College Art Auction

This past January, I started a part-time job at Copper Mountain College (Joshua Tree, CA) as a microbiology instructor. Soon after I started, I received a request to donate a painting to the College for an auction to raise funds for art scholarships.

So I did! I heard it sold for $500 and was one of the most bid-for, and highest priced, pieces in the auction.
The College's Website homepage features a slideshow of different scenes of college life. And it just so happens that the one picture of the auction in the slideshow includes the painting I donated. (You can't miss it -- look for the red arrow):



So I hope some art student at the college will be learning some good stuff because of the auction!

All Ate Well Tonight

I sometimes take a camera outside with me when I put goodies out for the wild bunnies and birdies...uh, birds. You just never know what you might see while you're out there. And sometimes I kick myself when I don't take a camera along and wish I had. This evening was such an evening.

I was near a bush on the side of the house, and I heard a rustling of leaves. I took a peak to see what was there, and I saw a cat. A large cat. Then I realized it wasn't just any old cat -- it was a bobcat.

We saw each other at the same time. I spoke to it as I often do with critters: "He-e-e-y, Bobcat!" It started to walk away, but then turned back to pick up a dead bunny I didn't see before. The the bobcat calmly walked away, bunny in mouth, went across the street and into a lot that is still natural desert.

It happened too quickly for me to have gotten an up-close shot of the bobcat under the bush, but I could easily have taken a picture of it as it left with its dinner. Oh, well.

It left me wondering how it all happened -- if the bunny was captured and killed right there under the bush, or did the bobcat carry the bunny to that spot to devour after catching it somewhere else? Was the bunny one of the ones that was relatively bold and friendly with me, or was it completely wild and distrustful of me?

I'll never know. I'm glad I didn't see the kill itself: I know the circle of life must continue, but I always feel sorry for the prey critters.

The birdies, the bunnies AND the bobcat ate well tonight.

The Trouble with Facebook

One of my Facebook Friends, also an artist, brought up his shyness which he described as being painful at times. I responded that I'm the same way and that it's difficult for us artzy types to be social butterflies; after all, if we were, when would we get our art done?

Shyness is my natural tendency, and although I've worked hard over many years to overcome it, like cancer I'm not cured of it. It's in remission and can (and often does) return and slap me down.

One day I discovered Facebook -- mostly because a friend from Colorado suggested I get on it. So I did, and once I was there, I discovered a number of Colorado friends who were also on FB. It was great -- I could stay in touch with people I knew all in one place.

I had other motives, too: I made sure my Website URL is in my online profile. When one's Website is mentioned on other Websites, the search engines think YOUR site must be important, and it'll come up sooner in the listings when someone does a search. So FB was another place where I could get inproved SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

I confess...I'm one of those people who gets addicted to Facebook -- on and off addicted, anyway. And as an essentially shy person, it's easy to interact with people there -- not only with people I knew, but with people I met online, either on FB or on other sites and blogs. Some of these are other artists, and others are networking contacts.

Sometimes, though, I have trouble accepting the limitations inherent with FB Friends, especially those who are far away. As one might expect, we can't interact with "virtual" friends unless we make plans to get together and do stuff in the real world.

That's the predicament I'm in. Like the friend I mentioned before, sometimes I'm just too shy to reach out that way, although simply identifying people that I have things in common with has also been difficult. As a married dude, I know I can't get together with other women (whether married or single) unless I'm part of a mixed group. In other cases, I often don't travel much outside of my immediate area anymore due to a chronic lack of $$$ during these down times.
My FB interactions tend to be joking around with the others. But it's hard to form real relationships with people when that's all there is. That's the trouble with Facebook. I often log off feeling disappointed and empty. I'm looking for something I can't get there.

And there's the art thing. Pretty much -- all I do is paint, except for this last January-late May when I was teaching. Then I was focused on science. Geez ... have I turned into a total geek?

Art is often a lonely lifestyle. Maybe I just haven't gotten used to it yet. Facebook isn't the solution, but maybe I'll stumble across something else that is.

Bunnies, Bunnies Everywhere...

Bunnies, bunnies, bunnies, bunnies everywhere,
There's bunnies on the table and there's bunnies on the chair.
Bunnies on the sofa and there's bunnies on the floor,
And there's some new ones coming for the door ... MORE!


This was part of an old Spike Jones/Joanie Bartels song lamenting the ever-increasing numbers of bunnies that she was desperately trying to sell (or give away) before being totally overrun with bunnies.

Thankfully, it isn't that bad around here -- yet -- but The Wiffee and I were surprised to see a very young bunny scurrying around with the adult bunnies. The photo above shows the baby with one of the adults -- I'm glad I caught both in one shot: it makes it obvious the one on the left IS a baby. I fully expect I'll paint them that way, too.

Unfortunately, I wasn't ready with the camera when a potentially better picture presented itself: the two were leaning toward each other, sniffing and almost touching noses. ARRGGHH -- I MISSED IT!!

Oh, well. Maybe another day -- soon, before the baby grows up.

Painting with Words

Years ago, I took a class, Writing for the Arts, that was required for my art major. The instructor taught all of the usual stuff about grammar, clutter and all those things writers need to be aware of. No problem -- I've done writing before, and English was always an easy subject for me.

But the teacher emphasized another tool: writing about things in a way that creates pictures in one's head.

That was a new idea for me, and the concept certainly helped when writing about the museum art exhibits we had to visit and describe. I've used that concept many times since in what I'd call my "serious" writing (as on my Website's artist's statement, which reads like a "What the Desert Means to Me").

But by far, the best example of this writing style occurs in a poem by Sylvia Tryon who wrote about an exhibit of paintings by Maxfield Parrish (if the name doesn't ring a bell, you can see some of his works here). Sylvia showed not only a descriptive form of discussing the paintings, she also used an incredible richness of vocabulary that writers drool over.

I'm normally not into poetry at all, but this one is both fun and instructive to me. The piece appears in the book, The Make Believe World of Maxfield Parrish and Sue Lewin, Alma Gilbert, Pomegranate Artborks, 1990, pg. 74. (Note: Sue Lewin was Parrish's model for many of his paintings).


To Maxfield Parrish

How falls it, painter, that your brushes dye
In blaze of sapphire our pale northern sky,
Kindling on sunsmit peaks a lucent forge,
Robing in azure mists each gulf and gorge?
In long forgotten ages, did your soul
Make gorgeous Italy its homeward goal?
Or in some former earth-time did your mind
On Athens' violet hills its temple find?
Or where frozen, silent arctic nights
In flaming aureole stream the elfin lights?
On granite rocks your colors play like morn,
As on Ionian marble rosed with dawn,
In our drab lives should such hues tinge the day,
We scare could deem ourselves of common clay.


I expect in time, I'll cut back on painting somewhat and increase my time on writing. I wonder if I could write a short story -- or even an entire novel -- using nothing but this type of descriptive language? Could I paint with words as I now paint with paint?

Still Not Over

I guess the recession still isn't over.

I e-mailed an artist friend to find out how he did at an outdoor western art show he did Memorial Day weekend. This is normally one of his better shows, and I've never heard him say it didn't go so well.

Until this week. It sounded like not only did he NOT do well, the other artists didn't either. Apparently he's also considering not doing the show again, at least for a while. Translated: until the da*ned economy picks up.

I guess the recession still isn't over.

Landscapes of the Surreal and Mysterious

Landscapes of the Surreal and Mysterious is the tentative title of a one-dude show I'll be doing locally in September. I originally considered a name with "desert" in it, but then I decided a while ago not to limit my audience (or collectors!) by sticking with only one type of landscape.

The desert is a surreal place. Maybe that's why I love it so much, seeing as I'm a big fan of surrealism as well. But I've seen other places that, under the right conditions, can be surreal or at least mystical as well. So the common thread I plan to weave through my work this summer is: whatever landscape I paint, it can't be a straightforward rendition of the place. It MUST have a sense that the "gods" were there that day (or night), spreading their magic across a land that overwhelms the viewer with fleeting mystery and reminding us that the land is, indeed, alive.

Time to get busy!