Tag: painting

There’s a New Palette on the Landscape!

The rains have begun. Small streaks of verdant green are beginning to show through brown and golden grasses on hillsides and mountain slopes. There’s a new palette on the landscape. Goodbye summer sounds and colors. I will miss you. But there’s new joy to be found in the outdoors.

Tick season is over. No more checking your clothing, hair and skin for ticks after a good tromp through the woods or alongside stream banks, lakes and ponds. And the bird sounds I’m hearing now are different too – less querulous – methinks. Summer browns and gold, you were beautiful while you lasted. See you again, same time next year?

Last Saturday’s swath of golden grass along Monte Bello Ridge is, I’m guessing, already becoming less brittle, less gold. Little field mouse and rabbits that I encountered on my walk last weekend, have you found shelter from the rains? Are you as happy as I am to revel in this new season? Do you see the splashes of green that I imagine are starting to color your world?

Photo by Jack Kelly Clark.

There are olives to be picked before olive fruit flies get into the crop. Little pests! You arrived here about twelve years ago. How did you get here and why are you so destructive? Maybe this year I’ll join in harvesting the fruit before you invade the crop. Perhaps I’ll even learn how to remove the tannic acid from the olives to make them tastier and sweeter.

This fall is already shaping up to be a very busy one. There are several unfinished paintings in different stages, spread out around my studio. And there is the old camera I bought that I haven’t yet taught myself to use. But who’s complaining? Not me!

Up and over the hills at Rancho San Antonio, habitat restoration awaits: We will be installing protective cages around oak trees as we try to give them a chance to grow. Along Jasper Ridge a long awaited hike is finally taking shape, thanks to a lovely, yet unseen Stanford sophomore. Thank you, Laura!

Before I go, two sobering thoughts:

My beloved New York City – along with an extensive stretch of the eastern seaboard – and my old island home of Jamaica are still trying to recover from last week’s hurricane; and it wasn’t so long ago that we were buying and selling human beings in this country. Last week an American friend sent me a copy of this 1830s “For Sale” poster. It is a sobering reminder that in another time, in this place, President Obama never could have become president and he and I would have both been slaves.

For Sale

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Crystal Cave

About a forty-minute drive from our lodge (Wuksachi Lodge) is the marble karst Crystal Cave. Temperatures in the cave remain constant at about 58 degrees year round so there is no need to worry that it will be too hot or cold when you visit. A lightweight jacket is sufficient to keep you warm.

Crystal Cave consists of several large rooms with the most intricate designs. The patterns on the walls and ceilings will most certainly turn up in my paintings. The marble, the shiny crystal-like sparkles within the karst, the patterns that remind me of brain coral, all are incredibly beautiful. Look closely at the photographs below and see if you see any of the figures I saw in the formations.

Details to note
  • There is a half mile walk down to the cave. (Give yourself plenty of time to stop and enjoy the waterfall on your way down.)
  • Crystal Cave is open from mid-May through November.
  • Tours last around 45 minutes and tickets sell out fast. You must purchase your tickets in advance. (We bought ours at the Lodgepole ticket office.)
  • The last tour of the day is at 4:00 p.m.
  • Tours cost $13. (There is a candlelight tour that costs a few dollars more. These are offered from the end of June until mid-August.)

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Still Life, La Honda Creek

photo-collage, “Oh, the finds you find!”

Turret spiderwebs, fantastic vistas, faces between trees, oh my! These are some of the things I saw as I recently walked along the trails and spaces of La Honda Creek.

The feathers and leaves, the patterns and colors, may all wend their way into my art. Oh! The things you find when you look, listen and smell along a walk.

At La Honda Creek there were the smells of: coyote brush; a fading whitish plant giving off the scent of maple syrup; pine and other evergreen trees; and scorched summer earth and grasses.

Still life, i (What is this animal?)

On the forest floor I came across this little guy, truly a still life for he was dead. I know not what this creature is but I am guessing it and others like it are responsible for many of the holes I saw along the paths. Its little snout is probably good for ferreting and making holes. Then too, there were the spider holes from the turret spiders, so ethereal in the sunlight. These I encountered before I entered a grove of mixed evergreen and oak trees.

Turret spiders are only to be found in California, in moist woodlands. They almost always make their homes along north-facing slopes. Look for them as you walk the hillsides and trails and as you walk alongside rivers and creek banks. Although their webs are easy to spot, they are not. The only time I ever saw one is when I was on a night hike at Monte Bello Ridge. It was up by the headwaters of Stevens Creek. A fellow hiker, using an infrared light, pointed it out as it nested in its hole. That picture may also find its way into my paintings.

Here are more photographs from my hike. I hope you can see the  outline of a face between the tree trunks. A perfect end to the day was a stop at Alice’s, in Woodside, for a Laguanitas. California has such interesting beer names: Laguanitas, 21st Amendment, Old Dirty Bastard, A Little Sumpen Sumpen (not sure of spelling but it’s good!). Check out Alice’s if you are ever up Woodside along Skyline Boulevard and Sky Honda/La Honda way. If you are not a vegetarian, try their Kawasaki burgers and their Teriyaki Skirt Steak. I also recommend their sweet potato fries. Here is Alice’s Web link: http://www.alicesrestaurant.com/.

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Yosemite

At Yosemite (mixed media on canvas, 2011)

We went to Yosemite and enjoyed the waterfalls, brilliantly powerful from last year’s rains and snowfall. The Merced was a rushing, roaring monster of a river. It was breathtaking. In a little grove inside the park I agonized over a plaque, a commemoration of the First Peoples. It told the story of the original inhabitants who were burned out of their home in the very spot where I stood. I took some photographs of the plaque so I could go home and do some research/further reading on the peoples and the subject. Ironically, they are part of the cache of deleted images that remains deleted from my computer files. Though in no way incriminating, these photographs stayed where I sent them, first in and then out of the Trash Can. Not so the other photographs that you find interspersed in my “Red Book Stories” posts.

I created an oil and acrylic painting of the very first stop that DSan and I made in Yosemite. It is our first view of the river [the Merced?] from a very high perch atop granite rocks. If you look carefully, you will see his profile along with a head in the clouds and also an emerging (or disappearing) face in the water below. Both head and face are substitutes for two women, his Europe woman and his California woman.

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Janis Joplin’s Pants

Art Seen

janis’ pants

The 1968 exhibition at the Oakland Museum is pretty kitschy, very Hollywood, a spectacle. It wasn’t what I expected. No real analysis, an everyman show, I guess. But here are some pictures of what I took away from it and a sketch from my art journal. It is amazing to see these pants, realize how small they are and wonder what was Janis bawling about being fat for??? (Okay, okay, so she was a little overweight later on. Big deal!)

my sketch, “Janis’ Pants”
better than, “I have a dream” speech
Brown Berets

AIM

Listen to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, Riverside Church speech (1967) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5VhCvrEcPY

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Promise Breaker

Spectral figure

Him: I’ve been calling you. All morning.

She: I know.

Him: Are you okay?

She: I’m fine. You?

Him: I’m fine. You in the parking lot now?

She: I am.

Him: No matter where in the world I am, I am aware of where you are and what time zone you are in.

She: I know.

Him: I won’t let you do this.

She: It is already done.

Him: You are a coward. You cannot wait until I’m in the air to send me that email. You make that decision for both of us? I won’t let you. I won’t let you be an emotional martyr.

She: You don’t get a say in this, Nicholas.

Him: What if I want more too?

She: Selfish! And greedy. Greedy, selfish boy.

Him: I don’t know how yet, but I will figure out a way for us to be together.

She: False promises. We are on to false promises now.

Him: Did you take that exam yesterday?

She: No.

Him: Promise breaker!

She: It is none of your concern now, Nick. I am not your concern.

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Woman Flying A Kite

Art Seen

Point Reyes Woman Flying a Kite (2012)

A little painting, the size of a postcard, caught my eye at the Asian Museum’s, Maharaja exhibition (April 2012). The opaque watercolor, dominated by an eggplant colored background, is of a woman flying a kite. Perhaps the string has cut her hands as both palms seem to exude a red substance. Blood? Perhaps. Or maybe it is simply the color of the kite’s string. I’d like to think it is blood. That makes the painting more profound and poetic. The woman is in profile. The plaque accompanying the painting tells you that this is a nazar painting, a gift for the Maharaja. Kite flying is symbolic of the woman’s feeling for a loved one who is far away. She misses him.

A Ride Fit For A Maharaja (2012)

Below is the nazar painting and my response to it. My painting is a mixed media collage on Japanese rice paper. The opposite sketches are from my notebooks. All are in response to the exhibition.

Woman Flying A Kite (2012)
Woman Flying A Kite, c1700-1800 (property of AGO Art Gallery)
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