Uly's Rodeo

Darb and I took the dynamic duo out on Friday morning. Another lovely spring day in western New York, 31 degrees, wind and snow. Slush. Mud. You know, spring.

But no one told the critters the weather was bad, and they were about. Swans and geese overhead- they always get Uly's attention. Finn is fairly oblivious to flying things, figuring out long ago that they are out of range. And Uly doesn't show any interest in chasing things in the air, though if they start on the ground, he seems sure they may be a potential threat. In the air, he watches, seems to contemplate.

The rodeo started when we crested the hill out back, in the woods. A field filled with turkeys, 150 yards away. There was no holding him back, and with that much lead, the turkey's were in no danger. A little squabbling went up from the flock as he burst through a hedge row, then turkeys lifting off in every direction. Hell, I'd probably take flight too if I thought he was after me.

Sixteen to twenty turkeys, going in ten different directions. And then they spooked the deer. I don't think the deer ever saw the Big Thunder (he has about 31 nicknames at this point), just spooked with the turkeys, their bellwether. Turkeys every which way, deer tearing the length of an unplowed field. Maybe it is spring.

Once he was sure the coast was clear, his work done, he strutted back towards us, obviously quite proud of himself. If I was a more demanding dog owner, if we lived in town, if we walked in parks or on sidewalks.... well, if, if, if. We don't, because neither he nor I would get to see and smell all the good stuff. See it, feel it, smell it, roll in it. Well, I leave the rolling mostly to them.

On the way out of the woods a opossum waddled across in front of us. Waddled, rather than bolted- I don't think a opossum is capable of bolting. But the waddle drew the dogs attention, but more like their cats do at home. Curiosity. A buddy, a plaything...  We called them off pretty easily, and held them in turns while we each took a closer look.

The oddly pink and human hands, gripping the maple and hickory in the cold, looked like he was thinking it wasn't quite spring yet either.

Trailing Wile

First full day of spring. A week ago it was mid-40's and sunny. When I took the dogs out the birds seemed deafening. After months of wind as the loudest narrator of our walks, the volume was startling. And fun.

And then Monday night, we got two inches of slush dumped on us. As Finn, Uly and I headed out the sound track was back to a variation on winter- the cold, slow, tinkling of sleet. And the crunch of slush under foot.

Before long we found tracks of someone else.

We hear coyotes all the time, at least several times each week. Last winter there was a cat fight under our bedroom window. I went out to break it up, and found a coyote, buried to his waist in the hedge, trying to get at our 9 lb sociopathic spidermonkey of a cat, Max. The coyote seemed to disappear, vaporize before my eyes. Then I heard him meet up with the rest of his group in the dark, and they yipped their way out into the fields behind us.

Max was spastic with adrenalin for a few minutes, but eventually no worse for wear.

On Tuesday we came across the tracks in the snow, and after a moment, I compared them to our own. They were fresh in the soft slushy ground covering, not degraded much at all. Finn and Uly were on them immediately, noses to the ground, then looking to me, then back to the tracks. And off we went.

We hear them all the time, but see them rarely. Darby and I stood and watched one last year for 15 minutes. It didn't move, just stared at us. The dogs couldn't see him because of their lower sightline. We just stood and stared right back, eventually moving on, feeling as if we had interrupted him long enough.


A couple years before that I came face to face with one in a blizzard. The dogs were trailing behind me. I was walking head down, just trying to keep moving and get the dogs worn out. They never seem to care that the weather is nasty, and need the exercise to keep them from getting too wound up. Tired dog is a good dog. And I was enjoying the blizzard, plowing along with my head down. Just as I turned east over a culvert, I sensed something ahead of me. He must have done the same thing, because just as my head came up, so did his, and we locked on each other about 15 ft apart. I'm sure if the visibility had been much more then the 25 feet we had that afternoon he would never have let it happen.

We stared for a moment, frozen. I heard the dogs' collars tinkling behind me, turned to cut them off before a chase. But when I glanced back ahead, there was no need, the coyote had vanished. With the wind and heavy snow, the dogs didn't even nose the tracks.

But on Tuesday, they were beside themselves. Uly racing all over, checking the twin tracks of the first trail, then bounding over to a third pair that was raggedly paralleling the first. Finn moved with power and purpose, forgetting her age. It made me remember her 5 years ago- possibly the most athletic animal I've ever seen. And they were so busy going forward coming back, Uly circling between the two paths, I stayed right with them. I clicked a couple pictures, then glanced up at the woods ahead. Movement. Wait.... there again. The single coyote, looking dark in the damp woods. And then to the right, the pair. And they froze, looking over their shoulders our way.

Uly bounded forward, and they were gone.

Vapor.

Totem

to-tem

noun

A natural object or animal believed by a particular society to have particular spiritual significance.

I'm not sure many people have totems any more, but I still have mine. Some times seem more important than others to keep them in mind. This is a good week for me to think on my own.

From an ongoing series that goes... I know not where.

Wisdom from Mr. Thiebaud

It is too easy to become an employee of the art world, be consumed by it, and have it take you away from who you want to be. 

-Wayne Thiebaud

Prodigal

Living in a rural area, we have a PO Box, and I look forward to stopping in to get the mail. It's a chance for a moment's company, welcome in the middle of days alone. And there's always the chance of an unexpected surprise in the day's delivery. When I opened the box one day last week, there was an extra key inside, an indication that something was too big to fit, and it's waiting in a second, oversized box.

I went through my mental inventory of things due- maybe a fly rod, or my end of fly swap. Books I'd forgotten I ordered. A package from family. Horse stuff for Darb…. but she hadn't given me a heads up. Nothing came to mind.

A mystery.

I open the po box and pull out the package below. I didn't recognize the name, and momentarily thought, It must be for Darby. But no, it's addressed to me. There was a little click in the back of my mind.

After the short trip home and giving the pups a treat, expected for their remarkable accomplishment of following me from the truck to the house, I pulled out my knife and opened the box. Inside is a note and a roughly packed picture frame sticking out of an envelope. I recognized the top edge of the frame as one that I used for years, and pulled the frame from the envelope, already knowing what was there.

Several years ago, at a show in Philadelphia, two paintings were stolen. The only time it has ever happened, before or since. The box contained the smaller of the two.

I'm not sure what to think. 

I picked up the note for the first time and read the following:

Richard,

I've possessed the enclosed painting for a number of years as it was given to me by a friend. I recently learned (oddly) that the painting was acquired in an illicit way. I feel compelled to return the piece to you as I do not like knowing that I have something, especially a work of art, that wasn't rightly purchased from the creator. Hopefully this painting has some meaning to you, or at least can now be sold as you originally intended.

All the best,

NoI'mnotgoingtotellyouhisname.

I am still left with an unknown emotion. 

Perplexed. 

Why? Because I'd already decided how i felt about the two pieces being stolen, and kind of tucked it away, a little more watchful and wary than I was before. I was initially really angry- ok, flat out pissed-off. But then I went around to many of my neighbors at the show, warning them to be extra careful, and to a person, they all responded with some version of, Well, man, nobody stole anything from me? How should I feel about that? 

Like I was the only one that juried into the Thief's Choice Show.

The responses of other artists struck me as so funny it helped me decide to just let it go. I  figured the loss was one of those tolls life occasionally collects, and I decided that I had gotten off fairly cheaply.  The decision was made easier by the fact that neither piece stolen was very big- though the other was larger, about 14 x 18 inches if I recall correctly.

So I have this small painting back. It was from a series of tree paintings I did over a few years, really just a subject around which to play with and better understand color. The series started with me puzzling over the bright, intense, shimmering colors I saw in a small grove of Sugar Maples across from the field where I used to coach my kids soccer teams. I learned a lot about color from the series- in fact it changed the way I paint. Bu the whole series is gone now (with the exception of the last two that are available on my small work site), and it doesn't really fit with what I am working on these days.

What to do?

First a thank you note. 

Dear ??????,

Honesty is the trait I prize above all others. Thank you.

Sincerely,

RCH

And now what? I've been stewing for the last couple months, or realistically, maybe the past year or more. Obviously not about the prodigal painting. But stewing is something I am prone to do, and when I'm in the middle of it, I don't recognize it. Part of my creative cycle. Mostly humming along, but then, occasionally, stew. Stew can simmer for a ridiculously long time. Darby asked me the other day if I was depressed, and I assured her that I wasn't. It isn't depression, it's stewing. It's just that I've only recently recognized that I was doing it. Somehow the return of the painting turned the lights on

And then I remembered why I stew. Because I'm trying to figure something out. I'm not a verbal thinker. I don't sit down and think an essay, or short story. There's no obvious set of directions, do this, then this, then this. No narrative. I describe it to people as looking for a path in a dense woods. In the dark. Blindfolded. There's a sense of direction, a pull to the place I need to go. But if you just blunder forward, you'll end up lost.

I am my father's son in many ways. I like to work. Actually, I love to work. Work for me is putting paint to canvas. But sometimes that gets in the way of finding my direction. A big part of my work is thinking about putting paint to canvas- what I'm painting and why. Sometimes I need to slow down, and stew.

So I think I've had about enough stewing. I think. I'm feeling like I know what I'm doing again. I have a lot of paint to put on canvas. 

I haven't been posting on this blog in forever.  As I said, I'm not a verbal stewer. But I am figuring some things out, have some big projects ahead of me, and some big adventure behind me that ties to it. And that would be fun to tell you about.

So the return of another prodigal. Me. More soon.

Notes from Bristol Bay

A little over a dozen years ago, I received a grant from the Genesee Valley County Council on the Arts. My project was to paddle the Genesee River, and produce a sketchbook about the trip. The project had an unintended effect- I realized I didn't like my work. Didn't like is probably the wrong description- maybe didn't care about. The downside was that at 40, to be faced with the realization that you don't like the result of your efforts is pretty tough to take. It is my job. The upside is it set me on the path of trying to figure out how to change course.

So I went back to my favorite book, Arctic Dreams, by Barry Lopez. It was reading the book for the first time in my late 20's that made me more serious about my outdoor interests, canoe trips in particular. Spending extended periods in wild country was suddenly given a legitimacy, at least in my mind- no longer just goofing off. Returning to it at 40 helped me start thinking more seriously about the why of my painting. Why am I compelled to paint? Why landscape? I've always been happier when there is a reason that I can make sense of. 

So for several years I persued the idea of the memory of landscape. The idea grew and evolved, and eventually ended up taking a somewhat different direction, which resulted in some new, large format pieces that I exhibited at SUNY Geneseo. 

Trespass, oil on canvas, 48 x 144 inches.

The Artifact of Landscape came down two years ago this month. I was happy about the show, happy in terms of feeling that what I had set out to do had been successful, bringing some of the tactile feel of a a landscape into an indoor space, a gallery setting. Part of that was the scale of the work, part the way I had pushed to paint, with the intention of the layers of paint reflecting the textures of a place, that tactile feeling of moving though an area. Or it did to me, and that's really all I can ask.

Lamar Valley Erratics, YNP, 48 x 144 inches

But then I was faced with where to take it, this new direction. The idea had at least partially evolved in  Yellowstone National Park.  The park is 2000 miles from our home in South Lima, less than convenient. I'm nowhere near done exploring the park, and painting the landscape there, but I needed an area closer to home. Someplace it might be easier to access to build upon this new body of work. Darby and I talked about our area, the Finger Lakes of western NY, a good possibility. Or the Adirondacks, where I've done canoe trips for years, and we've taken family vacations. But then an opportunity dropped in my lap, too good to pass up. Well, Darby convinced me it was too good to pass up.

My friend Bob White is a sporting artist, specializing in fishing and hunting images that reflect his life as a fishing guide and lifelong hunter. In the fall of 2010, I was reading Bob White's Studio News. You can subscribe for updates on his work, goings on and general nailing-the-shit-out-of-life type life. So there I was reading about his summer's latest bit of awesomeness, doing an artist's residency at Bristol Bay Lodge, where he also guides. It was inspiring, looked like  a blast, and left me with my head in my hands. Darby said, What's up? And I described what I'd read about Bob's trip, and said, I just don't even know how to ever make that happen. 

So jump forward about 6 months, I check the morning'e email, and there's a note from Bob. It said essentially, Steve and I decided the residency was pretty cool, so we want to expand it. Wanna come up and paint for a week? Oh, and you can fish all you want to. We are inviting you, CD Clarke and Jeff Kennedy.

Obvious SPAM. Ha, this stuff doesn't happen to me.

Turns out it does, when Bob drops it in my lap. But it took Darby to drop me on my head. She got home, me head in hands again, and said, What's up? I told her about the offer, then said I don't think I can make it work schedule-wise. She looked at me. Didn't bat an eye, then laughed and said, You're going, it's perfect for what you are trying to do. A little less convenient than the Adirondacks, but its perfect. Write back, say yes. You're going. No…nope….zip….zipit….. you're going.

So, I wrote back to Bob. But I didn't say yes. At first. First I said something along the lines of, You know, BW, this isn't really the kind of work I do. You, Chris, and Jeff, you guys are sporting artists and you all do plein aire painting. Me, not so much. I quit working that way about 12 years ago. 

( A little aside here-  I am no longer interested in plein aire painting, in the doing of it. I still love to look at the pleine air work of others, my friend Brian Eppley's in particular. But me not being interested is typical and kind of funny, as plein aire painting has really taken off in the art market over the last 8 or 10 years. Years ago my friend Quisp accused me of being a slave to my contrary-ness. I though a minute, and said, No, I'm a slave to my independence. My independence more often than not puts me out of step with what is going on else where. While I was paddling the Genesse River, all those years before, I had realized I was painting plein aire, not because I wanted to, but because I thought that was what I was supposed to be doing to be an artist. But it leaves me irritated, with work I that I don't feel addresses my interests in the land, and feeling like I had missed out on other things I could be doing outside, other things I could be seeing. So I quit doing it, just in time to miss the building wave of popularity. Life).

But in response to my protest, Bob said, I don't care. 

I said I may not have anything to show for months, even a year or two after, if at all. 

Bob said, I don't care, I just want you to be part of it. 

I said, What about Steve? (that would be Steve Laurent, the manager of Bristol Bay Lodge, and a talented photographer as well). 

Bob said, He won't care, he's all-in on this.

So I guess I was out of excuses to not take advantage of the greatest opportunity to fall in my lap. Despite always making things more difficult than they need to be, I was in.

After doing a show on Long Island, two in Colorado, and another in Seattle, early last August I headed for Alaksa.

In Anchorage, I spent the day fishing with my friend Jerry Balboni. We might have had a beer or two as well. Late in the day he and his wife Anna dropped me at the hotel where I was supposed to meet Jeff- whom I hadn't known previously. I stepped into the lobby and immediately recognized him, an old friend I just hadn't met yet. We may have had a couple more beers while we visited about the upcoming week.

First thing in the morning, we grabbed the shuttle to the airport and we were headed to Dillingham.

I hadn't been in Alaska in 13 years. I hadn't forgotten how beautiful it is, but I think I'd forgotten the feeling of vastness. 

As we made the flight to Dillingham, Jeff and I were like kids, excitedly pointing out things we thought the other might have missed. That was a pattern that would continue all week.

We landed in Dillingham. I was in lala land. Flying over that landscape, thinking about what was in store for the week, I forgot I was supposed to be looking for Bob. Fortunately he found us, and I had an unexpected surprise- the chance to say a quick hello to photographer and publisher Tosh Brown, someone who I had previously known only over the internet. He had been doing a residency at the lodge the previous week, and assured us that we were in for a good time.

Over the next several weeks I'll tell you about the week, the work we did, and where for me, I think it is going. As I had explained to Bob, my work has evolved to a point of not being real direct. After several months of percolating, it's coming to the surface.

Thirty Barns

Thirty Barns  <--- this link right here!

The link above will take you to a short video slide show of the development of the 30 paintings.

I started the series of thirty barns the first week of November. My aim was two fold- a series of studies to get me focused on some of my painting for this year, and to have a series of small pieces to end the season with an on-line show.

From that stand point, it was very successful. But it was even more successful on another, unexpected level.


The way I work has evolved over time. From my original intentions of being a very direct painter, I have slowly developed a very different approach- applying layers of color, over days, weeks, and often months. The approach has developed as my concerns with painting have changed, but primarily because it allows me to achieve color effects and surface textures that provide the atmosphere I am after. The approach is slow. I find color layers most cleanly when it is wet paint going over dry. Because I love oil paint, not so much acrylic, that requires setting a painting aside at some point so that I don't start mixing wet layers, and end up with mud. But I am my father's son- I work. In order to keep working, I have developed the habit of working on several paintings over the same period of time- often a dozen or more. Occasionally way more. With larger pieces, they are moved around the studio. But with the 30 small paintings I set them on runners on my large studio panel, and they were all there at once. And an unexpected conversation developed.

At the studio each day, it's pretty much Finn, Uly and me. Conversation is, well, not something most would understand. Lots of grunts, growls, and negotiations for a quick break or a bone.

This conversation- with the paintings- was different. A Me, Myself and I, sort of thing, except it was a little like having 30 of me- or variations of me. Talking with one another.

Laying in the first blocks of color is always the most exciting part of a painting, filled with bold movement, bright color, and possibility. Usually by the third or fourth layer- on the third or fourth day- questions start to crop up, and the possibility of doubt sets in. And usually at this point, I have to sit and stew, looking at a piece, debating possibilities, trying to work out a good painting from the initial gram of an idea that got things rolling to begin with.

But with this series, I would put the piece back on the easel, in amongst the rest of the pack. I'd step back, and the change made in the piece would make the whole different. Kind of like a new kid walking onto the playground. The whole dynamic changes, and illuminates each individual. Sometimes the changes in the piece just worked on would initiate something similar in another piece. Or something opposite, Or completely different, just ideas spurred onward. But an ebb and flow developed that seemed to make solutions easier to find. Sometimes. A few were abandoned and replaced with new starts, the initial idea not being strong enough to maintain momentum. Or just lost.

But the whole experience lead to me questioning my work process. It would be valuable to have my large work more exposed during the painting, to be able to see more than one at a time- to be able to bounce the bigger ideas back and forth, so each informs the other.

I'm afraid I need more space.