A Painter's Journal

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Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Tiki Inn
2008-03-14 18:30:00
Painted this motel in Spokane… yippee… well its becoming pretty obvious that this is pointless. Describing what I painted. I got out. I painted. What is there to say? Human existence. That we are aware is the wonderful, hurt. Watching, a girl… a hotel… laughter… our lives trickling away like some sort of dangerous deluge. Draining, ...
More About: Painting , Tiki

When the &%$# is winter going to end?
2008-03-14 04:44:00
So I go out to paint tonight and still find my fingers freezing off in the cold, wet, windy weather. When will it end? Next stop is April… I hope no more freezing rain by then. I guess I am learning to relax, go with the flow. I understand now that I was made to do ...
More About: Winter

Falling into her arms
2008-03-11 12:07:00
I feel at peace in my painting… just going out day after day and capturing something, anything. I don’t think about it anymore, it has become organic, a part of me. A process. The same with writing. Just plodding along with it, falling into her arms, resting in the effort. Was the journaling all these years simply ...
More About: Arms

Monday morning
2008-03-10 14:14:00
Painted three paintings yesterday, a view at the entrance to Liberty pit, some little aspens. A study of the fence just down from John’s house, and a quick sketch of the turn on Kentuck trails road. Day before yesterday, Saturday, I did a painting looking across the fields, Hays road. A study of the stream below ...
More About: Morning , Monday , Monday Morning

Lost in the act
2008-03-09 03:28:00
I am writing books now… not much time left for blog entries. Did 3 paintings today, all studies down Hays road. Bye.
More About: Lost

Rivers and doors
2008-03-06 12:00:00
Day before yesterday, painted this view of the river, with the Monroe bridge. Yesterday, a view of this odd entrance to God knows what. I never think to find out or note what these places are. More trouble than it’s worth to find out these fragments of information. What is it a painting “of”? “Of” is ...
More About: Painting , Rivers , Doors

Just keep creating
2008-03-05 19:54:00
I am just beginning to understand the horrible impact of media and education on the inate creative essence that lies in us. We grow up immersed in a culture that forces images upon us, images which say to us essentially, here is your benchmark, here is truth, here is the goal. But these are illusions! There is nothing wrong with these expressions themselves, but once they are “media-ized” they become our masters, dictating to us what is right, proper, acceptable and what will be deemed succesful. It is all a lie. Acceptable is what comes from your heart. Good is what you do. Every touch and breath of your heart into this world is wondrous and perfect. All that is required is that you create. Voracious, all-consuming creation. It is what we were fitted for, and the only ocean left us to cross is the one our inspiration points out. Just keep creating, is the only benchmark left. And the work is self-justifying, it makes its own way, nature opens her jaw to receive it, the ...
More About: Creating

Accepting despair
2008-03-03 18:58:00
Creativity works from a position of utter weakness. Accepting your life in its helpless abandonment, you stop trying to right wrongs and fix things (including people)! Instead, you drink down the dregs, and understand that this is as it had to be in order to provide the theater withing which the utterly sincere work may ...
More About: Despair

It?s funny actually
2008-02-29 20:42:00
Otis hotel study, 12″ x 9″, painted Feb. 28, 2008, Spokane, WA I am amused at the collected conscience of man, how we form opinion and thought and belief like trees, with roots that go nowhere, and yet we think these shared concepts eminate from some source deeper than ourselves. So funny. We make our own ...
More About: Funny , Painting

Into the gray
2008-02-28 06:12:00
When we leave systems of belief, when we leave established doctrines and precepts, we are devastated. For a time anyway. Eventually healing comes, a strange new fortitude arises that is surprising. Creativity is no different. We awake one day to realize that all of it… all of the rules and processes and established boundaries were arbitrary ...
More About: Painting , Gray

More dance street
2008-02-26 14:59:00
Some days I get up so early. Like I think to unravel my efforts in the early hours. Quiet though. I do love the quiet. I think I am slowing down perhaps in my vision, I started painting dance street yesterday and now all I want to do is go back there and look more, find ...
More About: Dance , Street

Things are not quite what they seem
2008-02-26 11:20:00
Painted this study today at Dance Street. I find that certain points of focus in the scene draw you to them, and I do not have to think about it. Don’t know where this is going but it feels right. This idea of definition forming out of the chaos is intriguing. Out of this dismal ...
More About: Things

February barns
2008-02-25 15:05:00
I painted this sign late Saturday, No hunting. Saturday was fun, I felt inspired in my path. But I have been reluctant to stay on top of this journal so the last few days have been snippets of thoughts, and I keep saving them but not publishing them, so they get out of order. I ...
More About: Painting , February

Crystalline shards
2008-02-24 14:53:00
I looked and saw… these places that I had looked at so many times. Thinking that I had to create art when the art was there all the time. The art is in these places. An old barn. A gate. A tattered sign. They cry out to be noticed and seen. I thought I was ...
More About: Painting

Formulas
2008-02-22 11:36:00
Friday morning, 12:30 am. Can’t sleep, so am back at the art, confused, angry, not knowing what or why I am doing. The abstractions really throw me into a tail spin, I feel so disoriented after yesterday’s two paintings that ended in abstract hopelessness. One of the paintings this morning I ended up just covering ...

The deconstruction of maple street bridge
2008-02-21 15:04:00
Deconstruction. I drove out at lunch yesterday, down third ave, stopped at several places including that old hotel, walking around looking, looking… for what? reflections, an alley, what? Left and kept driving, went over the Maple street bridge and kind of backtracked around some of the street near the river, and finally wound up along a ...
More About: Painting , Street , Bridge

I keep looking, and I have no answers for you
2008-02-20 05:07:00
I keep looking, everywhere I go, along these tired roads, the same trees, the same old worn out shells of buildings, the same cliffs that are eroding, the same hills with burnt tree stumps. Over and over and over, the same views that cry out to be recorded, mentioned, not because of their notoriety, but ...
More About: Answers

Giving up
2008-02-19 16:12:00
 The coffee maker gurgles in the corner while I stare at the screen. The sun just lighting over the ice fields, bright and white and disastrous. I think I am going to go back to writing in my journal books and end this electronics version. I think there are things I can say there that would ...
More About: Giving

Untitled journal entry
2008-02-18 16:13:00
  I did these two paintings yesterday, the one a study across the fields, later I stood in the midst of the bushes out front and tried to paint them. A new appreciation for the simple expression has washed over me. Painting yesterday and today, I have come to better understand how beautiful are the works of ...
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Apples and purple bushes
2008-02-17 16:53:00
After yesterday’s abysmal efforts, I seemed to relax today and paint more comfortably. Painted a study of an apple and a measuring cup, probably around 4 a.m. I need to do more still life, you learn a lot and the best thing is - you can paint in temperatures warmer than 32 degrees! The rest of ...
More About: Painting , Purple , Apples

Master mechanics
2008-02-16 04:53:00
Hard to believe that you heart is in fact leading you true, in spite of setbacks. I painted at lunch and succumbed to the abstract tendencies in me. I am distressed over the results, with my eyes so much on man and the dialogs - and not remaining at rest in sincere expression. How long will ...
More About: Painting , Mechanics , Master

Condos and bushes
2008-02-15 04:46:00
Managed two paintings today, the first study of the bushes in front of our home. I don’t know what I am drawn to these things, but they are beautiful. The tones and blended softness, hard to capture. I try and love the attempts, but find the results lacking. Still, it was a moment, and it ...
More About: Painting

Down main
2008-02-14 15:38:00
Another view looking west on Main . This is a great little area in Spokane, lots of subject matter in any direction. The parking spots are cheap too, 10 hour meters! An hour seems to be about right for a 9×12, more time than that usually indicates something is wrong. Painting is so wonderful, so rewarding. I should ...

Pretty pictures? I don?t think so.
2008-02-13 13:20:00
Painted on Main street yesterday, near the Spokane Athletic Club. The execs heading in to get their lunchtime workout, a woman wearing designer sweats peers into the plate glass window hoping to catch the eye of her kid in daycare. And always, someone, several yesterday, stop to watch me paint, ask a question. “Do you ...
More About: Pictures , Painting , Pretty

A great gulf
2008-02-12 05:04:00
Today’s painting was a view downtown, some church, I never notice names or streets when I go out, none of that registers with me. So its a view somewhere in Spokane. I paint when I find a parking place. I think it was a church anyway. It was a dismal effort though, started drizzling about ...
More About: Painting , Great , Gulf

Paintings around the house
2008-02-11 03:52:00
I did three paintings today, started out down the road at Joel’s old house and did a study of the barn. I felt somehow relieved to just be painting again what I see, just putting it down as it appears/is suggested to me. I come to understand more and more how defenseless these location paintings ...
More About: House , Painting , Paintings , The House

Maybe art is medicine
2008-02-10 11:00:00
I wonder about the trials that come as you follow the path of sincere expression. I think that perhaps we must learn to accept ourselves as we are, and that can be hard. We would like to hide behind a more “creative” veneer, thus concealing our true identity, and never have to make the trek ...
More About: Medicine

It cannot be written about
2008-02-10 04:05:00
Managed three little paintings today, I started off with a painting of the group of bushes in front of the house and taking it back, was so disgusted with it I scraped it off the board. Went out later and did three around the house here, no driving, just walking around looking at what is ...
More About: Painting , Written

Poking at it with a stick
2008-02-09 15:42:00
Friday evening, Feb 8 - Had to work from home today, the roads were all closed around me. I had wanted to get out around 4 (after working from home in web related stuff) and do a painting, but then Don showed up needing my help to fix his tractor. So spent what little remaind ...
More About: Stick

Back at Otis
2008-02-08 13:31:00
I went back to that area across from the Otis hotel at lunch today. Trying to work in a painting in these narrow little lunch windows is not so easy. I find myself painting with one eye on the scene and the other on my wristwatch. But, that’s just the way it is. My tough ...
More About: Painting , Back