Benevolent Irreverence

Power-Out Sweetness

2007-10-11T09:45:00.001-07:00

Here's a little story, true, I sent to a dear friend yesterday.

Last night, we were watching something or other on tv while, um, dining (can you really call it "dining" if you're doing it in front of a tv set? Nah) when the lights went out. The whole neighborhood, mebbe more, swathed in darkness. And raining. After the scramble for candles, and chianti bottles to put them in, we settled down. What to do. You go into a different room and flip the light switch even though you know it won't work.... Play gin? Some other game? Old Red isn't much for extemporaneity.* Read? Pretty hard by candlelight (we're spoiled).

And then, what do you think, just being quiet and being there was lovely. The candlelight so soft and kind, the rain falling on the autumn leaves, soughing, sweetly splashing, the silence deep and welcome.

I called PG&E once around 9, and they predicted light again by 10:30 (by that time we would have been watching the tube again—this time to see the Lakers and Warriors in the first preseason game, playing in Hawaii). Ah well. With candle in balsamic vinegar bottle (nice handle on that) I repaired to the bath to wash my hair and me. Not much light needed for that; and the water keeps warm without electricity.

Feeling fresh and lovely, about 10:45 I called again; this time PG&E knew more: the outage was caused by a car knocking down a telephone pole, a key telephone pole, and the lights would be back on between 3 and 6 a.m.! So much for basketball. And I settled in to get used to reading by candlelight. As soon as I got settled, the lights sputtered back on, Al's PC boinged and his Mac blustered into life. The fridge began its whirr, and the housewide plethora of red and green and blue LEDs spit and flickered back into being, like colorful lightning bugs. Ha.

Lakers lost by a point. Go, Nellie.

* Extemporaneity—do not know if this is a word or spelled right; but if it isn't a word, it should be; and I'm too lazy at this near-midnight to look it up. Oh all right, I'll look it up. "Extemporaneousness" is the word. I like it my way better, kind of gets more spontaneity into the picture....

Finishing: What a Concept

2006-03-15T11:11:00.000-08:00

No, not about piano as unblocker yet, nor about Richard Dawkin's fabulous The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution and the freeing concept that one is not only descended from apes but is in fact one oneself.... (Thank you, Leslie!)

I can't remember exactly when a bunch of us met at a local vineyard to paint and I began this. I loved the start and was, as usual, afraid to ruin a good start by messing with it. But of course it was only a start and not yet a painting. Good grief. So day before yesterday I took my life in my hands and began throwing paint on. Yup, I knew what to do about the unfinished work. Then yesterday, I wrapped it up. And sat back and worried about what to do about the finished work. So what I did was snap its pic and call it finished. Yay for finished!

Almost Wine Time. Oil on canvasboard, 11"x14". $225 gets it to your home or office. Hah! I'm marketing!

Next stop: the Bowery, nearly forty years ago.... (Unless I go ape first, or start playing that piano again.)

Playing with Color, Impatiently

2006-02-28T14:07:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the only way to begin is just to begin, not planning much, not arranging the paints, not a lot of anything. I can easily spend days preparing and never get around to painting. Bad thing.

So this time I grabbed a tiny (5"x7") canvas board, put tubes of some of my fave oil colors in my masterson palette, opened the Gamsol, and dug in. Reference: imagination, remembering of sunsets. So think of this as an abstract, having fun will color. Doesn't look like any real sunset you'll find. Ah well. At such times, that it's something is something big. Anyway, I do like the colors!

Small is hard, going bigger next, than on to very big pretty soon. Interspersed with more pastels.

Speaking of pastels, I got some Lascaux fixative for pastels; it's clear—really—and several coats render the work framable without mat and glass. So they say, and I sure want to believe 'em! If not, almost—once sprayed well, it's possible to use special varnish that does do the job. Later, I found a ground from Golden that makes any surface a surface for pastel painting. I've covered a gallery wrapped canvas with it and that will be the surface for my next pastel (which will be soon!).

Next post—mebbe—how playing the piano, badly but joyfully, is helping my art and writing!

Laguna Revisited in Time Machine

2006-02-07T21:00:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I asked if anyone would like to see Photoshop's version of my Laguna de Santa Rosa pastel. One person said yes—and one person is a very important person to listen to and to please. I'll show the Photoshop version of the painting—that is, the way it came up in Photoshop before adjusting levels to make it look like the real thing—and then I'll tell you a story about the specialness of one person.

The one person who asked to see the alternate painting is a fine artist, Joyce Ripley, of New Brunswick, Canada. She too has a place on Blogger: http://hermitthrushstudio.blogspot.com/ . Go have a look.

Here's Photoshop's version of the picture. Something else, isn't it? Wish I'd done that! ; )

I promised you a story, and it's a true one. Long ago, I and my husband created a computer magazine, called Softalk. In one issue I wrote a fancy article about what makes good games. I began by likening good game making to good architecture—form follows function and so forth—and I called the article The Art and Craft of Games, taking after Frank Lloyd Wright's The Art and Craft of Architecture. Of course "form follows function" came from earlier architectural genius Louis Sullivan. (If you haven't read his Kindergarten Chats, you have a treat ahead.)

Our art director, Kurt Wahlner, being an aficionado of Wright and Sullivan, chose to decorate the pages of the article with Sullivan ornamentation—exquisite finely detailed filigree. He spent hours for each of several nights recreating this very special adornment for the story—each page having a different Sullivan filigree—and, when the magazine came out, it looked wonderful. Some people thought he was a little crazy to spend all that time when, they surmised, no one would know what it was anyway. But someone did, and one was all it took.

It was several days after that issue went out that one woman called to exclaim over the Louis Sullivan ornamentation. She said how it thrilled her, and how she recognized it was hand done and wanted to thank the person who did it for making the presentation so beautiful and so true.

She was the only person to call. But everyone who knew Kurt, and everyone who worked on the magazine, felt justified and proud because of her recognition of Kurt's work. She was a very special person, who, unknowing, wielded a huge amount of power for good.

Ever since, I try never to dismiss the input of one person. Thank you, Joyce!

A Scrap of Laguna de Santa Rosa

2006-02-06T17:05:00.000-08:00

The "Lagoon" in my last post bears no relation to the lagoon in the pastel below; but the paintings shared a piece of Wallis paper. Couldn't toss the 14"x5" scrap, so I've put a view of the Laguna de Santa Rosa on it, perhaps a learning piece, as they all are, really. This one wants a big tree toward the right; it took courage enough to put in the island on the left! The tree MAY enter the picture tomorrow. (By the way, do you know that if you click on the image, you'll see it enlarged?)

For reference, I used a photo shot by Eric Johnson, a friend of my friend Helen Shane; Helen is doing an oil from Eric's great shot. The original photo is of a misty, stormy day.

A terrible thing happened when I took my photo of the painting into Photoshop. What you see here looks just like the real thing. Unfortunately, this took implementing "auto levels." Before I did that, Photoshop had found a way to make this painting absolutely gorgeous and very masterly! Woo woo, I wish I had painted it that way!!! Do you want to see that one?

Strength and endurance are slowly returning, but there's plenty for making some art, and time too, with my fab boyfriend stepping up for ALL the chores. If I hadn't got drunk and married him 33 years ago, I might just do it now.

Images from 3000 BC

2006-02-04T12:30:00.000-08:00

I love to visit the Astronomy Picture of the Day (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html) and check out what's going on in space, present and very much past.

This pastel painting is an interpretation of the Lagoon Nebula, which seems to be heavily populated....

The Lagoon Nebula is 5000 light years away. Light years is a measurement of time--in this case meaning this view is the way the nebula was 5000 years ago. But you can determine distance too, and the result is, well, astronomical. Light travels 5,865,696,000,000 miles in a year (almost six trillion), assuming no rush hour traffic... which puts the cosmic Lagoon at 29,328,480,000,000,000 miles away. M'gawd, that's even bigger than the US National Debt. The part of the nebula pictured is 50 light years across. Numbers, numbers; fascinating (to me) because they're so astounding, just about ungraspable.

And this is a relatively local nebula. ; )

Check out APOD to see for yourself!

Learning from a Master...

2006-01-27T13:35:00.000-08:00

My friend Karen (http://www.karenjacobs.com/) led the Paint-L painters to today's NYTimes article on the Cezanne exhibition about to open at the National Gallery of Art in D.C. I'd forgotten how much I like Cezanne's work. The article was good and informative, despite being a bit more referential than I like.

Most fun was recalling a dry period in the very early 90s, only a year or two into my painting again after a four decade hiatus, when I could NOT get the muse working. I'd been to the Fauve Artists exhibition in LA; the program cover was a Cezanne. In frustration and desperation, I grabbed my pastels and made a full size copy of the Cezanne, which he had done in oil. It was extremely fun to do, and I was happy with how it came out.

Not long after, while experimenting with other-hand painting, I did the same thing again, smaller, in watercolor, lefty. I couldn't believe how close it was to this. Don't know where that one has got to over the years.

—Homage to Cezanne, c1990

In no way do I wish to copy anyone else's work for real, but there is value for learning—and for pulling oneself out of a creative funk.

And it looks like talking about it might just pull one out of a blog funk!

Sniffling Through Wyeth & Writing Fun

2005-12-10T19:02:00.000-08:00

Whew, two months between posts! No way.

Down with cold, back to the easel I go.

Today, in desperation to beat the gremlins and do something fun, I grabbed a black & white sketch I'd done a few months ago, while I was reading all about the Wyeths, and made a painting of it. Is it finished? Probably not; and possibly as much as it will ever be. Such admiration I have had for decades for this man's art. With respect and homage, Andrew Wyeth:

5"x7" oils. Very limited (lazy) palette. Fun though.

After watching the Lakers fall to Kevin Garnett, and fixing and enjoying a chicken dinner, I'll turn into a writer. The challenge is to write the first line of a romance novel. Then of a mystery. Then of a horror story. Then of a suspense tale. And then of a Western. Should be fun. Whyn't you try it too?

Occasionally Daily Painting....

2005-10-30T17:05:00.000-08:00

The latest rage seems to be—for artists, anyway—to create, and blog, a daily painting, tiny and full faceted. What a lovely idea!

Instantly, I realized its value. And then my downfall. Hmph. Commitment. And not only that, but I am slooow.

And proving that, I have managed to take weeks to decide to jump on this fast moving train. Grabbing on to the quickly disappearing caboose, and using my techy side to slow the controls a little, I have finally produced a painting, a two-day painting; or two-week, if you count gestation. Well, not exactly gestation; more like beating down gremlins....

Snake River Canyon is a beautiful little spot off the main drag (a vehicle passes at least every four or five hours) on the Apache Reservation in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona. You have to rise to the occasion to get there; its elevation is 9000 feet. The air is so clear, so crisp, so full. Well, actually, it isn't very full at all—at least not of oxygen. Those yummy deep breaths are necessary!

There a handful or two of us painted and picnicked one day in early October when the aspens were just turning orange and yellow. We painted the canyon itself, lined with huge rocks striated with aspen-filled crevices and clothed here and there with soft moss.

Nowadays, rare is the painter who doesn't travel with digital camera, and so we took photos too, thinking to draw on their memory-jogging to paint more of the Snake River Canyon countryside once we were all back home.

*Snake River Canyon Hogan* depicts the scene on the road leading to the canyon and to the forests beyond. Not far from the paved road is a small cabin, with another small building nearby. I painted from the photo I took that lovely day.

By the way, 14 of us stayed on the banks of the beautiful Hawley Lake, on the reservation, most of us in cabins belonging to, and rented to us despite the normal season being over, by the Apaches. They were gracious hosts generously allowing us to share the beauty of their land for a week.

All this was arranged by Gwen Meyer Pentecost, a fine plein air oil painter now headquartered in Pinetop, AZ, where she runs a gem of a gallery (and studio) that she calls, appropriately, Joyous Lake. Be sure to pay her website -- www.artbypentecost.com -- a visit!

2005-10-16T13:30:00.000-07:00

The Ol Man forgot how to make breakfast today, so here we are with my speedy scramble at 1 pm. Starvation compelled it. Eggs and the dregs of the fridge. Good enuf.

New iPods get shipped midweek, so I hafta wait for my multiple-celebration present!! What does that mean? Wasting an hour researching all the goodies to come. Yumyum.

Irreverence is good for humans. Not the hateful, destructive kind. No. Rather, the kind that says, what're you tryiing to sell me, world? I'm not buying what you force, or what you force-feed, or what you sneak in. I'm not buying guilt or fear or 10,000 Parisians can't be wrong. And if you get yerself all puffed up about something and think that obligates others to agree or admire or change their ways or kowtow--well, watch out, because I carry hatpins.

Hatpins don't hurt. They just let the air out of puffery and pomposity. Well, maybe reality might hurt a little, when yer not used to it.

I useta know English inside and out. Useta have it down and, boy did it bug me when folks messed it up! Well, that wasn't a good thing. Oh, good language is a good thing still. (If I keep this blogging biz up, you'll see some in formal stuff I might write.) But being bugged wasn't, so--sometimes kicking&screaming on the way--it's going.

Now I think this is enough for a first episode. Nothing of any import or relevance to anything much. Peace & cheer to all who may happen upon it.

Oh yeah. Today is after all a special day. It's the 110th anniversary of the birth of my dad. Kenneth Franklin Comstock was a special person. Sure would love to have him nearby still.