Friday, August 31, 2007

Another Take on Things


The great thing about art is that it makes you look at everyday things with a new perspective. Plein air painters see swirls of color and light in a vista; sculptors visualize in 3 dimensions; collage artists find form in combining everyday objects.

This printmaking things has me looking at scenery and trying pare it down to the most bare essentials of black and white. I've found that, at least at my skill level, that some details are better left of the print and that simplicity speaks loudest.

That's kinda my calling anymore. Paring down all the 'stuff' in my life and focusing on bringing out the best of those elements that are left such as family, friends, creativity, health, and peace.

This linocut is an attempt to show the front range of our local mountains. If you are saying to yourself "Gee, why'd he add an arrowhead?" it's because there is an honest to goodness geological feature on the mountain that looks like one. It's about 250' long and it's comprised of exposed granite, soil, and scrub brush. Interestingly, it points down to natural hot springs. Native Mojave Indians believed it was placed there by the Great Spirit as a guide to bring them to a holy place.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Gawn Fishin'


Just some rambling recollections from a great weekend; meandering streams, s'mores, great sunsets, lots of trout, sunburns, coffee from a french press, seeing the Milky Way, bacon on a campfire, chilly mornings, catching the big one, coyote serenade in the evening, fish smell on your hands, undoing snarls in your reel, cream sodas for son, pale ale for dad, trout cooked on a smoky fire, big frogs, Sierra wind, the cry of I've got one!, a good hot shower, holding up a stringer of fish, farting (sorry, it's a boy's weekend), watching the Perseid Meteor shower, the boy sleeping nearly the entire 5 hour trip home, getting pounced on by the dogs at home and kissed by mom.

The photo's are from the Owens River Campground. There was a massive wildfire in Santa Barbara that blew smoke across the entire Sierra Mountain range, where it settled in the Owens Valley. You could hardly see the mountains 5 miles away, but it did make for some amazing sunsets.