each other.

I had seen Mel Gibson's version of that brooding Danish chap earlier in the year.

Then I spent a hot Saturday afternoon cruising dark rivers with Bruce Willis in "Striking Distance." Bruce and his partner found a floating body in one scene. Lovingly shot white skin in dark water. Bingo!

A stark image stewed with a brooding sense of planetary death throes. Report after report of species loss, overpopulation, climate warming. Added argumentation about causes ad nauseum to that mix.

And kept stirring. On low boil for a month or two until one day, voila! Low-grade depression and one heck of an image.

It's very nice. Now, put it away.

Do you have any of the fun stuff?

Mattie walks

Bon jour, Monsieur Monet

Our dog's name is Mattie.

Mattie is a shelter pup. Chow Chow-retriever mix (why two chows? One does the job). Sweet disposition, excepting smaller dogs. An issue we're working on.

But Mattie is a people-person. Constantly amassing Facebook friends.

She allows me two sections of the paper in the mornings, then we have to hit the road.

Evenings we wait out the heat.

Every walk shows me a potential painting. I thought up a challenge of doing just that: A painting per walk. The Mattie Walk show. Someday I'll take that challenge.

The painting above, "Pond Lilly", resulted from a walk at Lake Hall, Maclay Gardens State Park.

Walking the girl can be a challenge where people are concerned. Parks have leash rules, so we're always in tandem. Lake Hall has a sand beach where dogs are not allowed. Some people don't want or need a dog interrupting their moment of serenity.

So walking Mattie is a constant judgment call of navigation.

Mattie has a great ability to moderate her response to those she approaches. She is calm and even demure with little kids and older people. Frisky and energetic with those who can handle it. I'm always impressed by her intuition.

But, mostly, I wimp out and take her on trails where the population thins out.

One trail goes around part of the lake. I like that walk a lot. It meanders through the woods and touches the shoreline here and there.

Mattie's indifferent. She keeps an eye out for lions, tigers or bears.

We came to a shoreline view of this shaded cove, covered with lily pads. And one blossom catching a spot of sunlight.

I'm no Claude Monet, but this was a Monet moment. How could I resist?

Mattie, Monet and me. Out for a walk.

On a clear day

Thoughts of Home

These blogs have featured paintings from more than a decade ago.

Let's mix it up and bring in something more recent.

This painting was done last year for my sister-in-law. We are both from the same town in Canada, though she was there much longer than I was. She married my older brother and South Florida became her home.

I figure living in Quebec Province into her adulthood, she had been cold and didn't feel the need to continually repeat the experience.

There is a thought I've had for years now. One that's gaining expression in columns and books: That immigrants (anyone who moves to a very different place, say from Idaho to Mississippi even) get stuck in a mental bind of their own.

They retain memories of the land they left, as it was. Some never really assimilate into their new place. Meanwhile, the land they left changes. Nothing is ever static.

That memoried place in their heads is all that remains of their home.

The painting, "A View of St. Georges East", is both real and idealized. The real town of St. Georges is in the northern end of the Apalachian range. The weather can be rainy and raw at any time of the year. I caught it on a good day. The view is a small detail of the town and a lot of clutter from power lines and other details have been left out.

A combination of photos from the internet contributed to my composition. Good fortune contributed to my getting the houses of my sis-in-law's family in there as well.

She was touched by the work and I got to spend some time in the "home" I remembered.

Anyone who leaves home and returns many years later can feel the dissonance brought on by that return. The world's population is on the move more than ever before. Huge swaths of people looking for something better while leaving a big chunk of themselves behind.