Sculpture building with spare time and farm parts. David Baze liked to quote me - 'Hey, let's go build something'.

This will be the summer I get back into body surfing, reading under beach umbrellas and drawing clusters of people lathered up in oil.  

What I did on my summer holiday.

I traveled 3400 miles and fantasized about painting all the lovely vistas.  I settled for photography and sometimes right out the window.  From dry waves of grain to the tallest trees of the Redwoods, arched bridges over rivers, pebbles in a stream.  My heart leapt at so many visual pleasures.  I dreamt of being Maynards wife, a partner who relishes the details of a landscape, enough to work it out in paint till it's magnificence is caught.  Second to painting is swimming in it.  A book I read years ago - a couple who toured Europe collecting swimming holes, naked of coarse.  So much to take in and so little time.  

Icelandic volcano effects.  Found on art blog while still in bed on a Saturday after two martinis.  Felt an earthquake about 30 minutes ago.  Found epicenter on line to be Calexico.  Took a quick look at psychic predictions - May is loaded - and June.  Which all led to Bermuda Triangle phenomena, Australian doodlers, crop circles most recent.  All good stuff for avoidance of what I should be doing - painting a utility box out on Shelter Island or just painting in general.  Have not set up my palette in my new digs just yet.  Had a vision of working outside in the orchard ala Van Gogh style.  Really go with the whole insanity  profile.  Told my dinner date last night that I wasn't really suicidal - just at a place where nothing much matters.  Holding out for unique experiences and surprises.  Small pleasures mean a lot.  It's a wonderful world, mysterious in its delivery.  Watching from the sidelines for awhile.  

One of about thirty paintings I did for the plein air exhibit at Marston House.  It's the abandoned Ruben E. Lee which I considered part of SD historical architecture (the theme of the show).  Sold one - didn't see very many people walking around with frames under their arms.  Art as entertainment is killing us. 

Swept away in this raging river and intend to ride it out as trying to hold on only causes gulping of lots of stuff coming at me.  Trying to enjoy the scenery, keeping my head above water and not letting  panic be the overriding emotion.  

I have a couple of irons in my fire that if burned out will set me into launch mode.  National Parks here I come.  An endless road trip painting as I go till a safe haven makes itself known.  

Wailing Hearts

Dancing at the Elks Lodge with some North Countians - music was danged good and the hacienda facade made for fiesta frolicing.  

Evening Tides of Santa Monica

Marble Palace for Perfect Placements

Tiny Crystal Figurine on Luminous Stage - Lovely

Leafy Gold Crowns - always a favorite.

Getty gaga with Natasia and WINE.

What's a Xmas holiday without a bit of shopping in a gold mining town with a lunch box full of turkey sandwiches and homemade chocolate chip cookies, Sees, and oh yeah - apples.  Don't remember if we ate the apples.  Old Highway 49 that skirts the lower Sierras is so vintage Victorian, cowgirlish western, road trip dripping, Disneyland facade of false authenticity.  I bet anyone who steps into a creek to shovel some stones around would have the butt of a shotgun behind the ear in no time.  The hills are heavily populated given the traffic on a Sunday afternoon.  No doubt the ground is still giving it up although no one talks too much about that.  I would love to read about the history of gold - just how much has come from where and who has it now or where did it sink waiting to be discovered again.  There are two miners in my family.  I have some small treasures from their exploits - locked in safe deposit box of coarse just in case anyone tries to scope me out . . . .

Well - must get up and make my way up a local mountain and work off my holiday pounds.  Have a splendid New Year Celebration everyone.  And many good days after that as well.

My kind of club.

Red for the Holiday Theme.

My Current Palette

on a rainy Sunday.

Magnetic Movie made by NASA Lab

This is a project I did for the Irvine Company which sits in a narrow court yard of a residential complex.   It is 6 feet tall and the big sky helped to open up the space.   The flipped image is one of my favorite Photoshop tricks.  Thus blends the perfect marriage of murals and fine art - painted on Alumilite  and with Nova Color pigments it will last decades.

Cirques in Town

PCH

View from Topanga

Masami Teroaka at Bergamont, Mor York Gallery on York in Glendale and Thiebaud at Pasadena Contemporary Museum .

Art Attack with Sandra

I think we need to bring back Sunday dancing in the Park with bands and banners and twinkle lights.  Balboa has plenty of outdoor venues that would suit such an occasion and I'm sure there are plenty of musicians that would love such an opportunity.  I for one would be there.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody

ODE to Jean Claude -

she died last Wednesday.  Not Nice!

Here I am with my two good buddies in NYC.  We walked the Park at midnight while it was snowing.  Sort of got lost as we realized there were no more street lamps nor Gates and it was very dark and rocky.  We were doing exactly what our parents told us never to do.  All traffic was stopped for the event with only horse and buggies allowed.  I knew JC and Christo were out that night seeing their brilliance in that new light and ambiance.  I received an email later confirming that indeed they were taking it in and appreciated the praises.  The cabies said that the whole city was abuzz with art talk - not such fervor since 9/11 - thus shows you the power of art.

I visited the Umbrella Project years before and never drive that pass without re-seeing it in my minds eye.

My father was considering driving us all up to Marin for the Running Fence - oh how I wish we had done that.  

In the Torrey Pines

Botero is at the Bower Museum where I enjoyed a lovely lunch with Kate and Mac.  Mac and I have big tree passions in common.  And books - we both love books.  They don't own a TV.  I never watch mine.  They don't indulge in wine for lunch while working.  I do.  They have seen a whole lot of the world.  I want to.  We got a lot of things sorted out.  I just love Kate and Mac.  So nice to meet happy couples.

Working the late night shifts with long lost Jan Ford.  Everything is outlined with a 3/8ths  brush and requires 3 coats.  Each of the five stacked lobbys are visible to the world so we may get invited back to do them all.  Maybe I'll just bring my laser pointer and a beach chair and conduct or spend the day by the pool or catch the hotel shuttle to Disneyland like most of the other guests.  Negotiate a bonus incentive if she nocks it out in a week.  Yeah - that's the ticket.  Actually I wouldn't want to miss out on the testosterone contact high.  Cowboys, Carpenters and Captains - my favorites!

It was a blessing the projector fell while I was maneuvering it around as I'm certain Jan would have crumbled under the stress of it.  Luckily everything is available in the proximity of LA.    Cha-ching! ! ! 

Forgive me Father for I have worked on a Sunday.

A little trompe loeil Italian terrace scene near the Park.  Oh they were so overjoyed and just in time for the holiday season guest parade.

On Being Busy

When do you pause?

When do you paint or pant?

When write family, loll on moss,

 hear Mozart 

and watch the glitter of the sea.

Yahoo it's Sunday - if I could get away with it I would spend my day doing militant murals dowtown.  A long dotted line painted on the side walks then climbing up walls and bursting into shattered colors organized into recognizable images, then continue on to something that looks relatively ugly only to paint it beautifully.  No interruptions, no one telling me to stop that.  An assistant would be nice who drives my car and keeps handy all the tools I would need.  Various sized brushes, some rollers and trays perhaps, loads of dust cloths cuz everything down there is probably pretty dirty.  Hate painting on dirty surfaces.  Anyway I would tackle a few retaining walls, lots of suffering planter boxes, utility boxes, a parking lot, neglected store fronts.  Patterns, scenes, shrubbery or simple gradations of color.  It would be my contribution to the betterment of quality of life for those who work in that environment.  Of coarse not many people would agree that what I was doing was acceptable.  A committee would have to assess the value and process the concerns of the citizens and re-adjourn to discuss the latent affects or the encouraged responses of other artists and how it was all going to get managed and who will be hired to monitor further militant painters to constrain their actions to within defined parameters perhaps within the barrios only and steered clear of predetermined eloquent architecture.  

In other words it's a one shot deal - get in - get out and do it stealthly as it's not likely the City has the funds to pay for such committees and monitors and those who would want to be apart of an approval of images process.

I was approached by a woman, while working on the Point, to paint utility boxes for a stipend of $200.  The boxes she offered me I thought to be in inferior locations given the fact that I had just created a master work of art in the neighborhood.  Then it occurred to me that this amount of money would not keep an artist afloat for a day.  Her position is probably salaried and her job description is to find willing artists and put them through the approval precess as all images have to be processed.  What if - in a perfect world - the Port had hired one talented artist to paint all the boxes - keep said person afloat for perhaps five years at a reasonable salary.  Veto out the other person who is the facilitator and creator of nothing.  

If they think they are doing a good thing by giving us such opportunities I challenge all to consider how far $200 gets you these days.  Pay a water bill, fill a gas tank, buy lunch.   Two days effort to do a good job, another day for drafting out sketches.  That's 24 hours divided into $2oo equalling $8.33 an hour.   I could probably survive if it was an everyday gig and I lived in an SRO.  As for exposure - have you ever seen a motorist pull over and seek out a signature on a custom painted utility box?

 What would Michelangelo do - get a real job?  Become a tile setter, a waiter in a pub.  Perhaps he gave sexual favors to wealthy patrons.  Hey that's the magic word - PATRON.  Anybody out there sitting on a wad of cash that wants to see immediate results and garner massive gratitude.  Like HGTV we could find floundering small business and offer them a make over.  Revitalize our inner city.  Does not a fresh coat of paint invigorate your chi?  Or lets just find big walls and turn them into fabulous vistas.  Let's start a new Renaissance - mimic the Medicci's.  Come on - let's make something cool happen.