Depth Perception #1
Twenty Twenty Two
Gravitational Truce
Nobody Home
The Coast Road
Kansas City Star
This was a lot of fun to paint, and waaaay out of my comfort zone. If you know my work, you know what I mean. I’m a lot more comfortable painting rocks and trees inaccurately than I am doing the same injustices to the human form, but there they were, pouring themselves into their music for us only a few feet away. What could I do? I did my best. And this is where it landed.
It’s especially meaningful to me as I’ve painted at live events while dozens, possibly hundreds of musicians have played nearby, but never a group of musicians I’ve known as long as these guys. Usually I just paint whatever I feel like, flowing water, waves, etc, but today I felt like painting these guys while they did their thing. Our friendships go back over 25 years, long before, they played music together, before they formed Huckleberry Flint and proceeded to sell out shows. Long before two of them got the wild idea to figure out how to make chocolate from scratch and winning awards and selling chocolate all over the world as Dick Taylor Craft Chocolates. They even hired my oldest daughter and now she always smells like chocolate, and if we shake her hard enough, little bits of chocolate fall out of the hems in her shirt, and we laugh and make cookies. So yeah, this wasn’t just a painting of a band, this painting is a snapshot in time of friendships that have been forged over a lifetime.
The President
Two things happened recently.
First, I spent a week exploring and painting along one of mainland California’s most remote and mysterious coastlines. Missile launch silos. American flags. Chain of command and all that. But this painting isn’t about that trip at all except for one detail. One morning on the beach, miles from the nearest pavement of any sort, I came across some paw prints on the beach. I’d heard of mountain lions on this coast, and somehow I always pictured those cats, well, up in the mountains. The thought of one of these majestic beasts with sand stuck between its toes got my imagination working.
Second, I was asked to come paint live at a fundraiser for a friend who’s running for elected office here in Humboldt. He’s commissioned artwork from me in the past and I ate an unwholesome amount of snacks at his Superbowl party one year without even watching the game. I have no way to know whether he’s the perfect fit for the job he’s seeking, but I do know that over the years he’s been a supporter of artists like myself, so while that means I am certainly biased, it also means he’s been a meaningful part of this community’s culture long before seeking public office.
I’m not a fan of political gamery at any level and try to steer clear at all costs. But then again, I’ve never had a collector or personal friend ask me to come and paint at their political fund-raiser before, so I didn’t give it much thought and next thing you know I have to figure out what to paint at a fancy politics party.
How do I get myself into these situations?
And then I remembered the mountain lion that prowled through my thoughts on that beach a few weeks earlier. It just felt right. Those cats are apex critters if there ever were, and truthfully politics is a game of apex aspirations. But what good is apex power without honest self-reflection? It’s no good at all, that’s what. Disastrous even. So our mountain lion stands over a tidepool, its silhouette reflecting in the clear waters below, revealing a vibrant ecosystem beneath the surface.
I know that sounds a little corny, but that’s what I thought about while painting this one.
And my hope for my friend and everyone else that seeks public office, is just what this painting portrays. That it’s not about just how to win and score points and use the power you seek to shape the world as you want it, but to also honestly reflect on your role in your community, our community. I can only hope that those who seek power will also take the time to look within and find the clarity to see all of us staring back in your reflection.
Recent Fractures
Standing on the edge
Where everything brittle must eventually break
Where every painting is a tempting of fate
I do think about these things
But not deeply, and not with too much weight
Because I try to tread lightly on the edge of fate
But recent fractures
Can’t be ignored nor can I the consequences understate
Should I be a fool with the my easel and miscalculate
And become a statistic for the local papers to state
All for the homage to beauty that I’d hoped to create
If the ground would only have held for one more day
So with caution I step, and I work, and I pray
Because more than anything I would surely hate
To subjugate
My wife and my kids
To suffer from my foolishly befallen fate
Who Are You?
Let’s meet for tacos. I drag an art pal along and we meet up with a lawyer friend who has collected both of our works. The tacos are delicious but they are giant burgers and these beers are absolutely perfect. Another lawyer pal of the first lawyer shows up and another round ensues. We leave the funny tacos and head out to paint this spot for the collector friend. We drive a convoluted route through a college campus to a packed parking lot and wander off past the college kids all over the sandstone bluffs in search of this view. Once we find it, we scratch an X and we return to the lot and offload my paint pack with our latecomer lawyer pal and drive all the way back around to the non-college lot and walk back across the sandstone bluffs back to our X marks the spot and wonder where our latecomer lawyer with the pack is at. Phone calls are made. I’m confused, but that is typical. I just work here, nobody tells me anything. And I never question lawyers. Especially lawyers with bags full of ice cold beers. Finally the gear arrives with our friend in tow and I set to work on this painting over the banter of surf tales going back generations and harmonica tunes going back even further. These guys have seen some things here. Not all of it friendly. But some of it magically beautiful too. The sun sets and we wander back to the cars and set off in search of burgers and beers. I ride with the lawyers and we head over to a bar and grill near the pier, where parking does not exist at this hour except for lawyers who’ve seen some things and know that they can park in the customer only surf shop lot after hours right behind the restaurant row and walk straight into the bar like they own the place and since I don’t question lawyers in bars I follow right behind as we walk through dishwasher steam clouds and down a narrow hallway dodging piles of dirty dishes with long legs when a sweaty faced kid appears from a doorway and stops in his tracks before being steamrolled by the three musketeers marching through his kitchen uninvited and says as we pass by,
“Who ARE you guys?”
And I don’t even know, and I’m not gonna start asking questions now. And the burgers were delicious but they were pizzas and the beers were once again absolutely perfect.
Higher Learning
If I had learned a little more
I’d have known what not to do
I’d have stood my ground
And refused to paint
The whole entire view
But here we are after the fact
Showing every reef and where they lie
Splayed out across this canvas
From a vantage point
Halfway up the sky
A smarter arter would have simply
Painted only one piece of this coast
But thankfully
I missed that class
And I’m not as smart as most
Silver and Gold
Silver and gold I may not have
But what I have I give to you
I’ve got the golden sun
On a morning bright enough to
Cast out shadows
From the depths of hell
I’ve got the silver sea
On a morning calm enough to
Cast a sweet spell
Up to the heights of heaven
Take ’em
They’re yours
Not Exactly No
Into the Sunset
Will this be your first?
That was my stupid question for them
I’m not very good at this
They were really quite beautiful together
A perfect young couple
Watching another southern California sunset
From the edge of crumbling cliff
Over the mirror of the sea
Clearly expecting
A green flash
I’d just finished painting the scene
And drinking 3 beers
That’s not exactly the usual
During the course of a painting
But friends had joined me today
And it sometimes goes that way
Words of wisdom
Spoken by an old friend:
“Nothing is better than a two beer buzz”
Truth
It doesn’t get better
Only more difficult
To ask the right questions
This child would not be their first
Or their second
Or third
I don’t remember now
But it was maybe their ninth
Or thirteenth
A number enough to make you wonder
If they were much, much older than they looked
So I asked if it was true
That it got easier after the third child
They said absolutely
3 is the hardest
After that it gets easier and easier
As they start to raise each other
That’s how they could leave the other 8 or maybe 12 behind
And relax into the sunset here tonight
The team was on top of it at home
Building themselves some dang quesadillas
I’d only had three kids
The most challenging number
Now verified
My folks had three
And I was the last of them
Same for my wife
And I can confirm
That we are two of the most difficult people
You’ll ever meet
Aside from my mom
Who was the first of two
And was the pinnacle
Of difficulty
She recently walked off into the sunset
I said my goodbyes
Through salty tears
She told me to get off her cloud
So with my feet planted back on the ground
Beside the mother and father
Of a small nation beside me
And a setting sun before me
I don’t remember
If there was a green flash or not
But I knew that my three kids at home
And these three beers on the edge of this cliff
It was enough for me
When the Ship Comes In
The ship has sailed
And with it your lover
Stolen away
So you live like a pirate now
Steering your terrestrial warship
Your vessel made of sand
Stealing only what you need
And in need of everything
And needing it today
Stealing whatever you can
Stealing one last glance
At the bigger picture
Before your world grows small
As you wait for the rising tide
To level it all
In a baptism of salt
And if a mighty king
Should later arrive
With plastic bucket and shovel
Barefoot and sunburned
With a grape stuck up his nose
And a panicked mother
Searching far and wide
For her lost prince
Who happily builds his castle
From the scattered shards
Of your broken body
Then
Just maybe then
You can live again
As the castle’s ghost
Belonging to the King
Where It Wishes
You never know where the wind will take you.
I generally avoid painting down at sea level.
I like to be up on the edge of the cliff.
Canvas bouncing in the wind.
But today I’m here.
Not of my own decision.
I’m painting this for some friends.
They’re moving on, and this, a parting gift.
You never know where the wind will take you.
The Brighter Side of Widowhood
As I was nearly finished with painting this scene
I watched a woman descend the narrow path
To this small cove
With her child
They were beautiful
And complete
As they were
She didn’t need a husband down there
Checking his phone
Drinking too many beers
Zoning out when his daughter called for him
Showing off in the frigid water
And looking more like a fat walrus on his return
Than the finely sculpted merman
He thinks he is
They made me think of you
And of us
And if I should die before you
Look at the bright side…
No more beard hairs on the table
On the floor
On the kitchen counters
In our books
In our bed
In our mouths
No more listening to me talk on and on when I should just shut up
No more wondering why I’ve shut up when I should be talking
No more fool of a man to look down on
For being a fool of a man
For overthinking everything
For procrastinating too much
For working all the time
For not having the time or or means to take the family on enough amazing vacations
For preferring colder weather
For preferring to pray silently
For not doing enough
For wanting too much from you
For not being the man you hoped for
For checking my phone too much
For drinking too many beers
For zoning out on our kids
For being a beer-bellied walrus
For not saying sorry enough
And for dying
I’m sorry about that too
So look on the bright side…
You’ll be joining me sooner or later
When the time is right
And there will be no more disappointment then
Only the truest love to share
Between us
(But I cant promise anything
About the beard hairs
We’ll just have to see how that goes)
Thermal Windows
This private beach club cove once hosted a thriving whaling community. If one could activate time layers to run simultaneously we’d see grandmas playing smashball over bloody whale carcasses being carved away on the beach. But today is a quiet weekday and I see neither. I only see the quiet scene blurred through my sweating eyeballs as the southern California heat rises from the scorched desert at my feet. And speaking of whales and sweat, of coarse everyone knows that whales don’t sweat (I didn’t, I had to look it up just to be sure, but I strongly suspected they wouldn’t). But if that’s so, how then do they cool off? Sometime or another all that oily blubber must work a little too well and trap them in too much heat, not unlike my current predicament while painting on this hill. Apparently they have regions on their body around the dorsal fins and elsewhere where the blubber layer is minimal, and these zones are packed with fine blood vessels. Whale gets hot, pumps more blood to these “thermal windows”, blood cools off, whale cools off, pumps less blood to thermal windows, whale warms up, etc. My thermal windows weren’t working so well today. Had to resort to some ice cold external 12oz thermal regulator cans full of deliciously fizzy fermented grains. They helped. Science is amazing.
Mine… Or Maybe Yours
We met when we were older, when we had more swagger, and we stood a little closer to the throne.
But we had a falling out between us, we’re artists, and we’re awkward, this is widely known.
The fault was all mine, that’s what I’ve been told, but it could have been yours and yours alone.
Years went past, we lost too much, loved ones, and our youth, a wife, and a home.
There’s no point blaming each other now, we’re brothers, and anyway, our conflict was overblown.
So today we stand here side by side and harvest the morning colors from the intertidal zone.
This was the shore that shaped your soul, the same but different to the one that shaped my own.
So at noon oh two and not a minute later we’ll drink down our beers and let our differences sink like a stone.
I could go on about it but the next beer’s getting warm and we’re near the end of this poem.
By night we’re half-drunk on the edge of a cliff, what the hell and how far can our troubles be thrown.
So I’ll leave it at this, you clear-eyed disaster and paint flinging bastard, my respect for you it has grown.
It’s not a secret at all, it’s friendship, it’s clear, like gin in a jar, so drink deep and don’t go it alone.
*Dedicated to my buddy Spencer Reynolds, who showed me this spot and brought the beers.
Needle in a Haystack
The needle was the view
And the haystack was the mist
I come for the first
But cursed my luck
When I couldn’t see past my fist
I set up in faith
That it would clear
And momentarily it did
Had to work quick
To get the jist
And that is what you see here
Lost… Or Just Displaced
The glossy pages of outdoor magazines are the admission tickets. Nylon and Gore-Tex nomads. Lovers of the adventurous life with paid time off. Communing with nature while eating astronaut food under the stars. Always keep it moving. You have to match the speed of gravity to stay in orbit. Don’t stop, or you might get lost… or just displaced.
Back to the land hippies spring up like flowers in shelters built from the ruins of industry scattered across the landscape. Avoid the rat race. Avoid the poisoned food. Avoid shaving. Avoid scary Jack who lost his mind way up the creek one day and has been hunting for it ever since. Avoid going to town if possible. And never go south to the Big City or you will probably get lost… or just displaced.
Pioneering profiteers rumbling the earth with the crash of money trees. Damn the creeks, and damn it all. Mill the timber and milk the earth for all it’s worth. God knows it will waste no time consuming you when your time on her surface is done. So do what you can now for the ones you love. And keep an eye on your little ones. Don’t let them venture too far from their homes. They could easily get lost… or just displaced.
Smoke and fire. Souls released to the heavens as blood returns to earth. Apologies for mentioning a massacre, but nothing can erase the memory of a small child who hid from the light-skinned newcomers and watched her older sisters heart cruelly cut from her chest and her body and heart both left for dead so that when the child finally emerged after the murderers were gone she knew not what else to do so she stood in the blackened grass and held her sisters heart in her hands. And cried. Lost. And now displaced.
Homes of rough hewn redwood full of drying fish and baskets full of baby sisters laughter. A bird that visited each morning, turning it’s head just so. They thought it silly. It thought them beautiful. The grownups had worries that traced back for a thousand years at least. The little ones barely remembered breakfast and wanted life to stay like this forever. So they decided to never grow up because if they did, all would be lost… or just displaced.
A Little Ways Away
Thérèse of Lisieux
Born in an age of books without end
Teachers teaching the taught
The perfected lesson
The corrected doctrine
But no one to love the world entire
Unable to bear the burden
And fully aware of the limits
Of her own imperfect love
Small, weak, and broken
She found her greatest strength
In her failure
No longer striving for greatness
Of knowledge or deed
She forged The Little Way
By scattering flowers
Of small sacrifice
Of fleeting glance
Of gentle word
The smallest
Actions of
Love
And
Light
Falling on
The monastery
That bears her name
Across the bay
A Little Ways away
A simple reminder
That this canvas
On which I lay down petals
Of Red Yellow Blue and White
Is but itself
Insignificant
And merely another
Flower scattered
For Love
Stairway to Here
It’s the word that was spoken
Before I was sent
To a world collapsing
Under it’s own colorless night
We look with our eyes
And see failure
An abandoned outhouse
A crime spree
Suspicion and
Self destruction
Egos ablaze
And rampant consumption
Of her beautiful form
Of her body
Of earth
And water
But these aren’t the words
And this isn’t the book
There’s no stairway to heaven
Only a stairway
To here
So go forth
But not with your eyes
Just give them your heart
And every color within it
And I’ll give you my word
And my word is
Love
Ukha
Unfasten the beading
Undo the hook from the loop
Soon we’ll be eating
Russian Fish Soup
Tonight in the cabin
After the sun jumps its hoop
We know what we’re havin’
It’s Russian Fish Soup
We’re not in a hurry
But the ladle’s first scoop
Sets our spoons in a flurry
Of Russian Fish Soup
Chain of Command
Chains of oppression
Forged of human weakness
Masquerade as strength
Behind machines
With a thousand different ways
To spill blood
A chain of command
Sends a child
To destroy a town
That could have been his own
And it may just break that child
Or may by him be broken
He stands beside the caravan
Shaking beneath the weight
Of what he’s about to do
To the city that rises
Like flames
Beyond the rolling hills
He’s been told they have strayed
Lost their way
And need this show of power
To be brought back to the fold
United again
He believes
In better days ahead
But his body is weak
From hunger
And he remembers his home
His grandmother
Strength masquerading as weakness
Her kitchen full of the aroma
Of fresh baked bread
And her frail arms
That could hold the whole world
Or just him
And him alone
Above her table hung an embroidery
“Give us this day our daily bread”
That would bounce crooked on its nail
Every time he ran out the backdoor
And down the wood steps
Into the rolling hills
Beyond
Standing on this hill now
He’s suddenly struck
Not by bullets
But by the memory
Of his grandmother’s voice
Speaking softly over him
Of the Shepherd that leaves
The flock to save one lost sheep
And in one final act
Of holy defiance
He drains the fuel reserves
And watches the river
Spill its bloody rainbow
Into the roadside ditch
Before he looks to the sky
Lays down his rifle
And walks slowly
Into the rolling hills
Beyond
Where he waits
For their bullets
To carry him home
The chain of command
Has broken this child
But for him
And him alone
The chains that once bound him
Have been broken forever
In that roadside ditch
Where they lie
—
Konstantin Kosovo
Sure, this was inspired by reports of young Russian soldiers abandoning their posts in Ukraine, but it could also be about any soldier finding themselves caught between obeying orders and taking innocent lives. Or any of us caught in that awful space between what is expected and what is right.
When I came across this painting by Konstantin Korovin, a Russian Impressionist from the late 1800’s, it struck me as a beautiful reminder that even though war is inevitable, we all look up at the same sky and ultimately only war against ourselves.
Let mercy be the rule.
Buzz Buzz
