Nothing but bad news

The Day When the Planes Came

It's been eight years this month.

Coincidentally, I discovered a copy of this painting made shortly after those events.

So much happened that whole week of September in 2001.

We were up for a coastal vacation in Maine, near Bar Harbor, Mt. Desert Island.

Once again, Wife had found a nice cabin. This time on Frenchman's Bay. We could see Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park across the water.

It was one of those isolated places, right on the water. 50 yards of rock beach when the tide was out. No beach when the tide was in. Perfect.

We spent the first days wandering and hiking Acadia. Flat on the edges and high in the middle.

We'd get some food on the way home and fix supper while watching for the next day's weather.

Wife wanted to take a boat out to see the whales. A hurricane out in the Atlantic was playing havoc with that idea. We'd call to see if they were going out. Not today; high seas.

We thought it could only get worse if the storm's track continued northward.

The next morning's call got a positive answer. We're going out; come on.

We got there early and bought our tickets for a trip out on the Friendship V. We had an hour to kill so we walked around Bar Harbor and headed back toward the landing as time neared.

We were walking toward the mooring when a young woman came up to us and asked if we had heard that planes had slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. She was near tears as she said the towers had collapsed. I though she might be insane.

She added that another plane had crashed into the Pentagon. In fact, she was distraught because she and her husband worked at the Pentagon, she said. He was out on the water, fishing, and she couldn't reach him. They needed to get back to duty.

This was ALL insane. Vacation, whale-watching. That's what was going on here. Not disaster, death. Not unthinkable horror.

Amazing though it may be, the Friendship V sailed on its scheduled run about an hour or two later. There was a sense among all those lined up to go that we should. It was rough going out because of the high swells, but the water calmed when we reached the whales. And we were calmed by the sight of them.

We spent the rest of the week going to the national park in the mornings and watching details of the horrorshow on TV in the afternoons. What a strange disconnect one part of the day was from the other.

I'd walk the beach at low tide and see a spot on the rocks where evening bonfires were held and imagined the scene above in the painting titled "Vigil". Waiting and hoping for a loved one to come home.

The planes started flying again on Saturday, in time for us to go to our home. We flew over the Twin Towers site and the Pentagon on our way south. Both still trailed long smudges of black smoke.

Crow's in the moment

When Magic Happens

The thing I love most about making these images is the moment when the bell rings.

When the alarm goes off. When the "Boyoing!" happens.

And it has happened countless times. It probably happens to everyone.

The moment I speak of makes you say "What a day!" "Wow!" or "Did you see that?!"

And for artists like me, we get the chance to commemorate those moments.

Like the one in "Crow in the Rain," above.

The house we lived in at the time had a lot of large windows. They opened onto the forest of trees in the neighborhood. More likely, the neighborhood was in the forest.

I sat at the dining room table reading during an hours-long rain. A soft, soaking rain like they have in England or Oregon.

Looking out one of the large windows, I noticed a large bird perched atop the dead uppermost limb of a tree.

The dim overcast light threw the bird and limb in silhouette. I thought it might be a big hawk.

Watching it for a while, trying to determine what species it was, I became totally taken with the calm action of its preening. I got out the binoculars and saw it was a pretty good sized crow.

I looked on, the rain softly falling, the bird preening, when whatever it is that does it ...

thumped me on the head and said quietly "Hey! Stupid! That's a painting!"

Of course it is, I answered. Of course it is. Thanks.

The gifted folks who designed our house included wide roof overhangs, so we could sit outside and still be sheltered. A nice feature.

I got my sketchbook and sat out there, under the wide eave, sketching while the bird sat enjoying its cool afternoon shower.

I live for those moments.

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?