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