Wednesday, December 20, 2006
I am leaving Big Sur this morning. I am cleaning the studio with a heavy heart. I am filled with thoughts about the Mudds, who I feel I got to know during this last month, thanks to the loving stories shared by Jim Cox, their ranch manager and friend for many many years. Yesterday I saw some photographs of the Mudds when they were young and vital, laughing at parties, at their daughter's wedding at Glen Deven Ranch, snapshots of graduations and intimate dinners, with horses and dogs, a photograph of their children around a Christmas fire. As I sit here writing the last entry to this blog, I am witness to the seasons changing before my eyes. Santa Ana winds have become Arctic blasts. Dusty ruts in the road are puddles now.
I intend to preserve the awe and joy of the previous weeks here, an unprecedented time where I remained spiritually open to every change. I was undaunted by carpenter ants and rewarded with rainbows. I read Walden while living Walden. I painted with energy and the work was received with enthusiasm. I met dozens of new people, every one of whom I'd like to see again. Still, as I pack up the paint and dispose of the perishables, I 'm trying not to feel sad. Though the residency has come to an end, tomorrow will be the beginning of something else. Just as the Mudds, though long gone, are surely pleased by the gift they gave me, I will find ongoing pleasure in giving gifts of my own. In January, The Big Sur Land Trust, the Big Sur Arts Initiative, Jim Cox and myself will begin to assess how this can become an ongoing opportunity for other artists. And I want to leave you with one last gift: my hope for those of you who found your way to this blog, that you too now realize it is never too late to pursue a dream. I hope I've especially shown my children (including those I did not birth --you all know who you are) that it is always good to stretch your boundaries, but also, to be occasionally very quiet and listen to what the world and nature are trying to tell you, and finally to be grateful for what you have received. I love you all.
(On the subject of gifts, that reminds me,.. I'm in deep trouble in the Christmas gift department. Unless you put in an order for tie-died socks a.s.a.p., I haven't even thought about the holidays, so forgive me if you don't get a present until March.) Today, I don't feel sharp enough to articulate an ending to this journal worthy of what the experience calls for. I'm looking our the window again at the last sunset I will see from this seat for a while. In the sky, which is beginning to fill with rose tinted clouds, a plane flies high above the Santa Lucia mountain range. I am reminded of the very first time I flew alone. I was fourteen and I went to visit Judy Murray in Carmel. The flight was from LAX to Santa Barbara to Monterey Airport. I had a window seat and my face pressed to the glass the entire flight. I wondered who lived in those little houses tucked into pines along the top of the mountain range so far below the belly of the plane. Now I know: I Do.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Sede II
I have been painting a series on paper of Big Sur, expressionistically rendered with furniture floating in the atmosphere, often, a white chair. The white chair is similar to the Shabby Chic relic falling to shreds in my L.A. living room. This series solidifies something I've artistically experienced here: The sense of being here and there. A balance of finding ownership of what can't be bought or sold. And the down-filled white comfort of that thought. I'm going to call these paintings "The Sede" series.
Still reading Walden, the mid-nineteenth century record of Thoreau's experiment living alone in the house he built himself on Walden Pond. In describing the land where he eventually chose to build, he wrote: "At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house. I have surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination, I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each farmer's premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on it, --took everything but a deed of it, --took his word for his deed, cultivated it, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat?"
Reading Walden, and not the Cliff Notes I frantically scanned decades ago, has been like icing on the cake. When you are alone this long, you begin to "commune with nature" and "contemplate your bellybutton" (two expressions my dad used derogatorily all throughout my teenage years ) so it's comforting to know that others experience similar bliss. This land is your land, this land is my land, Dylan sings. And this studio feels like it is mine today. I don't need to own it. I live here in Big Sur, and in some ways, always will.
Still reading Walden, the mid-nineteenth century record of Thoreau's experiment living alone in the house he built himself on Walden Pond. In describing the land where he eventually chose to build, he wrote: "At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house. I have surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination, I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each farmer's premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on it, --took everything but a deed of it, --took his word for his deed, cultivated it, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat?"
Reading Walden, and not the Cliff Notes I frantically scanned decades ago, has been like icing on the cake. When you are alone this long, you begin to "commune with nature" and "contemplate your bellybutton" (two expressions my dad used derogatorily all throughout my teenage years ) so it's comforting to know that others experience similar bliss. This land is your land, this land is my land, Dylan sings. And this studio feels like it is mine today. I don't need to own it. I live here in Big Sur, and in some ways, always will.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Big Sur
These are the last days of the residency. Winter has arrived and the weather will change the paint on the artist's palette. When I first arrived in November there was such a delicacy to the color of a silver field against cerulean blue sky, a softness in the late afternoon breeze. Winter is the season that test the mettle of those who call Big Sur home. The creeks swell and spew rock. trees fall and sea cliffs reconfigure. Still, this is the most beautiful place on earth.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Rainbow Over Glen Deven
The view from here is like a movie that just keeps getting better. Today around sunset, it started to drizzle. I was writing in the studio and glanced up to see THIS sight before my eyes. From the spot where I shot this photograph, not eighteen hours earlier, I watched shooting stars like fireflies in the night.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Reflection in Artist Retreat Studio
The reflections in Virginia Mudd's studio inspire more reflection. As this Big Sur Artist Residency experiment winds down, untimely inspiration reveals itself and I can't help but wish there was more time to develop ideas. Ideas develop anywhere, but they first come to you where they come to you. For that, I will forever be indebted to those who enabled this experience.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Sunday Storm
As time is condensing, so will this post.
The last few days fuse into a blur of motions, weather, locations, color, light and darks. Late Saturday night, when the rain seemed relentless, I determined that it was not a good idea to drive my car down the road from the studio to the guesthouse. So I set out on foot, sloshed, umbrella and flashlight in hand. I admit: one does have fearful thoughts. What if I fall, what if a hungry mountain lion lurks beyond the curve? What if the road slides down the canyon and I'm on it? You simply walk through your fears, one step after another. I took a hot bath. I was feeling tired and brave, about to go to bed, when this ferocious clap of thunder shook the night. (I don't like thunder.) The electricity blew, lights went out and while I was trembling from those two surprises, suddenly, the estate's generator (located right next to my bedroom) roars on, vibrating the window and I'm sure, we're also now having an earthquake.
The first half of yesterday, Sunday, was a logistical juggle where all the balls dropped. Some local Big Sur artists were going to come onto the property, have lunch, then do some plein air painting. Unfortunately, it was raining. With no way of contacting them myself, I had to assume they were still coming. That meant I had to go up to the studio, get some art supplies, and bring down some food. Except, I'd left the car up the hill. It was a pleasant morning walk in the rain. It was not yet 9 a.m. Jim Cox, who was feeding the horses, offered to follow me in his 4-wheel drive if I wanted to get my car to drier ground. I safely navigated the road. The rain was relentless. By ll:00, I concluded the painting day needed to be cancelled. I have no cellular service here and couldn't reach Tom or Erin from the main house phone. That meant..... back up the hill...on foot, umbrella-less this time, as I'd absentmindedly forgot it in the studio. I fashioned raingear for the trek out of trashbags. And I mean, fashioned. I covered my lower half with one bag, poking leg holes and tying it about my waist, like pantaloons. My face poked out of the other trashbag which slid down over my upper body and a backpack. As I was trudged up the hill, I thought of all the hours I've spent in my life fashioning multi-purpose outfits, clothes that satisfy my aesthetic, but don't offend, let's say, a stepmother's, a Board of Directors, or a PTA. Believe me I was grateful knowing NO ONE would be a witness to this most unfashionable raingear. Almost no one. As I rounded the bend to the studio, the horses caught sight of me. They reared, they whinnied, they snorted, skittering backward across the muddy field. I seriously thought they were going to hurt themselves. Judging by the whites of their eyes, they must have seen what they thought was one ugly black plastic beast approaching the corral.
With the art day cancelled, Erin suggested I drive down to Nepenthe, and join her at her mom Holly's house for the Sunday "stitch and bitch." Should you wonder, a stitch-and-bitch is the 21st century version of a women's quilting bee, in this case, knitting squares for a baby quilt. Holly's renowned for her knitting, an artist with needles. To my eye, most of the women were pretty sophisticated knitters. There were about fifteen of us, some cross-legged on the floor, others cushioned on couches, slippered, barefoot. The only conversation remotely bitchy involved Mel Gibson. Otherwise, it was what women, gathered voluntarily, do best: laugh, assist each other, discuss film, praise the coffee cake Holly baked, reminisce about travels, husbands, children, fret about their teenage drivers. Erin taught me how to knit and I completed half a square for this lucky unborn baby; Holly finished it. The ladies left. Around six, family members began to pour in from all doors at once for Sunday dinner. Tilapia tacos and cake were great, but the company was even better. (Made me miss mine.)
Today is Monday. I am wearing a multicolored cap that in fact was intended as a sweater sleeve. Erin knit it and the colors are inspirational. I will wear this as my art hat, as others have worn berets.
The last few days fuse into a blur of motions, weather, locations, color, light and darks. Late Saturday night, when the rain seemed relentless, I determined that it was not a good idea to drive my car down the road from the studio to the guesthouse. So I set out on foot, sloshed, umbrella and flashlight in hand. I admit: one does have fearful thoughts. What if I fall, what if a hungry mountain lion lurks beyond the curve? What if the road slides down the canyon and I'm on it? You simply walk through your fears, one step after another. I took a hot bath. I was feeling tired and brave, about to go to bed, when this ferocious clap of thunder shook the night. (I don't like thunder.) The electricity blew, lights went out and while I was trembling from those two surprises, suddenly, the estate's generator (located right next to my bedroom) roars on, vibrating the window and I'm sure, we're also now having an earthquake.
The first half of yesterday, Sunday, was a logistical juggle where all the balls dropped. Some local Big Sur artists were going to come onto the property, have lunch, then do some plein air painting. Unfortunately, it was raining. With no way of contacting them myself, I had to assume they were still coming. That meant I had to go up to the studio, get some art supplies, and bring down some food. Except, I'd left the car up the hill. It was a pleasant morning walk in the rain. It was not yet 9 a.m. Jim Cox, who was feeding the horses, offered to follow me in his 4-wheel drive if I wanted to get my car to drier ground. I safely navigated the road. The rain was relentless. By ll:00, I concluded the painting day needed to be cancelled. I have no cellular service here and couldn't reach Tom or Erin from the main house phone. That meant..... back up the hill...on foot, umbrella-less this time, as I'd absentmindedly forgot it in the studio. I fashioned raingear for the trek out of trashbags. And I mean, fashioned. I covered my lower half with one bag, poking leg holes and tying it about my waist, like pantaloons. My face poked out of the other trashbag which slid down over my upper body and a backpack. As I was trudged up the hill, I thought of all the hours I've spent in my life fashioning multi-purpose outfits, clothes that satisfy my aesthetic, but don't offend, let's say, a stepmother's, a Board of Directors, or a PTA. Believe me I was grateful knowing NO ONE would be a witness to this most unfashionable raingear. Almost no one. As I rounded the bend to the studio, the horses caught sight of me. They reared, they whinnied, they snorted, skittering backward across the muddy field. I seriously thought they were going to hurt themselves. Judging by the whites of their eyes, they must have seen what they thought was one ugly black plastic beast approaching the corral.
With the art day cancelled, Erin suggested I drive down to Nepenthe, and join her at her mom Holly's house for the Sunday "stitch and bitch." Should you wonder, a stitch-and-bitch is the 21st century version of a women's quilting bee, in this case, knitting squares for a baby quilt. Holly's renowned for her knitting, an artist with needles. To my eye, most of the women were pretty sophisticated knitters. There were about fifteen of us, some cross-legged on the floor, others cushioned on couches, slippered, barefoot. The only conversation remotely bitchy involved Mel Gibson. Otherwise, it was what women, gathered voluntarily, do best: laugh, assist each other, discuss film, praise the coffee cake Holly baked, reminisce about travels, husbands, children, fret about their teenage drivers. Erin taught me how to knit and I completed half a square for this lucky unborn baby; Holly finished it. The ladies left. Around six, family members began to pour in from all doors at once for Sunday dinner. Tilapia tacos and cake were great, but the company was even better. (Made me miss mine.)
Today is Monday. I am wearing a multicolored cap that in fact was intended as a sweater sleeve. Erin knit it and the colors are inspirational. I will wear this as my art hat, as others have worn berets.
Saturday, December 9, 2006
Last Pear on the Tree
The last week of the Big Sur Residency, the beginning of the end. We are in the second day of the first winter storm. My companions today are rain, clouds, wind, the mountains, a sycamore tree, near naked of foliage...and David Bowie. "Ground Control to Major Tom...eat your protein pills and put your helmet on, commencing countdown, engines on..." I am sitting in the warm studio, eating graham crackers, drinking coffee and trying not to acknowledge a creeping sadness that this time has so quickly passed. It is almost unbearable, the comfort of solitude, the illusion of safety, the freedom to bare your secrets, open all senses and make art out of it.
Gifts just keep coming to me here. Not ten minutes ago, I glanced up from my work to see a rainbow, moored to the canyon floor, its arc practically at eye level. It was gone before I could capture the image, replaced by a downpour, leaving me wondering if I'm not going Kerouac on myself, hallucinating it.
There are many literary references in stories about Big Sur to people hearing music that has no discernible source. I admit I've heard the music. I think it is the drumming bass of the ocean waves hitting shore, combined with the whistle of the wind, birds and bees, crickets and crows, but I'm not sure. I am reading a novel called The Memory Keeper's Daughter. There is a conversation that takes place between a father who is a photographer and his teenage son. Against his father's wishes, the boy wants to become a musician. The father, also a doctor, shows his son a photograph he took of a human heart, which at first glance, looks like the silhouette of a tree. Musing on the mystery of perception, he says, "Sometimes I think the entire world is contained within each living person." They are standing in a darkroom and as he sends a flash of concentrated light through the enlarger, slips paper into developer and finally into the fixer, he tells his son: "Photography is all about secrets, the secrets we all have and will never tell."
The son responds: "That's not what music is like...Music is like you touch the pulse of the world. Music is always happening and sometimes you get to touch it for a while, and when you do, you know that everything's connected to everything else."
Another gift I recently received came by email from Erin Gafill. It was this poem, written by Marie Ponsot, Tom's favorite aunt-poet. Now I am giving this present to all of you.
A Rune, Interminable
Low above the moss
a sprig of scarlet berries
Soon eatened or blackened
Tells time.
Go to a wedding
as to a funeral:
bury the loss.
Go to a funeral
as to a wedding:
marry the loss.
Go to a coming
as to a going:
unhurrying.
Time is winter-green
Seeds keep time.
Time so kept carries us
across, to where
no time is lost.
-Marie Ponsot
I'm cranking up the volume now. "....This is Major Tom to Ground Control. I'm stepping through the door and I'm floating in a most peculiar way. The stars look very different today."
Are you all still with me?
Gifts just keep coming to me here. Not ten minutes ago, I glanced up from my work to see a rainbow, moored to the canyon floor, its arc practically at eye level. It was gone before I could capture the image, replaced by a downpour, leaving me wondering if I'm not going Kerouac on myself, hallucinating it.
There are many literary references in stories about Big Sur to people hearing music that has no discernible source. I admit I've heard the music. I think it is the drumming bass of the ocean waves hitting shore, combined with the whistle of the wind, birds and bees, crickets and crows, but I'm not sure. I am reading a novel called The Memory Keeper's Daughter. There is a conversation that takes place between a father who is a photographer and his teenage son. Against his father's wishes, the boy wants to become a musician. The father, also a doctor, shows his son a photograph he took of a human heart, which at first glance, looks like the silhouette of a tree. Musing on the mystery of perception, he says, "Sometimes I think the entire world is contained within each living person." They are standing in a darkroom and as he sends a flash of concentrated light through the enlarger, slips paper into developer and finally into the fixer, he tells his son: "Photography is all about secrets, the secrets we all have and will never tell."
The son responds: "That's not what music is like...Music is like you touch the pulse of the world. Music is always happening and sometimes you get to touch it for a while, and when you do, you know that everything's connected to everything else."
Another gift I recently received came by email from Erin Gafill. It was this poem, written by Marie Ponsot, Tom's favorite aunt-poet. Now I am giving this present to all of you.
A Rune, Interminable
Low above the moss
a sprig of scarlet berries
Soon eatened or blackened
Tells time.
Go to a wedding
as to a funeral:
bury the loss.
Go to a funeral
as to a wedding:
marry the loss.
Go to a coming
as to a going:
unhurrying.
Time is winter-green
Seeds keep time.
Time so kept carries us
across, to where
no time is lost.
-Marie Ponsot
I'm cranking up the volume now. "....This is Major Tom to Ground Control. I'm stepping through the door and I'm floating in a most peculiar way. The stars look very different today."
Are you all still with me?
Friday, December 8, 2006
Sunrise in Big Sur, December 8
The way the children would wake me in the middle of the night, the window behind the four poster bed in the guesthouse, taps me on the shoulder if there's going to be a sunrise I wouldn't want to miss. Trust me, I am not an early riser. But today at 6:30, the light was like a bugle. I got the camera and had to run to the ridge from where I wanted to view it. Trust me, I'm not a runner either. But look what I saw!
The first winter storm came on shore today. Before it began to rain, I drove to this spot that has coastal access and hiked to within one foot of the edge of the continent. From there I could peer below me as the waves churned and hit the stone bluff, coughing up houses of foam.
All day it has been raining and windy. The studio almost vibrates with weather. It makes strange noises which startle me, one sounding like a pot just fell on the roof.
The first winter storm came on shore today. Before it began to rain, I drove to this spot that has coastal access and hiked to within one foot of the edge of the continent. From there I could peer below me as the waves churned and hit the stone bluff, coughing up houses of foam.
All day it has been raining and windy. The studio almost vibrates with weather. It makes strange noises which startle me, one sounding like a pot just fell on the roof.
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Of all the cool moments in my life, my favorites involve the combination of friends and foreign territory. Pleasure, multiplied. Maui with the Greenwoods and all our young children. The English Lake District with Binzi and Kyle and the kids, making blackberry cobbler with Richard Nelson on Bainbridge Island, hiking by firefly light down from Montecatini with Erin and Tom, Judy Murray and I in an elevator in Italy, Ireland with Suz, thumbing through photo albums with Melanie in Seattle. Add to that today's lunch with Ken Peterson at the Monterey Aquarium. Decades may pass between visits but our common history include friends, schools and love or hate of certain neighborhoods we may have inhabited. We liked Rome. We hated the San Fernando Valley. We love Big Sur. Strangely, Ken lived for many years on the other side of the Glen Deven property line. And...the lobster sandwich at the Portola Cafe inside the aquarium was totally memorable.
After lunch, stopped at Searles Art Supplies to inquire about framing a couple paintings on paper for the reception next week at Judy's. Too late. They're swamped with holiday orders. Art stores for me are like candy stores to kids. I can't enter and not purchase. Today I bought two tubes of green, a yellow I've never heard of (diarylide yellow) and some water soluble Derwent pencils. The salesgirl and I got into a conversation about the Big Sur artist residency. She's an abstract painter who studied sculpure at Otis College, where I taught for ten years. The next thing I know, the sun is beginning to set.
Stopped by Judy's to pick up the glasses I forgot last week. We played three games of backgammon and I returned to Big Sur.
I'm feeling the tug of the end of the line. This residency experiment is too rapidly coming to a close. I never made it to the Weston's house. I wanted to get to know the artists I met the first week. I want to know where the hot springs are. I wanted to thank Bill Leahy in person, to walk at Pt. Lobos and see Sand Dollar beach. I want to buy granola from Ventana, see Holly's house, eat beet salad at Nepenthe.
Everyone's expecting the first winter storm this weekend.
After lunch, stopped at Searles Art Supplies to inquire about framing a couple paintings on paper for the reception next week at Judy's. Too late. They're swamped with holiday orders. Art stores for me are like candy stores to kids. I can't enter and not purchase. Today I bought two tubes of green, a yellow I've never heard of (diarylide yellow) and some water soluble Derwent pencils. The salesgirl and I got into a conversation about the Big Sur artist residency. She's an abstract painter who studied sculpure at Otis College, where I taught for ten years. The next thing I know, the sun is beginning to set.
Stopped by Judy's to pick up the glasses I forgot last week. We played three games of backgammon and I returned to Big Sur.
I'm feeling the tug of the end of the line. This residency experiment is too rapidly coming to a close. I never made it to the Weston's house. I wanted to get to know the artists I met the first week. I want to know where the hot springs are. I wanted to thank Bill Leahy in person, to walk at Pt. Lobos and see Sand Dollar beach. I want to buy granola from Ventana, see Holly's house, eat beet salad at Nepenthe.
Everyone's expecting the first winter storm this weekend.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Day 27
My friend Erin Gafill called this morning to ask if I wanted to paint with her at Sobranes Point. Did I die and go to heaven?
Finding this particular location proved slightly more difficult than planned. I drove up and down the coast between Rocky Point and the Carmel Highlands about five times. No sign of Erin. I stopped to ask three people picnicking out of the back of a van where Sobranes Point might be and they told me I was standing on it. At that very moment, Erin's Suburban passed by going north.
We finally met, and situated ourselves along the side of the road. The golden light was beginning. Excitement was in the air. Two women artists, two easels, a highway that is already difficult to keep eyes to the road. Sobranes Point is the scenic spot on the Central Coast where, if you look south, you see mountains meeting rolling knolls meeting rocky cliffs, sky and sea (and a little cabin off to the side.) It is the quintessential Big Sur view and a favorite subject of Erin's work. Rebel that I am, I decided to paint the view looking north instead. That way I could warn Erin if a car was going to run us over. My view was not as majestic as Erin's; it essentially included Highway One, the telephone poles that dress it, and all the ambient hues that are Big Sur at that hour. As the setting sun charged the air with color, invariably, tourists stopped, totally blocking my view. (Couldn't really blame them.) At least one honeymoon couple pretended they were photographing each other, but they posed to include the "artists" in the background. Did I mention I was wearing Erin's psychedelic tie-died painter's apron?
Racing with the light, Erin made brilliant headway on three small paintings. I would buy them all. As for my "on the road" picture, I'm keeping it.
Finding this particular location proved slightly more difficult than planned. I drove up and down the coast between Rocky Point and the Carmel Highlands about five times. No sign of Erin. I stopped to ask three people picnicking out of the back of a van where Sobranes Point might be and they told me I was standing on it. At that very moment, Erin's Suburban passed by going north.
We finally met, and situated ourselves along the side of the road. The golden light was beginning. Excitement was in the air. Two women artists, two easels, a highway that is already difficult to keep eyes to the road. Sobranes Point is the scenic spot on the Central Coast where, if you look south, you see mountains meeting rolling knolls meeting rocky cliffs, sky and sea (and a little cabin off to the side.) It is the quintessential Big Sur view and a favorite subject of Erin's work. Rebel that I am, I decided to paint the view looking north instead. That way I could warn Erin if a car was going to run us over. My view was not as majestic as Erin's; it essentially included Highway One, the telephone poles that dress it, and all the ambient hues that are Big Sur at that hour. As the setting sun charged the air with color, invariably, tourists stopped, totally blocking my view. (Couldn't really blame them.) At least one honeymoon couple pretended they were photographing each other, but they posed to include the "artists" in the background. Did I mention I was wearing Erin's psychedelic tie-died painter's apron?
Racing with the light, Erin made brilliant headway on three small paintings. I would buy them all. As for my "on the road" picture, I'm keeping it.
Monday, December 4, 2006
Day 26
Today began with bugs. Another morning invasion of carpenter ants in the studio. But I managed their elimination in what I thought was a fairly ingenious way: I used artist tape to pick them up as they crawled out of woodwork, landed on walls and floors.
This meant I didn't have to sweep their little carcasses afterward. I made a sculpture from the accumulated strips of tape which I intend to give away... to someone special. I don't like killing things, even bugs. Because not all of them died instantly on the artist tape, they wiggled, some for hours. A morbid curiosity took over, not to mention occasional sympathy. But they're not so nice, carpenter ants. I have a magnifying glass and it was trained on this one creature who unfortunately had only half its body damaged, the big black sac that held what were clearly its eggs. For one hour, with pointed little teeth and flicking arms, it ate its own eggs! Was it hungry? Did it think it would survive if it ate its progeny? Was it just pissed off crazy? In any case, it wasn't nice.
And the day ended appropriately, also with bugs. This time in my computer. After recounting the day for this Big Sur journal, the effort just suddenly evaporated into thin air.
My intent today, every day, was to create something artistic to show for my experience. Once again the weather was so mild as to find me sleeveless on a morning walk on Garrapata Ridge. (Forgive me, beloved friends in New York, the Midwest and Europe. This information could be too much for you to bear.) It feels like the residency is almost over and in many ways it has only just begun. I understand in certain art retreat experiences, the artist comes with a clear cut series in mind. That not having been my choice, the art I create here is closely aligned to my visceral experience of Big Sur. Alternately, it is grand, peaceful, vibrant with energy, wildly beautiful, mercurial in color, and often whimsical. (Big Sur, that is.) A theme that had been quietly generating before I came to Big Sur concerned the concept of "home," and included a symbol that has been making appearances in my paintings for years: the simple pentagonal shape that is a house the way children draw it. That symbol first appeared in a painting right after 9/11. A glowing white house inside a whorling crimson tornado. It was called "Longing for Kansas." In the last five years, other paintings with names like, "Homeland Insecurity" cathartically expressed my frustration with our country's direction, and this house shape is integral to their composition.
What I've mysteriously discovered in Big Sur is a persistent sighting of this "house" shape. It's everywhere, cast as reflection on the mirrored walls of Virginia's studio, bird houses, barns and cottages, shadows on mountain, altars. Consequently when this shape finds space in any of the work produced up here on this mountain, it doesn't hold the former emotions of fear, terror and dinintegration. For that alone, I am grateful for this residency.
This meant I didn't have to sweep their little carcasses afterward. I made a sculpture from the accumulated strips of tape which I intend to give away... to someone special. I don't like killing things, even bugs. Because not all of them died instantly on the artist tape, they wiggled, some for hours. A morbid curiosity took over, not to mention occasional sympathy. But they're not so nice, carpenter ants. I have a magnifying glass and it was trained on this one creature who unfortunately had only half its body damaged, the big black sac that held what were clearly its eggs. For one hour, with pointed little teeth and flicking arms, it ate its own eggs! Was it hungry? Did it think it would survive if it ate its progeny? Was it just pissed off crazy? In any case, it wasn't nice.
And the day ended appropriately, also with bugs. This time in my computer. After recounting the day for this Big Sur journal, the effort just suddenly evaporated into thin air.
My intent today, every day, was to create something artistic to show for my experience. Once again the weather was so mild as to find me sleeveless on a morning walk on Garrapata Ridge. (Forgive me, beloved friends in New York, the Midwest and Europe. This information could be too much for you to bear.) It feels like the residency is almost over and in many ways it has only just begun. I understand in certain art retreat experiences, the artist comes with a clear cut series in mind. That not having been my choice, the art I create here is closely aligned to my visceral experience of Big Sur. Alternately, it is grand, peaceful, vibrant with energy, wildly beautiful, mercurial in color, and often whimsical. (Big Sur, that is.) A theme that had been quietly generating before I came to Big Sur concerned the concept of "home," and included a symbol that has been making appearances in my paintings for years: the simple pentagonal shape that is a house the way children draw it. That symbol first appeared in a painting right after 9/11. A glowing white house inside a whorling crimson tornado. It was called "Longing for Kansas." In the last five years, other paintings with names like, "Homeland Insecurity" cathartically expressed my frustration with our country's direction, and this house shape is integral to their composition.
What I've mysteriously discovered in Big Sur is a persistent sighting of this "house" shape. It's everywhere, cast as reflection on the mirrored walls of Virginia's studio, bird houses, barns and cottages, shadows on mountain, altars. Consequently when this shape finds space in any of the work produced up here on this mountain, it doesn't hold the former emotions of fear, terror and dinintegration. For that alone, I am grateful for this residency.
Sunday, December 3, 2006
Ants and Uncles
Sunday in December. It's as warm as summer. I had some visitors at my studio this morning, a swarm of carpenter ants. They're big. Imagine black Harley-Davidsons with wings. They were dropping from the ceiling rafters sounding a thud each time one fell. After about a half hour of trying to ignore the situation, I went after them, beheading the creatures with card stock, impailing them with pencils. By noon, the battle was over and I was the victor. I swept away all traces of carnage, and with it any momentum I'd had to paint today. My ambition fell prey to the glorious weather. I drove down the coast, visited the art gallery by the Spirit Garden, drove further to the Henry Miller Library where I bought a book of poetry by Robinson Jeffers. I overheard someone say they've come up with a new logo: "The Henry Miller Library...Where Nothing Happens." Totally brilliant!
On the drive back to Palo Colorado, I happened to be near my all time favorite scenic turnout around sunset. I stopped. A cool wind was whipping so I moored myself to a boulder to steady the camera. That's when I thought of my uncle.
Toward the end of his life, Uncle Bob once visited me when I was housesitting in Malibu. We watched a sunset together. He told me about "the green flash" you see just as the sun sets into the ocean. I thought he was pulling my leg so we watched intently. As I'd suspected, no green flash. Smiling, eyes twinkling, he insisted he'd seen it. It's phenomenal, he swore. Today, I once again trained my eye on the horizon waiting for the sun to drop, drop, drop already before I'm blind. Guess what, Uncle Bob....no green flash.
However, as my photographs will confirm, it was an amazing sunset.
On the drive back to Palo Colorado, I happened to be near my all time favorite scenic turnout around sunset. I stopped. A cool wind was whipping so I moored myself to a boulder to steady the camera. That's when I thought of my uncle.
Toward the end of his life, Uncle Bob once visited me when I was housesitting in Malibu. We watched a sunset together. He told me about "the green flash" you see just as the sun sets into the ocean. I thought he was pulling my leg so we watched intently. As I'd suspected, no green flash. Smiling, eyes twinkling, he insisted he'd seen it. It's phenomenal, he swore. Today, I once again trained my eye on the horizon waiting for the sun to drop, drop, drop already before I'm blind. Guess what, Uncle Bob....no green flash.
However, as my photographs will confirm, it was an amazing sunset.
Saturday, December 2, 2006
One Passionate Car
Susan Thacker says:
I don't miss television living on this mountain. And telephone calls from survey takers and political workers are no longer an incessant interruption. Reading has once again become the great escape. I've read so many good books in the last month, but my favorite thing to read is The Carmel Pine Cone, the local paper (and not because they did an excellent article on the artist residency.) The police log cracks me up. "Kid cited for stealing gum." Odor in apartment on Lincoln Street. When Fire Department showed up, they found the occupant ventilating the apartment with all windows and doors open. Odor was gone. Occupant advised if smell returned to call 911." Another great read is the rear of this yellow car often parked in Palo Colorado. My personal favorite, "If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?
I don't miss television living on this mountain. And telephone calls from survey takers and political workers are no longer an incessant interruption. Reading has once again become the great escape. I've read so many good books in the last month, but my favorite thing to read is The Carmel Pine Cone, the local paper (and not because they did an excellent article on the artist residency.) The police log cracks me up. "Kid cited for stealing gum." Odor in apartment on Lincoln Street. When Fire Department showed up, they found the occupant ventilating the apartment with all windows and doors open. Odor was gone. Occupant advised if smell returned to call 911." Another great read is the rear of this yellow car often parked in Palo Colorado. My personal favorite, "If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Yin and Yang, Salt and Sugar
Today I found this salt rock that had been nibbled by Sugar, the toothless horse. To see more Big Sur photos, click on this.
Day 23
Who did I touch today? The horse with no name. Jim Cox heard they were sending her to the glue factory, so he brought her here. Now this lovely creature who answers to "Horse," nibbles tall grass on a mountaintop next to a white horse named Sambo and a brown one with no teeth, appropriately named Sugar. Today I found a strange shaped, brick colored rock with a hole in it and photographed it with its shadow. I later learned it is not a rock, but a salt lick.
What did I eat today? Oatmeal and dark roast coffee, salad for lunch, raspberries for dinner.
Who did I think about today? My family, my mom and Barbara Walters, my art group at Peter and Ellie's, Norton Wright and Andrea Bell, my cousin Irene, friends who I'm losing touch with, like Paul and Betsy Horowitz (the former headmaster of Buckley and his wife, who for some reason are really on my mind). Friends I mean to call when I next get cell phone reception--Richard and Judy Nelson, Suz, rsvp to Anthony and Kim's engagement party, Denise Pauley Hovey who wants to know about a lyme disease test...and a hundred others. I'm so busy in my mind.
What colors were on my palette? Hansa yellow medium, burnt umber, burnt sienna, pyrrole red, naphthol crimson, chromium oxide green, cobalt blue, light blue violet and of course, white.
What sounds am I hearing? Last night, the only sound was of the waves crashing onto the rocky shore. No crickets. Tonight I hear crickets again, but I swear their voices have dropped an octave. Must be the cold weather. I've been living here three weeks now and winter changes sound. There is a young sycamore tree outside the studio window, its foliage growing sparse. What leaves are left have clearly dried. Today, when a breeze blows, the sycamore tree sounds like sizzling bacon.
So once again, what have I touched today? The horse, and possibly you. Are you still with me? (And, yes, I am painting.)
What did I eat today? Oatmeal and dark roast coffee, salad for lunch, raspberries for dinner.
Who did I think about today? My family, my mom and Barbara Walters, my art group at Peter and Ellie's, Norton Wright and Andrea Bell, my cousin Irene, friends who I'm losing touch with, like Paul and Betsy Horowitz (the former headmaster of Buckley and his wife, who for some reason are really on my mind). Friends I mean to call when I next get cell phone reception--Richard and Judy Nelson, Suz, rsvp to Anthony and Kim's engagement party, Denise Pauley Hovey who wants to know about a lyme disease test...and a hundred others. I'm so busy in my mind.
What colors were on my palette? Hansa yellow medium, burnt umber, burnt sienna, pyrrole red, naphthol crimson, chromium oxide green, cobalt blue, light blue violet and of course, white.
What sounds am I hearing? Last night, the only sound was of the waves crashing onto the rocky shore. No crickets. Tonight I hear crickets again, but I swear their voices have dropped an octave. Must be the cold weather. I've been living here three weeks now and winter changes sound. There is a young sycamore tree outside the studio window, its foliage growing sparse. What leaves are left have clearly dried. Today, when a breeze blows, the sycamore tree sounds like sizzling bacon.
So once again, what have I touched today? The horse, and possibly you. Are you still with me? (And, yes, I am painting.)
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Day 21
I woke up with a headache, the word, "Calliope" left over from dream, and this Tom Petty verse: "My sister got lucky, married a yuppie. Took him for all he was worth. Now she's a swinger, dating a singer. I can't decide which is worse. But not me, baby. I've got you to save me. You're so bad...." Headache, word and song on repeating loop the first hour.
Last night, the rain stopped. Today is blustery, amorphous white puffs dash across a cobalt sky. I asked Jim if I could accompany him when he surveyed the canyon access road, which leads to where a stream runs through thickets of giant redwoods. It was like a drive down into history, or a fairy tale. At one point, there was a precipitous drop and Jim told me of the storm twenty years ago that sent the entire mountainside into the base of the canyon, redwoods and all. As we drove further, we arrived at a dried up lake, the casualty of the mudslide. Beside the parched lakebed, a picnic bench, weathered reminder that once you could fish for fresh trout, grill it and enjoy it in this idyllic setting of lime green grass, wildflowers, sunlight, pampas and pine. Down the road the truck was stopped by a fallen tree. We crawled under the trunk and branches. It was a bay tree, its scent so intoxicating you understand why just one dried bay leaf adequately infuses a stew recipe. The standing redwoods were there when early settlers had built their homes, now long gone, down here by the creek.
The rainy season has not officially begun. I understand it can rain up to 16 days in a row. Judging by the number of downed trees from just one little storm, it's hard to guess how much labor goes into maintaining a property like this. Jim is the master of this ranch. He cares for Virginia's animals, the dwellings, Seeley's land. I think a "caretaker" (of anything) is a noble avocation.
Tonight, I'm working on a sketch of the Henry Miller Library. Nothing fancy about this library, its board and batten siding, wood porch with umbrellas, and windows plastered with posters. Though I've passed it many times now, I don't have a reference picture so I'm kind of making it up. What compels me to paint it is not its beauty, but its comfortability. It's a simple frame that houses an estate of passions. Somehow, I think Henry Miller would forgive me for taking license with the details.
Last night, the rain stopped. Today is blustery, amorphous white puffs dash across a cobalt sky. I asked Jim if I could accompany him when he surveyed the canyon access road, which leads to where a stream runs through thickets of giant redwoods. It was like a drive down into history, or a fairy tale. At one point, there was a precipitous drop and Jim told me of the storm twenty years ago that sent the entire mountainside into the base of the canyon, redwoods and all. As we drove further, we arrived at a dried up lake, the casualty of the mudslide. Beside the parched lakebed, a picnic bench, weathered reminder that once you could fish for fresh trout, grill it and enjoy it in this idyllic setting of lime green grass, wildflowers, sunlight, pampas and pine. Down the road the truck was stopped by a fallen tree. We crawled under the trunk and branches. It was a bay tree, its scent so intoxicating you understand why just one dried bay leaf adequately infuses a stew recipe. The standing redwoods were there when early settlers had built their homes, now long gone, down here by the creek.
The rainy season has not officially begun. I understand it can rain up to 16 days in a row. Judging by the number of downed trees from just one little storm, it's hard to guess how much labor goes into maintaining a property like this. Jim is the master of this ranch. He cares for Virginia's animals, the dwellings, Seeley's land. I think a "caretaker" (of anything) is a noble avocation.
Tonight, I'm working on a sketch of the Henry Miller Library. Nothing fancy about this library, its board and batten siding, wood porch with umbrellas, and windows plastered with posters. Though I've passed it many times now, I don't have a reference picture so I'm kind of making it up. What compels me to paint it is not its beauty, but its comfortability. It's a simple frame that houses an estate of passions. Somehow, I think Henry Miller would forgive me for taking license with the details.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Day 20
I'm a seeker. While I'm not sure what I'm looking for, I often feel close to finding "it." When I was young, I liked those games in Highlights magazine. You had to find a dozen common items, like a squirrel, a spoon, a pickle, a whistle, well hidden in a line drawing. (That would have been a challenging art job before computers.)
Sometimes when I paint, an image forms that I did not intend. Its discovery informs me. The image was idling in my subconscious. Sometimes I'll play it up, sometimes obscure it. Ideally, it will be noticed for the first time, years later, by a patron, surprise gift. It's the realization that there's more to see than first meets the eye.
Making art in a new place, even a dream place, is a challenge. I purposely chose not to enter the Big Sur Artist residency with a set agenda for what I would create. I agonized for a month if this was a wise decision or not. While it would have been fruitful to use the time to continue painting a particular series, I was curious to see just what effect time and place would have on my art. I was essentially coming into the experience unprepared, but totally open. It was scary at first. The abundance of sensory stimula was stunning. I stood before my easel like a deer in headlights. It was the right thing to do. And then I started to move.
I was surprised by the physicality of my movements. My right arm swung a larger arc, though the support I was painting on, paper, was smaller than most of my recent canvases. Some would call it gestural painting; I feel it is unleashed energy. Several of these paintings suggest my immediate surroundings but they called out for something, an image that would convey this personal quest to find, to find......
Underlying question of the year: just what is "home?" It is a state of the heart, architecture and furniture to protect the soul. I know: one man's ceiling is another man's floor, but I don't see the point of having a house at all if it's not a home. (I'll be having this debate with Henry David Thoreau later, I KNOW IT. Henry's logical, economical, has a way with words. But he's not going to bear feng shui. He was content in a dugout, didn't have family and died young.)
It felt natural to float interior appointments in exterior landscape: consequently all day long I painted two white chairs (similar to the white chairs in my Beverly Glen house, the ones with the holes in the arm rests) suspended over forested canyon.
All day it has been frigidly cold and intermittently raining. I'm going on my eleventh hour in the studio (will walk in the dark again.) I keep thinking about a place I visited yesterday, the Spirit Garden in Loma Vista. (Loma Vista, Big Sur, is a bakery, a gallery or two, the Spirit Garden and a Shell station) The Spirit Garden sells succulents, windchimes and statuary, with intensely creative presentation. Colorful glazed ceramic heads hang like Christmas balls from a turquoise painted tree. There is a ladder made from cut branches that lead up to a giant man-made nest, hickory branches intertwine to create an elegant see-through cocoon, inside which are pillows to sit on. I want to live in a place that values this kind of artistic aesthetic and whimsy. (My next door neighbor in Los Angeles is the antithesis. Eschewing building codes and consideration of privacy, he stealthly tripled the size of his house. To add insult to injury, he landscaped with astroturf and planted it with Rubbermaid sheds and plastic Playskool houses.)
I'm on the twelfth hour in the studio and I'm hearing some creature make noises I've not heard in here before. A creature with wings. Hope you are all well and still with me..because
WE are putting on our caps and parkas and walking down the road now. Love, S.
Sometimes when I paint, an image forms that I did not intend. Its discovery informs me. The image was idling in my subconscious. Sometimes I'll play it up, sometimes obscure it. Ideally, it will be noticed for the first time, years later, by a patron, surprise gift. It's the realization that there's more to see than first meets the eye.
Making art in a new place, even a dream place, is a challenge. I purposely chose not to enter the Big Sur Artist residency with a set agenda for what I would create. I agonized for a month if this was a wise decision or not. While it would have been fruitful to use the time to continue painting a particular series, I was curious to see just what effect time and place would have on my art. I was essentially coming into the experience unprepared, but totally open. It was scary at first. The abundance of sensory stimula was stunning. I stood before my easel like a deer in headlights. It was the right thing to do. And then I started to move.
I was surprised by the physicality of my movements. My right arm swung a larger arc, though the support I was painting on, paper, was smaller than most of my recent canvases. Some would call it gestural painting; I feel it is unleashed energy. Several of these paintings suggest my immediate surroundings but they called out for something, an image that would convey this personal quest to find, to find......
Underlying question of the year: just what is "home?" It is a state of the heart, architecture and furniture to protect the soul. I know: one man's ceiling is another man's floor, but I don't see the point of having a house at all if it's not a home. (I'll be having this debate with Henry David Thoreau later, I KNOW IT. Henry's logical, economical, has a way with words. But he's not going to bear feng shui. He was content in a dugout, didn't have family and died young.)
It felt natural to float interior appointments in exterior landscape: consequently all day long I painted two white chairs (similar to the white chairs in my Beverly Glen house, the ones with the holes in the arm rests) suspended over forested canyon.
All day it has been frigidly cold and intermittently raining. I'm going on my eleventh hour in the studio (will walk in the dark again.) I keep thinking about a place I visited yesterday, the Spirit Garden in Loma Vista. (Loma Vista, Big Sur, is a bakery, a gallery or two, the Spirit Garden and a Shell station) The Spirit Garden sells succulents, windchimes and statuary, with intensely creative presentation. Colorful glazed ceramic heads hang like Christmas balls from a turquoise painted tree. There is a ladder made from cut branches that lead up to a giant man-made nest, hickory branches intertwine to create an elegant see-through cocoon, inside which are pillows to sit on. I want to live in a place that values this kind of artistic aesthetic and whimsy. (My next door neighbor in Los Angeles is the antithesis. Eschewing building codes and consideration of privacy, he stealthly tripled the size of his house. To add insult to injury, he landscaped with astroturf and planted it with Rubbermaid sheds and plastic Playskool houses.)
I'm on the twelfth hour in the studio and I'm hearing some creature make noises I've not heard in here before. A creature with wings. Hope you are all well and still with me..because
WE are putting on our caps and parkas and walking down the road now. Love, S.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread... Day 19
Thanksgiving down. In the next forty days: Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year, a blitzkrieg of temptation, consumption and debt. I'm reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau, a strangely appropriate read if you're living alone on a mountaintop. I'd love to hear Thoreau sound off on the commercialization of Christmas. Returning to Big Sur from Los Angeles this weekend, I found it astonishing how many vacant lots had suddenly sprouted Xmas trees, inflated Santas and Frosty snowmen. Some of the lots still had pumpkins in them.
Today is Sunday, and the beginning of the last half of the Big Sur artist residency. I reacquainted myself with the studio, trying to remember where I put everything earlier this week. Then I swept the slate floors, made some coffee, and decided to take advantage of the currently dry weather and drive down to an Arts and Crafts Fair at a place called Grange Hall in Big Sur. Rain was forecast for tonight, but started shortly after I got to the fair.
(Uh oh. Tell me that's not thunder I'm hearing. It's raining hard right now. The horses are in the stable tonight and one of them doesn't like it. Keeps whinnying, loudly. I'm going to have to walk back to the guest house in the rain. I was feeling quite brave when I walked up here earler. But throw thunder into the equation...I don't like thunder. What would Thoreau do? (haven't read what he thinks of Nature yet...he's still bragging about having built his entire house by hand for $28.50. I'll skip ahead.....any experience with thunder?)
Back to the Fair, total flashback to the Sixties. In a clearing in the woods down by the river: beads and wooden bowls, hand blown glass, knit caps and velvet shirts, incense, little towhead children wearing tie-dye, dancing, hickory wood rocking chairs. A part of this fair supports a local school. Two young girls from the school played violin for something billed as a "cakewalk." They needed ten people for this "cakewalk" and I paid $5.00 to participate. Essentially we walked in a circle on fabricated stones that read: courage, happiness, kindness, love...you get the drift. When the music stopped a child reached in a basket, read the word "courage" and the lady on the stone next to me walked away with a carrot cake. (I was standing on the stone that said "sucker!! just kidding) Afterward I went to the world renowned Big Sur Bakery, bought a fresh baked loaf of Asiago (cheese) bread and explored the "Spirit Garden" behind the bakery. Maybe next Sunday I'll attend a drum circle there. One last stop at the Phoenix gallery and bookstore, where I got a map for future outings and heard about something "locals" do. If you call ahead to Esalen, the famous clothing-optional Institute, after 1:00 a.m. it's a custom to go soak in their hot baths along the cliff, under the stars. Apparently, I was told, it's especially cool to do it on rainy nights. I stopped in at Tom and Erin's, leaving too soon to wend my way back up the coast wet and dark. Tonight it's warm in the studio, I'm painting and writing and listening to rain (no thunder.) Life is good. Very good.
p.s. I ate half a loaf of the most delicious bread tonight and don't regret it. However, you will not see this gut at a hot tub any time soon.
Today is Sunday, and the beginning of the last half of the Big Sur artist residency. I reacquainted myself with the studio, trying to remember where I put everything earlier this week. Then I swept the slate floors, made some coffee, and decided to take advantage of the currently dry weather and drive down to an Arts and Crafts Fair at a place called Grange Hall in Big Sur. Rain was forecast for tonight, but started shortly after I got to the fair.
(Uh oh. Tell me that's not thunder I'm hearing. It's raining hard right now. The horses are in the stable tonight and one of them doesn't like it. Keeps whinnying, loudly. I'm going to have to walk back to the guest house in the rain. I was feeling quite brave when I walked up here earler. But throw thunder into the equation...I don't like thunder. What would Thoreau do? (haven't read what he thinks of Nature yet...he's still bragging about having built his entire house by hand for $28.50. I'll skip ahead.....any experience with thunder?)
Back to the Fair, total flashback to the Sixties. In a clearing in the woods down by the river: beads and wooden bowls, hand blown glass, knit caps and velvet shirts, incense, little towhead children wearing tie-dye, dancing, hickory wood rocking chairs. A part of this fair supports a local school. Two young girls from the school played violin for something billed as a "cakewalk." They needed ten people for this "cakewalk" and I paid $5.00 to participate. Essentially we walked in a circle on fabricated stones that read: courage, happiness, kindness, love...you get the drift. When the music stopped a child reached in a basket, read the word "courage" and the lady on the stone next to me walked away with a carrot cake. (I was standing on the stone that said "sucker!! just kidding) Afterward I went to the world renowned Big Sur Bakery, bought a fresh baked loaf of Asiago (cheese) bread and explored the "Spirit Garden" behind the bakery. Maybe next Sunday I'll attend a drum circle there. One last stop at the Phoenix gallery and bookstore, where I got a map for future outings and heard about something "locals" do. If you call ahead to Esalen, the famous clothing-optional Institute, after 1:00 a.m. it's a custom to go soak in their hot baths along the cliff, under the stars. Apparently, I was told, it's especially cool to do it on rainy nights. I stopped in at Tom and Erin's, leaving too soon to wend my way back up the coast wet and dark. Tonight it's warm in the studio, I'm painting and writing and listening to rain (no thunder.) Life is good. Very good.
p.s. I ate half a loaf of the most delicious bread tonight and don't regret it. However, you will not see this gut at a hot tub any time soon.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Day 14
Around 6:30 this morning, I startled awake. Normally, wild horses couldn't move me at this hour. Behind my bed, the window drew my attention. The sky was glowing orange. Orange orange! I grabbed my camera and ran outside into the dark. The source of color was the sunrise. Honestly I've never seen a more explosive pallette of color, almost unnatural.
Threw some dirty laundry in a bag and headed south on Highway 1, stopping for coffee near Ventana. As I was leaving I grabbed the weekly newspaper, The Carmel Pine Cone. On page 8, an article headed, "Artist Gets Respite from Traffic, Smog. Chris Counts pretty much got it right. It opens with this paragraph, "Conservation groups are usually only concerned with saving plants and animals. But the Big Sur Land Trust has teamed up with the Big Sur Arts Initiative to create a pilot program to help preserve one of the regions most endangered human species: the artist. "..."I'm the guinea pig," admitted Thacker...."
Drove down the coast stopping about twenty times (conservative estimate) to take pictures, and it was foggy most of the way. The California coast from San Luis Obispo north is as rugged and treacherous as it is beautiful to drive. The views from that twisting, turning road are utterly compelling. It would be easy to miss the rock slide ahead or to notice an oncoming passing car when you're focused on Ragged Rock or Jade Cove. So happy to drive it alone though. I feel certain any passenger would have complained of car sickness. Listened to these tapes: Tom Petty and an audio tape by one of my heroes, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi about creative Flow.
Around Isla Vista traffic slowed to a crawl and stayed that way all the way home. Home. Home. While it's good to be home, when I close my eyes, I'm still in Big Sur. It is uniquely wonderful knowing I will return by the week's end. For now, I'm wiped. Going to sleep.
Threw some dirty laundry in a bag and headed south on Highway 1, stopping for coffee near Ventana. As I was leaving I grabbed the weekly newspaper, The Carmel Pine Cone. On page 8, an article headed, "Artist Gets Respite from Traffic, Smog. Chris Counts pretty much got it right. It opens with this paragraph, "Conservation groups are usually only concerned with saving plants and animals. But the Big Sur Land Trust has teamed up with the Big Sur Arts Initiative to create a pilot program to help preserve one of the regions most endangered human species: the artist. "..."I'm the guinea pig," admitted Thacker...."
Drove down the coast stopping about twenty times (conservative estimate) to take pictures, and it was foggy most of the way. The California coast from San Luis Obispo north is as rugged and treacherous as it is beautiful to drive. The views from that twisting, turning road are utterly compelling. It would be easy to miss the rock slide ahead or to notice an oncoming passing car when you're focused on Ragged Rock or Jade Cove. So happy to drive it alone though. I feel certain any passenger would have complained of car sickness. Listened to these tapes: Tom Petty and an audio tape by one of my heroes, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi about creative Flow.
Around Isla Vista traffic slowed to a crawl and stayed that way all the way home. Home. Home. While it's good to be home, when I close my eyes, I'm still in Big Sur. It is uniquely wonderful knowing I will return by the week's end. For now, I'm wiped. Going to sleep.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Day 13
I've been thinking.
On the First Day, God gave light to Heaven and Earth....On the Second Day, he watered, the Third Day is apparently debatable whether he forged Adam or made grass, fruit trees and land....
Much of the world still holds uncontestable these records of Genesis. Far be it for me to state otherwise, but today, once again in awe of "my mountain," I started thinking about how many discoveries and inventions have affected our perception of life in the last century: human genome mapping, carbon dating, computers and the notion of virtual reality, accessability to global information. Yet, I'm not sure the world will be, in the future, any better for this progress. It is as if our discoveries, while taking us farther into space and deeper into our own biology, have left us less conscious of the planet.
From many vantage points Big Sur looks just as it might have a hundred years ago. Redwood forest, streams, ungraffitied rock and roiling sea. Your eye travels upward to the heavens; lo and behold, the sky is streaked by contrails off jet planes.
On the Fourth Day, God made the sun, the moon and the stars, followed by the creation of fish, fowl and whales the next day. Day Six he made beasts, cattle, every creeping thing including men and women......
Tomorrow I will be driving back to Los Angeles for a few days to be with my family for Thanksgiving. I will be taxing the world's natural resources about one tank full (but it beats walking.) I will probably pollute myself with the chemicals of fast food, and I will regret it. But I will be thinking about a video I saw today called the Eagle and the Condor, produced by the non-profit organization called Pachamama Alliance. The music under this documentary took me immediately back to Social Studies, when we had an "audio-visual" and the classroom lights dimmed. We'd lay our heads on folded arms and fall asleep. IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP. The messages in this film are riveting. Watch it before Thanksgiving. http://www.pachamama.org/video/index.htm
On the Seventh Day, God rested.... (You've got to wonder what God would do...on the Thirteenth Day.)
On the First Day, God gave light to Heaven and Earth....On the Second Day, he watered, the Third Day is apparently debatable whether he forged Adam or made grass, fruit trees and land....
Much of the world still holds uncontestable these records of Genesis. Far be it for me to state otherwise, but today, once again in awe of "my mountain," I started thinking about how many discoveries and inventions have affected our perception of life in the last century: human genome mapping, carbon dating, computers and the notion of virtual reality, accessability to global information. Yet, I'm not sure the world will be, in the future, any better for this progress. It is as if our discoveries, while taking us farther into space and deeper into our own biology, have left us less conscious of the planet.
From many vantage points Big Sur looks just as it might have a hundred years ago. Redwood forest, streams, ungraffitied rock and roiling sea. Your eye travels upward to the heavens; lo and behold, the sky is streaked by contrails off jet planes.
On the Fourth Day, God made the sun, the moon and the stars, followed by the creation of fish, fowl and whales the next day. Day Six he made beasts, cattle, every creeping thing including men and women......
Tomorrow I will be driving back to Los Angeles for a few days to be with my family for Thanksgiving. I will be taxing the world's natural resources about one tank full (but it beats walking.) I will probably pollute myself with the chemicals of fast food, and I will regret it. But I will be thinking about a video I saw today called the Eagle and the Condor, produced by the non-profit organization called Pachamama Alliance. The music under this documentary took me immediately back to Social Studies, when we had an "audio-visual" and the classroom lights dimmed. We'd lay our heads on folded arms and fall asleep. IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP. The messages in this film are riveting. Watch it before Thanksgiving. http://www.pachamama.org/video/index.htm
On the Seventh Day, God rested.... (You've got to wonder what God would do...on the Thirteenth Day.)
Days 11 & 12
My Saturday began at 4 a.m. I woke to go to the bathroom and decided instead of returning to bed, I'll go outside and look at the sky. This weekend held the potential to view the Leonid meteor shower. I love shooting stars. I admit I felt slightly self-conscious standing there in a nightgown, neck craned upward, scanning the constellations, because for the first time since I've been here, there were guests in the main house, presumably sleeping- an authority on weeds, and her husband. Just when I was about to give up and go inside, I saw a whopper and then a couple more. It was getting light when I finally went to sleep, satisfied, and slightly crippled from looking up so long.
Saturday afternoon I left Big Sur for Sand City and civilization. (If that's what you want to call Costco, Starbucks and Borders book store.) Got photos developed, hard evidence that Big Sur IS the most beautiful place on earth. Bought a book about the history of Carmel and you know what I got at Starbucks. Afterward I wanted to go to a reception for artist/photographer Kim Weston. I met him and his wife Gina (subject/model of much of his work) at Nepenthe last week. But I couldn't find the gallery. Kim is son of Cole Weston, grandson of Edward Weston (proof positive that the eye for photography is genetic, all puns intended.)
Sand City is a strange place. I think it used to be Ft. Ord. What's not a warehouse, car lot or sand dune, is a resting place of many, very large seagulls. They line the telephone poles, street lights and rooftops. Periodically, they take flight in huge swooping arcs, the sight of which would be poetic, were it not for the voluminous bird shit falling from the sky. I thought someone had pressed a giant pansy on my windshield. (Sorry Westons, I'll try to visit the show before it closes.) Later I was commenting on this to Erin Gafill who informs me "you don't know shit until a condor poops on your car. It covers the vehicle from the front to the back bumper."
Arrived at my friend, Judy's house just as the sun was preparing to set over Carmel Beach below. Orange, magenta, scarlet and purple sky framed by Cypress trees, Monterey pine and stone cherubs.
Sunday morning's highlight was the art lesson I gave to Judy and Mrs. Murray when they returned from Mass. It was how to mix gray and beige tones, and to neutralize colors. Returned to Big Sur, which is beginning to feel like home, painted, wrote this (twice...internet disconnected before I'd saved the first version) and now, I'm going down the hill to go to sleep.
Saturday afternoon I left Big Sur for Sand City and civilization. (If that's what you want to call Costco, Starbucks and Borders book store.) Got photos developed, hard evidence that Big Sur IS the most beautiful place on earth. Bought a book about the history of Carmel and you know what I got at Starbucks. Afterward I wanted to go to a reception for artist/photographer Kim Weston. I met him and his wife Gina (subject/model of much of his work) at Nepenthe last week. But I couldn't find the gallery. Kim is son of Cole Weston, grandson of Edward Weston (proof positive that the eye for photography is genetic, all puns intended.)
Sand City is a strange place. I think it used to be Ft. Ord. What's not a warehouse, car lot or sand dune, is a resting place of many, very large seagulls. They line the telephone poles, street lights and rooftops. Periodically, they take flight in huge swooping arcs, the sight of which would be poetic, were it not for the voluminous bird shit falling from the sky. I thought someone had pressed a giant pansy on my windshield. (Sorry Westons, I'll try to visit the show before it closes.) Later I was commenting on this to Erin Gafill who informs me "you don't know shit until a condor poops on your car. It covers the vehicle from the front to the back bumper."
Arrived at my friend, Judy's house just as the sun was preparing to set over Carmel Beach below. Orange, magenta, scarlet and purple sky framed by Cypress trees, Monterey pine and stone cherubs.
Sunday morning's highlight was the art lesson I gave to Judy and Mrs. Murray when they returned from Mass. It was how to mix gray and beige tones, and to neutralize colors. Returned to Big Sur, which is beginning to feel like home, painted, wrote this (twice...internet disconnected before I'd saved the first version) and now, I'm going down the hill to go to sleep.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Day 10
Drove south to Nepenthe this afternoon, only stopping five or six times to photograph the view. I saw two hitchhikers in front of the River Inn with a guitar, dog and red bandana-wrapped dreds, thumbing in vain. In the 60's, it was a common sight.
I've been having difficulty sending email and photographs so enlisted the expertise of Tom Birmingham at Studio One in Big Sur. We've been led to believe that technology saves time, but I have my personal doubts. While burning a cd of recent photos (which you still can't see because my computer is an asshole!) I spent an hour visiting with my friend Erin Gafill (Tom's wife and a wonderful artist) in the historic cabin they live in above Nepenthe.
There are certain houses that have personalities of their own and this one has several. It was on the property when Erin's grandfather built Nepenthe. It was mentioned in the Henry Miller book about Big Sur, because he lived in it when he first moved here as a guest of a writer named Lynda Sargent. Erin grew up in this small cabin with her brother, her cousins, her uncle all under the watchful eye of her grandmother. And when her grandmother died, Erin's own family took up residence. This house is filled with art: Erin's, Tom's photography, their children's art, Erin's uncle Kaffe Fassett's and the modernist paintings of her great grandmother (or is it great great? in either case, the art is great.) This afternoon while we visited, Erin was doing laundry which she put outside to dry on a line in the garden. There is something timeless about Erin, and the vision of the sheets airing in the wind exemplify this quality. Every square foot of the cabin is a vignette. The most ordinary objects look artfully arranged and lit like a Vermeer painting. Finally, you look out the windows and the colorful string of carnival lights above the Nepenthe patio recall every film ever shot on location in Big Sur.
When I drove north to return to Palo Colorado, six hours later, the same hitchhikers were still in front of the River Inn.
I've been having difficulty sending email and photographs so enlisted the expertise of Tom Birmingham at Studio One in Big Sur. We've been led to believe that technology saves time, but I have my personal doubts. While burning a cd of recent photos (which you still can't see because my computer is an asshole!) I spent an hour visiting with my friend Erin Gafill (Tom's wife and a wonderful artist) in the historic cabin they live in above Nepenthe.
There are certain houses that have personalities of their own and this one has several. It was on the property when Erin's grandfather built Nepenthe. It was mentioned in the Henry Miller book about Big Sur, because he lived in it when he first moved here as a guest of a writer named Lynda Sargent. Erin grew up in this small cabin with her brother, her cousins, her uncle all under the watchful eye of her grandmother. And when her grandmother died, Erin's own family took up residence. This house is filled with art: Erin's, Tom's photography, their children's art, Erin's uncle Kaffe Fassett's and the modernist paintings of her great grandmother (or is it great great? in either case, the art is great.) This afternoon while we visited, Erin was doing laundry which she put outside to dry on a line in the garden. There is something timeless about Erin, and the vision of the sheets airing in the wind exemplify this quality. Every square foot of the cabin is a vignette. The most ordinary objects look artfully arranged and lit like a Vermeer painting. Finally, you look out the windows and the colorful string of carnival lights above the Nepenthe patio recall every film ever shot on location in Big Sur.
When I drove north to return to Palo Colorado, six hours later, the same hitchhikers were still in front of the River Inn.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Day 9 in Big Sur- Stars at Eye Level
This morning spoke with a writer from The Carmel Pine Cone newspaper, Chris Counts. He's preparing an article about the residency. After the interview I checked my email to find that nobody could read my last two journal posts nor view any photographs.
Computer frustration feels the same, whether you're wasting your time in L.A., Big Sur, or Kalamazoo. Consequently, I've dedicated the entire day to setting up a new system for sending journal entries: a "blog" for my website, something I've been intending to do all year. Hopefully time spent today will mean less hassle tomorrow. My internet connection kept quitting so each time I reconnected, I was again regaled with the pressing news about Tom-Kat's wedding and Britney's divorce. Is our government planting this gossip to avert attention from real issues? Or scarier, do people really care?
I took a walk this afternoon to the edge of Garrapata Ridge, this time with a camera and some water colors. I sat on one of the zen benches along the bluff, dedicated to a Land Trust donor. (So much cooler than a headstone or even a statue.) Down the coast, the infamous black rock formations that protrude from the deep, splinter waves into formidable explosions. You can hear the sound from miles away.
Back at the studio I'm entertained by the daily light display. The shadow cast by the ridge my house is on, crawls up the side of the mountain to the east. As the sunset intensifies, the top edge of this creeping shadow looks like Spanish lace, and then just before dissappearing the lace begins to grow legs, morphing into a line of great stone soldiers. And then they're gone. (Can't even imagine what I'll be seeing one month from now.)
One last observation from Big Sur. The moonless night sky is so illuminated by stars, galaxies and constellations it looks like granite, glowing. And.... from where I stand, late at night, looking west toward the ocean, I can see stars at eye level. Need I say more?
P.S. Jade, I'm so sorry I'm missing your Cal Arts photography show.
Computer frustration feels the same, whether you're wasting your time in L.A., Big Sur, or Kalamazoo. Consequently, I've dedicated the entire day to setting up a new system for sending journal entries: a "blog" for my website, something I've been intending to do all year. Hopefully time spent today will mean less hassle tomorrow. My internet connection kept quitting so each time I reconnected, I was again regaled with the pressing news about Tom-Kat's wedding and Britney's divorce. Is our government planting this gossip to avert attention from real issues? Or scarier, do people really care?
I took a walk this afternoon to the edge of Garrapata Ridge, this time with a camera and some water colors. I sat on one of the zen benches along the bluff, dedicated to a Land Trust donor. (So much cooler than a headstone or even a statue.) Down the coast, the infamous black rock formations that protrude from the deep, splinter waves into formidable explosions. You can hear the sound from miles away.
Back at the studio I'm entertained by the daily light display. The shadow cast by the ridge my house is on, crawls up the side of the mountain to the east. As the sunset intensifies, the top edge of this creeping shadow looks like Spanish lace, and then just before dissappearing the lace begins to grow legs, morphing into a line of great stone soldiers. And then they're gone. (Can't even imagine what I'll be seeing one month from now.)
One last observation from Big Sur. The moonless night sky is so illuminated by stars, galaxies and constellations it looks like granite, glowing. And.... from where I stand, late at night, looking west toward the ocean, I can see stars at eye level. Need I say more?
P.S. Jade, I'm so sorry I'm missing your Cal Arts photography show.
Introduction to Big Sur Land Trust
About Me (written in September 2006, to convince the BSLT to consider ME for a trial guest artist residency on the Glen Deven property in Palo Colorado Canyon.
With the exception of one special year living in Rome, I have always resided in Los Angeles. As cities go, L.A. is complex, diverse, colorful, edgy and sometimes dysfunctional. It attracts people from every corner of the earth to put down roots in a shaky foundation and houses expand like fungus across hills and valleys, straight into the desert floor. To live here is to negotiate with noise, navigate traffic, ignore the politics of celebrity and try to find zen in the stop and go of it all. All of this shows up in my paintings. With so much of life lived at 65 miles per hour, painting is a conscious effort to still time, to stop the moment and smell the roses. Sometimes the roses stink. Sometimes they meet your senses like an aphrodisiac.
This love/ hate relationship with Los Angeles has remained manageable for one reason. In my imagination, I’ve lived in Big Sur since first visiting there at the age of fourteen. I used to sketch a dream house with a living room that contained all the trappings for art making: easel and paint, loom, musical instruments. My imaginary house of wood and glass was situated In the light diffusing shade of redwoods, ironically in Palo Colorado.
In reality, I built a similar house in Beverly Glen Canyon in Los Angeles. I married a musician and raised three children, all of whom I am very proud. I developed as an artist while concurrently teaching art to children (and later adults). Within the last year, I’ve shown my paintings in three venues, two group shows and one solo, all of them in Northern California.
That I’m presently appealing to be the first Big Sur Artist Resident both amazes me and doesn’t surprise me. Artists put (sometimes undue) trust in imagination, instinct and the ability to listen to one’s own voice. But occasionally there will be signs, real life coincidences that confirm your course.
Last year, on an art excursion throughout Italy, I befriended Erin Gafill and Tom Birmingham. For a thousand reasons, which you already probably know, Erin and Tom have both become important and cherished friends to me. Their commitment to community, creativity, family and especially, the Big Sur Arts Initiative mirrors my own experiences founding art programs for children in Los Angeles. Our personal understanding of struggles particular to “working” artists has only deepened our friendship. It was a casual conversation with Erin in July that sparked the possibility of making a Big Sur Artist residency a reality.
I’ve been recently reflecting on the long list of artists who found their way to Big Sur, then took the images and spirit they found there back out to the world. It is a lifelong dream of mine to add my name to that list.
With the exception of one special year living in Rome, I have always resided in Los Angeles. As cities go, L.A. is complex, diverse, colorful, edgy and sometimes dysfunctional. It attracts people from every corner of the earth to put down roots in a shaky foundation and houses expand like fungus across hills and valleys, straight into the desert floor. To live here is to negotiate with noise, navigate traffic, ignore the politics of celebrity and try to find zen in the stop and go of it all. All of this shows up in my paintings. With so much of life lived at 65 miles per hour, painting is a conscious effort to still time, to stop the moment and smell the roses. Sometimes the roses stink. Sometimes they meet your senses like an aphrodisiac.
This love/ hate relationship with Los Angeles has remained manageable for one reason. In my imagination, I’ve lived in Big Sur since first visiting there at the age of fourteen. I used to sketch a dream house with a living room that contained all the trappings for art making: easel and paint, loom, musical instruments. My imaginary house of wood and glass was situated In the light diffusing shade of redwoods, ironically in Palo Colorado.
In reality, I built a similar house in Beverly Glen Canyon in Los Angeles. I married a musician and raised three children, all of whom I am very proud. I developed as an artist while concurrently teaching art to children (and later adults). Within the last year, I’ve shown my paintings in three venues, two group shows and one solo, all of them in Northern California.
That I’m presently appealing to be the first Big Sur Artist Resident both amazes me and doesn’t surprise me. Artists put (sometimes undue) trust in imagination, instinct and the ability to listen to one’s own voice. But occasionally there will be signs, real life coincidences that confirm your course.
Last year, on an art excursion throughout Italy, I befriended Erin Gafill and Tom Birmingham. For a thousand reasons, which you already probably know, Erin and Tom have both become important and cherished friends to me. Their commitment to community, creativity, family and especially, the Big Sur Arts Initiative mirrors my own experiences founding art programs for children in Los Angeles. Our personal understanding of struggles particular to “working” artists has only deepened our friendship. It was a casual conversation with Erin in July that sparked the possibility of making a Big Sur Artist residency a reality.
I’ve been recently reflecting on the long list of artists who found their way to Big Sur, then took the images and spirit they found there back out to the world. It is a lifelong dream of mine to add my name to that list.
Big Sur Days 7 & 8
Big Sur Artist Residency
There is a particular quality to sound when you live in a canyon. Having lived in Beverly Glen (where, strangely, Henry Miller lived his first year in California before discovering Big Sur) I have often marvelled at how the flow of traffic is faintly reminiscent of a raging river, and on rare occasions, a burbling brook. Maybe because, acoustically, sound gets cradled by the canyon walls, instead of being thrown out into the abyss (like at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevard), you grow to know canyon noise intimately. Many nights from my balcony over Beverly Glen, I’ve wondered about the colony of crickets who keep the same tempo. How can a million summer crickets stay the beat (there are always an errant few, if you listen hard.) Or is it that their cricket racket is only the product of two enormous mother crickets, one on this side of the street, one on the other? On certain occasions, the canyon is very still. Sunday nights particularly, you can hear a pin drop. But, let’s say it is quiet on a Thursday afternoon, I go to my balcony sentinel and can determine by the traffic flow whether or not, there’s been a bad accident down the road, like a fallen boulder blocking the stream.
In Big Sur, on the deck that wraps the studio, I sit in the morning sun and count sounds. The chirping of birds, crows calling orders, the wind rustling tree tops and whooshing up the canyon from the ocean, sounds of the wood rearranging as the breeze dries last night’s rain, my heart beating, the sound of my breath. 7 sounds.
Yesterday the rain began at dawn and did not stop until after I’d gone to sleep. While it could have been nice to stay in bed all day, reading and admiring the paper white narcissus bulbs that Erin brought me when I arrived in Big Sur, I am admittedly like Pavlov’s dog. The coffee being up the hill in the studio, I will brave all elements to attain it. I safely navigated my car across the part of the road that is chipping away.
Had the best day. Painted, played, ate pumpkin cookies left over from the weekend picnic, listened to Queen. Bicycle, bicycle...”fat- bottomed girls, you make the rocking world go round.”
By late Monday afternoon, I had a dilemna: the road down to the guesthouse where I sleep would be too muddy to traverse. Having been assured by Jim Cox earlier that I’d likely not encounter any dangerous animals if I walked on foot (the fox he’d just seen "shouldnt be anything to worry about," he said), at eleven o'clock, I bundled up and stepped out into the rainy black night. My little flashlight would have better suited a chore like finding keys in Paris Hilton’s handbag,illuminating a circle maybe five feet in front of me. I thought of Jack Kerouac's book, Big Sur, how he hiked that immortalized trek from Monterey along Highway One, a flashlight taped to his hat, not knowing if his next step would land him in the Pacific. At least I was sober. To defend myself against the Twilight Zone thoughts, I instinctively began counting steps as I splashed left right left right into the pitch night. 549 steps from the studio to the guesthouse. After a hot shower I realized I hadn’t experienced that particular brand of thrill since I was a kid.
This morning I recounted the adventure to Jim, the caretaker here at Glen Deven. It earned me my first "city chick" facial expression. Then he told me about the deer-slaying mountain lions who like to sunbathe in eucalyptus trees, the PG&E guy who refused to service the property after encountering one, but now comes dressed like he was going to war.
This afternoon (Tuesday) I met and dined with the Board of Trustees of the Big Sur Land Trust. Many seemed unaware of this pilot residency. I was more than happy to tell them what a gift this time and space is to artists (me in particular!), to thank them and encourage them to include the arts when supporting “things endangered.” One of the most interesting things I heard today is that they just closed escrow on a property I think they called Bald Eagle Mountain, named for the two American Bald Eagles who together have spawned 24 offspring (hope I have those facts right.) Once again, as with the gathering of Big Sur artists, there were so many people who I’d like to know better. The woman I sat next to at lunch, Jean Grace is a professor of geology. She gave me the title of a book I want to read: The Assembling of California, by John McPhee, said to be one of the liveliest writers about earth sciences. You can not look out my window and not wonder about these things.
Now, if I’m going to paint, I had better stop writing. Until next time, you are all with me. Love Susan
There is a particular quality to sound when you live in a canyon. Having lived in Beverly Glen (where, strangely, Henry Miller lived his first year in California before discovering Big Sur) I have often marvelled at how the flow of traffic is faintly reminiscent of a raging river, and on rare occasions, a burbling brook. Maybe because, acoustically, sound gets cradled by the canyon walls, instead of being thrown out into the abyss (like at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevard), you grow to know canyon noise intimately. Many nights from my balcony over Beverly Glen, I’ve wondered about the colony of crickets who keep the same tempo. How can a million summer crickets stay the beat (there are always an errant few, if you listen hard.) Or is it that their cricket racket is only the product of two enormous mother crickets, one on this side of the street, one on the other? On certain occasions, the canyon is very still. Sunday nights particularly, you can hear a pin drop. But, let’s say it is quiet on a Thursday afternoon, I go to my balcony sentinel and can determine by the traffic flow whether or not, there’s been a bad accident down the road, like a fallen boulder blocking the stream.
In Big Sur, on the deck that wraps the studio, I sit in the morning sun and count sounds. The chirping of birds, crows calling orders, the wind rustling tree tops and whooshing up the canyon from the ocean, sounds of the wood rearranging as the breeze dries last night’s rain, my heart beating, the sound of my breath. 7 sounds.
Yesterday the rain began at dawn and did not stop until after I’d gone to sleep. While it could have been nice to stay in bed all day, reading and admiring the paper white narcissus bulbs that Erin brought me when I arrived in Big Sur, I am admittedly like Pavlov’s dog. The coffee being up the hill in the studio, I will brave all elements to attain it. I safely navigated my car across the part of the road that is chipping away.
Had the best day. Painted, played, ate pumpkin cookies left over from the weekend picnic, listened to Queen. Bicycle, bicycle...”fat- bottomed girls, you make the rocking world go round.”
By late Monday afternoon, I had a dilemna: the road down to the guesthouse where I sleep would be too muddy to traverse. Having been assured by Jim Cox earlier that I’d likely not encounter any dangerous animals if I walked on foot (the fox he’d just seen "shouldnt be anything to worry about," he said), at eleven o'clock, I bundled up and stepped out into the rainy black night. My little flashlight would have better suited a chore like finding keys in Paris Hilton’s handbag,illuminating a circle maybe five feet in front of me. I thought of Jack Kerouac's book, Big Sur, how he hiked that immortalized trek from Monterey along Highway One, a flashlight taped to his hat, not knowing if his next step would land him in the Pacific. At least I was sober. To defend myself against the Twilight Zone thoughts, I instinctively began counting steps as I splashed left right left right into the pitch night. 549 steps from the studio to the guesthouse. After a hot shower I realized I hadn’t experienced that particular brand of thrill since I was a kid.
This morning I recounted the adventure to Jim, the caretaker here at Glen Deven. It earned me my first "city chick" facial expression. Then he told me about the deer-slaying mountain lions who like to sunbathe in eucalyptus trees, the PG&E guy who refused to service the property after encountering one, but now comes dressed like he was going to war.
This afternoon (Tuesday) I met and dined with the Board of Trustees of the Big Sur Land Trust. Many seemed unaware of this pilot residency. I was more than happy to tell them what a gift this time and space is to artists (me in particular!), to thank them and encourage them to include the arts when supporting “things endangered.” One of the most interesting things I heard today is that they just closed escrow on a property I think they called Bald Eagle Mountain, named for the two American Bald Eagles who together have spawned 24 offspring (hope I have those facts right.) Once again, as with the gathering of Big Sur artists, there were so many people who I’d like to know better. The woman I sat next to at lunch, Jean Grace is a professor of geology. She gave me the title of a book I want to read: The Assembling of California, by John McPhee, said to be one of the liveliest writers about earth sciences. You can not look out my window and not wonder about these things.
Now, if I’m going to paint, I had better stop writing. Until next time, you are all with me. Love Susan
Big Sur Day 6
Awoke this morning with a Bob Dylan song in my head: she's got everything
she needs, she's an artist she don't look back.
Company arrived at Glen Deven around eleven for a picnic. Judy Murray
Allrich, my friend since 8th grade at Marymount School in Rome, brought four
dear friends from her high school days at Santa Catalina in Carmel: Ellie,
Cara, Dusty and Liz. Through Judy, I've heard regular updates on their
lives, but hadn't seen these girls in forty years. To give still another
example of the magic and coincidence in my life lately, one of these friends
is Liz Mudd, whose parents built Glen Deven. She was married here and had
not visited since her father died six years ago. It was wonderful to hear
her stories and more wonderful that I could be the catalyst for her to
revisit the house and those memories.
O.K. Picture this picnic. On an exquisitely crisp fall day in Big Sur, we
pull chairs up to a round wooden table by the pool. This pool is lined in
river rock with foliage growing between the stones, so it feels like we're
about to dine beside a pond. Before I know it, the table is set with
placemats, Italian terracotta plates, silverware and crystal. Ellie has
brought home-brewed ginger ale, to which we add a splash of pomegranate
juice and a lime wedge. If you didn't love the taste of it, you would
certainly love the look. Cara, whose family used to own the Meditteranean
Market in Carmel (where Judy and I used to go for cheeses and Italian salami
when we were teenagers and needed our Rome fix) is now a caterer and our
picnic included scampi and roasted chicken, fresh baked bread, beet salad
and coleslaw. After lunch we walked to the studio via a shortcut that Liz
knew, straight across the horse corral. It cut fifteen minutes off my usual
trek, but the downside is that my Ugg boots will never be the same.
A wonderful visit in the studio. I showed them a slideshow of the Halloween
Ball I crashed at Cal Arts. Thanks to the costume, wig and mask, I was
so camouflaged my own daughter did not detect me. In the middle of
boasting how I'd boldly gone where no mother dare tread, Cara noticed a
postcard on my desk. It was the invitation to the potluck gathering of
artists at Nepenthe today. I had been under the impression the party
started at 4 p.m. Cara read aloud..."A welcome reception for visiting artist
Susan Thacker....3 - 5 pm." That would be....in ten minutes.
I did not change the jeans or sweatshirt I've worn for three days. I did not change
the manure encrusted boots. I flew directly down to Big Sur, at every curve
lamenting my life long history of being late. It all started when I was
born on the Fourth of July, two days after the expected due date. (My father
was born on July 2nd, and his father was born on July 2nd. To this day, if
I am ten minutes late anywhere, it takes Dad back to that initial
dissappointment and totally ticks him off.)
But one doesn't want to be late if you're the Guest of Honor. I pulled up
the driveway to Tom and Erin's log cabin, whose windows look out onto the
famous Nepenthe patio and the vast Pacific Ocean. About 25 local artists
and friends from Big Sur, Carmel and Pacific Grove came, bringing potluck
and some of their work to share with me. Beside the convivial spirit this
log cabin engenders each time I've come, (every visitor is a "guest of
honor"), it was a privilege to meet these artists, all of whom I hope to see
again. We are talking fine artists of such range to include photographers,
abstract painters, plein air, conceptual artists, muralist, mosaic artist,
even a culinary artist, a couple gallery owners, art collectors, damn nice
people. I genuinely felt welcomed by good company. (If you read this, Tom,
Jill and Erin: thank you so much!!)
Driving north at night on Highway One is taxing. There are no lights
whatsoever save the few oncoming headlights that blind. A glance in the
rearview mirror is one of the blackest sights you'll ever see. So I will go
to sleep tonight with the same song I woke up with in my head: she's got
everything she needs she's an artist she don't look back.
(p.s. To my family, please don't worry. I promise I will return!)
Signing off. You are all with me, Love Susan
she needs, she's an artist she don't look back.
Company arrived at Glen Deven around eleven for a picnic. Judy Murray
Allrich, my friend since 8th grade at Marymount School in Rome, brought four
dear friends from her high school days at Santa Catalina in Carmel: Ellie,
Cara, Dusty and Liz. Through Judy, I've heard regular updates on their
lives, but hadn't seen these girls in forty years. To give still another
example of the magic and coincidence in my life lately, one of these friends
is Liz Mudd, whose parents built Glen Deven. She was married here and had
not visited since her father died six years ago. It was wonderful to hear
her stories and more wonderful that I could be the catalyst for her to
revisit the house and those memories.
O.K. Picture this picnic. On an exquisitely crisp fall day in Big Sur, we
pull chairs up to a round wooden table by the pool. This pool is lined in
river rock with foliage growing between the stones, so it feels like we're
about to dine beside a pond. Before I know it, the table is set with
placemats, Italian terracotta plates, silverware and crystal. Ellie has
brought home-brewed ginger ale, to which we add a splash of pomegranate
juice and a lime wedge. If you didn't love the taste of it, you would
certainly love the look. Cara, whose family used to own the Meditteranean
Market in Carmel (where Judy and I used to go for cheeses and Italian salami
when we were teenagers and needed our Rome fix) is now a caterer and our
picnic included scampi and roasted chicken, fresh baked bread, beet salad
and coleslaw. After lunch we walked to the studio via a shortcut that Liz
knew, straight across the horse corral. It cut fifteen minutes off my usual
trek, but the downside is that my Ugg boots will never be the same.
A wonderful visit in the studio. I showed them a slideshow of the Halloween
Ball I crashed at Cal Arts. Thanks to the costume, wig and mask, I was
so camouflaged my own daughter did not detect me. In the middle of
boasting how I'd boldly gone where no mother dare tread, Cara noticed a
postcard on my desk. It was the invitation to the potluck gathering of
artists at Nepenthe today. I had been under the impression the party
started at 4 p.m. Cara read aloud..."A welcome reception for visiting artist
Susan Thacker....3 - 5 pm." That would be....in ten minutes.
I did not change the jeans or sweatshirt I've worn for three days. I did not change
the manure encrusted boots. I flew directly down to Big Sur, at every curve
lamenting my life long history of being late. It all started when I was
born on the Fourth of July, two days after the expected due date. (My father
was born on July 2nd, and his father was born on July 2nd. To this day, if
I am ten minutes late anywhere, it takes Dad back to that initial
dissappointment and totally ticks him off.)
But one doesn't want to be late if you're the Guest of Honor. I pulled up
the driveway to Tom and Erin's log cabin, whose windows look out onto the
famous Nepenthe patio and the vast Pacific Ocean. About 25 local artists
and friends from Big Sur, Carmel and Pacific Grove came, bringing potluck
and some of their work to share with me. Beside the convivial spirit this
log cabin engenders each time I've come, (every visitor is a "guest of
honor"), it was a privilege to meet these artists, all of whom I hope to see
again. We are talking fine artists of such range to include photographers,
abstract painters, plein air, conceptual artists, muralist, mosaic artist,
even a culinary artist, a couple gallery owners, art collectors, damn nice
people. I genuinely felt welcomed by good company. (If you read this, Tom,
Jill and Erin: thank you so much!!)
Driving north at night on Highway One is taxing. There are no lights
whatsoever save the few oncoming headlights that blind. A glance in the
rearview mirror is one of the blackest sights you'll ever see. So I will go
to sleep tonight with the same song I woke up with in my head: she's got
everything she needs she's an artist she don't look back.
(p.s. To my family, please don't worry. I promise I will return!)
Signing off. You are all with me, Love Susan
Big Sur Day 5
Awoke this morning to find it was raining, which would explain the luminous circle around the moon last night. Jim Cox, the caretaker at Glen Deven, knocked on my door to advise me not to drive my car on the road leading up to the studio. There could be pockets of mud and already there is a portion of the road where the earth has given way. Just like when we found a bat in the studio, I took this in stride. Despite a light rain, no coffee (kitchen's up the hill) I hiked to the studio. Fog licked the canyon walls and flocks of birds were zigzagging below me. I nodded to the two donkeys and turned the bend toward "the artist retreat cottage", my home for now, spacious, warm and bright. I brewed some French Roast and microwaved oatmeal. (No oven; two burners a microwave and a mini-fridge somewhat limit my menu.) I am quite alone,but not lonely.
No television, occasional radio, only spectacular views to distract me. I remember odd things: Mom teaching me how to handsew on a rainy day like this. I made a doll dress from scraps of Swiss dot organza. Or, I remember sitting on a high wooden post fence, peering into the neighbor's barn as their horse delivered a foal.
I began to paint today, taking the challenge from the mountain range across the canyon, which I have been studying for three days. It has such nuance and form, everchanging color as the clouds move past, as the hours too quickly pass and I don't quite understand it yet. I have deepened respect for plein air painters and artists who capture movement of water and air. I want to tell the birds to stop flying so I can study their wings. For the cloud to roll slower so I can get the color of the mountain right. Is it lighter at the top? Would you say the creekbeds that carve and bisect are purple or umber? Is that wall sage? Why does it read in my head as earthtones, but look more natural on paper in hues of cadmium red, phthalo blue, Hooker's green? I think I am going to float furniture in the painting to memorialize this indoor/outdoor, insider/outsider sense of "home" away from home I'm experiencing.
I drove up the coast to Carmel this afternoon because walking in the woods this morning made me want to have a parka. Found a great one in a thrift shop. Then on to Safeway to buy sushi and water and returned to Big Sur, only stopping twice at turnouts to photograph the view. The camera does not do justice to the palette here. Turquoise waves crashing white into other-worldly black rock formations, pale pink sky, terracotta soil beside a lavendar highway. Turn left up into Palo Colorado canyon, where the road accomodates only one car on some curves. It couldn't be wider as it squeezes between two gargantuan redwood trees. One needs headlights to drive mid-day.
6:15 p.m. The wind is blowing. The horse in the corral not far away is hungry and signals her impatience by stamping a hoof and kicking a bucket. Soon I will hear Jim bringing hay and the three big dogs will come scampering onto my deck. When I opened the door to them last night, the Golden left footprints on the watercolor paper lying on the floor. But everything looks artful in Big Sur.
I can't believe this is my life. Reading Henry Miller today, he writes about the ethereal nature of life here in Big Sur: "Some will say they do not wish to "dream" their lives away...(but) whoever has enjoyed a good dream never complains of having wasted their time." You are all with me,
love S
No television, occasional radio, only spectacular views to distract me. I remember odd things: Mom teaching me how to handsew on a rainy day like this. I made a doll dress from scraps of Swiss dot organza. Or, I remember sitting on a high wooden post fence, peering into the neighbor's barn as their horse delivered a foal.
I began to paint today, taking the challenge from the mountain range across the canyon, which I have been studying for three days. It has such nuance and form, everchanging color as the clouds move past, as the hours too quickly pass and I don't quite understand it yet. I have deepened respect for plein air painters and artists who capture movement of water and air. I want to tell the birds to stop flying so I can study their wings. For the cloud to roll slower so I can get the color of the mountain right. Is it lighter at the top? Would you say the creekbeds that carve and bisect are purple or umber? Is that wall sage? Why does it read in my head as earthtones, but look more natural on paper in hues of cadmium red, phthalo blue, Hooker's green? I think I am going to float furniture in the painting to memorialize this indoor/outdoor, insider/outsider sense of "home" away from home I'm experiencing.
I drove up the coast to Carmel this afternoon because walking in the woods this morning made me want to have a parka. Found a great one in a thrift shop. Then on to Safeway to buy sushi and water and returned to Big Sur, only stopping twice at turnouts to photograph the view. The camera does not do justice to the palette here. Turquoise waves crashing white into other-worldly black rock formations, pale pink sky, terracotta soil beside a lavendar highway. Turn left up into Palo Colorado canyon, where the road accomodates only one car on some curves. It couldn't be wider as it squeezes between two gargantuan redwood trees. One needs headlights to drive mid-day.
6:15 p.m. The wind is blowing. The horse in the corral not far away is hungry and signals her impatience by stamping a hoof and kicking a bucket. Soon I will hear Jim bringing hay and the three big dogs will come scampering onto my deck. When I opened the door to them last night, the Golden left footprints on the watercolor paper lying on the floor. But everything looks artful in Big Sur.
I can't believe this is my life. Reading Henry Miller today, he writes about the ethereal nature of life here in Big Sur: "Some will say they do not wish to "dream" their lives away...(but) whoever has enjoyed a good dream never complains of having wasted their time." You are all with me,
love S
Big Sur Day 4
For some months, I have been wrestling with the definition of "home" as if what applies to me, applies to you. What personally comforts me are white walls and glass, wood and stone and Ligne Roset furniture. I know firsthand though, one can literally share a roof with others whose aesthetic aligns more with Beaver Cleaver's house. Or whose sense of order is disorder. At issue is not design, but security and harmony with one's surroundings. The house is a metaphor for the state of your soul.
That being said, you might think I've run away from home, from my house in Beverly Glen, from friends and family and social obligations, to find bliss in Big Sur. I have not run away, exactly. I have run full speed toward a place that feels as if I've lived here before. And now I am stopped in my tracks. This morning I "listened" to the quiet, alone in a silver field dotted with mustard on top of a purple mountain. What sounded like thunder were waves crashing against the rocks far below. The air intoxicates with the perfume of pine, eucalyptus, rosemary and sea. In the afternoon I drove down Palo Colorado to Rocky Point because there is a restaurant there I thought I would get cellular reception. I was right and I got so much more. I parked facing the Pacific Ocean at sunset, a celestial phone booth. The sky so huge, the horizon where the sun set seemed so much farther away. I spoke with my family. What puzzles me is how I do not feel disconnectedl to the home I've left behind, as if my vision has expanded, my house enlarged, to include this new bedroom above the clouds. When at midnight I traverse a gravel road from this mountaintop studio to my bedroom a mile away, it feels as if I'm walking from the kitchen to the living room.
Today, I am reading Henry Miller's Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch. He wrote this book to describe his experience as an artist living on Partington Ridge and his observations about life and perception in Big Sur cannot be improved upon. Read it.
You are all with me. Love
That being said, you might think I've run away from home, from my house in Beverly Glen, from friends and family and social obligations, to find bliss in Big Sur. I have not run away, exactly. I have run full speed toward a place that feels as if I've lived here before. And now I am stopped in my tracks. This morning I "listened" to the quiet, alone in a silver field dotted with mustard on top of a purple mountain. What sounded like thunder were waves crashing against the rocks far below. The air intoxicates with the perfume of pine, eucalyptus, rosemary and sea. In the afternoon I drove down Palo Colorado to Rocky Point because there is a restaurant there I thought I would get cellular reception. I was right and I got so much more. I parked facing the Pacific Ocean at sunset, a celestial phone booth. The sky so huge, the horizon where the sun set seemed so much farther away. I spoke with my family. What puzzles me is how I do not feel disconnectedl to the home I've left behind, as if my vision has expanded, my house enlarged, to include this new bedroom above the clouds. When at midnight I traverse a gravel road from this mountaintop studio to my bedroom a mile away, it feels as if I'm walking from the kitchen to the living room.
Today, I am reading Henry Miller's Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch. He wrote this book to describe his experience as an artist living on Partington Ridge and his observations about life and perception in Big Sur cannot be improved upon. Read it.
You are all with me. Love
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