5/7/07
Yesterday was another painting day. I went to E. P. Sawyer Park and continued the landscape I started a month ago. One of the dangers of painting [i]en plein air[/i] in sunlight is that, once the painting is taken indoors and viewed in typically poor interior lighting, the whole painting looks much darker. Some paintings I’ve done in years past looked like bright sunny scenes while sunlight was on the canvas, but when viewed indoors they’ve looked like an oil paint version of those night scenes that were actually filmed in daylight using special filters in old movies.

I tried to be conscious of that while I was painting, and it worked, although I’ll need to make a few adjustments. There are a couple of areas I need to brighten. I also want to work on the sky a little. However, I could stop right now and call the painting done. I’m quite happy with it. I’ll do a little “tightening up,” but it looks good. I’m especially happy with the tree limbs.

I was painting in a weedy area that bordered woods. One really nice thing about painting in such surroundings (and this is one of my favorite things about fishing in an isolated spot, too) is that the wildlife comes out around me. Painting is a quiet and relatively motionless activity, so lots of little critters come and go and don’t pay much attention to me. The underbrush was so thick, though, that it was often hard to figure out what I was seeing or hearing.

There were all kinds of interesting bird calls, and things rustling through the leaves. Squirrels and chipmunks and mice. I saw some huge bird of prey, probably an owl, flying up into the trees carrying something in its talons.

I’ve been working on finalizing a means of putting a price on paintings, and keeping a permanent record of the information. Over the past few years my approach to everything art-related has been inconsistent. Here is a sampler of new, finalized information:

The Ohio River at Otter Creek Park, 2002, 30x36”, oil on panel 775.00

Field on Hwy 22, 2005, 18x24”, oil on panel 365.00

Germantown Houses, 2004, 16x20”, oil on panel 365.00

Tree Sketch—Miles Park, 2003, 9x12”, oil on canvas, 160.00

Untitled Tree (Joe Creason Park), 2003, 9x12”, oil on canvas, 160.00

Category B artwork:

Riverfront Plaza Construction, 2003, 18x24”, oil on canvas, 50.00

Joe Creason Park, 2001, 16x24”, oil on panel, 40.00

I have heard recent allegations that walnuts, especially the fruit of the black walnut tree, and specifically the husks, can be made into a very nice drawing ink. What better to go with my improvised drawing tools than some home-made ink? A co-worker told me that she has walnut trees on her property, and at this very moment, last autumn’s nuts are rotting all over the ground in her yard. That is exactly what I’m looking for, I think. She has offered to bring a bunch in for me. Helga, too, has reported that there is a walnut tree in her new yard.

I painted outside last Friday. It seemed a very iffy proposition at first, since it was very cold and windy. Finally, though, late in the morning, with the temperature climbing into the 40s, I decided to throw myself into it.

I selected a spot over at E. P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park. It was sheltered from the wind, in a low-lying area among the trees. It snowed much of the time I was out. Mostly it was light flurries, but sometimes it was snowing pretty hard. Despite the weather, there were bumblebees flying around me. Nuts.

The painting looks good so far. I worked for about three hours before some minor family crises sent me after my wife and children. I'm eager to work some more.

Even more haunted by jawas

The other night Kim was watching “Dancing with the Stars,” and it suddenly caught my attention. One of the stars, formerly a member of ‘N’Sync, was dancing to the Star Wars theme. But not the regular version; he was dancing to the Meco 1977 disco version of the theme.

Far out! My brother Kevin and I used to lie on the floor and listen to that on our parents’ stereo console.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meco

I had never realized that the album was such a hit back then. Our friend Mike, from up the street, heard the album. "That's not Star Wars!" he informed us. He had the actual soundtrack. He was right, but his album lacked a cool picture of two astronauts bumping booties on the cover.

When I visited my pals in Harvard, IL, last week, I had the opportunity to play Lego Star Wars on the computer with their 4-year-old. I sucked at it. Every time I died, he would look at me and tell me to stop kidding around. He thought I was messing up on purpose. After watching him and his father play, I realized that he only died when he was horsing around, and his father would tell him to knock it off.

I also got to sit and play Storm Troopers with his action figures. He has lots of Star Wars toys.

And speaking of Storm Troopers,

http://www.brandonbird.com/stewart.html

(Thanks, Loraine)

Unfortunately

Erin just became potty trained. She pretty much just did it herself. Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t accidents.

A conversation reported by Kim:

Erin: “I peeped in the chair.”
Kim: “Oh. OK. Were you sitting in the rocker?”
Erin: “Yeah. Unfortunately, I peeped all over.”

"Peeped" is an Erin-ism, by the way.

Yesterday, the high temperature was in the mid-80s. Erin played in the sprinkler. Today, it wasn't supposed to get much out of the 40s (I think), and the lows may drop below 30 over the next few days. Maybe this will help my allergies a little. I wonder if I should cover my tulips? Or the coreopsis, or the coral bells?

Transporter question

Here is a question that I find thought-provoking and a little troubling.

Imagine that someone invents a teleportation device, sort of like the ones they use on Star Trek. This transporter can “beam” you over long distances, and do it cheaply, so that anyone can put a dollar in a slot, step onto the transporter pad, and in a fraction of a second they’ll materialize at a chosen destination. Lunch in Madrid, dinner in Tokyo, a play and dessert in London.

But here’s the catch: The technology works by totally vaporizing you with lasers, which analyze you down to the molecule and record the information. The data is beamed at the speed of light to the destination, where a machine takes the data and rebuilds you from a storage tank of material, duplicating you exactly, down to the molecule. The process takes a tiny fraction of a second.

In essence, one machine kills you, and another machine builds a duplicate that is in every identical to the one that was vaporized.

Would you use this transportation technology?

People who know me well know that I’m a pretty hard-core materialist. I consider the “self” to be the sum of our material being. Our experiences, thoughts, and emotions arise from our physical bodies. As such, it seems to me that the “self” would be unchanged by being destroyed and then immediately rebuilt. If I am derived from my physical makeup and experiences, then “I” am not really destroyed, I am just swapping old molecules for new ones.

But I can’t get past the fact that the first machine kills you. I don’t know if I could bring myself to use such a machine.

How many of the atoms in my body were there a year ago, or ten years ago? Would the transporter simply speed up the rate of turnover? If there is a soul, would it leap to the new body?

On Saturday, March 24, I drove to Harvard, Illinois to visit some friends. I had a very good trip. It had been a year since I had seen them. We pretty much just hung out, and for me, that’s a lot of fun. Their kids are cute and fun to play with; we spent a lot of time outside since the weather was so nice; they gave me food and a place to sleep; and I got to play a couple of new games. As seems typical, I also walked away with some loot (Kelly gave me some miniatures, some miniatures bits for assembly, and some little plaster treasure chests he had made from Hirst Arts molds.)

They have three cats, yet I managed to sleep on the couch without sneezing. At all. I don’t know why some cats make me spout like a sputtering fire hydrant, and some have no affect.

I was greeted, upon my return to Louisville, but lots more green than when I had left. Spring causes the gardening painter within me to pop forth like so many aesthetic sneezes. Spring also causes the sneezes to pop forth like dandelion buds. Spring triggers lots of sneezy art poppings, and my garden is my palette just like my palette is my garden. To celebrate, I ate the yellow off a dandelion. I recommend it. The green parts are bitter, but the yellow is sweet.

I have planted some onions, peas, and kohlrabi. Inside, in trays, I’ve started rosemary and basil. I have some cilantro in a pot that I need to move outside.

All the perennials are coming up. Asters, glads, tulips, hostas, coral bells, hollyhocks, daylilies, and coreopsis. Hooray! I still need to plant tomatoes, watermelon, and gourds after the weather warms a bit more. And just as much as warm weather, I need more room. The perennials I planted last autumn used up a lot of my garden space, and the watermelon and gourds aren’t exactly small-area crops.

I plan to paint on Friday. I don’t know where I’ll go to paint. The trees right now are wonderful to look at. I need to decide very quickly where I will go, so that I don’t waste time on Friday by hunting.

Tree Sketch

Ink sketch of a tree, which I posted about a few days ago. 12x16"

I don't have a distinct memory of Brian being born, but I can recall seeing him shortly after he came back from the hospital. I remember learning the word "incubator," and knowing that he had to be in one for a long time. I remember playing with his hands as he lay on the couch next to my mom. It took a long time for me to stop seeing his as a little brother. But he's more grown up than I am in many ways, and seems like more of a grown man than I usually feel I am. And now, in a month, he's getting married.

I hope you get to have some good cake, Brian. Happy Birthday.

Art update

Last Friday afternoon I spent some time over at E. P. Sawyer Park, where I sketched with ink. I used some plant stems instead of a pen, which is a practice I started in Wyoming. There, I used dry stems of wildflowers and grasses. I can’t recall if I started that out of necessity or curiosity, but it worked well, so I continued.

At E. P. Sawyer, I selected a nice spot next to a small stream in a woodsy area, and grabbed some nearby dry grass stems. I made a point on one, and it worked, but it wasn’t entirely satisfactory. It wasn’t rigid enough. It tended to buckle and fling ink. When I looked around for something better, this sort of plant stem was the only thing in view that seemed the least bit suitable. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time hunting.

I sat on a fallen trunk and drew, with the focus being a large bush. My legs fell asleep and my butt hurt, but I’m willing to suffer for my art. A little, anyway.

It was chilly, but not cold enough to be a problem. I had dressed warmly.

The final result was pretty good. I want to do some more ink drawings now. I’ll post a picture. My mother-in-law bought the drawing from me.

Today I spent a number of hours getting painting supplies ready. I had to do some rummaging and cleaning in the garage. There was a lot of paint to sort through, and jars, solvents, and brushes. I prepared two canvases (actually, quarter-inch hardboard panels), which took a lot of sawing, sanding, gluing, cleaning, and priming. One is a small square and one is medium-size. I didn't measure it, but I think it's 18 x 24.

I'm going to watch some more of the movie "The Fast Runner" now, but I'm very tired. Neither Kim nor I slept much last night. I stayed up late to watch John Yarmuth on the Colbert Report (I probably should not have bothered, although his later interview with Ted Koppel was good), and then both Erin and Jill had us up at different times, working to keep them happy.

It was a fantastically beautiful day outside today. Most of my work was outside, and I am grateful.

Hard lesson from experience

Don't run with a vomiting child. If you feel you must, carry them low to the ground. It's easier to clean up a lot of vomit in one place then a lot of vomit in a lot of places.

What, you think I should re-title this blog "Mark's Art, Coin, Garden, Vomit Miscellany"? Maybe just "The Vomit-Blog"?

I just spent two hours cleaning all kinds of stuff. The carpet and the linoleum, and various neighboring items, are now cleaner than they were before they got splashed. Once again, I found myself chuckling deeply ("chuckling" is a funny word. In this context, it sounds very throw-uppy) at the situation.

I've got off pretty easy, though. I felt ill a couple of days ago, but it never got worse than merely feeling nauseated. That has left me free to clean up after everyone else.

Paintings, A & B

I'd love to hear comments about my category A and B paintings. Friday will be a painting day for me. One thing I need to work on is a landscape on a saw that I was commissioned to do a year ago. Money from that, or any near-future art income, absolutely must be used to ship a painting to Jim and Emily (I promised them a painting as a wedding gift, and they've been married for fifty years now.)

Riverbank at Riverside Park, in western Louisville. Category B, though it’s not too far off from category A. Again, it needed more variety in the green, as well as in the yellow dirt of the bank, and to a lesser degree in the river. There is a lot of subtlety and delicacy in both the colors and the brush strokes in the clouds—the clouds are the best part, though I doubt that shows up well on the Web. This is a wide, but short, painting, measuring about 18x36. Oil on panel. (Please give a hand to my lovely assistant, who was watching me and who asked if she could help hold it.)
I think this is an interesting category B. The lights and darks are strong, and the colors are rich and varied, in this scene from Joe Creason Park. The paint is applied in varying thicknesses, giving it some nice textures. The biggest problem is the wall of vegetation in the foreground, which screws up the composition for me. Really, it's not the composition that it messes with, it's the illusion of space--I want a landscape painting to feel as though it has some depth, inviting the viewer back into its illusory space. But the vegetation pushes one away. I think this is an unusual mistake for me. I normally have a good eye for composition and depth. There are also a few other little color choices that bother me. Interesting, but a little disappointing. I would like to see how it looks framed. (about 16x20, oil on panel)

This painting, a scene along Hwy 22, is from a year-and-a-half ago. It is my most recent real, finished painting. I put it in category A. It's kind of a weird painting because its subject matter isn't what one would call picturesque. I was drawn to the scene, however. The part that I worried would be the hardest to get right, the powerlines and poles, are the nicest parts. I think they are nicely rendered, and there is a good sense of light on the poles. (Size about 18x24, oil on panel)

"The Ohio River at Otter Creek Park"--definitely a category A, one of my strongest paintings. This is a scene I've painted several times, and I'll probably paint it again (this is the only one I've painted in the summer--the rest were in the autumn.) I showed it at the Watertower annual show a few years ago. My only regret is that I don't have a little more variety in the green. This is true for many of my paintings.

Waterfront Towers under construction. An unfortunate category B; I love the idea, and some of the drawing aspects of this are quite nice and interesting. Where it falls apart the most for me is in the areas that should have been the easiest. The red portion of the building at right never looked good, the paint application a little crummy, the color choices are questionable. Also, many of the elements on the ground ended up having a over-simplified, cartoonish feel to them because I was trying to fill them in later based on incomplete sketches and memory. Irritating, because there are some very nice things going on here, too. (about 18x26, oil on canvas)
A scene in Germantown, near Gnadinger Park. Category A. Once again, I wish I'd put in a little more variety in the green. But I like it. I like the shadows and colors on the houses, and the sense of afternoon sunlight.
A small (about 8x10) oil painting of a tree. Category A; I'm very fond of this one. The shifty asymmetry of the tree is a lot of fun; there is a strong sense of light and dark, and the colors in the grass glow.

I have two types of paintings. Some of my paintings are on the wall, and some are leaning in corners. Most of the category A paintings are on the wall, and most of the category B paintings are leaning.

Category A consists of paintings of which I’m quite fond. They may be far from flawless, but I feel that the good significantly outweighs the bad. I just think they look good, and I’m happy to show them to people. The oldest example, and still one of the best examples, is my lobster painting.

Category B consists of those that are problematic. I don’t like them very much, but there is something about them I like enough to keep. Usually I’ve struggled with them, wrestled with the paint, and finally given up. Sometimes it’s a drawing problem; sometimes it’s paint application or color; sometimes I just realize too late that I’ve made an error with the composition (this is rare, as composition is pretty basic, and I think I’ve always had a very good eye for it.)

There’s also a category C, which is paintings I started, realized they were going nowhere, and ditched. That is a much rarer occurrence than it was many years ago.

Category B is awkward. They are my children, but they never grew up. Now they hang about as wastrels, having squandered their potential, surviving through their limited charms. I can’t toss them out. I feel uncomfortable selling them. I’m a little embarrassed about them in front of company. Sometimes, though, I look at them and say, ooh, that part’s not half bad.

I will post pictures from both categories.

Paint Space

Last Friday I drove over to Carrie’s house to clean out space for my painting studio. It’s a brick garage area adjoining her house.

Kim, bless her lovely heart, gave me the studio as a Valentine’s Day gift. Even more generous of her was the time she allotted for me to go paint. Two days marked per month, as a bare minimum, and her insistence that that was, in fact, a minimum—that I paint more often than that.

She arranged with Carrie for me to go over and look around and pick out a spot to set up. She has a lot of room.

The area I cleaned was, and still is, used for firewood storage. It had lots of dust, sawdust, leaflitter, and cobwebs. I tried to get the adjoining bathroom in working order, but had problems with the pipes. The cold water now works in the sink, but I had to turn everything else off due to leaks. Carrie said she’d have a plumber check it out since she already planned to call one for other purposes in the near future.

The cleaning darn near killed me. I was sneezy and congested on Friday night, but it got much worse the next day. That is the usual pattern for me. Mow or rake or clean one day, and I sneeze and feel a little bad. The next day I’m usually miserable, then more or less back to normal the day after.

Saturday and Sunday I felt like my lungs were over-full vacuum-cleaner bags. Bags from a vacuum-cleaner that had accidentally sucked up several live cats. Speaking from the point of view of my sinuses, lungs, and nose, it was a nasty, nasty weekend.

Today, Tuesday, I am mostly better. I still feel a little rattle when I breathe, and I’m coughing a bit. My nose whistles from time to time.

Fortunately, I think my studio space is in workable shape. I can take stuff over there and paint.

Lost & Chunky (don't read this if you are eating)

ABC’s “Lost” came back last night! Man, what an episode! Or at least, I assume it was. I only saw the first fifteen minutes. At the first commercial break, we heard Erin whimpering in her bedroom. Kim said, “Would you mind checking on her? Try not to let her see you.” We try to check unobserved, of course, so that we don’t get dragged into a list of demands (“I sirsty! Warm milp!” or “Read me a book!”) by a child who would probably fall back asleep within a couple of minutes if left uninterrupted.

I quietly peeked into Erin’s bedroom. In the dim light I could see her dark round eyes staring back at me. She was crying just a little.

I entered the room. Something was wrong. She was upset, and there was…a smell.

I leaned over her, then had to turn on the light to understand the magnitude of the situation. The lower half of her face, her hands, her pillow, her comforter and blanket, her pajamas, one of her little dolls, and most especially her hair around her shoulders—all were caked in vomit. The smell was dizzying.

I steeled myself, deep pity and fatherly sympathy shoving aside the revulsion. I picked her up and carried her across the hall to the bathroom. It was horrible, but the total grossness of it made it rather funny, too. (Erin was quite unhappy, but she didn’t seem to be feeling very bad—no fever or acting weird). Man, was it disgusting. Curdled milk and corn, with a smell that seemed to be fountaining up through the atmosphere. As I tried to clean her up, angular chunks of it were falling all over, sticking to my hands. This was even funnier to me because of all the disgusting things she ever has to deal with, Kim hates throw-up the most. Like, way, way the most.

Kim and I gingerly got her undressed. Kim started the shower, and I rinsed Erin off a little. Then Kim got in the shower with her and cleaned her thoroughly as I cleaned in her bedroom.

I took her comforter and her fitted sheet outside and shook them out over the grass. Then I inspected everything and shoved the whole lot into the washing machine. Clorox wipes were used on the bathroom floor, the commode, and the sink.

When I was done, Kim had Erin dressed in her little bathrobe, and was curled up with her on the love seat. Erin was very sleepy and very cute and looking much cleaner. She went back to her bed a little while later and slept well for the rest of the night. Poor little thing. I think she’s all right, but I need to call home again in a few minutes to check on her.

More Festiva

My speedometer is dysfunctional. I don’t know which plays the biggest role, the recent cold weather or the age of my car, but it is becoming harder and harder to gauge with accuracy the speed at which I’m driving. After I drive for a while the problem is less extreme.

The speedometer continuously makes a noise like a raspy, squawky version of the opening synthesized notes of Van Halen’s cover of “Dancin’ in the Streets.” Also, as soon as I accelerate to about 35 m.p.h., the needle squeals hoarsely and rockets up to 85 or 90 m.p.h. It will stay there for a few seconds and bounce back down, the shoot back up again.

This is merely the latest. Let me try to think of some of my car’s other little quirks:

-Most or all lights in the dash don’t work. Sometimes a few come on.

-Shoulder belt no longer opens or shuts automatically. I must sit down and then pull it over my head.

-Horn only works occasionally, and sounds very sputtery and feeble when it does.

-The windshield washer fluid squirters only work some of the time. They stopped working altogether for a few years, then started again, although if the temp is below freezing they won’t work.

-The driver’s side window won’t roll up or down without lots of assistance (putting my hand on the window and rocking it back and forth while jerking the handle) if the temperature is below 50 degrees.

Festiva Rodeo - How I Get My Thrills

When I walked out the door to go to work this morning, there was snow on the ground. Less than an inch, but enough to cover everything—cars, grass, and pavement—in a fairly smooth layer of white.

Our driveway is a hill leading up to the house. My seventeen-year-old Festiva was at the top, and our newer Saturn parked behind. This is a frequent and annoying situation, since I am always running late for work. I have to either back the Saturn out, then back out the Festiva, then pull that Saturn back in, then get back in the Festiva; or I have to just back the Saturn up a little and then maneuver the Festiva over the grass, which is bad for the lawn, especially if the ground is wet. And the car juggling is even more annoying when I have to scrape frost off the windows of both cars.

I put my lunch in my Festiva and then backed the Saturn down the slick driveway and onto the street. Then I sat in Festiva again, started it, and put it in reverse. I didn’t give it any gas, I just took my foot off the brake—and the car didn’t move at all. I realized I had forgotten to move the concrete block from beneath the front left wheel (did I mention that my car has no emergency brake?). So I killed the engine and got out to kick it out of the way.

I half-closed the door and kicked the concrete block. The car started to roll backwards down the hill. I had accidentally left it in reverse instead of park.

I always turn the wheel when I park in the drive, just in case the car does in fact start to roll by itself. I’d rather have the car roll over the lawn (and possibly into our tree or our mailbox) than for it to roll straight backwards into the other car, or across the street and into the neighbor’s house. Therefore, my car was rolling at an angle into my lawn.

The car started moving the second I kicked the block, so I yanked the door wide again with the intention of finding a surface against which to push to hold the car in place. However, in the fraction of a second it took for me to open the door and reach for the doorframe, the car was rolling too fast for me to have any hope of stopping it that way. Worse still, the ground was icy and my work shoes have no traction.

So I found myself caught behind the open door of a car that was rolling driverless down an icy slope. I sensed mortal peril as I tried to regain control of the situation. I grabbed the near edge of the steering wheel with my right hand and threw my right leg into the car as I hopped backward with my left, trying to keep pace with the car. For an instant my goal was not to stop the car, but simply to get inside it, since if I were inside it, it would not run me over.

I’m not sure how I did it, but I think I used my right arm to yank myself most of the way onto the driver’s seat—I must have pulled hard, because my arm hurt afterward. It was dark, so I couldn’t see, so I started stomping blindly where I hoped the brake was as I hung on to keep centrifugal force from throwing me out.

Luckily, I hit the brake, and was able to raise my left leg in time to block the door from swinging shut on my arm or ankle. I had skidded to a stop in the middle of the lawn and had not run over the mailbox or hit the tree. I briefly glanced down and moved my extremities to make sure I hadn’t hurt myself without realizing it.

It was dark and snowy and 6:30 a.m., but somehow the neighbor from two doors up had managed to witness this little event. He was walking toward me as I exited the car.

“Are you O.K.?” he called out.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking. I—uh—accidentally left the car in reverse when I got out to brush off some snow. I’m O.K…thanks.”

I stopped trembling after a minute, pulled the Saturn into the driveway, drove the Festiva off the lawn and came on in to work.