Say Nothing

The land that lay directly behind me as I painted this distant view from one of California’s more central coasts belongs to none other than Neil Young, and having learned this I couldn't help but recall him singing the old Woody Guthrie tune This Land is Your Land:

As I was walkin', I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "no trespassing"
But on the other side, it didn't say nothin'
That side was made for you and me

I’d be lying if I said this didn’t have me tempted to go walking right off this ridge for an afternoon stroll through his private ranch. Just for the poetry of it. But I'm pretty sure it was just a song he was singing from a stage and not exactly his personal property trespassing policy, and if I'd made it very far at all nobody but me alone would have thought it was all that witty to cite that song as my justification.

And besides, I was here with a specific purpose. I was brought up to this lonely ridge to paint the sweeping view and it was far more beautiful looking toward the coast than back over at Neil’s bald hills anyway.

I had learned it was Neil Young's property from the guy who drove me up and dropped me off up here. He's spent a lot of time on this property and knows everyone pretty well.

So of course he knows the caretaker of the cattle on this ranch, the same cattle that we had to slowly navigate through just after the second gate, and he knows that this caretaker is a real... let's just say handful. On our way down one hill, we see the cattleman coming up the dirt road in a cloud of anger and we pull aside to let him pass and he's yelling and spitting as us, red in the face, because a water truck is coming up behind him and I guess he's afraid we'll just plow into it blindly instead of pulling over like we had just done for him and he's also yelling about some loose cattle, and I'm thinking, yeah they're all pretty loose, just hanging around. Who ties up their cattle anyway? I’m no cowboy so I know that any thoughts that run through my head about cattle management are completely bunk, so I keep my mouth shut, but in all seriousness we closed every gate behind us as we went along, which is probably exactly what he thinks we didn’t do. Our Ford 350 was the same plain silver as his but in his mind I think he might have seen ours as covered with sloppy hand painted rainbows and driven by the hippies he’s been angry about for 50 years now, and everyone knows that hippies never close damn the gates. But that’s all beside the point since we had permission from the ranch owner to carry out this art mission anyway. Still it seems that everything makes this guy madder so we say nothing and wait for the water truck to pass.

We sat there for a long time. Long enough to hear my driver's story about the time he carried an 8 foot life-size crucifix up the hill in the spring mud when his truck wouldn't go any further and dug a hole on the peak and stood the crucifix there overlooking the ranch for the owners to find on their own sweet time.

He was put up to that task by some friends that knew the owners were grossed out by the goriness of the catholic crucifix. When the owners finally found it and were sufficiently grossed out by it, they had him carry the cross back down the hill and put it under the covers in the bed of some friends who were out of town whom they suspected of the original prank, now repranking the prank if you will.

And this poor guy gets stuck carrying the crucifix everywhere he goes. Not today, though, today it's just me in the truck, and even if I carry the cross and believe in Christ's sacrifice in my heart, I am not some grossly carved replica of the bloody event itself. I am just a painter driven by love... and right now by this crazy cross-carrying pickup driver that is driving just fine all over these beautiful hills, thank you very much red-faced cattle man.

We wonder how long this water truck will take and start to wonder if it could be a real long time so we drive slowly down the road and sure enough after one bend there she comes around the corner and we pull off nice and easy and let her pass. Smiles and waves. All nice and easy like it ought to be on the back hills of a cattle ranch near sunset. Order restored.

But now my cross-carrying driver is out of smokes and says he and the others are gonna need more tonight, so off we go to the market down the hill. Except the market is a bar, with a band playing a Neil Young tune out front and my friend has left his wallet and shoes behind on the ranch and since it's just me and him in the truck we hold an election and I am nominated to go in and buy the smokes. Since I have shoes. And a wallet.

The ranch and hills and cattle we’d just left behind to go get these cigarettes was currently hosting live bands all day in the valley beneath the ridge where I painted. Did I mention that part yet? I was here for a music festival I've been an artful part of for a few years running. I couldn't hear a single bit of music from up the hill where I painted this though, so this market/bar music was ironically the best bit of live music I'd heard all day as I walked in the bar and right back out again since they didn't sell any tobacco at all. Good for them. But bad for us because that meant my new pal would need to drive us all the way to the next town up the country road for his smokes.

We rolled through a valley where the old Hippies went to become new Hippies. Nobody is a real Hippy anymore, you know that, right? Everywhere I go now, Hippy is a dirty word, or a pedestal on which lives some Greco-American nature god who can do no wrong but doesn't actually exist beside us in flesh and blood. It's like calling someone a Christian. You know real Christians this and real Hippies that. I love Christian Hippies. I know a guy whose whole deal is making Christian Hippy tie-dye t-shirts and quotes Jerry Garcia lyrics as cryptic gospel passages all day long. He'd love this valley. Full of old broken down vans that the Merry Pranksters once called their homes, back when there were real Hippies and real Christians all over the place seeking truth like it mattered.

Speaking of truth, my guide wasn't sure of the truth of this but he's heard that the last grizzly bear in California was killed in this valley. We both sorta wonder quietly at that and mumble a few things. But mostly because this road just kept going and going. It got pretty quiet for a while and we finally arrive at a country market, where they do indeed sell cigarettes and so I return victorious this time and even though it's only two packs my driver pal seems satisfied as we contemplate checking out the old bar next door. Says he knows a lot of the regulars there. I'm thinking of the music festival that I'm missing right now, but I say nothing, because this is where I am here and now. And If I'm about to roll into this bar with this guy then I want to be all in cause I'm just along for life’s ride and it's out of my hands anyway and did I mention I'd been up since 4 in the morning?

We crank our necks in deep concentration and consideration as we turn around and my driver pal, fresh-lit cigarette dangling, steps on the gas and decisively leaves the market and bar behind us and we continue discussing the merits of a good drinking hole where people like to be. I guess we were looking for people we know, some excuse to derail our night. Stranger things have happened but not here and not now. We drive back uneventfully and return the truck. It wasn't ours. We borrowed it from one of the musicians who's helped organize the music festival for the last fifteen years. Yes, the same music festival that I've been very unintentionally avoiding all day. He told me during a sound check that morning that I could borrow the truck to drive up to the ridge myself, but I would've surely ended up lost in the hills with the loose cattle so I was glad my cross-carrying driver overheard the conversation and stepped up to the plate.

Like I said earlier, the driver knows everyone. He and the musician go way back also. He's helped tear this old truck apart and rebuild it with the musician multiple times. The musician is a genius electrical engineer and he was married last year in a small ceremony up on the hill where the crucifix once stood. God bless their marriage. His wife can sing and play Led Zeppelin's Ramble On like nobody's business, so they'll always have that going for them. When I first became part of this festival years ago, I heard these two playing music by the fireside after the bands were done on the main stage, and a little part of my soul ascended with the smoke and melodies into the night sky and I will forever be looking for it whenever there is fire and music near each other. This could be taken wrongly I suppose but I think I just see these two beautiful people as fire and music personified and I love them both even though I hardly know either of them and I wish the best for their lives together.

Even now the night is coming on and though my work on the ridge is done, and this painting is stowed safely in my van and I’m no longer avoiding the live music here in the valley, I am avoiding my third peanut butter and jelly sandwich of the day and instead eating two slabs of steak from a friends cooler while the final band takes the stage in a whirl of light and intentional discomfort. A man born of Irish and African roots. Illegal love. And with the voice of a hundred street preachers and a band to back him up that makes music entirely out of electric velvet.

Soon enough this Prince from Oakland settles down and the usual crew of musicians makes their way to the firepit and continues into the night. There's a lot of folks lingering to listen and me and my buddy and his lady sneak under a hammock and lay in the cool evening grass to get a glimpse and hear the music continue on its own softer pace. And guess who is there?

That's right, my driver pal is there and belting out some of the sweetest lines and tunes you'll ever hear including one about his grandma's passing that had me holding back tears. She was a real Christian, and maybe a real hippy too. Not sure, but I know she prayed for him, that's for sure.

Before I know it the three of us in the grass have moved on up to the hammock together, just enjoying music and a bit of warmth like the cattle are probably doing up on the hill right now, sans the music. I hope the loose cattle have returned to the warmth of the others by now. It's cold out here. Thankfully when my friends retired for the night they left me their blanket and I went horizontal proper on that hammock and fell asleep to the best sounds on earth. I hope my snoring at least kept the beat for the music as it rambled on until morning.

And all this madness and love is why I'm here and why this painting happened at all. The folks who own the ranch where this festival has happened for the last 15 years are selling the property and all the musicians rallied and hired me to come paint the scene as a gift to the ranch owners who have opened their land to the music, and the crazy nuts that play it, for all these years.

It was an honor and a joy and I don't know what else to say.

So I'll say nothing more.

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Pale Blue Eyes

It’s true, that fog just lingered on, and on. Those pale blue eyes…

I saw a burst of blue sky while rounding a bend and thought for sure the fog was lifting. That was my mistake- thinking anything was sure about fog. I should know better. And I generally do, but the scene was truly beautiful so I thought I’d risk it for the biscuit and I barely got a sketch in before the fog went all gray and dark. I could still make out the foreground ok, but mostly just had to finish the piece on that first impression of a memory. All good. It can be somewhat liberating to chase a memory because it’s more of a feeling than a literal thing to look at and compare to. When it works it’s a lot of fun.

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Something Not So Easy

If the previous painting of the day was titled Something Easy, well this would be the opposite of that. This place is hard. In many ways. And so was this painting. For a long few minutes, I didn’t think it was ever going to work to get this down the beach perspective. But what a dynamic place to hang and paint on a cool summer evening, I left the beach buzzing.

 

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The Whole Wide World

This was a commissioned piece for a couple who was married on the bluff beneath those trees in the distance. It had me thinking of marriage and a song I’d been enjoying by Bill Callahan called Pigeons where he sings:

when you are dating, you only see each other
And the rest of us can go to hell
But when you are married, you’re married to the whole wide world

I thought that was pretty much genius and truth. So I named this painting after the song.

Also unrelated to the title and song and all that, the wind was howling so much so that I had the easel blow over twice even with my weighted pack on it. That’s unusual. I ended up finding some loose bricks from an old industrial foundation and used some tape I keep rolled around my water jug to strap bricks to the windward leg of my easel, which did the trick, but still was a challenge to paint through and I called it a day while the painting was still in a pretty rough state. Had quite a bit of studio finish work to do on this one when I got home later.

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Ether

Ever since I’d heard about the remains of this old pier at the bottom of a steep cliff, all covered in graffiti, I knew I’d need to paint the place. The morning fog kept me from being able to paint another cliff top vista nearby so I took advantage of the weather to paint these remains from a close distance where the fog wouldn’t obscure my subject completely. I didn’t know the graffiti would read “ether”. Seemed appropriate to me on this day where even one’s own thoughts seemed to vanish in the ether of fog every few steps.  Halfway through painting the sun burned the fog away and a beautiful morning light hit the remains and I went after it.

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Nowhere Else to Go

Sometimes there’s just nowhere else to go.

You might be the raindrop drifting freely from a cloud, your flight abruptly ending in earth.

You might be the stream gathered from many mountains rushing down the valley locking into every twist and turn, hypnotized like a teenage race car driver, your mad dash halted by the edge of a cliff and suddenly you are a raindrop once again.

Or you might be the thermal energy stored up and released in the wind and transferred to the ocean as you march a thousand miles, flinging water molecules in a great circle behind you as you run at the pace that your slow decay calls for until one day it all comes crashing down and you meet a steep beach beneath a waterfall and in your final breath your exhalation sends water droplets into the warm air to become part of the atmosphere and eventually yes, a rain drop.

Or you might be me grumbling along a tourist coral herded like cattle until you reach a fence across the trail cutting your trip short and forcing you to stop in your tracks and paint the scene from where you stand, damn the stinkeye you get from the occasional tourist who is certain that your sprawling art setup is hogging the only photogenic spot on this wickedly shortened trail.  I tend to be a water person, I flow around things rather than push through, always seeking the path of least resistance, letting gravity pull me along, but just like the rain drops, sometimes there’s just nowhere else to go.

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Sorry Not Sorry

So this was different. There's a really great beach park 6 miles north of here that I hadn't painted for awhile. I was on my way through the area and thought it would be fun to return and see what I could do with it after a few years of pushing my art process a little further along. I had the idea to hike to a small bluff just north of the park and explore for a different view from over there. I made it about ten feet from my van and then had an idea.

I recalled reading recently that you could hike to the lighthouse 6 miles south of the park at low tides. I didn't say I had a good idea. But I did have peanut butter and jelly sandwich just before setting out from the van so I figured I'd be good to go and off I went on a whim. Just to see how far I would get.  You know.

The tide seemed favorable, so I just kept going, and going, and going. All the way to the end of the beach. Now I didn't read anything too closely, I just thought I saw that I could walk to the lighthouse and when the beach came to an end at a sheer cliff, the only route to go any further was up a trail past one no-trespassing sign after another. I couldn't be sure I was doing this right, but I recognized the name on the sign as belonging the previous owners of the property and so I figured the new owners had some deal with the state worked out for access and just hadn't removed the signs yet. Sounds good, right? I thought so too.

So up the trail I went and over the bluff, marching in broad daylight right up to the turning point of all of California. Just before ascending the knoll was another gate of sorts, with new signs, this time from the Coast Guard saying that only authorized personnel were allowed. I'd come this far to see the light house that I was sure that I read I was allowed to see, so yes, authorized I was. A bit of an odd feeling, tromping past one sign after another with creeping sense that I'd made a wrong turn or missed something somewhere.

But up I went and checked out the whole scene. Didn't see a single person out there. Desolation row. I took some photos of the lighthouse itself but the wind was beyond next level and I wasn't having that, so I settled on this view from a shaded and sheltered spot in front of some old living quarters on the back of the knoll, looking due East! It was a view I had not expected to paint this day, or any other anytime soon.

I had to work exceedingly fast as the day was getting long, the tide was coming up and I had to jam 6 miles back to the car on foot before dark since I was just parked in the day-use spot. I was hoping for a burger at the park store too, but I had a sinking feeling the grill would be long cold by the time I made it back.

Tired and half-broken from the high tide rock scrambles, but proud to have two dry boots after numerous close calls, my tired body smiled as wide as my happy soul as I raised my feet and ate my second peanut butter and jelly sandwich of the day in my van before moving on.

Post-edit:
Later on I read a little more about the hike to the lighthouse. I was supposed to stay on the beach at the lowest tides and see the lighthouse from below. My bad. Sorry, but not sorry. It was an amazing day and my conscience was clean on this one.  Ignorance can be beautiful like that.

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The Sea is for “California”

The Sea is for “California”
The Ay is for “Ay, it looks kinda fun out there”
The El is for “Where the El did all these people come from? It didn’t look this crowded a minute ago”
The I is for “I didn’t see you back there”
The Ef is for things I’ve heard out there that I can’t repeat
The Oh, is for “Oh look at this set coming in”
The Arr is for “Arr, that guy seems like he’s getting every wave with that massive log”
The In is for “Hey those guys just went in”
The I is for “I might get a wave or two now”
The Ay is for “ay, it is was super fun out there today”

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Cottage Industry

Hot exhaust fumes hardening into tar deposits hanging in the air over the snow cone machines where the tourist buses come to die and pour out their guts just short of the hospital where elderly cottages are kept on life support by the steady IV drip of short-term rental vacation deposits.

This place is bought and sold to the masses as a glimpse back in time to an older California.

Except the older California didn’t have a gift shop.

I just came to paint and move on. It really is an adorable little cove though.

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Jacob’s Ladder

This pier is condemned. Structurally damaged. And the scene here beneath the shadow of its condemnation is… interesting to say the least. Police patrols. Dealers. All manner of today’s American riff raff squaring off against the sunny California dream.

Let’s call this man by the stairs Jacob.

In the biblical narrative, Jacob was a deceptive manipulator out for his own gain. He’d stolen from his brother repeatedly and now was fleeing in fear for his life.

We have no idea what bad decisions brought our Jacob to the pier here on this day.

“And he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep.”

Our Jacob sleeps with his head on the concrete.

“And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth…”

Ours is a cement stairway with metal handrails.

“and the top of it reached to heaven and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.”

And ours is the top of the pier where couples in love stand and take in the cool salt air, because when your bed is the stone of concrete wherever you lay, and you have made some bad decisions and maybe even burned some bridges with your friends and even your own family so now you have nobody to help you in your loneliness and despair, well… the gulf that stands between your sad state and that of a couple in love on a pier in the sun may as well be the chasm that separates heaven and earth themselves.

And sometimes it is the Jacob’s of the world that God eventually chooses for the greatest things.

Don’t ask me why.
I have no good answers.
It’s easy to cast judgment.
But it’s a lot harder to be right.
You never know where greatness lies.

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No Van is an Island

Another view from the roof of my van. This was the next morning and only about 600 feet south of my last post.

To be honest I pretty much just painted here because the prime parking spot had just opened up in this lot. It was a busy morning on a summerishly spring day and I was worried that if I didn’t stay here I might not find another parking place all day. I opted for the rooftop view this time not as much because of the compositional possibilities, but more just because it would give me a buffer from all the activity below…

Walkers, joggers, and yoga bloggers. Bikers, skaters, likers and haters. Selfie seekers acting the goofiest and shady ham-radio enthusiasts. Car sleeping, still drunk, greasy tattooed bass players grumbling out car windows at bright eyed white shirt spring break baseball players who are invisible to the chain-smoking plastic chair and card table dark-eyed novelist who instead zeroes in across the street at an upstairs party for real estate tax evading campaign slush fund grovelists.

It was that kind of day. I couldn’t change it. California is a funny place sometimes.

But rain or shine, zoo or solitude, I know my part in this circus, and I was here to paint. So to the roof I went once again. Headphones creating the sonic seal to my own private world up there and even still:

“Hey! Hey! Hey man! Did you see a guy on a bike go by?” (yes, which one?) followed immediately by “Someone stole my buddie’s bike and I can’t find my dog.” (I’m sorry to say, I wasn’t much help, but I hope he finds everything he was looking for).

And as much as the van provided a limited buffer from the distractions below, there’s no way it would stop friends from passing by, climbing up on the roof to check things out, grabbing beers from my cooler below and having a generally fine time. In fact it probably only encouraged such friendly visits due to it being a rather conspicuous perch along the busy road. They couldn’t miss me.

But what could I do? After all, it’s just like they say…

No Van is an Island.

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Just Before Sunset

One of those summer evenings that make you just feel like life could always be this way. It can’t. But in the moment, maybe it sorta can.

I painted this while watching one particular section of reef where wave after wave peeled across in perfection.  I couldn’t finish this quick enough.

I caught one gem of a wave just before the sun set, a roller that passed under the outside reef and was setting up nicely just where I was hunting. The rest of the pack was further in and as I faded and stalled to line up the wave for a speed run when it stood up on the reef I heard someone screaming behind me. Had to turn and see what the fuss was and it was some guy on a longboard that I’d already passed by as I wove through the crowd, he must have turned and paddled in behind me and now was trying to call me off this little beauty. Nope. The effect of his yelling was counterproductive for him as all it did was cause me to stall a bit longer than intended and then promptly stuff him in the whitewater as I turned up and into the bending wall before me. It was a racetrack to the end, and when I finally came through as the wave slowed up again, he was nowhere to be seen. Sorry buddy. But not sorry at all. That was a fun one.

The only thing I really am sorry for is talking explicitly about surfing right now. I generally try to avoid this sort of thing. I don’t know, it always sounds pretty silly. I guess that’s because it is. You can’t take things too seriously on summer evenings like this.

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The Boulevard

I came with a plan.

The plan was to paint these sculpted arches and coves and the sea at work around them while ignoring everything else. Forget the palms, forget the houses, forget the sun and the sky, forget the boulevard, and forget it’s name along with my own and just get lost in the weathered sandstone and rhythms of water and paint.

But I also came with a van. With a roof platform. And four other artist pals. And a cooler full of ice cold beer.

Next thing I knew I was up on the van painting, well, everything.

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None Shall Pass

An arch that’s been painted once or twice or a thousand times before this, and will be again by countless others walking these shores.

All I know is that at least on this day they better approach from the south, because there was no getting past the rocks on the north side. A steady stream of snap-shotters and well dressed selfie-seekers poured into this arch as I stood and painted, and everyone one of them stopped and turned around to go back to from whence they came.

None shall pass.

For effect feel free to picture a pirate sitting on the arch spitting and cursing all of us softies down below, the dirty soles of his feet swinging in the wind overhead, while the barrel beside him leaks almost as much as the streams of rum running down his beard*.

NONE SHALL PASS.

*I am not the pirate. Any resemblance is purely coincidental and imagined.

 

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Capital Punishment

To kill a killer. Justice served. Except in this case I don’t think the killer ever actually killed anyone, and even if so, it was certainly not intentional. “Killer” was only a nickname. In fact the “killer” was much loved and revered by California surfers until 1966, when capital punishment was dished out and the “killer” would be no more.

You know what I’m talking about. But if you don’t it should be too hard to look up. The clues are plenty.

I will say this though, my wife’s family was from this little town. There’s even a massive photo of her grandpa Mel on the wall hanging in one of the hotels down in the harbor. There he stands to this day, grinning, shirtless, holding behind him a redwood surfboard that must have weighed more than any of his 4 children at the time.

I recall asking him about the harbor that was built here that ended the days of the “killer”, and he seemed confused that I asked him if he was sad to see it built and ruin such a great surf spot. He said flatly that the harbor was the best thing that ever happened to this place. I wasn’t about to push this any further with him. A matter of perspective I suppose.

It’s a beautiful headland, and a beautiful harbor at that. I just couldn’t help but hint in this painting at what once used to happen when large swells marched into this cove before the breakwater effectively stopped them in their tracks.

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The Royal Treatment

Already a long day of painting, this was a late afternoon session down the street from a restaurant where I’d just ate and drank to my fill with an old friend. I was supposed to be delivering a fresh batch of canvas prints to the restaurant as well. After a relaxed meal I told them I’d be right back with the art that was in my van around the back, then promptly got to talking with my old pal about where I might go paint next and he wanted to show me this spot and we got so excited that I jumped in the van and followed him down the hill to paint this scene.

About half way through painting it, I realized that all the art I was supposed to deliver was still in the van and they must have thought I was the biggest hack of an artist they’d ever seen. “Yeah I’ve got the prints, how about some food and beers first?” and “yeah, I’ll be right back with the art” and poof, I was gone. Never trust an artist.

All was well and good when I returned though, I think they were so relieved to see me back and deliver the goods that they went right ahead and fed me again. The royal treatment indeed.

It wouldn’t be wrong to mention the restaurant here would it? I highly recommend The Shore Grille.
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Hiding in Plain Sight

Access to this pocket of reef beneath sandstone cliffs is now through a private club serving coastal California’s elites. An old friend of mine grew up surfing here before the club existed. 

The owner of the club is a rather infamous self-important jerk of sorts, and was probably here for an event, when security recently stopped my friend at the gate. They asked if he was on the guest list. Of course he was. He gave them a name. The guard fumbled with the list and with smug satisfaction placed his hand on the car as he was about to direct this unwelcome guest to turn around. My buddy glares at the guard and tells him to take his hand off his car as though he’s the boss himself. (It’s a nice ride, and he keeps it spotless.) The suddenly off-gaurd guard removes his hand, stands up straight, and my buddy blows right past him and heads past the clubhouse to his usual spot, and makes his way quickly down the bluff for a fun session.

Places like this hide in plain sight, existing squarely between two worlds. The elite and the illicit. The billionaires and the bankrupt and all that lies between. 

And I hid in plain sight while painting this. Out of bounds and over a roped off area, sneaking a view of this peak, in clear view of any hired staff who may or may not care that I was painting where I was.  Only one way to find out. I went after it fast, laying a sketch at breakneck speed, so that if I got the boot I’d at least have enough started to get ‘er done later. 

This would mean a lot to it’s eventual owner, a surfer who pioneered this wave that had long been considered unrideable. He rejected the blatant territorialism that was familiar to the north and south of this place, inspiring the next generation to guard the spot with aloha and skill instead of zip codes and fists. My friend above was part of this generation and he rallied the crew to have me paint this as a gift of gratitude for their respected elder. It’s an honor I can hardly describe, and I hope it brings back a million good memories every time he looks at it.

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Walking on the Moon

I don’t know why the child suffers
But I know he is more than his pain
I don’t know when he’ll return to this place
But I know he’ll be here again

I don’t know why this life
Brought him these troubles so soon
But I know that when his feet touch this sand
The child walks on the moon

Painted at the request of the parents of a small child suffering a painful medical condition. This beach is his favorite place in the world and they wanted him to have this painting to remember the place and bring him some cheer and remind him of good times had, and to look forward to as well.
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South by South

There are souths, and there are Big Souths, and there are places like this that are still south of those while still being north of many other souths, let the reader understand.

I’d spent the morning painting out on that headland just past the breaking waves, and the view in this direction made for a perfect bookend of an afternoon. Like justice being served.

Speaking of justice, we need to figure out how to serve justice to folks that are trashing beautiful places like this.  The view is worthy of the glossiest post card in the gas-station spinner rack, and yet the ground is covered in debris like the gnarliest gas station restroom you’ve ever laid eyes on. It’s sad. Sorry to mention it here, but it’s hard to see and say nothing about. If it gets much worse I might have start including the toilet paper drifting in the wind in these paintings and nobody, nobody, nobody wants that.

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Rags to Riches

A road closure not too far north of this headland made for a quiet night sleeping on a highway pullout. The view I'd come for was obscured by the marine layer which hovered about 200 feet above sea level so after a quick cup of coffee and some grumbling in the mist I made my way down to a gap in the barbed wire fence that I spotted passing through the previous evening.

I'd wanted to explore this zone in the past but had been met with barbed wire, no-trespassing signs, and poison oak encroaching all over what might have been a footpath behind an abused portion of fencing. There's times we face challenges that we must dig deep to meet. That's when we see what we're really made of.  In this case I dug deep and found an excellent reason to go somewhere else. I don't recall the reason, but it was pressing, let me tell you. Otherwise I'd have ventured boldly onto that sketchy poisonous path in a heartbeat. Ahem. Yes.

But I told myself I'd come back another day and this was the day. In a fortunate twist of fate, I was greeted this time by signs stating that the trail was open to the public during daylight hours. And through use the oak had been beaten back into a much more manageable submission beside the path. I should have grabbed my gear right then, but I got so excited that I charged down the path driven by curiosity and coffee and made my way out to this vista greeted by poppies and a sweeping view up the coast.  Stumbling on this scene after being denied in the past was like living through my own personal rags to riches story.

Sure, I had multiple commissioned paintings I needed to get done today, and sure, the fog had lifted and mostly burned off so I could have made a mental note and come back for this after being responsible and getting my paid "work" out of the way first, but I'd already left this place for another day once and I wasn't about to do it again, so it was off to the van for my gear and back again.  A good way to start the day.

Also of note: came across a big fat snake in the grass on my way back out the second time. Probably just a garter snake of some kind, but he was a thick one. I try to tread lightly out there anyway, but after seeing this bugger I tried my best to float over the trail instead.

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