07/28/2020
The view from where we stayed (thanks mom-and-pops-in-law!). Sometimes I hike miles for a painting. Other times I stumble out the back door after a long slow morning and there it is.
Artwork Notes & Backstories
Twentytwenty
06/09/2020
Twentytwenty doesn’t need much introduction. We’ve all been caught in this storm. That’s what this painting is about.
But there is a bit more backstory to it that some of you might not be aware of. This piece was started live on location at the Dunehouse in Manila, CA as a benefit for Friends of the Dunes. Unable to host their annual event on site due to it being 2020 and all, they were still able to manage to have the Spindrifters come belt out some live tunes for an hour and a half last week while I set up outside and painted to their rhythms. After so many months of not hearing live music in person, let alone being able to paint along, it was a heavy experience and another reminder of just how much this thief called 2020 has attempted to steal from us.
I was a bit rusty during the live portion of this painting out there, so I took it home and did quite a bit of work finishing it up in the studio. I had a vision for this one, and really wanted to bring it through. Generally the only large paintings I work on the studio these days are commissions from collectors and are never available for outright purchase, let alone in an auction. This is a truly rare opportunity to score an original painting like this, it just doesn’t happen very often. Someone’s gonna be stoked. But that’s just business, let’s get back to what this painting is all about…
The peninsula in all of its duneful wonder is a beautiful place and its been fun to paint there every year for the last 6 or so years at their annual event, but to be honest there’s always been something a little odd about being out there in a social setting. The glory of the dunes are best experienced in solitude. And ironically, I don’t think I’m alone in this opinion. We don’t have a desert here in Humboldt- out on the peninsula in these dunes is one of the few places with open sky and empty space. It’s our desert. Our place to face the heavens and scream and cry and laugh and pour out our lives to whoever listens up there. We dream up ideas, we’re captured by visions, confronted by the blank slate of our souls. This alone is a beautiful thing.
But there’s another beautiful thing about this coast. Due to the angle it faces, our predominant northwest winds blow howling onshore out here and the lightest breeze can rough up the ocean to a churning frenzy of whitecaps turning quickly great waves into ragged derelict lumps of water marching drunkenly to shore arm in arm like soccer hooligans after a heated match. But once in awhile the pattern is disrupted on those days when a new storm rolls in. The swirling low pressure systems that move in from the North Pacific meet the land first with a blast of wind from the south, grooming the incoming swells into beautiful gems of organized chaos. Standing alone at the water’s edge on a day like this can be thing of frightening beauty. And that, more than anything is what this painting is about. Finding some beauty in the middle of the storm that has been twentytwenty.
Ok, yes it’s about that, and it’s also about trying not to drown.
Better Times
06/09/2020
Even though the title says Better Times, it’s not a commentary on that time, this time, or any other time we all collectively think of. It’s a quote from the friend who commissioned this painting who had some of his greatest memories here, followed by some incredibly difficult and tragic years. It’s deeply personal and I’ll leave it at that. I only mention it because I thought it was a beautiful thing to have this meaningful place painted for him to remind him of the good times, and that if there were good times back there, then no matter how hard things get in the present circumstances, better times can always come again.
Two For One
05/24/2020
I was here to paint the view for a couple who were married here. I painted a quick one the night before and seeing how crowded it was here on the covid coast of California, I was very thankful to have permission to park and camp behind this private property’s gate. It’s hectic out there, but it’s as easy as ever on this side. Or so I thought.
It was a long night in the van. When you’re at home and your usual good health takes a wrong turn you can hide out for days at a time under your pillow. You can call a friend for help. You can stand under a hot shower for as long as it takes.
But when things go south on the road, alone in an unfamiliar place, and you’re up all night, sweating ice, and sitting upright in the front passenger seat to keep the sour mess of your soul from creeping up your esophogus, well, at those times you just have to struggle through it. Make the best. Wrap that awkward bag around you and a towel around your neck to keep your head up and hope for a bit of sleep.
It’s kinda like marriage in its own way. Occasionally there’s a long dark night, and if you’re a dense thud of a husband like me, often you just have to struggle along. Work it out with her however you can because just like on a rough night in a van, you are all you’ve got. And in the worst of times you’ll find you yourself aren’t very much at all. But when morning comes and the sun is bright in your eyes through the frosted glass windshield, that’s when you find you never needed to be all that much anyway, you just needed to be there. Going nowhere. Not getting out and looking for somewhere else to go in the cold dark night. Not driving away in a spit of rubber and gravel. Just being there, and being your whole messed-up self in the van, hoping for a better day ahead.
I know I’m kinda off the rails on this sloppy metaphor, but what can I say? I got up, felt okay, cooked up a few cups of coffee and powered through this morning painting of this sanctuary by the sea.
Two trains of thought, one conclusion.
This one is a Two for One.
Wreathed in Gold
05/23/2020
May. 2020. Arriving late in the day. The winding road to the coast dipped at turns and barreled straight through the blinding sun around each bend- a supercharged conduit for heavy traffic heading both ways in a rush toward whatever version of “stay-at-home” they were playing today.
A motorcyclist behind my van wasn’t having it. He made his move and flew past me and the little hatchback in front of me. I wondered what he was in such a rush for. I wondered what everyone else was so eager for as well. I knew I was hoping to reach the coast with enough time to get a painting done before ending this long drive of a day. I figured if I had my reason, everyone else had theirs too, I just wished they’d be a little less crazy about it on this dangerous road at this dangerous hour of the day.Not even two bends of the road later I had to brake hard to avoid slamming into the hatchback, now at a dead stop in the road. Bits of broken plastic and glass, a twisted strip of metal, and an empty helmet laying on the shoulder told me what I didn’t want to know. As the scene came into focus I saw him up on his feet, trying to shake it off. He looked like he’d be fine, unlike his bike, or his plans for the day. Some quick thinking motorists were already out of their cars, waiving me by, directing the traffic that was already backed up as far as the eye could see behind us.I would paint today, just happy to be alive.I was on my way home from southern California helping my family take care of my dad after some very close calls with his health, and was finally heading home, just stopping here mid-way to paint a piece for a couple that was married on the grounds of this property overlooking this arc of beach, now wreathed in gold in the setting sun.I’d finish this painting, and drink beers, and sing old Neil Young songs to myself while cooking up a roadside pot of ground beef and beans and get myself feeling sick as a dog in a rolling kennel before the night was over, living like a king, with a different sort of crown, made entirely of Still-Not-Dead-Yet.Life is good.
Trial By Fire V
05/08/2020
This wasn’t my first time painting live with Luca. Last September I found myself at a beach party in Italy where Luca was playing. (And that’s a whole other story for another time, but for anyone that knows me, you know it takes a minor miracle to get me away from the California coast… ) Anyway, Italian artist Vincenzo Ganadu was at this raging beach party and was kind enough to share a canvas with me and we went to town in a frantic stoke-fueled collaboration while Luca and his band belted out tunes. Neither of us spoke much of the other’s language, but thankfully art and music is a universal language. The Italian surf community welcomed me into their world with open arms. It was clear that as a culture they held a deep appreciation of art and beauty and life. ⠀
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I was inspired to dig a little deeper into some Italian inspiration before painting this one with Luca and I was drawn to the Canticle of the Sun, a poem by St. Francis of Assisi, where he speaks of the sun and the wind and fire as brothers, the moon and the water as sisters. It is a beautiful piece of praise to God that invites us to a deeper connection with the natural world that shapes and sustains us. The idea of fire itself as a brother was intriguing to me- as catastrophic as it is when it devours all in its path, fire is also an essential part of our humanity. It protects us from the cold. It transforms raw ingredients into satisfying meals. It powers the forges that shapes our tools with which we build the world. It illuminates the darkest night. Without it we’d be cold and hungry, stumbling in the dark. ⠀
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These were my thoughts back in May, hoping to find some beauty in the hardships we all are facing. Back then, though, California was not on fire. Now we’re still locked down with the pandemic and choking in smoke and people we know are losing homes, livelihoods and some of them even their lives. This is a terrible time to live through. I started these fire paintings as a metaphorical series, but with actual fires raging now… I think I might go paint some rain instead.
Trial By Fire IV
05/07/2020
Back in the early days of this global pandemic thing we’re all still slogging through, we saw the virus take hold in Italy. That was a wake-up call. ⠀
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I had just had the chance to visit Italy back in September (which is no minor feat as anyone who has ever tried to get me to leave California’s coast will attest). It was a great trip, with a great story that will be shared in its own time. We met some of the friendliest and surf-stokedliest people I’ve ever met in my life. Even got a bit of windswell one morning and rode a few waves on an airmat, in the Mediterranean beneath the shadow of Ancient Rome herself. Holy moly. Good times.⠀
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So when we saw their country slowly descend into complete lockdown, shutting down all public spaces, my heart went out to all of Italy. When I started doing some experimental live art/live music/live stream collaborations back in April, I knew I’d want to reach out to some friends over there and make it happen. Why not? The virtual door was now open to collaborate across the planet.⠀
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It was an honor to team up with Paolo, who had been out of work as a musician since the pandemic started. He played his heart out one evening from his living room in Italy while I painted the morning away alongside him from my studio here in California. ⠀
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Okay, but why the Garibaldi?⠀
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I wanted to honor Italy with the Garibaldi. Yes it’s California’s state fish, but it was named after the red/orange vests worn by the followers of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the father of modern day Italy’s unification and independence.⠀
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So there you go. Californitalia.
Trial By Fire
04/20/2020
As we watch the world burn around us, many of us are waking to the reality that we are truly non-essential. As artists, we’ve always known this. You can’t eat paintings. We’ll continue to forge ahead on the fringes while everyone else sorts out the falling chips. Some of us won’t make it. We chose to carve our own paths in life away from the safety of “real jobs” so we’ll get what we deserve in the end. I can accept this. But buried within our need for survival, our need to sell art, there is a pressure to take our art and provide what many people want right now. Diversion. Escape. Idyllic scenes of better worlds and better times.
I don’t think anything sums up my feeling about this better than this passage from the book of Psalms:
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our harps.
For there our captors demanded of us songs, and our tormentors mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
But how can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?
There will be a time and place to paint better times and better places, but my heart is not there right now- too many people are hurting too deeply, and my own heart is too heavy. So for the moment, I have chosen instead to paint our world on fire. To meet the flames face to face. To accept them. To find beauty even in this tragedy. Without a forest fire, there can be no forest- the mighty sequoia needs fire to release its seeds and clear the ground for its young. Those three seeds in this painting might be my own three children preparing to take root in a world changed forever.
This Will Never Shut Down
03/18/2020
Painted during the first week or so of lockdowns back in March of 2020. Businesses were shutting down. The roads were growing quiet. The air was crowded with questions, but the land and sea had answers of their own. Some things will never be shut down. You can shut your eyes, but you can’t stop the world around you. And the waves keep rolling in, and the flowers keep blooming, and the birds keep flying, and we know deep down that we won’t be confined to these bodies forever.
Everyone is Listening
02/22/2020
My final painting of this trip. I recently read about the family that home-steaded this place back in the 1800’s and installed a phone line to King City in 1910. One of the kids that grew up here recalled that you could tell who was calling because everyone had a different ring. And when a call was made, all the phones up and down the line rang and everyone answered. Once it was settled who the caller wanted to speak to, the others would go quiet, but still listen in, offering occasional corrections if something didn’t sound right. His aunt Lulu was particularly adept at this art. Awkward and funny, yet understandable. This is a quiet coast. The ocean may roar, but in the spaces between the outposts, the noise of the outside world fades into flowers. I didn’t speak to a single person while painting this one, the only people I saw were in cars moving so fast that we may as well have been in different dimensions. The air was lonely and the light was beautiful. So I just talked to myself on top of the van while painting… and aunt Lulu never had to correct me even once.
The Dark Watchers
02/21/2020
Through thickets of poison to a cliff in the wind beneath dark skies, they followed. Not with their bodies, just with their eyes. They call them Dark Watchers, and stories of them in these hills go back generations. If you see them and try to approach one, they vanish into the landscape. I wish I could do that sometimes too, just stand and watch and observe the landscape as I paint it, and as soon as someone sees me and wants to come chat and get-all-up-in-my-business-wanting-to-know-if-I-make-a-living-doing-this-stuff-as-if-that-somehow-has-any-bearing-on their-ability-to-appreciate-what-I-am-doing-right-there-before-their-eyes, then poof, I vanish back into the earth from whence I came. That would be beautiful. When I grow up I want to be a Dark Watcher. And just maybe I will.
Information Superhighway
02/20/2020
I don’t know why, but the thought of a credit card bill, or bank statement, or some foreboding notice from the IRS sitting in one of these little metal boxes getting absolutely gob-hammered by winter storms just seems so absurd and yet so right- as if nature herself was seeking revenge on the entire economic system that invented things like tourists and plastic bottles and junk mail. Just another roadside scene of daily life on the information superhighway.
Escaping Santa Cruz Crowds: circa 1880
02/20/2020
Yup. Even in 1880 Santa Cruz was getting too crowded for some folks, like Sabrino Gamboa who fled to this stretch of Big Sur’s coast nearly 150 years ago. Same as it ever was, I guess.
Off the Grid
02/19/2020
A cove not easily reached. A wild country. The government here stalks on four paws and the cities are made of gray sticks full of poison. And life goes on, even off the grid.
Bobcats Don’t Have Tails
02/19/2020
For this one, I wanted to return to the scene of the first painting, I felt there was something more to see without trying to get the entire scene all the way to that white mountain. And I was right. As soon as I stopped to set up the easel, I looked back on the path I’d just walked up and about 20 yards back there was a wild cat on the path. Not a big one. I knew they saw a lot of bobcats here, so without thinking I assumed that’s what it was. And of course I had to paint it so I watched it closely; thick paws, big head, and a big fat tail. Not very big, but big enough that I was relieved when it showed no interest in me. Recorded as remembered. Then came the puzzle in hindsight… bobcats don’t have tails. At least not usually. Was it a small mountain lion? Did I just make it up in my head? It wasn’t solved until my host explained they often have bobcats come up to their house and one in particular always seemed interested in their cat, not threatening, just curious through the glass. When their cat grew ill and passed away recently this bobcat was there sitting beside the glass, a calm presence. My hosts puzzled over this bobcat too, because it had… wait for it… an unusually long tail. Feline vindication. Feels pretty good. Thought my eyes and mind had failed me for a minute there.
This Side of the Cactus
02/18/2020
A lonely cypress stands on this ridge, holding on for dear life through every storm and gale it’s seen, and it’s seen a lot of them. It’s getting a good whipping from the north wind right now as I paint this, its roots holding firm and its muscular bows holding back the wind for myself and this happy little cactus patch looking down on one of the most beautiful beaches in all of California. One of the most photographed beaches in all the world, but you wouldn’t know it from here. Nobody goes here. It’s off limits. Private. One jogger wandered up the path while I stood here with my host, and she sent him right back down the hill, thwarting his plan to jog the ridge over to the next state park. Big Sur is a territorial place. Always has been. There’s a lot of it that I’d love to see one day, but find myself on the wrong side of the cactus. On this day though, it was enough to just be out of the wind on this side of the tree, and on this side of the cactus for a change.
She Called Off the Dogs
02/18/2020
I only had to walk about a mile and a half down a steep and private dirt road to get to this vantage point of a beach everyone knows, but few have seen from this angle. About half way down, I was greeted by friendly dogs doing their best to act really unfriendly to strangers with funny backpacks walking down their roads. Good dogs. There was a clear point in the road that they did not want me to pass. Step over the line, bark and growl, step back, quiet, repeat as desired. Contemplating the options and the steep hike back up the road, I’d have to just risk it. Right about when I’d worked up the nerve to step over their line and keep walking I heard a voice from behind the fence down the road. She Called Off the Dogs.
Mountain of Mien Mo
02/17/2020
Titled after Kerouac’s name for this mountain, a looming white peak visible from the canyon beneath the bridge where Kerouac stayed and wrote his novel, and also visible from this ridge a good distance down the coast. This peak is full of stories. Creation stories. Secret caves stories. Lost civilization stories. Mysterious dark figure stories. Get rich quick stories. Get rich slow stories. Lose everything stories. Find everything stories. Everyone has their own mountain to climb or else cower in fear beneath it. Onward. All of us! Onward.
22 Miles to Go
02/16/2020
A bright morning and a fine start to the last road trip I took before everything got put on hold in 2020. In spite of how the title makes it sound, I certainly did not have another 22 miles to go neither by car nor on foot. It was a short walk from the road and back to paint this one and I was heading another 50 miles or so to Big Sur after this. The 22 mile reference has to do with the distance across the bay to the far-off blue ridge of land in the background, and the collector I painted this for who often paddles that 22 mile crossing for fun. That blows my mind. I get winded just paddling out to a lineup on a chest high day. I guess I will always have another 22 miles to go.
The End of Love
02/16/2020
We knew things were about to get interesting, news of the pandemic was just ramping up in February. And here I was in Tourist Central, painting one of Monterey’s iconic focal points. We were not social distancing. We were in each other’s faces, breathing each other’s breath, like lovers but still strangers from all different parts of the world. The sun was setting and things were about to change. The Distance was about to come to us all – that new cold distance where fear would become an illegitimate surrogate for love.
For Those with Ears to Hear
November 21, 2019
This piece gets personal for me. It’s a prominent headland on a stretch of California’s coast that always reminds me of my grandparents who moved somewhere behind those mountains on the right when I was about 10 years old. We’d go visit them occasionally, always bummed that they didn’t have a TV or “anything to do”. We always thought it would be so boring. Looking back, those times with my brother, sister, and cousins where some of the best times I can remember from my childhood. I don’t remember actually being bored even once, we spent the whole time outside exploring, playing, fighting, dodging trouble the best we could. Real life. Our lives. When my grandpa passed away I was about 16 years old. To this day when I think of him (and my grandmother as well) I think of the wisdom of their generation and how once a generation passes, their particular wisdom passes along with them. Some of it is passed down to the next generation of course, but some is sadly gone forever. When I encounter whales in the ocean I have a similar feeling about them- that they have a particular wisdom- one that is beyond our understanding, but also one that could sadly pass from existence one day, should the last of the whales spout its final breath. This particular headland was once a prime spot for hunting whales, so I included one in the painting beneath those mountains on the right, an homage to the wisdom of my grandfather who breathed his last breath in his sleep just beyond that hill nearly 30 years ago. We love you, grandpa.
Rise and Shine
11/02/2019
Painted this one on location close to home on a November morning back in 2019. It was one of those days we don’t get very often here, perfect conditions, no wind, crystal clear… just not quite clear enough to see what was about to go down in a few short months.
When I look at my paintings from these days it’s like remembering a different version of myself, stirring a strange nostalgia for simpler troubles before the world turned upside down with disruption.
But the truth is that on this clear morning here in 2021 the light still fills the air around us.
Time to get moving.
Chromatic Water Theory XIII: Abstract Jazz
10/19/2019
Painted partially live at the Basement in Arcata, then finished recently for the Redwood Coast Music Festival.
It’s been a ton of fun creating artwork for the festival, and at the festival as well. This Chromatic Water Theory series was literally born in the presence of world class jazz musicians performing in the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Eureka. The first few pieces I did for the official festival artwork included different elements, but as I painted live as the jazz acts rotated throughout the days and nights of the festival a simpler theme emerged- a visual combination of musical instruments and moving water.
I can’t think of too many manifestations of rhythm in nature as elemental and profound as the breaking of waves on a shoreline. Sure there’s sound waves, light waves, all sorts of wave phenomenon in nature, but water waves are special in that they are scaled in space and time just perfectly for human interaction. We can ride one at a time, or get pounded by one at a time if riding them isn’t your thing (or even if it is). We can experience one water wave as a singular entity. Not so with sound waves, or light waves.Perhaps even more than their rhythms, it’s the ability to move us physically that causes me to associate them with music. But I don’t want to make too much of it or overthink it, because like music, these paintings are just fun and feel so right.
Previous pieces from the series have focused on piano keys, drums, and various stringed instruments. The brass and woodwind instruments- saxophones, tubas, clarinets all seemed so foreign to my sensibilities. I can reference something as simple as a vibrating string and feel like I’ve done enough to evoke a guitar, but these alien instruments, full of tubes, and levers, and knobs, and who-knows-what- how do you distill one of those to a simple element? I have no answer. Maybe a better artist could do so effectively but the task eluded me, so I just went with the whole enchilada… er, saxophone, front and center. The keys beneath and the drum behind rounded out a nice trio. So there you have it
And also a poem…
When the music ends⠀
The lights go on⠀
And everyone slowly leaves⠀
Yet somehow the room is strangely dim⠀
Somehow darker than it was before⠀
When the house lights were off⠀
And the music filled the spaces⠀
Between the empty glasses ⠀
That are now also slowly leaving⠀
White rings on the wood tables⠀
As we hum to ourselves ⠀
And dissolve back into the cold night air⠀
And warm beds that await⠀
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If we’d known then⠀
That the music would end in this way⠀
We’d have stayed all night long⠀
Played all night long⠀
And drank the bar dry⠀
Letting the jazz⠀
Lead the revolution⠀
Until they came with lights blazing⠀
To pry the saxophones and drumsticks⠀
From our cold dead hands⠀
To confiscate the pianos⠀
And abolish this beautiful night⠀
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So now we sit in the quiet darkness⠀
Of a bright winter day⠀
Humming sad tunes to ourselves⠀
That we’ll later play softly ⠀
On our contraband pianos⠀
Sitting in our empty rooms⠀
With the lights off⠀
Because everyone knows⠀
The piano is just a medicine cabinet⠀
And the music will never end⠀
A Man Among Giants… and Also His Cat
10/10/2019
Over 20 years ago I read a story in the local press about an artist that would spend weeks on end out in the high mountain backcountry, living out of tent and cave, painting daily. Surviving snow and rock and ice and fire. On his return he’d see civilization’s blur of concrete and impatience through eyes made clear in the thin mountain air. He’d also return with 38 paintings. On his back. And that would just be one pack. He’d have another pack full of camp gear that he’d haul around in a game of alpine leap frog as he juggled these two packs all over the peaks and valleys of the country he loved.
I’ve never been more inspired by any artist’s commitment. Oh, you paint in the howling wind? Fun. Oh, you paint every day like a good devotee to the religion you’ve built around art in your mind? Bless you, my child. Oh, you paint large canvases outdoors, much larger than most plein air painters would attempt? Go big or go home, as they say. Those are all great, but get back to me when you’ve gone on a solo painting trip for a month on foot in the wilderness and have to wait out a blizzard in a bear’s cave punching holes in the snowpack to breathe as you shiver out the storm surrounded by half-finished paintings from the warmer, sunnier days that preceded this long dark day that could have held 4 or 5 ordinary days within it’s length*. That is the bar that has been set. When it comes to commitment, none of us, and I mean none of us, are Ken Jarvela. (Except Ken… so I guess one of us is Ken Jarvela. Hi Ken!)
I found Ken on a warm October day back in 2019 surrounded by giant old growth redwoods, working on a 24″ x 60″ panel from the road beside his car, watched by his cat, Charlie Wing Wang (may he rest in peace). Very few painters can make sense of these dense forest scenes and actually make them work, but Ken is truly a master. What was there to do? I was just another cat watching so I created my own cat’s-eye-view of Ken Jarvela, a man among giants.