Sidetracked Charley

Happy Halloween everyone. I bought a pumpkin a few days ago and my intent was to carve it on All Hallows Eve - yesterday. But that did not get done. I was cleaning up the studio before making a mess again with the pumpkin and got sidetracked into preparing two platforms for two new paintings. I got out of Dodge over last weekend and came back to cold and extremely cold temperatures. It has been nice to be in the livingroom of my house not far from the woodstove. Yesterday the sun came out which warms the studio due to its passive solar design and ultimately the rest of my house. So it was comfortable to work in the studio. And the view was not reminding me of just how cold it was outside. How cold was it? Well, yesterday morning when I walked the fur kids the recorded temperature was 13F but there was a bitter wind which went right through my old winter coat. That is toast. I figured I might have to buy a new one and was debating Sierra Trading on line or the local thrift store w...

Firewood half stacked My father used to tell tales of the blizzards of his childhood in Kansas City. Like all young children I rolled my eyes sure this was a lot like the fish that got away which continued to grow upon every telling. As an adult living in the intermountain west and spending 20 years of that time as a ski instructor I have been trapped by avalanches and snowed into mountain resorts and snow blinded on the trail heading to the lodge. But all those were transient events compared to the Blizzard of '06/'07 and the winter that followed. It started snowing I believe on the 29th of December. I went out and gathered up firewood from the unstacked pile just delivered. It had been a mild winter to that point and I was sure the wood I had would suffice but had gotten extra at the last minute. Snow storms in New Mexico seldom hang around but this one did. It was still snowing on New Year's Day. By then we had 6 feet of what skiers call Champagne powder if the wind...

We are currently enjoying some fantastic Indian Summer weather. So while I would love to be in the studio painting today I need to stop ignoring the snow fencing that needs restretched. And as tomorrow is Sunday I need to get to the hardware store today and lay in supplies for fencing and for framing of the pictures I have finished. And as Halloween is just around the corner I need to pick up a pumpkin and then decide if I am going to carve one. I also want to make a new birdfeeding station for the winter - one that is visible from my studio windows. Actually considering placing it right under the studio window in front. Yes, within cat range but what isn't. So these last nice days before winter settles in are divided between chores that must be done and those that would be nice to do. I should be totally focusing on the must get dones but my inner brat wants to do what it wants to do. Frankly I would like to go visiting a local ghost town or two. Yesterday, while visiting a h...

The opening photo may lead you to believe this post really belongs in my Creative Journey blog but what I am discussing today is not the technique illustrated above but that I forgot about it. It went missing from my mind. One of my artistic transitions was from pen and ink with one color to water coloring in full color. And when I made that move it was because of a book on Chinese watercolor that told of how they often laid out the tones and line first with India Ink and then applied color on top. This of course requires waterproof inks and one day working on a particularly ambitious painting I discovered that not all India inks are waterproof. I am not sure why I threw out the baby with the bathwater on this technique but I quickly went to applying ink on top of a watercolor instead of the other way around. Today most of my work still utilizes inks that are largely applied with calligraphy pens or lining brushes, but after wards as a finishing touch. Yesterday when working on the pai...

As a child I was overly fond of stories with lessons or morals. My reading matter included Greek and Roman myths, the Tales of Uncle Remus (African/American folk tales compiled by Joel Chandler Harris) and the fables of Aesop. Of my favorites of Aesop fables was The Fox and the Grapes vied with The Ant and the Grasshopper for first place. I was seldom, when left alone, without one of these classic tales running through my head. I put my adults into various roles among my favorite moral tales. Dad was almost always Brer Rabbit. I quite frankly saw my mother as the ant and my father as the grasshopper. This parallel was clearly evident when we lived in the farm north of Kansas City which is probably now the main runway of the airport there. I frankly confess I always thought of myself as a grasshopper. Until recently that is. I have noticed the hideous snows of the last few years (and the touted pandemic) has made me into more of a grasshopper than I at times find comfortable. Or was a...

I had Halloween dreams last night. Grave yards and haunted houses and masquerade parties. It is what I have termed a "seeker's" dream. It does not matter if it is an airport or a multi-storied house I am seeking something throughout the twisted course of the dream. We are told by sleep researchers that dreams can last no more than a minute or two and yet this one seemed to go on all night. As as kid I used to tell my mother I dreamed in Soap Operas, because it seemed that each new dream was an additional episode of an on-going story where the same cast of characters came and went not unlike As the World Turns . I also obviously reuse stage sets. I have a memory of my parents helping my paternal grandmother move out of the huge house in the Prospect area of Kansas City. It was a mansion to my way of thinking with a huge entry area that opened up to the ceiling three floors above us. The room where we stood was ringed with a staircase and balustrade. Grandmother, dressed in...

The above poster was a blast from the past. I had forgotten that we once called rummage sales White Elephant Sales. I remember as a child being very disappointed there were no white elephants to buy. I wanted one badly. Now, of course, we call them yard or garage sales, though like the white elephants, there are no yards or garages for sale. I am having a garage sale and I don't even have a garage. I and my neighbor, when working up ads for this event, debated various words and decided garage sale, whether you had one or not, gave people a better understanding of what was going on. Frankly, I am confused. It has been a confusing ten days preparing for this. Going through the closets and cabinets and pulling out stuff. Each unearth item seems to raise some old memory to the surface which is why I think the "Been there/done that" title I attached to the event really fit. But dredging up the white elephants seemed unsettling for more than just me. The canine fur kids are hav...

My neighbor invited me out to brunch yesterday so we could discuss a few last minute things about the upcoming Been there/done that sale this weekend. Estimated elapsed time (door to door) we figured would be two hours even if we ran a few errands at same time. Actual elapsed time was five hours. Breakfast was delightful and then off to community center to post a flier about the sale. Then Jan needed mouse traps. It is a hideous rodent year and she has no cats. I have offered to loan her one or two of mine for a couple hours but she is allergic. At the hardware store they were having a killer sale on wild birdseed. Yes, it will soon be that time of year. While loading the birdseed into the trunk I noticed her rear tire was almost flat. Easily remedied we thought. We drove immediately to our friendly local mechanic who also happens to be one of only two people in town that can fix a flat. He was off on a test drive the sign in the window said but would return ASAP. A half hour later we ...