Paintings That Are Not the Desert

My older brother is on the mend, our oldest brother is staying with him to make sure the older brother continues to mend, and I have a little time to think about art again.

Tomorrow I'm off to San Diego to enter a couple of desert paintings in a show in Balboa Park. If the pieces are accepted by the jury, I'll post the info (and pix of the paintings) here.

But in the meantime, I'm sure you were wondering about the paintings I do that are NOT desert-themed.

Here's one. It's of Yosemite Valley as the sun is rising.

I loved the way the sun lit up just a narrow strip of trees while most of the Valley remained in shadow. As the sun continued to rise, more and more of the Valley flooded with light, and the special moment was gone -- until the next sunrise.

A Little Slow These Days

Art production has been a little slow these days.

I mentioned before that one of my brothers went in for a quadruple cardiac bypass operation last Monday. He's still in the hospital and will be there at least until Sunday. Thankfully the other brother is flying down from Washington and will be the 24/7 helper.

It's a 90-minute drive each way to get to where he is (if there's no traffic), so between a three-hour roundtrip drive, visiting him and going by his home to feed the kitty and take care of a few things, I haven't had much time to work on any aspect of art.

Which is unfortunate, since surviving in this economy is already more than a fulltime job.

So for now, I'll settle for mentioning the URLs (including the alternate URL) for my Website: southwestspaces.com and desert-paintings.com. I've made some minor updates to the site, but I'm looking forward to adding new works and making some other changes I have in mind.

I also plan to paint other types of landscapes, including the mountains of Colorado, the California coast, and the forests of New England and the redwoods of California. These works will be for people who may not appreciate the desert as much as I do, and it happens I love those areas, too!

Stay tuned. Good things are coming!

Desert Flowers

While many parts of the country are still in the throes of winter (some friends in Colorado are looking forward to being snowed in soon), it's springtime in the desert!

We didn't get as much rain as in previous years, so the flowers are not as numerous as I've shown here. This is how it looked LAST year. No augmentation was needed!

This view is near the southern entrance to Joshua Tree National Park, CA.

The Living Desert Continues to Live

I've mentioned the Living Desert before. It's a desert-themed botanical and zoological park (located in Palm Desert, CA) that also promotes conservation of desert resources.

The Living Desert held a fund-raising event on Sunday night that featured a silent auction. Since the Living Desert is one of my favorite places (and would be my favorite charitable organization if I had the means to contribute!), I donated a painting to the auction.

And it sold! The Living Desert received the amount I would have gotten if the piece had sold through the gallery. Plus, the gallery owner was present to talk up the painting and his gallery to some well-off people.

Let's hope good things come of this, but better yet -- the Living Desert has just a little more funding because of the donation. I'm glad I became involved this way. Maybe this will help save some desert critter or flower. The Living Desert, and the living desert, continue to live!

Sheep May Safely Graze

Here, finally, is a photo of the finished painting (with photo taken under more even lighting and with a higher quality camera), along with a detail. Because I have desert bighorn sheep in the image, I did go ahead and titled it after Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze. The piece is available here.

By now, it's almost old news that Natasha Richardson died a few days ago. Also, one of my two brothers went to the ER on Thursday complaining of chest pain. It turns out he'll be getting a triple bypass operation Monday morning, and afterwards he'll need attention for an additional three weeks. We're not sure how we're going to do that, since he lives by himself, doesn't have close friends who could help him (he's a confirmed hermit-type), his home is a 90-minute drive away (and we have a vehicle with 359,000 miles on it), and I'm not retired. He could move in with us, but we'd have to see if the follow-up nurse who needs to check him every day would come out here, or if we'd be able to get a local nurse to do it under his insurance plan.

But all of this reminds me of what I wrote the last time re: live but be careful. I guess I need to revise that a little. Give life your best shot. Don't be stupid about stuff (i.e., eat right), but we really don't know how much time we have or what time bombs exist in our own bodies. If you want to do something, do it NOW. You may not have tomorrow, and if you think you want to do it but you're not sure, it means you really WANT to do it; therefore, you should.

One of my favorite quotes (thanks to M. Downs, a features writer for a local newspaper), repeated: "Sail forth - steer for the deep waters only, Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou with me, For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all." - Walt Whitman

Natasha Richardson

By now we've probably all heard the tragic news about actor Natasha Richardson who suffered what seemed to be a minor head injury but is now in critical condition. Comments like "braindead" have been thrown around, but at this time, details about her condition are a little sketchy.

One theory I've heard claims that Natasha may have a kind of pre-existing condition that led to a weakness in the blood vessels in her brain, such that although her accident was fairly minor, it was enough to initiate major trauma. She wasn't wearing a helmet as she was traveling down the "bunny slope," but apparently, it wouldn't have helped in her case.

The scary part is: this could happen to anyone. Myself, included.

The Bible has a verse about how we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." That's certainly true, but I would add one additional thought: we are also incredibly fragile. We don't seem to be built to take physical punishment at all, especially compared to many animals (for example, other primates) who easily endure actions that would be quite damaging, or lethal, to us.

Life is short, and seemingly incidental accidents can shorten life even more. Make the most of life, but be careful at the same time.

(Picture is a still from the movie, Waking Up in Reno, from natasha-richardson.org).

Sheep May Safely Graze

Well, OK, I won't wait anymore. I'm posting a "quick and dirty" (as opposed to an extremely high-quality) photo of the "Paint-In" painting. That I still haven't titled yet.

I'm considering the title of a J.S. Bach composition: Sheep May Safely Graze, since five bighorn sheep inhabit the desert view. What do YOU think?