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.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
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?
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