Local travel, anniversary, Portland Open Studios

                                                   Deluge watermedia on Yupo 26x20 inches

 An abstraction of natural phenomena. This intrigues me. The juxtaposition of different textures and colors gets me going. My fate as a painter has always involved the landscape.

 

                                                                     Todd and Randall

                                                                                  Beach

                                                                       Blue Morning

                                                                        Cliff Reflections

                                                                      Sea Lion Cave !!

 Even in beautiful Oregon, it`s great to get away and see some other gorgeous corner of my adopted home. We met my childhood friend and his new wife who had traveled to the coast for this rendezvous.

Many years ago she was on a business trip in the Northwest and somehow stumbled into the Inn at Otter Crest. That is not easy to do. It is difficult to find even when you know it 'has to be here somewhere'. She kept coming back for good reason. It is a spectacular location with stunning views everywhere you turn. There isn`t anything lavish about it but it is super comfortable. A perfect place to hang out and be with old friends. Though I can`t find the motivation to paint them very often, I do love seascapes! Here are three of my favorite painters of the sea;

                                                                     George Bellows

                                                                        Emil Carlsen

                                                                   Frederick Judd Waugh

 Once again this summer, I spent Friday mornings painting with my pal Mitch.

                                                                             Mitch

The conversation was good but the paintings were not. Here are the best. I keep trying to do it different and nothing engages in a meaningful way. The weather was always fine.

                                                                   Community Garden

                                                                             Solstice

                                                                     Phantom Bluff

                                                                         Sun and Shade

                                                                             River Turn

                                                                              Clouds

         

 Twentythree years! 

Almost missed him! We were at two different Starbucks 50 yards apart but out of view of each other. It was a crystalline September afternoon, much like today. 

My husband John is a kind and generous man that I waited a long time to find. 

When my cat Louie vomited in the kitchen and he sprang up from the couch where we were watching a movie to clean it up, I knew. Yes, it was his training as a nurse but still, it was my cat. 

I also noticed I liked who I was with him and that seemed significant.

                                                              apologies to AngelaFV

OCT  8 and 9. OCT 15 and 16.  10am to 5pm

Please come visit!

5373 Lakeview Blvd

Lake Oswego OR

97035

503 380 4731

I`m ready for some feedback and I`m sure the others are too. Portland Open Studios happens on two consecutive weekends. Enough time to get immersed!

My friend in New Mexico, Judith Shaw Beatty, posted this on Facebook. She is passionate about vaccinations as she had polio as a child. It`s so heartfelt and extravagant, I thought my visitors would enjoy her version of gratitude on that day;

Good morning. Grateful today for my health; my friends; my little loving dog; beauty everywhere; cool nights and warm days; my big and growing family; my Facebook friends, most of whom I will never meet; art; my writing; the food in my fridge; Social Security checks; a good book; my spiritual world; being able to laugh, even when I'm alone; my trusty car; Zoom; this beautiful little condo and the people who rent it to me; hummingbirds; equanimity; my job and the dozens of helpful, kind, loving people I work with; my leg brace that supports me; a dishwasher; cobalt-blue skies and fat black clouds that pour down delicious rain; and always, always having enough.

please click HERE to see work for sale in my studio

 

Round 2, PDXOpenStudio

 

 The end is near. The final weekend of the Portland Open Studios will be over on Sunday at 5pm. My promotional role will conclude, I promise. No one disdains this kind of attention seeking more than me. Unfortunately so, as social media become ever more dominant and influential. My work is the best part of me, I want it out front, not me. There is irony in writing that sentence on one of the first forms of social media, the blog. Nonetheless, most artists are intent on their work. That process is so personal, to draw attention to ones personality seems distracting at best.

 Weekend #1 began so slow, I could feel the existential dread of my comrades. Would we sit for four lonely days in our studios hoping a sliver of the public would come through? By Sunday things were looking up. My visitors seemed more engaged with the work and the event than I remembered from other years. More of my neighbors came!

 What struck me though was the pessimistic view of life I was hearing. The pandemic has been brutal to so many but because I am so isolated by my nature and because of CDC guidelines, I hadn`t heard many first hand accounts. I knew I had it easy but not to the extent of it. A grandmother told me about her daughter, a school teacher, who suddenly was forced to teach online without any training, while her own three children were now home with her and having to learn their lessons on computers , tablets and phones. Just one family. That this sort of situation was global defies the imagination. Should it be any surprise the crime rate is up? 

 For someone to visit a stranger to see their artwork is unusual. Those that do this believe in the value of art. They are not negative. They get into their cars on a wet and cold fall day and travel to see some paintings, to talk with an artist. Receiving these 'pilgrims' was such an honor. I was heaped with praise and they traded their money for my painted sheets of paper. How wonderful is that? If they had a live for today attitude, I understand why. We are becoming aware of a crisis that is engulfing us. It`s the hot climate, world politics, immigration, severe income inequality, the rapid extinction of animal species and the possible end of democracy in my country. Hope is going to take on a whole new meaning.

 That`s David Trowbridge and me this morning in my studio. He is also an artist involved with the Open Studios this year. We had studio visits to see how we each configured our studios from working space into 'galleries'. It was fun. I`ve watched his work closely over the years and he`s achieved a solid maturity recently. He began introducing graffiti elements into his bold abstractions and that has enriched their visual character and also enlivened their emotional nature. As if fresh air or a new light has entered into his jazz inflected work. I`ll begin with an older piece I like;

                                                         Reflection by David Trowbridge

                                                       Child of the Wind by David Trowbridge

notice the distinctive Portland landmark, Big Pink, at the top of this downtown scene

                                                        [untitled] by David Trowbridge

Here, his graffiti marks tilt toward calligraphy. Go take a look in person this weekend. His studio is #93, and it is clinging to the hillside right above the Markham Bridge. The view is spectacular!

   My brother Michael is a barber. I love that he has such opportunity. How we feel about ourselves affects everything.

             

 In cleaning up for the open studio, I found this drawing. I drew this impossibly beautiful young man 23 years ago. I remember hearing he was having a hard time and I think a wariness is visible here. He would be close to 50 now. I hope things got better.

 This is a literacy test for voting from Louisiana given to people who could not prove a fifth grade education. This is why we need 'critical race theory'.

 The only artwork I have been able to do in 10 days. 6x6 inches, scribbled in watercolor crayon before my first guests arrived last weekend.

                                                                         Sammy Peters

                                                                         Sammy Peters

                                                                         Sammy Peters

 If you are lucky enough to be in Santa Fe New Mexico this month, be sure to drop by the LewAllen Gallery to see the astonishing works of Sammy Peters and Ben Aronson. Both of these guys have been doing museum quality work for years. To be able to see multiple paintings from each of them in one place is extraordinary good fortune. And to see them in a city as beautiful and beguiling as Santa Fe, that`s pure luxury. I wanted so bad to visit New Mexico last summer. The monsoons had returned and the photos I saw of a lush landscape where there had been extreme drought, were amazing. But having had two plane trips since my vaccine and the Delta variant gaining strength, I thought I shouldn`t push my luck. 

If your vaccine is recent, or you`ve had a booster, maybe you deserve a little vacation. Maybe I do.

                                                                      Ben Aronson

                                                                          Ben Aronson

                                                                           Ben Aronson

White Bird watermedia exhibition-through Oct.

Click HERE for work in my studio

Portland Open Studios

collage-Workshop-Randy for President!

                                                       Collage by Randall David Tipton

                                                          Collage by Randall David Tipton


 The second weekend of the Portland Open Studios is coming three days. The collages above were done during the first. Part of the 'mission' of the P.O.S. is educational, we are encouraged to show how we work. In previous years I painted and sometimes became so engrossed in what I was doing I ignored my guests. John would hiss at me that I was being rude. So collage seemed like a casual form of creativity that I could set aside easily. Some of the visitors joined me in my creating as if it were a big jigsaw puzzle.

 If you`re local, go out and talk to some artists this weekend. The weather will be gorgeous and we want some feedback! I`m at 5373 Lakeview Blvd, Lake Oswego OR, 97035. 10am to 5pm.
Also, another talented landscape painter, Lisa Wiser, is just down the street from me.

 I am asked periodically if I teach and the answer is usually no. However, I have been asked by the Seattle Art League to teach a workshop in February and I agreed. "Abstraction from Nature". Colleagues of mine insist I have much  to say about painting and I know I certainly have opinions. Now I`ll have a chance to organize my thoughts, examine and express my motives and methods. I do believe I have a visceral knowledge of painting. I`ll do my best to convey why and how I respond to the landscape. Feb. 2 and 3, 2019.

                                                             Tualatin River plein air



 It seems our hot smoky summer came with a consolation prize. October has been crystalline, warm and seductive. Day after day. The chilly night gives way to a cool morning that blooms into a clear, balmy, breezy afternoon. This sort of day will make you love your life. This is when life truly does feel like the gift that it is. Honestly, everyone acts blessed.
Now throw in a kitten!!
Oh my god, does it get any better??

                                                                          Carter!

No it doesn`t!
This is my second kitten in two years! Such a privilege!

                                                                   Carter and John

 The beginning and end of my political career.
Someone from my high school put this up on Facebook. I just read the text now and it didn`t mention my most controversial proposal. I wanted to transfer funds from the athletic budget to arts programs. PE coaches were campaigning against me!  I was serious and definitely delusional. The vote was close but I lost. Now it is hard to believe I did such a thing.

                                                                  by Betsy Chang


 The marvelous painter Betsy Chang is also taking part in the Portland Open Studios, #85. Go see her luminous work!

work for sale in my studio

Wild Plum and Portland Open Studios

                                                        Wild Plum oil on canvas 30x30


 Third attempt and this one I`ll keep. The subject is so simple, it had to be isolated at an exact moment of floral explosion. Two previous efforts were just banal. I walk by these trees every spring with morning light streaming behind them. In early March, one day it`s winter and the next, the season has turned.

                                                  Sunlight and Stone oil on canvas 40x30


 This is also new and the place is another landmark on a different walk. I lap Cook`s Butte for a cardio workout circling up and down. It the late summer, it`s dry and dusty in the sunny areas, then cool and green in the forest. I first painted this rock as a demo in a class I taught.

                                              Circle of Cypress oil on canvas 36x56

 And this got a makeover. I thought it was finished in the spring of 2016 but later knew it could be stronger. It`s a view from a picnic area on a bluff just north of the town of Mendocino Calif. My semester of 'art school' was here. I was 18 when I arrived, and so ready for beauty. I had escaped the smog, the heat and the car culture of inland Southern California. It is so much nicer now and a shining example of what can be when government is progressive.

 Maya Angelou said people always remember how you made them feel.
I remember exactly every bully that attacked me, where I was and how I reacted.
So did Christine Blasely Ford. But the trauma and objections of women don`t mater and another sexual predator now sits on the Supreme Court. His opinions about women and their rights are the ones that will prevail. For now.
 What an unhappy, unaware small man the new justice showed himself to be in the hearing. Our country deserves better.
This article from Howard Zinn written in 2005 gave me some perspective.



 I`ve been so immersed in preparations for the 2018 Portland Open Studios Tour, it`s hard to imagine anyone who hasn`t heard. But if your are, 100 artists in the Portland Metro area will open their studios to the public for two weekends; Oct. 13 and 14, then Oct. 20 and 21. The hours are 10am to 5pm. The website has addresses and maps. There is a Portland Open Studio insert in the Oct. issue of Portland Monthly, and you can purchase an app with all the information for $5. I haven`t been involved with it since 2015 so I have lots of work that is new. Work on paper as well as oil paintings. It`s a fun time and a total ego trip for me. Everyone who comes through the door has seen some of my work online and they`ve made a deliberate effort to visit. I live in an old suburb of Portland a bit out of the way. Come say hello!

5373 Lakeview Blvd
Lake Oswego OR
97035
503 380 4731

 In other news... I have a new kitten!! Even though Lyndon is my dream cat, we could tell he was bored and sometimes even a little depressed. Well, no one can be down with a kitten about! Sure enough Lyndon is ecstatic and surprisingly nurturing. We don`t have a name yet. Maybe it`s time to end the presidential series and go with a regular name. Or does he look like a Kennedy?

 Here is a sweet essay on Five Things Artists Really Believe In. My favorite is "no one is coming to save you". I had that delusion when I was young.

                                                        Bayou Kaiku by Allsion Stewart

                                                               Into Spring by Allison Stewart

                                                   La Foret Etude #1 by Allison Stewart


 Have you heard of Allison Stewart? I`ve been loving her botanical, organic, ethereal abstractions for a couple of years. I think we speak alike but different. She is in New Orleans, close to the bayous with all that richness of life to inspire her. She is rarely literal but always lyrical.

work for sale in my studio [updated]