Random Stuff

Teddy and I headed out to the Big Empty yesterday. Still a lot of people here looking at cranes. Teddy and I dealt with probably 20 cars even though it wasn’t an especially nice day. I put a good face on it, but a few of them are pretty inconsiderate and treat that holy place and its avatars like commodities. I don’t really understand them, but there they are. A guy with a huge lifted Dodge truck parked and left the driver door open blocking the way. He had a huge lens on his camera and it was all about the photograph for him. I guess it’s not for me to judge. Still, I couldn’t help but think that the cranes might have liked the spring of 2021 more than this spring. I know I saw much more of them that year and, while it might not be true, it seemed that the cranes were more relaxed. I can’t imagine they like all the traffic, either.

But Teddy was a good boy and, as far as we were concerned, a good time was had by both. A few cranes flew high above us, and many, many Canada geese. There is a pair of geese who’ve taken up occupancy on top of a muskrat house and right now, they are my favorites. They are always together and every time I see them, one is curled up with its head tucked in its feathers and the other is standing tall, the lord of all he/she surveys from about 18 inches above the water. The road is showing wear and tear from the recent traffic and where it was once a nice, smooth gravel road, it’s gone washboard.

“The great lessons from the true mystics, from the Zen monks, is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s back yard, and that travel may be a flight from confronting the sacred. To be looking everywhere for miracles is a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous. ~ Abraham H. Maslow, Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences

I think maybe the past few years might have turned me into a bit of a misanthrope…

I did something yesterday I have not done since I moved here and “decorated.” I took down a painting and hung a new one. I’ve painted a lot in the past several years, but nothing I wanted to hang, even though I love most of the work I’ve done. A couple paintings hang in the spare room, but that’s essentially storage. The snow painting is on the living room wall now where I can see it. I picked the frame because it is the color of the other plants growing out there, greasewood. The design cut into the white is evocative of greasewood in snow. There is no greasewood (Chico) in my painting, but it was there. I’d like to hang the big crane painting but someone would need to drill some holes and sink some mollies for that to happen. The Big Crane Painting is on my paintings page. 🙂



Otherwise, I’ve caught a cold — the first one in years. I don’t feel like a sturdy oak tree, and the timing couldn’t be worse, well, probably it could be worse, but this is pretty bad. OH well…

21 thoughts on “Random Stuff

      • For some reason I’m having a terrible time making comments on blogs. The comment bar has just disappeared..thus I’m answering here. Hope you see it. I love your crane painting, expecially the largest one. I think it is my favorite of all your paintings. It has been interesting seeing youir your artistic talents flourish!!!!

        • That comment glitch has happened to me a few times, too. That crane was just calmly walking there in March 2021. I felt she’d offered me a beautiful gift so I painted her a few months later.

            • I can’t hang it. I have old plaster walls and hanging this is not just a matter of a nail. It weighs easily 10 pounds. I was thinking about paintings and I think that there are paintings that, for the artist, are important in the painting. No one looking at the painting sees that. For other people the beauty is in what they see. It’s kind of magical how that works. I see that over and over when I have a show and people are interested in a painting. It might evoke a memory or something for them; it will be personal to them and that’s kind of miraculous. There are other paintings (the crane and the snow) that are personal to me. I’ve made notecards from the crane painting and people buy them more than any other notecards so other people — you — see something of what that painting is to me. That’s very cool.

              That crane wasn’t 20 feet away from me. Bear and I just stood quietly and watched her on that silvery day. A friend who can no longer paint because he’s blind gave me that big canvas. I had no idea what I would ever paint on it, but as I watched her, I saw the painting. Some of the gray in the painting is actually silver which happens when there’s snow in the air but it doesn’t fall. It’s there as potential, affecting the light.

              • Can you display it on an easel or low bookcase shoved up against the wall? Other ways to display other than a nail. I have one wedged into the opening of my fireplace and another on a ledge over the fireplace. I am desperate as no more wall space left. I’ve also displayed some to cover up bookcases, with nails pounded in the shelf fronts and the paintings covering up the books. I even have paintings in my closet that I see only when I shove the clothes on the rod aside. All of the paintings i did long ago I never show. They are all in queen-sized drawer under the bed in my upstairs casita

  1. It must bother you to see people so disrespectful of a place and the creatures that are so special to you. Love the painting

    • Most people are not disrespectful, but a few seem to think it’s a zoo or something. I keep reminding myself that I had a pretty rare experience out there but it was a bad time for the world at large. Such a paradox.

  2. They say that cold air will clear the sinuses! (so sorry you have caught a cold) Teddy IS a good boy!! I love that you’ve hung that painting – it really was a turning point!!

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