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

Click HERE for work for sale in my studio

 

What have we done??

                                               Autumn Ditch oil on canvas 30x48 inches

Some things I see stick with me a long time. At least 10 years ago I was visiting the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge and at the edge was an irrigation ditch for a neighboring farm. Swarming with color and reflections I thought, I`ll paint that some day.

The world has five weeks to prepare for the second Trump Administration. This seems to me a 9/11 scale catastrophe, I`ve never been more discouraged about my country. No question Democrats got spanked and 'owned'. No one believes Haitian immigrants eat their neighbors pets and everyone knows how ridiculous it is to suggest children leave home for school in the morning one gender and return later in the day the opposite. But it does discredit Democrats by implying these fringe people and communities matter more to the party than you do. It isn`t true but it`s hard to explain. Decency once was valued more. Trump deserves prison for the insurrection on Jan, 6, 2021 but that never came to trial. So now here he comes again, god have mercy on the world, we are in big trouble.

                                                  

                                                   one of the saddest photos I`ve ever seen

                                                                             John

Twentysome years ago I asked him to get into this tree for a photo and he did it. And again last month when we walked in Tryon Creek State Park. He`s a good sport and a good man and he retires in two weeks! From his graduation from high school to now, he has spent over 40 years in healthcare. My husband soon will rest. This is the only thing I`ve wanted for years.

                                             Northwest Canyon 2 acrylic on Yupo 40x26 inches

I had an older abstract painting in storage that I didn`t want to look at so I thought I would work a collage into it. Soon another slot canyon took shape. I was cutting out interesting shapes and painting them separately for the collage. But I was getting the values wrong, repainting them and eventually I realized I should just make the thing a new painting and forget the collage.

new work;

                                         Camassia Forest 2 acrylic on Yupo 21x25 inches

                                                 Endless September oil on canvas 20x16

                                                   Aquatic watercolor collage 11x10 inches

                                               Wetlands Dusk acrylic on yupo  19x14 inches

                                           Champoeg River watercolor on Yupo 26x20 inches

 "It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty"

Luigi Mangione

These are the two last sentences in his manifesto. 

Like just about everyone, the murder of the insurance executive Brian Thompson, has really got me upset. Children are missing their father and a young man has ruined his promising life. The public response has been overwhelmingly vengeful. I don`t have anything to add except this, if the social, political aspect of this is not kept alive, it will happen again. There is just a sickening amount of income/resource inequality in our country. People will choose violence as a last resort. Or to create a new order.

                                                                      Joseph W Spoor

Such short days and what long cold nights! Even though it keeps trying to kill me, I`ve got to say, I miss the guy. Our pal the sun, the first God. In the north next Saturday, let`s welcome him back.

Click HERE for new work and older, for sale in my studio

Click HERE for prints 

 

Latest Paintings

                                      Water Wetlands Woods watercolor collage 13x35 inches

 I`ve been painting landscapes, preparing for my Open Studio and an exhibit at the White Bird Gallery in Cannon Beach in November. Fully occupied yet all was not well within. I have been using oil paints for months and was really missing working on paper. A small window of opportunity appeared and I leapt. This began as just a painting but when I placed fragments of old works on top, it came alive quickly. I had such a good time and noted carefully those feelings. This 'technique' might be a bridge between representation and the abstract work I did during lockdown.

These are some of the new paintings on view during the Lake Oswego Open Studios [Oct. 14 and 15] and in November at the White Bird.

                                               Winter Slough oil on canvas 36x36 inches

                                                    Memory oil on canvas 16x16 inches

                                               Wetlands Morning oil on canvas 40x30 inches

                                           Coast Stream Morning oil on canvas 40x30 inches

                                   Cook`s Butte Study graphite watercolor on Yupo 12x12 inches

                                               Lagoon graphite watercolor on Yupo 12x12 inches

                                                                         my desk

 I`m really not looking to claim more neurosis than I already have but so many stories in the press revolve around ADHD and the complications it brings to peoples lives. Because a couple of them say clutter is a symptom I`ve tried to learn more. Even taking a test to self evaluate. I`m not restless by and large, I have no trouble listening to others and I complete my most important tasks. But I sure leave a wake of disorder. For the photo above, I just stood up and took it. It`s typically like this. When I had the 'practice' open studio for the other artists in Aug. I cleaned everything up. It takes no time at all to trash it.  I`ve learned to accept it without much embarrassment but is there something wrong with me?

                                                            cartoon by Bob Eckstein

This is my ultimate fear but save for cardboard boxes that I may very well need to ship paintings in, I`m a ruthless anti-hoarder. There will be thousands of works on paper but they don`t take up much space. John, however, has dead toys and electronics in all sorts of cubby holes he thinks I don`t notice.

                                                                Charles Bukowski

 Now that I`ve been sober, the poet Charles Bukowski is a hero to me.  Here`s what he has to say about cats;

 "Having many cats is good. If you feel bad, you look at the cats and you feel better, because they know that everything is just the way it is. You don`t have to be nervous about anything. And they know it. They are saviors. The more cats you have, the longer you will live. If you have a hundred cats, you will live ten times longer than if you had ten. One day, this will be known and people will have thousands of cats."

He was on to something!

                                                                       still the one

 Twentyfour years! When I entered into my first real relationship at 45, it was not a leap of faith, it was a sky dive. This younger guy was steady,  deflecting my anxiety and rookie mistakes. I am a lucky man!

  After the open studio I`m off to New York to see old friends! Yay!

                                                                           Rae Klein

Take some time and check out the website of Rae Klein. She is involved with myth in a psychological context. The work is absolutely strange yet affecting.

Come talk to me.

 Bonus: Leslie Peterson Sapp will also be showing with me. This is her first foray into open studios and she will have a variety of work. She`s maybe best known for her paintings based on film noir. She will have some new stuff too involving Archeology. She just returned from France where she toured the prehistoric caves with all those amazing paintings. Knocked her out. She will be fun, guaranteed.

5373 Lakeview Blvd

Lake Oswego OR

97035

Oct. 14 and 15, 10-5pm

Click HERE for some work for sale in my studio

End of June

                                            The Last Oregon Refuge oil on canvas 56x44 inches

 On a sunny June day in 2012 I was walking around the Finley Wildlife Refuge for the first time. Up at the top of a meadowed hill stood a stand of oaks silhouetted against the some thunderheads. This simple composition became a subject for many small paintings and now this larger one. With only three sections I could play with my abstract expressionist impulses yet still have a credible landscape when I finished. I learned definitively, a couple of years ago with pandemic abstractions, having a recognizable subject gave me the most freedom. To see what I could make paint do.

 Now that I`m making progress separating the act of painting from the importance of presenting it, the promotional aspect of my blog is gone. I don`t want to stop it, I`ve heard many times that people want to read it. However, I forget about it. Sorry I`ve been away so long.

 I finally got the train trip to Calif in late April after it was cancelled by Amtrak in January due to atmospheric rivers. So worth the wait! I have never seen Calif. look so lush. Everywhere! There was evidence of flooding all around as well. I also saw near every single town and city, homeless encampments. Maybe hitching rides on freight trains is coming back? Or do train tracks inspire congregating somehow? I tell you one thing, it is not just Portland and San Francisco with this vexing issue. It`s coming for the rest of the country too. With low unemployment even, this population just keeps growing. It is clearly evident that the working poor cannot afford housing. How the United States tackles this matter will determine the kind of country we become. My political instincts tell me we all will pay more taxes to ease this catastrophe and hopefully we will make the rich pay proportionally more. That`s if we want humane solutions. We can look to India and Brazil and see what happens if we don`t.

                                                         Los Angeles during lockdown

 Growing up, I never thought I would fall in love with California. I couldn`t wait to get out. While I was away, the state got its act together. Because the state Republican Party came down hard on illegal immigration in a nakedly racist way, generations of Hispanic voters swept them out of power long ago. There is no utopia anywhere, much less Calif., but I have never seen such racial integration anywhere else. My brother is one of only two old white men on his Orange County street. I had low expectations for my trip because it had been delayed among other reasons and that is the exact condition necessary for the marvelous. No great events just beautiful food and the comfort of being loved. I even had one whole day with an old friend thinking I had covid. Yet we still had fun. She was certainly sick and testing positive with the home test. Then negative. I was trying to figure out what I should do with my vacation. Finally we realized we needed real information and went to a clinic. Negative for covid, strep throat, and RSV. Eventually she was treated for a respiratory infection and I was unscathed and went on to see my family further south. My homestate feels like it recovered from a terrible war and every time I visit I am amazed and grateful. Just walking through the neighborhoods I encountered smells that took me back in an instant to being a boy in the sunlight. 

more paintings;

                                                   Bog End oil on canvas 20x16 inches

 I was using a time limit with this one. I document what I`ve done each night as I leave the studio. With certain paintings, actually quite a few, I don`t seem to improve them much at all beyond the first few sessions. What does that mean?? I`m laboring for nothing? As I`ve said, I could fill a large gallery with work I destroyed [seemingly] prematurely. Or is this just some Randall-perverse nonsense? I do know if I`ve worked on something a lot, when I finally give up, I can`t stand the sight of it. I`m trying now to just set them aside out of view. If you`ve ever been trapped painting something for a long time without resolution, it is a truly defeated emotion.

 

                                                   In Champoeg oil on canvas 16x16

 For a recent birthday of Johns`, we went for a hike in Champoeg State Park. Oregon is well known for having a superb collection of state parks and this is one of the best. It is named after the son of Sacajawea, the baby she carried with Lewis and Clark and their Corp of Discovery. We walked along this stream after it had flooded scouring the banks and leaving heaps of branches and grasses along the way.  It looked both scrubbed and trashed. Mighty nature!

                                                  August Bog oil on canvas 16x16 inches

 The same swampy corner of Bryant Woods as 'Bog End' above. There is a old culvert there draining a wetland that was probably too wet for an orchard. This local nature park was once someones home.

                                                  Undergrove   oil on canvas 20x20 inches

 A small stand of trees on the other side of Bryant Woods. Here too, the ground is wet and the trees either have or adapted to have a larger foot at the base of the tree. Sort of like a hoof.

                                         End of the Island acrylic and oil on canvas 20x16 inches

                                                                          plein air

 I`m painting outdoors again though this year I`m using acrylics. I hoped for complete paintings from each session but that hasn`t happened. But I bring home something I can develop further in my studio. In oils which have the most versatility of all the different mediums. I think this two step method has promise.

                                               Riverside acrylic and oil on canvas 16x20 inches

                                                                            plein air

 Another begun with acrylics out in the field, then finished with oils in my studio.

                                          Cooks Butte Winter watercolor on Yupo 26x40 inches

 This big watercolor claimed way too much of my winter. I wanted a distinctly bleak landscape that was beat up looking and scrappy. Downed trees and brush now fully visible with the maples leafless in winter. Well I think I succeeded but I don`t want to look at it. That is my clear and simple test for quality. So I think I just decided a phase two. I will seal it with acrylic varnish and go back into it with oil paint. Yupo, being plastic, will not be damaged by the acidic oil paints.

When a close friend went off on the immediate threat of Artificial Intelligence, I was startled. Something this big and I hadn`t even noticed the approach? Well to be honest, it has never seemed like a plausible risk even though I have read a lot about it in science fiction. The 'problem' can certainly evolve but in my lifetime, I think I`m safe.

Then right on time, I run into this article about the good to come from AI. If the issue has your attention, read these optimistic view points. You`ll feel better.

 Not much to say. What is happening now is an obvious political ploy to make ignorant people outraged. Conservatives do this in their effort to stymie progress. It`s hurtful for sure. Portraying gay people as a threat to children is evil. They have always tried to tie pedophilia to homosexuality. Stir up disgust and anger. I have chosen to ignore this all my adult life. I like kids and I sure do empathize with their confusion. I have been a Big Brother, an arts mentor in Celebrate Youth and I was a reader with children in the local SMART program. I have nieces and nephews I enjoyed very much when they were young. I never tried to preemptively assure anyone that I could be trusted. I knew who I was and knew I had a lot to give in being with children. And a lot to learn since I would never have my own. 

 For the lovers of the masterpiece 'Dune', this was just too good. The original only, not the ridiculous sequels.

A new little piece done with my new graphite watercolors! Six shades of gray from Kuretake of Japan.

                                                                  Elizabeth Cummings

Elizabeth Cummings is about my favorite living painter. She`s an elder and still one of the most inventive painters.

click HERE for available work in my studio