Goodbye Summer

                                                The End of August oil on canvas 30x24 inches

 It can end overnight in the Pacific Northwest, It recently did with another week of August still to come. Everywhere now, summer arrives with anxiety if not dread and the traditional hope of good times too of course.  We were blessed again with livable temperatures and relatively moderate fires. When we had a good rain two weeks ago, I began to feel safe. The fires of 2020 scarred us all. Though we were deep into the pandemic then, that local fire dwarfed any threat of contagion. Evacuees slept side by side each other in school gyms across the county. 

The carefree idea of summer is a thing of the past maybe but I hope it endures for kids. Adults have a trickier dilemma. How to relax into the season without bringing pessimism alongside every cookout,  hike, ballgame or outdoor conversation? How do we love our lives honestly with the world becoming  hotter than anytime in human history? I`ve given this some thought. My simple imagination can only think of one hopeful counter measure which is to plant trees. Or plant some vegetables, or hang out with children, or foster puppies or kittens, or create something completely unexpected. The antidote to grief is to focus on the young and new. The grief is worldwide and acute and shared. Maybe we can do something with it.

                                                 Lake Oswego Open Studios artists

 A bunch of local artists were in my studio a couple of weeks ago. As a board member of the brand new non profit organization, I set up my studio like I would during the real event. In case some of the artists weren`t quite sure how to do so. We spend so many solitary hours in our spaces working, it`s shocking when it`s filled with strangers. That is the best reason to participate in something like this. It is really valuable to talk about our work with people we don`t know. They bring their own perspective and hearing it is often illuminating. And just being praised is nice too. If our efforts to get the word out about our event succeed and our community responds, it`s going to be a fun weekend. The president of the organization, Ha Austin, is the incredible engine behind it all. It is her vision and efforts that are making it happen, she is a force of nature! Any locals reading this, save the dates; October 14 and 15, 10-5 pm. Check out the website to view the art, read the bios of the artists, find the map to the studios, see the sponsors who chose to support this fledgling celebration and get a feel for the arts community here in Lake Oswego. This town is more than lawyers, doctors and financial planners. Come see.                                    lakeoswegoopenstudios.org 

                                                       

                                                     Summer Canal oil on canvas 20x16

                                       End of the Island oil on canvas 20x16 inches [improved]

                                              Cook`s Butte Winter oil on canvas 40x30 inches

                                          Willamette River Morning oil on canvas 20x16 inches

 Some new work. I`ve sure been painting a lot but I sometimes lose my discernment. When that happens, I set the painting aside until some objectivity returns. Maturity at last!

 Below is the work of Frederic Fau, a French artist.  From the first image I saw of his I could tell we were in league. His mostly black and white pieces suggest a depth and atmosphere that is very evocative. He loves the forest. This video is a nice presentation of the artist and his work. It`s in French but enlightening nonetheless.

                                                                      Frederic Fau

                                                                       Frederic Fau

                                                                       Frederic Fau

                                        

                                                              Sauvie Island Study-RDT

                                                                 Willamette Falls

Willamette Falls is one of the coolest places in Oregon. Supposedly the the second largest waterfall in volume in the country. After Niagara. Visually, it`s not at that level at all but the history is fascinating. Only 20 miles from Portland in the eclectic town of Oregon City, the region`s first capital. It was a sacred fishing spot for Native Americans originally then the source of the first hydroelectric power in the West. Early Oregonians relied on the river to transport goods from the farms upstream. Locks were built to raise and lower boats at the falls. Paper mills were built at the site because of the abundant power. Those mills were still operational when I moved to the area in 2010. It was quite a scene visiting on a winters day with the falls raging with runoff and the mills engulfed in swirling steam. And it was loud, you could say operatic in a way. Just thrilling to watch from atop the bluff rising behind it. Here is a nice video on the efforts to open up the falls to visitors and transform the old paper mill into something contemporary and significant. This is an exciting project.

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Departure

                                        Edge of the Park oil on canvas 30x30 inches, 76x76 cm

 I`ve just returned from the funeral of a suicide. An acquaintance of mine, a friend and former coworker of Johns`. If the subject wasn`t so dispiriting, I would educate myself better. Without real knowledge, I can only guess there are a multitude of reasons why someone would do this. I`ve heard the actual deed is often an impulsive one. We are warned not to leave guns accessible, keep an eye on our medicines and that having fenced off bridges is wise. Many years ago I was cautioned about sudden positive changes of mood in my troubled loved ones, as that might be a sign the decision has been made. Once a plan is in place, the hard part has been determined. 

There have been times in my life I wish I wasn`t here, but I`ve never looked for a way out. I can`t speak of the turmoil that would precede such a choice. Obviously it must be horrific. Worthy of an effort to understand as remote as that may be. I read an interview once with a survivor of a leap off the Golden Gate Bridge. There have been several. He said as soon as his fingers left the railing he knew it was a mistake. He mentioned the others had that exact response as well. What does this mean? That all problems and predicaments actually do have a possible resolution? That life itself is worth any struggle? Why does this keep happening? Statistics show a pronounced rise in the rates. The issue is a bottomless rabbit hole of questions.

I expected a room full of pain today and it was there. What I wasn`t expecting was the spiritual suggestion that we cannot let this lead us to fear. The death of anyone dying 'before their time' is extremely disorienting. If the beloved is the source of their own death, how in the world can life ever be trusted? Well, I learned how it might. I saw one quivering person after another rise to their feet and speak of their experience with the departed. Their courage was summoned to honor their dear friend and sister. Not to allow the tragic end be the story that is remembered first. Each recounted extraordinary kindness and generosity. Some of them had their lives reordered and restored from her attention. I have learned to never underestimate a nurse, they wield their authority with great wisdom. And so she did. 

What`s most painful is to know at least 20 people in that room would not have left her side had they known what she was capable of. Would have walked with her toward health until she had it again. We are a tribal people, why would we hide such terror inside? Not ask for help? Anything is more bearable if we aren`t alone. We are all broken one way or another. What is so shameful in letting that show? It`s a slogan, a cliche, but worth remembering; We are always better together.

                                  New Mexico Remembered oil on canvas 30x24 inches, 76x61 cm

                                    Clifftop-Neahkanie oil on canvas 15x30 inches, 38x76 cm

                                             Canyon oil on canvas 48x36 inches, 122x91 cm

I was unexpectedly offered an August slot for a show at the Hanson Howard Gallery in Ashland OR. I said yes then realized I needed to get busy. Because my pandemic foray into abstraction was serious, not many landscapes were produced. I now believe again that landscape painting is where my interest and talents are best explored. So I need to do some! I always have lots of work on paper I can frame up for a show if need be but that is an expensive project.

 

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Return!

                                       Iceland, Summer oil on canvas 40x36 inches, 101x91 cm

She loved my work, she bought some outright and she wanted an Icelandic landscape. I thought, this is easy! A small watercolor I painted after my visit to Iceland in 2016 prompted her request. Now I very rarely do commissions because my paintings get built through a personal, intuitive struggle. Probably true for most painters. It is difficult, to say the least, to really understand my own motives. Why do I want to paint something? The answer is usually vague and never verbal. Yet language is the medium to connect two visual imaginations. It is obviously impossible. So why say yes? A love for the subject, deep familiarity, liking the patron, money, and a willingness to be challenged. Yes! This painting took six weeks, a really long time for a painting of this size. Because I liked her and wanted her to be pleased, I gave her two in-process photos which launched long emotional conversations. The variety of landscapes underneath this surviving layer are many. I had listened carefully to her vision of the landscape and when I got to this point I knew it had to be the end. The commission would never have happened without my complete confidence I could do it. It was more like a promise. But by last week I just wanted the whole thing over. She did not have to accept it, I would return her deposit and we both could get on with life. But she liked it. What I learned was a better idea of myself and new communication skills that I hope I never need to use that way again.

                                              Canyon oil on yupo 24x18 inches,  61x46 cm

Oil on Yupo is a slimy beast. Much like painting on glass. Every brushstroke shows, blending is tricky, values change in the drying time, it is sloppy, but the reasons for choosing it are also good. Yupo is cheap, very portable, and easy to ship and store. The best reason though is because of the brilliant white surface that still manages to reflect light back through the paint layers. They glow. If it just had a little tooth [texture] I`d use it more with oils.

                                       Late Winter watercolor on yupo 20x13 inches, 51x33 cm

This is new, I just completed it while waiting for the commission to dry. More realistic than my usual preference but I could see that the forest was about to explode into leaf making the bare branches concealed for 9 months. Winter is a feast of line. The densest tangles fascinate me and I`ve been itching to paint something really textural. This being a watercolor, the light values come from dilutions of the paint. Those thin veils often can`t stay in place on slick yupo because the binder is too thinned out. So I`ve been adding gum arabic to make them stickier. It works well though lifting it for revisions isn`t quite so easy.

 What can I say? It reminds me of February of 2020.  We saw the virus escape China and devastate northern Italy and Iran. I bought some hand sanitizer while others bought extra toilet paper. I truly didn`t know pandemics were even possible anymore. So we all just watched it arrive day by day, closer and closer and soon change everything. What would I have done differently? 

All winter Russian troop movements were reported in the press as the Russian military amassed its  might on the borders of Ukraine. Everybody could see it but it was so hard to believe because there was no provocation. One shrewd guy with abundant mental illness could attack a country of 44 million in plain sight. What kind of world do we live in? This bleak situation threatens us all potentially. We voted our crazy leader out but the one thing I agreed with President Trump, was in his reluctance to involve American forces everywhere. Now I wonder if when we step back, evil dudes like Vlad fill the void? The Russian people don`t support this, it makes no sense. How do you counter madness? Yet here we are. Nuclear weapons make the room for error tiny but we must do more for Ukraine, that much is clear.

                                                                      Per Adolfsen

When I first saw this Danish artist`s work I was a little dismissive because they were done with colored pencils. I kept bumping into them and I realized holy moly this guy is a genius! Me and thousands of others simultaneously. He is a true Instagram phenomena.

                                                                       Per Adolfsen

                                                                          Per Adolfsen

 There is so much invention to the stuff I am just in awe of. His color is so unique and evocative. He lives in Denmark! That is on no ones list of beautiful countries yet Per Adolfsen takes his sketchbooks out on his walks and mines that landscape of every distinguishing quality. That humble countryside comes alive through his hands! He`s not too young and I`m hopeful the acclaim doesn`t sweep him away. Here is a lovely interview.

Not a lot of happiness around I notice. It`s an inside job. If we want to change the world, let`s start with ourselves. The only exception I have with this list is the trip. Take it. Travel makes us better people.

 

That`s the gorge of the Rio Grande River outside of Taos New Mexico. We are going to visit this spring to do research on moving there. I left 28 years ago and never looked back. This is John`s idea, and it merits consideration. He has lived in the wet part of Oregon all his life. He deserves some sun.

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The new Thanksgiving

                                                      Summit oil on oil paper 16x12 inches

Well it was better than last year, no question! My extended northwest family was in several locations so John and I communed with my brother Mike and his wife Norma. It was great. I bought prepared food from New Seasons, our local grocer of higher principles and prices. Those of you who have cooked Thanksgiving dinner understand the immense amount of planning, shopping, standing to cook and exhaustive clean up it requires. And then, we expect our mothers, wives, grandmothers, sisters and aunts to stage it all again in a month for Christmas! I did it once and realized immediately this is bullshit. Reproducing the same traditional foods everyone loves that is. How did this even get started? Well, I want most of them too so I purchased them and they were good. Mike brought an enormous pecan pie from Costco and I could have wept it tasted so fine. The conversation was engaging and I was loving the four of us there together. 

The autumn before, it was just me and John and a room full of fear. No one would be vaccinated for at least another month. Every time he left for work at the hospital I worried about his exposure to the virus. Every day before the inauguration I worried what the outgoing insane president would do next. Talk about high anxiety!

The 'Summit' is Cook`s Butte,  718 feet in altitude. In winter you can see through gaps in the trees and survey the lower Willamette Valley. The view is expansive. The painting was an exercise of sorts. Even though I`ve returned to oil painting, I still want to work on paper. Arches makes one infused with a resin that prevents the acidic paint from damaging it. This was my first effort.

                                              Willamette Valley Study watercolor on paper

A long time collector of my work sent me this photo of a painting from 2003. I knew it was mine but didn`t remember it. I let him buy it without photographing it first. Unfortunately analog photography just messed up my mind and too many paintings got away before there was a record of them. I used professional grade slide film, my camera was adequate but I could not keep all the elements straight. Somehow when the world went digital, things started to make sense. With the finishing software like Photoshop, I could correct any flaws. A more proper archive commenced.

                                                     Entourage oil on canvas 20x16 inches

This and the drawing below are the last abstract pieces of late. I feel like it`s time to begin merging the two strains of work. I have lost my patience with being perpetually confused when painting without a subject but I definitely want my landscapes to look different with more emphasis on the painting process rather than my personal attitudes toward nature.

     Untitled watermedia on Yupo 14x11 inches

When the sun slips into its annual retreat in the Pacific Northwest, this salad fortifies the spirit until Spring. The idea is from Sicily, I learned of it working in a restaurant and I eat in all winter long. So simple too. When the good citrus from California arrives I peel and slice oranges. Some tangerines, tangelos or  sometime grapefruit are nice to include and then it`s tossed with a little olive oil and salt. Add some thinly sliced sweet onion such as a Walla Walla or Videlia, a similar small amount of shaved fresh fennel and some sliced or chopped Kalamata olives. It is oddly refreshing on a cold December day. The Sicilians would arrange everything beautifully in layers on a platter but I just gently mix it all up and eat it from the Tupperware.

 In other consumer news, look at this! A counter top ice maker! Of course many people have this done in their freezers automatically but we can`t have nice things like that. Our 100 year old kitchen doesn`t have space for the refrigerator I ''deserve'. 

 One more purchase I`m proud of. When we lost power for days last Feb., we ended up staying in a hotel. Because of covid, I wouldn`t ask any family or friends to shelter us. It was humiliating. We vowed that when the ordeal ended we would find a source of heat that didn`t require electricity. I wanted a heater that ran on natural gas, that didnt have a fan, and had to be lit manually. Took some research but I found one that is wall mounted and vents outside. Naturally we`ve lost power already and we were able to test it. It works well. We also bought a fancy big battery so we could have some light and charge our phones and it came with photovoltaic solar panels to recharge it! Now, I seriously need to prepare for the Big One. It`s coming, the Cascadia Subduction Zone  is 90 miles offshore and overdue for a slip type earthquake.

                                                                     Donald Maier

                                                                     Donald Maier

                                                                   Donald Maier

Donald Maier`s work confounds me. Because I like it so much, especially his southwestern paintings. He uses traditional transparent watercolor technique in a straightforward simple style. Look close and you`ll see his ordinary brushstrokes on top of loosely painted background washes. No tricks, revisions, angst or arrogance anywhere. Yet to me they are magic. Through the most basic means he is showing me the desert I`ve experienced. Landscapes I know and love. Is it his direct attitude or is he different? Does he have a natural link 'from the faraway nearby'? 

This opinion piece from last summer got some attention. He said what many of us felt but wouldn`t articulate. That seemed like an escalation of our already terminal divisions. But as the three day old news of the Omicron covid variant is already shaking the stock market, brace yourselves for this new version which seems quite unlike the others. If it is indeed serious, especially if the vaccine is an uncertain defense, the political/philosophical resistance to the common public wellbeing must be defeated. This virus will be among us forever if we can`t deny its spread. It may take a wartime mentality that I hope we will be ready for. Being anti-vax or anti-mask will be just too dangerous.

                                                                        George Booth

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True Autumn

                                              Jackson Bottom watercolor on paper 14x11 inches
 

 It`s here with the full entourage of radiant temporary color. Beauty so insistent, it stops the machine of my thinking. Interrupts my worry with a blinding golden light. Maybe things will be ok? For today, yes is the answer. Lucky Oregon! Autumn and Spring defy memory. Each time they arrive it seems it has never been so sublime. What did I do to deserve this again? My favorite part is still to come. When the transplanted trees from elsewhere flame out, the natives have their moment. Not as overwhelming as the others but so poignant, the yellows and pinks against the muddy rivers flowing fast again with the rain. It`s great and I suspect it`s good everywhere, right? We all love Fall.

Thank you to those who visited my studio this month during the Portland Open Studios! It was a very successful event by all accounts. Such a social and radical shift from the solitude of painting! I don`t think I will ever stop being amazed that a total stranger will talk knowingly about what I do. In my process, doubt is nearly always present, but not during open studios! Thank you to anyone who looks at my work thoughtfully. That`s exactly what I want yet so rarely see for myself.

                                               April Study watercolor on Yupo 12x9 inches

 This began on location a couple of years ago but I never liked the bottom half. With yupo you can just wipe it off with a damp paper towel. I added a fruit tree in bloom and now I like it.

                                           Cliffside Study watercolor on paper 11x11 inches

  I`m trying, with these landscapes, to integrate some of the insights I`ve gained by working abstractly. But I don`t see much difference yet. The painting below was intended to be a subtle yet lively composition of patterns and textures but it became more realistic, not less;

                                               Rainforest Winter watermedia on Yupo 26x20

 Last weekend I went to see Betsy Chang. She`s an acquaintance I met a few years ago through this blog. She was working in watercolor and we were both interested in Georgia O`keefe`s watercolor paper from the early 20th century. To me, those fresh abstract landscapes were the best work of O`keefe`s life.  I`ve been following Betsy`s work on Instagram ever since. Abruptly her course changed to pure abstraction in oils and acrylics and this made me curious. There is something special and unique to her touch, the way she moves a brush. I can see something original by her marks. I think it might have been apparent even in her childhood. Talent is often demoted to just one of many characteristics in an artists life, and I mostly agree. However we`ve all known people with very particular gifts. The abilities show up early and often overtake the lives of young people.

 So I asked if I could see what she had been working on. Since we had been in touch, she also had a baby, born during this frightening, confusing time. Her studio was absolutely crammed with work everywhere. Big stacks of watercolors on all level surfaces. I thought my god, she`s done all of this while caring for an infant, working a full time job and coping with a global pandemic! I could tell it was stressful to be sure, but I was impressed by the obsession. She had to make those paintings, that`s who she is. Without attention, sales or a gallery, she just made her paintings. I admire this so much. Even if choice isn`t a factor, whatever is moving through her, I think it`s holy.

                                                                         Betsy Chang

                                                                         Betsy Chang

                                                                        Betsy Chang

                                                                          Betsy Chang

So how does Betsy or anyone else get a gallery? Artnet tells you how, right here.

Nest weekend!

And the Sitka Invitational, for your art+nature needs

 I will have three of my new abstract watercolors in the show

If you haven`t thought about pandemics enough, here is an article about earlier ones and how they were eventually overcome.

Finished this morning;

                                                       watercolor on Yupo 14x11 inches

White Bird watermedia show

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