Pride 26

                                                        Low Tide acrylic on Nara 18x12 inches

  Here I am. Some dark nights of the soul in this new year. Mental health is health and fortunately I`m from California where we get help if we need it. No stigma. I was able to call in the calvary too by virtue of an annual Medicare 'wellness' check. This remnant, woke bit of Democratic governance provided me practical, local contacts. Thanks Obama! For the first time in my life I questioned whether I even wanted to paint anymore. This caused a loss of identity that was really not comfortable. I`ve always felt extremely lucky to never have identity issues. But what do I want from my painting practice in this later part of my life? I`m still grappling with that but I do know now that any resolution will come from the painting process itself. What I`m losing interest in is the livelihood part especially. The 'career' stuff.  I never was focused enough on the professional strategies to advance much, I own that. For now and maybe from now onward, I don`t even want to think about shows or open studio tours.   

     From lots of reading and conversations with friends and professionals a way forward is becoming more clear. Those loved ones older than me have been particularly encouraging. The adaptations involve examination of things I took for granted. I`m learning this 'late life' is a time of 'being' more than doing. The race was won, I can relax.

  So I`m questioning now the utility of this blog [18 years old next month]. If promoting my work is less of a priority, is the journaling aspect of this enough to keep up the sporadic effort? I`m not sure though even as I type this I`m remembering all of the personal social benefits this blog has brought me. Significant friendships at a time when I didn`t know many people in my new community.

                                                              photographer unknown

  Randall and John, blessed to be gay and to find each other. As teens we had no imagination for how the world would change. May it change even more.  [photo by Leo Rijn]

 This Pride month of June has some joy and hope again, the tide has turned. Cruelty, ignorance and greed have not been defeated of course but they are not overwhelming the country like they were a year ago. The stoic citizens of Minneapolis broke that wave in the dead of winter. The arrogant, foolish war on Iran further undermined the hateful goals of this power obsessed administration. Republicans using the trans population to enflame and deceive Americans may be faltering too, I hope so. Trans culture is critical in understanding the complexity of gender in human relationships and expression. It is not black and white. Give the LGBT folk in your life some love. We are everywhere.

                                                                      David Hockney

  Speaking of pride. The late David Hockney was a true role model in being a gay artist. It was literally a matter of fact and he never hid it, apologized or explained. The confidence to be so boldly himself when homosexuality was still criminalized in the UK, I believe came from the loving relationship he maintained with his parents throughout their lives.                                                                                           As a landscape painter with plenty of opinions I`ll just say I took issue with much of the color in his later paintings. What I admired the most in his work was his ability with drawing. As good as Van Gogh and Rembrandt.  His first I-phone drawings were so inspired and he did them with his finger! He loved to draw! I wish I had more of that urge. What drawing I`ve done has always had a research element to it and less one of pleasure. It`s been wonderful to read so many accounts of his personality and work ethic since his death. His life sure looked like a work of art to me.      

                                           by David Hockney, one of my favorite paintings

                                                         Mt. Adams 1 wc 9x12 RDTipton

                                                         Mt. Adams 2 wc 9x12 RDTipton

                                                            Mt. Adams 3 wc 9x12 RDTipton

  We were in Hood River recently and I had forgotten the clear close view of Mt. Adams available on the west side of town. Just stunning. I bought some actual cotton paper [not plastic] to paint these on.

 I really don`t have much to show for the last few months. Painting only recently began to feel right again and I don`t want to burden the impulse with ambition. I`m figuring out this next part of my life slowly.

                                       Wetland Winter Tangle acrylic on Yupo 20x26 inches

  I`m teaching myself how to paint with just acrylics, like I used to before 1984. They haven`t changed much, they still pale in comparison to the immediacy of oil paint but the medium is much more suited to paper and I`m committed to working on paper. I`ve always been more comfortable with it and it is much easier to store. The problem for me is the weaker pigment load in acrylics. I continually need to repaint sections over and over. I`m doing it differently now.

Arthur Sze, 25th U. S. Poet Laureate 

                                                                     sunset on Mars

#whatisrememberedlives

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I`m not going back

                                        Root Crown and Forest acrylic on Yupo 20x20 inches

 Like everyone I know, I`m consumed with worry about what my country might do. Much of the time I have faith but then the Washington Post refuses to endorse anyone, including the only sane candidate. What in the world could be behind such a public display of cowardice from the owner Jeff Bezos?? That spooks me.  After so many of those who worked with Donald Trump have alerted the world to the dire  emergency his election would be, the polls are tied. After 2016 there aren`t any arrogant Democrats alive with complete confidence the country will do the right thing. I can only hope, we all know who he is. The people will speak.

This moment is striking in the similarities with Nazi Germany. If you replace 'immigrants' from the  language of Trump and Vance with Jews, it`s the same scapegoating in an effort to create anger. That fomented rage is the engine Trump thinks will propel him back into power. It may, or not if reason  prevails.  October began in sheer horror seeing what Hurricane Helene did to the Southeast. The images alone have caused trauma. I can barely imagine the misery in those mountain towns as rescue workers fight to get basic necessities to all those isolated people. Then along comes Milton!

 Having been shocked beyond belief once, I will not make that mistake again. I imagine how desolate life will feel if Trump wins and I try to think of an appropriate response. The fear and dread will be massive, how can I be something positive and helpful? I`m working on that, there are eight days left. One thing is certain, even if the country becomes a Christian nationalist state, I will not shut up and I will not re-enter the closet. 

 

                                                Oceanside watercolor on Yupo 26x20 inches

                                                                        Oceanside

 One of my favorite beaches. The painting is a view of the waves pushing between the giant cliff and the little 'hat box' rock on the left in the photo. As the tide comes in, that passage is filled with liquid drama. We got away to the coast after the Lake Owego Open Studios. Thanks to all that came by, our conversations meant a lot to me.

                                                       Dunes acrylic on plastic 12x18 inches

 A mystery plastic surface, I was looking for a Yupo equivalent in a different size. This did not accept watercolor at all but would take acrylic if medium was added to the washes. It`s called Nara and I guess was formulated for alcohol inks. From India.

                                               Birth of Rainier acrylic on plastic 12x12 inches

                                           October Forest watermedia on Yupo 12x9 inches

The darkness is a definite challenge but once the morning finally begins, it is magnificent outside. Here are a couple of photos from nearby Champoeg State Park from last week;

                                                                    by Jane Hynous

This won by a lot in a competition of student designs for the 'I voted' stickers. She nailed it.

                                                     Portrait of Van Gogh by Francis Bacon

This is a favorite of Francis Bacon`s psychologically charged works. From early on, painting the darker side of human experience was his obsession. The work before 1960 was particularly strong. This portrait is actually based on Van Gogh`s own self portrait 'The Painter on the Road to Tarascon'. Bacon placed the painter in a box, his feet mired in turbulent mud. An effective metaphor of the troubled artist.

Sort of how it feels to be American right now.

See you on the other side.

work for sale in my studio

watercolor, collage, pride

 

                                                Algodones 2 watercolor on Yupo 26x20 inches

                               Spring Leaves, Iron Mountain watercolor on Yupo 26x20 inches

                                               North Coast watermedia on Yupo 35x23 inches

June 26 and 71 degrees at 4 pm? Thank you! 

Our day will come. By this date three years ago, a 'heat dome' had parked over the Pacific Northwest killing hundreds. I`m grateful for todays cool beauty.

Once again it is Pride month. My community of Lake Oswego celebrated its first Pride Event. We went early having no idea what to expect and wanting to be visible bodies if the crowd was small. It wasn`t.

 It is a unique honor and privilege to have lived in this era. Within my lifetime, within my culture, homosexuality has gone from unspeakably disgusting to widely accepted. And for one month, actually elevated. It is still disorienting but when I remember that my Christian mother was there at my wedding, I just feel blessed.

New collages;

                                       Furtive Movement watercolor on yupo collage 14x11 inches

                                          Floating Gate watercolor on yupo collage 12x9 inches

                             Each Flower Tracks the Moon watercolor on yupo collage 14x11 inches

                                     Bikram Dilemma watercolor on yupo collage 26x20 inches

 I`m trying to figure out why making collages is such a different experience from painting. The collages are completely engrossing with time awareness lost almost immediately. When I paint, I`m often waiting for something to 'set up', thinking intently about early 'layers', examining my ultimate visual 'reason' for painting a particular subject and then trying many different techniques to find the one best for this part of this project. Lots of thought! Until, if I`m fortunate, something better takes over. I think most painters paint for this sublime occurrence. When all the processes become harmonized, the angst has vanished and there is an understanding that something special is happening. Each choice makes perfect sense and looks wildly fresh. What a validation and yet totally independent of everything! You can never make it happen only be there when it does with a brush in your hand. Most of the time for me, painting is a complex mental moral entanglement that must be solved. This is why when I try to bring new insights into my process and it still ends up looking  like other RDTs, I`m exasperated. It`s like no matter what  exciting things are happening in the brain, the hand only knows one way of acting.

 These are from last winter, watercolor on Yupo 12 inch diameter. The fabulous Ginny Zanger told me yupo was now being made into circles, so I wanted to try them. Honestly, it wasn`t a great experience. There was a vertigo quality in making them, like they wouldn`t hold still. I even did some abstractions but they seemed unmoored altogether. I like the way they look but getting there was weird.

A neighbors irises. They stopped me on my walk and the more I looked at them I felt certain that their beauty was by design. Someone had thought about those colors and their placement. What a gorgeous carefree patch of life. For me anyway.

                                    

 I have been and known many lonely hearts. This woman found the biggest love of all. From the NYTimes, Modern Love

Finally Finding “The Magic”

Since childhood, I yearned for love. Once, I came within weeks of marriage before it abruptly fell apart. He said we were missing “the magic,” and, admittedly, he was right. A few men came and went. I’m now 59 with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. I still don’t have a partner, but I’ve fallen desperately in love with life. Exquisite beauty emerges everywhere: my cat on my lap, a cashier extending an unexpected smile, sunlight skipping across a lake. I use each day to soak up the world’s splendor. “Not yet,” I whisper to the heavens. “I love it here.” — Clare Cory

It was time for a new one. Some of you longtime readers might remember when that upper palette was new 12 years ago. It looks so awful because I couldn`t keep acrylic paint away from it. My painting process often required watercolor and acrylic applications at the same time. No regrets though now being older, I`m going to try to keep them separated. I`ve rearranged my studio setup to allow enough space for both. If I can actually pull that off, there is hope.

This is a photo of the delta of the Sacramento River I took from a plane a couple of weeks ago. I`ve been curious about it as it was the subject of the last body of work by the late Wayne Thiebaud. Often confused with pop artists, his wonderful work was representational and broadly appealing. The paintings that made him famous long ago were of desserts and deli counters.

                                                                    Wayne Thiebaud

Wayne Thiebaud lived to be 100 and these later paintings were based on the rich agricultural fields of the delta. The productive lands are not a tourist attraction so I`ve never seen them. I`m looking out the window and suddenly there it is! It`s so cool what you can see if the weather is cooperative. Flying down to see my family, we saw a moody Crater Lake and on the return,  saw Morrow Rock and then the Salinas Valley before the delta appeared. Twice before I`ve been able to pick out the landmarks of Yosemite as we flew by. Anyway, Thiebaud was a remarkable painter and by every account a splendid human being. He seems to have had a foundational curiosity and humility that took him far.

                                                                     Wayne Thiebaud

                                                                    Wayne Thiebaud

                                                                    Wayne Thiebaud

I don`t know how or why. Facebook is now sending me the best stuff my heart could desire. Essays by James Baldwin and Susan Sontag, poems by the familiar and unfamiliar, anecdotes about Joni Mitchell and Patti Smith and remembrances of W H Auden and Joseph Campbell. I love it. Facebook gets me at last.

Read this astonishing poem; 

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity. ~Louise Erdrich

 My last plein air effort. Not great but better than my average. Probably because I was sitting next to Jean Gale. Good things happen when she comes around.

god I love Roz Chast

work for sale in my studio - click Here

Collage and a new year

                                           December Marsh watermedia collage 14x22 inches

                                                  High Pass watermedia collage 14x10 inches

                                                   Fissure watermedia collage 14x11 inches

 Though not a fan of celebrations that terrorize dogs, there is something touching about the hope and optimism of the new year. Again. A mere 12 months since the last yearning for true change this time. If we weren`t so ridiculous it might be sad. 

And another election year, oh boy.

I wish I had saved it. There was an editorial in the NYTimes that made the case that it had to be a rematch between Biden and Trump. The 45th president got 74,000,000 votes. He has to be vanquished once and for all. Biden is still the best guy to do it, just like four years ago. Even if he`s 80. He`s no ones first choice just like he wasn`t in 2020. I remember watching one of the early Democratic debates and Biden was mostly ignored and when he did respond it was like he had woke from a nap. Then the pandemic crashed upon the world, we saw with horror how Trump reacted to this catastrophe and nearly every person in the country with a functioning brain realized Biden was exactly the man to beat him. Because of his experience but mostly because of his decency. He overwhelmingly won the Texas and Massachusetts primaries on the same day. 

Anyway the op ed made the case that the country still had unfinished business. Will we fight to be a democracy or do we want to believe a con once again? The polls say Biden is in trouble but I`m not worried. I wish he would address the country on two issues. Everyone knows the rate of inflation is much better but it is still shocking to pay the new prices. They are not going down. He needs to assure the public that he understands how troubling this matter is and explain how it happened. How he tried so hard to keep the economy healthy during the pandemic, avoid a recession, and inflation was a by product of that effort. Yet it worked. The US has one of the strongest economies in the world right now. 

And I`d like him to explain to the country the difference between Republican and Democratic approaches to immigration. I follow public affairs and I don`t really know. To no ones surprise he is being demagogued to death on the issue by Republicans. Not much of what they say is based in reality but nonetheless the public needs to know where the Democratic party stands on this.

 Speaking of inflation, I know the local solution. Non-northwesterners bear with me a moment. 

Because I didn`t really understand how Winco Foods worked, I foolishly ignored it for years. Even after reading a profile of the company and learning it was employee owned. This past autumn a friend returned from overseas and needed a lot of food to replenish her home and mentioned she had spent a chunk of money there. I started asking questions and my curiosity was provoked. I`ve shopped there four times now, none of them under an hour and a half and without exaggeration, I estimate it`s about 40% cheaper than Safeway or Albertsons. I have yet to spend over $90. It is truly amazing. The bulk foods are a big part of it. I`ve never seen such variety. It`s almost overwhelming and definitely more time consuming bagging stuff up. Not much to look at and it`s busy with many different flavors of society. Purposeful women who understand value abound. Each one an excellent cook, I`d bet my life.

 Look familiar? I knew what it was but I had never tasted one. Winco had a huge display of Dragonfruit and each one was of perfect ripeness, you could tell. $3. So I bought one and it was a delicate treat contradicting its fierce name. The produce here is unlike any I`ve ever seen. They must contract with completely different farmers and brokers. Big bunch of cilantro is $.68. Have I convinced you? If I was young, I might try to work there. A cashier told me the pay and benefits were great. They are hiring.

                                                                       HOPSCOTCH

 Another report for the locals. 

Because it`s winter and the weather too unpredictable, instead of hiking, I wanted to do something with my friends indoors. I had heard about a permanent 'art' installation that was interactive, colorful and cozy. My sister in law was sort of tongue tied in describing it when she returned and now I understand why. Hopscotch is a collection of rooms designed by individual artists with lots of computer driven visual effects that the viewer moves within. It reminded me of the 'light shows' the art club created during our junior high dances in the 60s. Psychedelic! The displays were interesting even if baffling in their intent. Yet as a social activity I think it was successful. Somehow seeing my lovely peers in flashing strobe lights was endearing. I had to be helped out of the trampoline 'environment' when I sank thigh deep into the surface. I`m getting a new knee in February and am not so flexible right now. The only exhibit that really felt like art was the the room of secrets. On entering you hear murmuring, overlapping voices. Three suspended domes hang from the ceiling. When standing under one of them you could hear a solitary voice speak one of their secrets. A soundproof booth to record the secrets was also part of the set up. Listening to the voices anonymously 'confess' was engaging. I could hear the restraint and relief in the voices. This is what I like about conceptual art, it makes me feel in unexpected ways. In the photo 3 above, my pal Kevin is entering a fuzzy dome as I am still getting my bearings. It was fun, not too expensive and a nice place to be with old friends.

                                                Baptism watermedia on Yupo 26 x 20 inches

 My painting is in transition, lots of disappointments. This came from my preoccupation with red and a less demanding attitude. I want my acrylic paints to act like oils. They refuse so I have to work within their limitations. This is reflexive with watercolor but I have trouble accepting the quirks of acrylic, particularly the lower pigment load. The beauty in gestural technique is lost if i have to repaint the movement.

                                                                           de Kooning

 I have been a devout student of the work of Willem de Kooning for decades. He`s been gone a long time now. Suddenly within the last year or two I am seeing work like this which is entirely new to me. How has this escaped my attention? My guess is the original collectors and their heirs have died and the paintings are coming onto the market where they are photographed and eventually I see them. This piece is so rich and stunning I was shocked when I first saw it. I`ve never seen red and orange together like that. The vigorous white areas set off the jewel like colors while the whole composition is tumbling. I would kill to see it live.

 The city of Palm Springs bought this oversize sculpture of Marilyn Monroe based on a famous still photo from her movie The Seven Year Itch by Billy Wilder. She offers shelter from the sun as well as the rain.

Happy New Year!

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