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

 

I love paper

                        Bryant Woods, Late Winter watermedia on terraskin 23x36 inches 58.5x89 cm


 At last, nearly all of my 'serious' oil paintings are complete, many are already in galleries, and I`m working on paper again. I`ve yearned for this moment but haven`t totally trusted it. My perverse human nature could have only been wanting what it couldn`t have. But it feels good! Paper is liberating, anything can happen on a piece of paper. All is allowed.
 My tough early years as an artist have ruined me for anything more precious than good paint. How someone could commit an image to Belgian linen is beyond me. I need  the [relatively] cheap substrate of paper. Then I can  relax and maybe forget about myself.
 All summer I used paper in my plein air efforts though they weren`t too good. I had new equipment, stimulating conversationalists along side me, and a gentle smoke-free gorgeous summer to work with. I did much better stuff two years ago when I hobbled to each site using a cane. There is something very interesting about adversity enhancing creativity. I don`t mean the stereotype of the doomed, drunk artist, I`m talking about how sweating in the heat, shooing away mosquitoes can make for nice painting. Every time I sit on my lawn chair, open up my 'travel' palette and look around, I think this is the stupidest thing I could be doing. It is way too daunting. The solution is to not think at all. Get everything in place and just begin. No gap. With luck, the discomfort can make me transcend my ego with its fear of failure, and humbly do my best. Without exception I always feel I failed. Then later I look again and think that wasn`t so bad! A few adjustments later and I might have a piece imbued with how that morning felt. I also remember this dynamic always in place when I worked with the figure every week in New Mexico. Our efforts will always seem small when we can look up and see an actual forest or human being before us. The comparison isn`t fair.

                  Oswego Creek Spring watercolor on Terraskin 23x35 inches 58.5x89 cm


 Both of these bigger paintings burst out of me but I thought long and hard about how I would paint them first. Beginning a new piece is my least favorite moment in the whole process. I`m no visionary, my engagement doesn`t kick in until I have enough to react to. Bonnard inspired Oswego Creek but Klimt was my companion as I worked.
 In Spring, the Northwest is a crazy, complicated pointillist landscape. I`m usually at a loss at how to respond. Well, it`s six months until that is my reality again. My memory scaled this back to something manageable.
 Here are a couple more watermedia pieces, done either on location or while waiting for oil paint to dry.

                                                             Luscher Farm Field

                                                                     Cottonwoods

                                                                      Riverbank

                                                               Frijoles Canyon

                                                                      Aleutian


And this just because it`s so bad. A friend was visiting Bandon by the Sea and her instagram photos provoked my own memories of the massive rocks all over the beach. I will paint one of the caves!

 Despite many hours I achieved an unspeakable orifice, more tissue than stone.

 Cheryl Strayed spoke recently at the local high school. Part of a 'Living Well' series sponsored by the Adult Community Center. Her memoir 'Wild' was deeply moving and I wanted to hear her. The event sold out so we arrived early to get a good seat. It was quickly evident we were in a sea of women. I could count the men on two hands. What the hell? Afterwards John and I were leaning against a wall talking about her remarks when one of the organizers approached us and thanked us for supporting the women in our lives. ?? I think she thought we were waiting for our wives to get their books signed. We told her what 'Wild' meant to us. We had both listened to the audio book and both of us found ourselves weeping on our walks. That is power. No doubt it was my male privilege that I didn`t realize the feminist icon Cheryl had become. After all, not many 22 year old women walk a thousand miles alone carrying a heavy load. Grief had been the engine in her trek along the Pacific Crest Trail after the death of her mother. Profound loss can cause a fearlessness. The worst has happened and one becomes untouchable.
 I`m now listening to her book of advice columns called 'Tiny, Beautiful Things' and it too has stirred my emotions. Without flinching she will dismantle the deepest insecurity or impossible situation. Her responses to these difficult matters is ruthlessly honest but exceedingly kind. She has helped me imagine a better self and showed me how to do it.

 This is my beloved Carter flying high on narcotics. This little rescue has had one problem after another. He just had all of his teeth removed except for the canines. He has the auto-immune disease Gingivostomatitis. He is allergic to the plaque that forms on his teeth. If you have a cat with terrible breath and it isn`t from Fancy Feast, your cat may be afflicted, it`s not uncommon. Untreated, the mouth becomes so sore eating is extremely painful. Somehow they can still thrive without their teeth and even eat dry cat food again! He`s healing nicely and in time we will be brushing those four remaining teeth.
I wouldn`t want to live a life without cats.

 The great Bill McKibben has written a report from the future and it`s well worth reading. It is fascinating and depressing but hopeful too about how the world will be 30 years from now.  IF we get serious about climate change. Is there anyone alive who truthfully still doubts global warming? The catastrophe will require worldwide cooperation and we shouldn`t be surprised that our possible demise is what finally brings us together.

This is my third try in three days to publish this post. Earlier I tried to include something from the Newport OR Police Department that corrupted those attempts. It was an excerpt from Winnie the Pooh about a visit to Eeyore when they notice his absence. He is sad and his friends just sit with him in silence. September is suicide prevention month. Simple quiet kindness can help those drowning in despair. Never underestimate the healing potential of just bearing witness. Just being there. It is awkward but it is something real.

 On Sat. Sept. 21 I will be demonstrating watermedia on yupo at the White Bird Gallery in Cannon Beach OR at 2 pm. This is an event that is part of the first Earth and Ocean Art Festival. It is a benefit for our Mom. Come to the coast and celebrate mother nature!
 At the request and encouragement of Heather from Chicago, I will also try to live stream the demonstration on my Facebook page Randall David Tipton Studio. She says it`s simple......

click HERE for work for sale in my studio

Prints are available at Fine Art America

                                                            Dune by Joan Mitchell