Sidetracked Charley

Fall of Stars 20 x 30 Mixed Media on Artists canvas $1350 Next to last of the End of Days series? When did the series begin? Is it even a series? Maybe it is really a period like Picasso's Blue Period. What binds these paintings together? I sat down in my studio to play with doing an interview on video and while working on framing, how to put a painting into the frame with me, where was the best lighting in my studio, an incredible dryness in my mouth making talking difficult, what came out after a sip of water and swallowing was the End of Days series. Now with a friend coming over to interview me I am struck by what to say. I have thought of a group of paintings I began after I dared to not paint churches. They are largely canyons, my cathedrals, though here and there is a pueblo or ruin of the before people. There is nothing special about those really. I have always been drawn to the architecture of ancient ruins and yes, canyons. And old mission churches in New Mexico which I s...

La Sal Mountains Utah The date is May 2010. We are off roading below the rim at Canyonlands National Park. Second day of our Utah adventure. It snowed on our way up which gave the La Sal Mountains in the distance the tremendous cap of deep snow. We are in summer weather gear on the canyon rims. But the interesting part of this photo for me was how close that mountain looks. We are approximately 15 miles outside of Moab at this point. And the La Sal Mountains begin 20 miles the other side of Moab, but the air is so clear the sandstone tower looks like an immediate neighbor to Mount Tukuhnikivatz  - 12,482 feet (3805 m) and little Tuk to the left. Mount Tukuhnikivatz is obviously big Tuk. Mount Peale, the tallest in the range, reaches 12,721 feet (3,877 m) above sea level. The range contains three clusters of peaks separated by passes. The peaks span a distance of about 18 miles (25 km). The name of the range dates to Spanish times, when the Sierra La Sal (meaning th...

The one major problem with planning a vacation in the Colorado Plateau area of the western United States is there is absolutely too much to see! And the map above leaves out  Arches National Park because it is not on the Colorado River but above it. The first road trip that my sister and I took to Utah we just sampled several of the parks but this year we have decided to focus on the parts of Arches we did not do justice after the broken camera. And Canyonlands National Park which we just barely took in. "We glide along through a strange, weird, grand region. The landscape everywhere, away from the river, is of rock." —Explorer John Wesley Powell, 1869. Canyonlands National Park protects and preserves an immense, wild, desert wilderness at the heart of the Colorado Plateau. Sculpted mainly by water, including by the Green and Colorado rivers, this wilderness contains hundreds of colorful canyons, mesas, buttes, fins, arches, and spires. Prior to the park’s establ...