Contagion?

                                  Untitled watermedia on panel 12x12 inches, 30.5x30.5 cm


 About a month ago my husband, who is a nurse, told me a doctor had said he was scared to death of the coronavirus. Ever since I`ve followed this closely. Everybody is, right? With China locking down millions of its citizens to contain the disease, and the stock market in free fall, it is reasonable to think this is a big deal. Not the press and democrats out to get Trump.
 Last night the first case of an Oregonian with the virus was announced after the state`s lab confirmed it. He first showed symptoms on the 19th. He is also an employee at a school in my community, luckily without much contact with students. It is unknown how he acquired the virus. This suggests it is spreading somehow undetected. But maybe slowly, with luck.
 I feel like I`m an unwilling participant of someone`s science project. Waiting to be observed. My guess is this sensation is common to everyone right now. We are waiting for a potential catastrophe. Hmmm, I`ve never been a patient person and the suspense scares me more than the illness. The imagination can be so dangerous. I can`t stand horror movies and I`m incredulous of those that do.
 So if that unfortunate and local man appears to be just the first in a circle, will my city be quarantined? If we can contain it here, that would be amazing. I probably have two weeks of food on hand. But if it becomes a pandemic with lots of sick people, what do we do? How do we help?
 As of tonight, there are 70 confirmed cases in the US, 44 came off the cruise ship. It seems given the incubation time, we will know a whole lot more a week from now
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                     The Season is Over oil and acrylic on canvas 20x20 inches, 51x51 cm


 I always photograph what I`ve done before going upstairs to sleep. With my phone, just to figure out what I`m doing. A while back I did this;

as an underpainting for something that then failed, but I didn`t delete the photo. Something about the palette I thought was worth returning to sometime.  It is the basis of 'The Season is Over'.
I`ve several ideas that would be best explored in oil paint but I have the usual odd reluctance. When I stopped last August, I wondered if it was for good. I keep trying to find equivalent techniques with acrylics, but unless I use them transparently, I`m disappointed. Oil paint is the only kind that doesn`t talk back. What I paint stays like I painted it. No surprises when it dries, predictable opacity, a pleasure to move around with a brush and the color is superior. When I return to it, I`m usually exhausted by watermedia with its quirks and want some control again.

                                 Night Cloud watermedia on paper 12x9 inches, 30.5x23 cm


 As I wait for Covid-19 to change everything, I`m in full scale procrastination avoiding learning web design and launching my new website. Before taxes, I promise myself.

                                         Incoming watermedia on paper 19x14 inches, 48x36 cm


 More tinkering. I`m concluding lots of work that got abandoned too. I can spend a whole day trying to rescue something once again and in the end, I get out my giant scissors and cut it up. I tried.
Yesterday I did an experimental plein air session to find out if the temperature was tolerable yet. Nope my hands were freezing. Soon though I think.

                                                             by Fred Cumming


 Fred Cumming turned 90 last week! Someone posted this masterpiece on Instagram in celebration. I hope he`s recognized as a British national treasure in his homeland.

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Fen Forest

                                                              Fen Forest oil on canvas 20x16


 Finally a new oil painting! A fen is a wetland and this one is Oxbow Slough on Minto Brown Island. At the water`s edge, the bare lichen covered trees are a chaotic tangle of brittle branches. I was there last weekend with my camera and in my painting clothes knowing it would be muddy. Maybe I looked like a groundskeeper because two foreign families stopped me for information. I had to tell them I was a tourist too. That island makes me wish I lived in Salem!

 It`s been beautiful out there! We are in our tiny brief winter and I`m trying to get out in nature as often as possible. The stark clean landscapes will soon be budding for the annual onslaught of green. Now is the time to see the rich colors of winter.

                                                                Oswego Creek

                                                                Oswego Lagoon

                                                               Durham Park

                                                                   Minto Brown Copse


 I was so proud of our president`s executive action on background checks for gun sales and even prouder to see his tears of grief for those children just mowed down at Sandy Hook elementary school. It takes a brave man to show his emotions in public. Gun violence is a national disgrace we must confront with stubborn common sense and rigorous new laws. I`m all for the second amendment as it is written, and for sportsmen and honest self defense. But no one goes deer hunting with a machine gun.
 Then in the State of the Union address, he used the phrase 'unconditional love', that ultimate Christian challenge and dilemma. How do we love our enemy? Do you think any Republican presidential candidate ever considers that question?

President Obama`s many accomplishments are explored in this article from Politico.

                                                          Winter Still Life by Fred Cumming


 Fred Cumming is known best for his moody evocative seascapes of the English coast. Yet this still life is one of my favorites. The contrast between the bleak slushy field outside the window and the humble warmth within is so touching. Sort of like a microcosm of civilization valiant before the brute forces of nature. The guy is a visual poet! His website has a new video of him painting and here is an older one of him working on location.

                                                Chimayo Spring watermedia on paper 36x20 1988


 Those of you in truly cold places may be dreaming of Spring already. Be patient and try to find pleasure in the winter too. I tell myself this every summer when the heat is oppressive and the air is dirty. I want to enjoy my life in every season.


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Little Seascapes

I spent a couple of happy days in Oceanside last week. I love the place because there is so much to look at and nothing to buy. It`s cliffs, caves, surf, wide beaches, offshore monolithic rocks and very limited options for eating. The fog rolled in and out constantly, the mood going from existential questioning to celebration. There were families on the beach wrapped in blankets then suddenly in short pants. We happened on two minus tides which left long shallow pools of water in the sand. Watching the sky change in the reflections was magical. The fog, in person, has a gorgeous silver opalescent quality that I found very challenging to paint. How to make the grays come alive? The first up above, is a love letter to Fred Cumming, one of the most poetic painters alive. The second I did standing at the kitchen counter in the cabin where we stayed. I used the tiny paint set Jo Reimer gave me. The only other time I had played with it was in Wyoming and I was just getting started with the painting when I was confronted by a moose. That brush with the water in the handle was surprisingly capable. The third sketch I did in my studio, trying in vain to convey the shimmering fog.
August Wave oil on panel 6x6
Watercolor Shore wc on paper 6x6
Silver Sand oil on paper 6x6


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