Artwork Notes & Backstories


More Than Wind

Plein air artwork overlooking Pacifica Beach on the San Mateo County coast of California

09/12/2017

I had just finished a piece from the other side of this hill looking up the coast to the north. As I painted that one, what started as a windless day quickly changed. The whitecaps had enveloped every piece of water in sight, inside the kelp, around the headlands, pretty much game over for painting outdoors. But before leaving I wanted to see the view from the other parts of the hill and when I looked out over this side, I saw this painting. Right then, right there. The warm iceplant in the foreground, the cool windcapped sea, the distant fog bank, all of it.
I knew I wanted to paint it, but fighting a stubborn cold, and after wrestling the last one to completion in the wind, I was rather beat. What to do? Come back another day? But there was plenty of daylight still left. The surf wouldn’t be good anywhere. But still, nothing in me wanted to push on at the moment. I headed back down the hill to the van to consider my options.

Now I’m not too good at religion, but still I often talk to God and believe God speaks to us as well. Call me nuts. It’s all good. You may be right. I asked God what I should do, unsure if it was a good idea to push myself back up the hill and keep working. Don’t worry, the answer wasn’t an audible voice, but distinct all the same, it was a thought not my own. “You are man, you are made of mountain.” Okay…

Now whatever you make of that, it had the effect of getting me all fired up and back up the hill I went with a fresh canvas. 3 times it blew off the easel. Once, it hit me in the face (a first). It never held still. The glare on the water was painted by holding the brush a half inch from the canvas and moving it slowly while the wind smacked the canvas repeatedly into the brush as it bounced. I had to hold the easel with one hand while painting with the other. I yelled, fought, and wrestled. It takes more than wind to level a mountain.


Passing Shadows

Plein air artwork overlooking Rockaway Beach on the San Mateo coast of California

09/12/2017

Passing clouds cast shadows of doubt across the rolling hills. Would it rain? Would it hold out? Would the wind come up and blow it all away? The short trail up was full of the oddest switchbacks you’ll ever see. Paved path 50 yards to the left, then 50 yards to the right, to gain a mere 10 feet with each run of the gauntlet. A bench with a view at every right turn. 5 or 6 of them, one above the other stacked up the hillside- ornaments for the Mother of All Switchbacks paved in all her bituminous glory. Hikers, joggers, headphones blaring, baby strollers zipping this way that way, a choreography of life unfolding up and down this hill. Metaphor on metaphor coming on strong, hitching rides on the passing shadows. Halfway up the hill, maybe on the third bench she sat. Unstable. Speaking to the unhearing ears, drowned out by fitness podcasts, she trailed off her sentences with laughter, but void of joy as each one passed. I too had to pass her by, my back burdened with gear and blank canvas, nothing to offer at this time but a piece of my silent heart. She is somebody’s daughter. She locked eyes as I approached. “In five years this could be you…” and she awaited my response as she reverted to her unsettling laughter. “I hear you” was my unthinking reply, and my mind continued “could be me in 5 days” as my own heart laughed at the thought of just how close we all walk that line even on a good day. I hope the shadows pass her by.


All That Remains

Plein air artwork of graffiti at the Sutro Baths cave at Ocean Beach on the San Francisco coast of California

09/11/2017

Notes… er… randomly connected poetry. I blame it on the weather. Holy moly this was a hot humid day. Hid in a cave to paint this one. Ended with bolts of lighting cracking all around. Anyway, this is what was written…

Cerebral flapjacks cooking on the whiskey bar
Artificial roller coaster couldn’t beat the bumper car
Creepers in the bushes don’t look now it aint no good
Sterilize, sanitize, scrub it kook, give em all your food

Paint the cave, take a bath, what about the money
Stick parade, children laugh, hide them from the sun
Drink the water, drink the brine, eat the fish and honey
Leave a tip, exit quick, once the eatin’s done

Sun and wind, electric eels, drying on a line
The pizza burned the house down and blamed it on the wine
Our feet are wet with old concrete the romans laid to last through time
We checked the clock the time ran out but they said they didn’t mind

How about the old ones, still soaking in the past?
The love they made, the things they said, none of which would last
They wrote their names upon the walls like flowers through the cracks
They killed the sky, they drowned the moon, they wrote them loud and fast

Look around, make no sound, what is it we have gained?
This is it, nothing more, this is all that still remains


Eat the Rich

Plein air artwork from Martin's Beach on the San Mateo coast of Central California

09/09/2017

It’s yours, you bought it. Now what? Put up a fence? A bunch of signs telling us to stay out of the places we’ve always gone? Lock the gate? Threaten us with arrest? Have fun with that. We know who belongs here and nobody had to pay our way. It was given freely at birth. At our parents’ birth. And generations back to the founding of the earth. Do what you will to keep us out. We don’t want what is yours anyway. We want nothing to do with you and your plans. We barely even see you at all. Even if you buy a victory from the sellers of legal trinkets at the courthouse market, you’ll still lose in the end. We know who you are, and we know who we are. That is all the permission we need. Stop one, two, a hundred of us. You haven’t scratched the surface. We will wear you down… eventually. You’ll think you’ve won at night, but in the morning we’ll still be there on this beach you think you own, building a fire on which to roast our breakfast with the very same peace and happiness that you neglected when you chose to guard your possessions instead. We’ll warm ourselves by the fire, kept hot and burning with your tragic loss. We’ll slowly devour our meal and wash it down with whiskey and coffee. And even then, you are welcome to join us. We don’t own this beach either.

-Entry on September 9, 2017


Don’t Eat Us

Plein air artwork from Tunitas Creek on the San Mateo coast of California

09/09/2017

A pristine beach. But after the first impression of paradise subsides, one is greeted by the scattering of utter filth left behind by those who were here before. Oh, I know it’s not me or you. It’s Them, of course.

Sure, this painting makes it look rather nice, and no doubt if you make it down to this beach and wander far enough from the access points, you’ll find a truly beautiful remote beach, but along the way you’ll have to close your eyes to some hard truths about your fellow humans. It’s
only a bit of trash, I know in the big picture many would say that’s a fairly small thing. It’s not nuclear war, it’s not systemic genocide, it’s not violent oppression. It’s not even close to that. It’s just people, broken and flawed as we all are, looking to get away from the stress of busy lives, in need of release, getting back to nature, howling at the moon, reveling in friendships, in love, in a beautiful reckless abandon. So what if They lose their mind a bit and get a little careless about what They leave behind? I’m certainly not here to cast any stones.

But the Beast that is Us devours everything.

Forgive Them, They know not what They do.

Forgive Us, as we forgive Them.

Amen.

-Entry on September 9, 2017

—-
I’m not entirely sure what I was even getting at there with the prayer at the end of this painting’s notes. When I see what we do to these beautiful places that don’t have a maintenance staff constantlypicking up after us and hauling away our trash, it just makes me sad, that’s all. A little mad perhaps, but we’re all in this thing called life together, so yeah, mostly just sad.

And why didn’t I paint the trash then? I’ve done that before, nobody likes to see it. So I figured I’d let the art focus on the beauty and use words for the rest.


Juxtaposition

Plein air artwork from the bluff's over Dead Man's at Land's End in San Francisco California

09/08/2017

Just a few days earlier I’d surfed a spot hundreds of miles north that goes by the same name as this one. A memorial was being held for a local surfer who’d recently passed away while surfing there.

This morning as I woke up to make the 6 hour drive south with this destination on my mind to kick off this painting trip, I was jarred by the news of another man’s passing. I had just met him for the first time a few weeks prior on my last road trip. I had known of him for years
though, and I was keenly aware of all he had done for artists all over the world. He had launched careers, lifted up the struggling, showcased what others overlooked. I
just wanted to shake his hand and say hello and it was an honor to do so, and now there would never be a follow up to that encounter.

Life is final like that… and precarious while it lasts. Like an urban wilderness. It’s there, giving of itself to any who will appreciate it, but it’s often trampled, misused, overlooked, and in the blink of an eye the bulldozers come and finish it. A juxtaposition of love and indifference.

May the unfeeling bulldozers rot in a rusty hell. Love is the monkeywrench in this epic novel. Don’t be afraid to sabotage the machinery when needed. Someone’s life may depend on it.


More or Less

Plein air artwork from the beach at Morro Rock on the San Luis Obispo coast of Central California

08/25/2017

I saw an old man reciting poetry to the seagulls here. They waited on his every word, looking for any morsel of wisdom they could read between his lines. Or potato chips, those would work too.

One seagull perched on my van. He wanted to know what I was doing in there. I was painting the scene he calls home. He didn’t like my painting because it didn’t include all the people and towels, umbrellas and bikinis, but mostly the paper sacks resting in open backpacks near the skinny awkward kids. Those contained the best poetry on earth.

Poetry written in love by lonely mothers giving their lives for their young and wrapping their words in plastic and tin foil to keep them fresh in their child’s time of need. Yes, the finest verses ever written, penned from kitchen counters, awaiting their day to be read aloud for the young to hear.

My winged friend above asks for silence. The recital is about to begin…

Um… ok, not sure where all that came from, but on a sidenote, I did include a bit of my childhood in this one, the yellow VW bus my folks got in 1976 when I was just a year old. In fact this whole area is permeated for me by memories of exploration as a teenager here in that old van. My grandparents moved just over the hill behind the coast here in those years and I would borrow the van and head out in all directions to see what waves I could find. I’d often end up right here after being too chicken to surf anywhere else alone at that age. I’d probably eat a sandwich wrapped in plastic and foil afterwards.

Fastforward to now, and here I am eating a sandwich and some chips out of the back end of the big white sprinter van (also in this painting), while talking to seagulls about life. And Poetry. It happens, it’s been a long trip. Full circle, more or less.


The Sea Before Dark

Plein air painting of the cliffs over Pismo Beach on the San Luis Obispo coast of California

08/23/2017

A focal point for those just passing through. After miles of inland panoramas the road opens up to a view of the ocean here. But only for a moment or two. Then it’s back to the cows and the farms and the country music. It’s hard not to stop once in a while. It’s just so easy. And when traversing the entire state north to south in a hurry, it’s often the last chance for a quick dip in the sea before dark.  This was painted on one of those gray days where the midday light is filtered and flat, so I used the landscape and bending lines of swell for the architectural reference for this composition, but entirely invented the more dramatic light. Sometimes you just have to find inspiration where you can. In this case I was inspired by a memory from my youth that took place here around 30 years ago. But it was more than the just a memory, it was also an important life lesson- one that every ocean-going person learns the hard way at one time or another. My folks had to make a trip to the area to visit my grandparents nearby and we ended up staying a night or two at one of the hotels that line the cliffs along here. They let me take a friend along on the trip and the first thing we did when we arrived late in the day was to go look at the waves from in front of the hotel. We stood watch there for a total of maybe 2 minutes and decided it looked like fun waist high waves and rushed down to get a few before dark.  I had only been surfing for maybe a year at this point so it never occurred to me that the waves could be bigger than they looked from the cliff. My friend didn’t surf at all, he just grabbed his boogie board and a big grin and hopped in the rip current with me and we both got sucked out to sea and straight into solid set wave closing out across the beach. We emerged and reeled in our boards, eyes wide and way out of our league, wondering what we’d gotten ourselves into. We scratched for the horizon as more sets marched in and made it over them unscathed. The relief was short-lived though as we realized the swift current was pulling us north into the steep cliffs and if we didn’t make it back to the beach quickly we’d be unable to get out of the water at all. The day was nearing an end and I had visions of helicopters searching for us in the dark. Yikes.  No time to overthink it, we waited out the next set of waves and immediately paddled toward the beach in an all out survival sprint. Clearing the outside bar was a relief and I still recall looking over at my buddy as mid-sized wave walled up and we both managed to scratch into it and ride it back to shore. He still had that big ol grin. I don’t know how I looked to him, but I promise I wasn’t s…

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Leave No Trace: Side A

Plein air painting of the coast at Cave Landing near Avila Beach on the San Luis Obispo coast of central California

08/23/2017

Arrival: Late Afternoon.  Look west, hike to bottom of trail. View from top was better. Plus creepy creepers lurking in the reeds everywhere down here. Trash strewn. Beautiful place, but yuck. Back to top.

Look east, hike toward cove on that side of this headland. Trash strewn. Starting to feel guilty. Might head back to the van and dump some beer cans and toilet paper around at random to blend in better with the local crowds.

I continue on, decide not to add my own trash.

Arrive at fork. Turn right, holy mackaroly, that’s a neat cave. Spend some time enjoying this marvel of nature. And graffiti. Because that’s what I feel like doing when I see a place this beautiful. Quick! Write my name on something, pronto!

I still prefer the view from the top though. Head back up the trail. Am I being followed? Creeper country picnic down here. Scope view from top. Neat granite rock formation in foreground. Like an arcing wave. Covered in graffiti, of course, because names need to be written here.

Go back to van, retrieve supplies, return to paint. College girls smoking weed and giggling. No thanks, but thank you for offering.

They leave and another couple arrives and picks up right where the girls left off. But they don’t offer me any. I don’t hold it against them.

One more group of kids show up, and climb over directly in front of where I’m painting. But they leave because it smells pretty bad down there. After writing your name on a rock, you usually need to urinate… maybe even on the rock you just wrote your name on.

The day gets late. A cute young couple expecting their first child shows up with a photographer to take pretty sunset photos. Probably going to crop out the beer bottles and graffiti.

Not me. They are part of the story. When I am done I drink a beer of my own while the sun finally sets. I don’t smash the bottle when I’m done though, I just take it with me and leave no trace.  I don’t think I belong here.


Leave No Trace: Side B

Plein air painting of graffiti and rock formations at Cave Landing near Avila Beach on the San Luis Obispo coast of California

08/23/2017

Arrival: Late Afternoon.  Look west, hike to bottom of trail. View from top was better. Plus creepy creepers lurking in the reeds everywhere down here. Trash strewn. Beautiful place, but yuck. Back to top.

Look east, hike toward cove on that side of this headland. Trash strewn. Starting to feel guilty. Might head back to the van and dump some beer cans and toilet paper around at random to blend in better with the local crowds.

I continue on, decide not to add my own trash.

Arrive at fork. Turn right, holy mackaroly, that’s a neat cave. Spend some time enjoying this marvel of nature. And graffiti. Because that’s what I feel like doing when I see a place this beautiful. Quick! Write my name on something, pronto!

I still prefer the view from the top though. Head back up the trail. Am I being followed? Creeper country picnic down here. Scope view from top. Neat granite rock formation in foreground. Like an arcing wave. Covered in graffiti, of course, because names need to be written here.

Go back to van, retrieve supplies, return to paint. College girls smoking weed and giggling. No thanks, but thank you for offering.

They leave and another couple arrives and picks up right where the girls left off. But they don’t offer me any. I don’t hold it against them.

One more group of kids show up, and climb over directly in front of where I’m painting. But they leave because it smells pretty bad down there. After writing your name on a rock, you usually need to urinate… maybe even on the rock you just wrote your name on.

The day gets late. A cute young couple expecting their first child shows up with a photographer to take pretty sunset photos. Probably going to crop out the beer bottles and graffiti.

Not me. They are part of the story. When I am done I drink a beer of my own while the sun finally sets. I don’t smash the bottle when I’m done though, I just take it with me and leave no trace.  I don’t think I belong here.


Economy of Scale

Plein air artwork showing the view of Morro Bay and Morro Rock from Black mountain on the central California coast

08/22/2017

Geology trips me out. They always say that the large rock formation at the mouth of this bay is some sort of plug in a volcano. Okay… well I guess that’s pretty convenient. Maybe that’s why they are so strict about not letting climbers set foot on the thing- don’t want to risk any climbers setting bolts on a weak spot and causing the whole thing to blow. No good when that happens.

But yeah, I wanted to get a good view of this landmark so I scouted a nice short trail up a nearby peak and made my way to the top. Upon arrival, I spun two things. First was a full 360 or two, taking in the panoramic view from the top. Pretty epic, but lacking foreground interest up there. So the second thing I spun was a 180 back down the trail to a large granite boulder I’d passed on the way up.

I thought there was a certain visual poetry in painting this boulder in the foreground, with a distant view of a downright massive rock formation that would make this boulder appear but a pebble if they were to sit side by side. An interesting economy of scale, to misuse a phrase.

If that one is some sort of volcano plug, maybe this one is plugging up an epic hot tub. I’ll have to file a complaint with the geology department. Hiking around with a studio on one’s back, one needs all the hot tubs one can find. Preferably without giant rocks on them. 


Hole in the Fence

Plein air artwork from the San Luis Obispo county coast near Ragged Point in central California

08/22/2017

Under the barbed wire, across a bluff top meadow, promising lines appeared bending around the nearshore reefs. Don’t let the painting of this dreamy lineup fool you. Sure, in a still moment, it was a vision of perfection, but taken in the 4th dimension of time, it was nothing more than a broken promise. At least today. Broken lines, appearing, shifting, disappearing, reappearing at random across the reefs.

Except that one section, time and time again, it would suck out and rifle off a short makeable line before chaotically disembarking itself on the scattery dry rocks inside. I still don’t think it was truly rideable except perhaps with the right company and a certain state of mind, maybe not drunk on wine, but perhaps a bit intoxicated with old fashioned fun. And a beat up board. Maybe a helmet. Ok, probably not, but still maybe…

But whether the waves ever shape up or not, something happens here, as the worn path under the barbed wire fence testifies. Sometimes hunting for waves is high tech, satellite imagery and swell forecasting. Other times it’s a bit more primitive, scanning the ground for broken twigs and tracks not well covered, tracking an elusive prey. The hole in the fence here certainly falls under the latter category, though it could just be good fishing grounds. I’ve got a lot of mental notes on places like this up and down the coast.

It doesn’t matter too much to me if the clues lead to good waves or not though, it’s the process that I’ve come to love. This holy fence led to a 2 hour surf check in the early morning standing alone on a remote piece of coastline while studying the color and spacial relationships of the land and sea with paint.


Most Wanted

Plein air artwork from Point Estero in San Luis Obispo county on the central California coast

08/21/2017

I’d been wanting to paint this stretch of coast for years. It’s not a place I’ve visited much, but even driving by as a kid learning to surf years ago, this area called to me. The deepwater reefs and powerful surf were out of my league and no doubt when things get real out there they still are. The angle of the coast around that bend looks nearly due east to the place of the rising moon (no moon at this time, it was around the time of a solar eclipse, so if you’re a moon person, you know that only happens during a new moon, but you should see this place when the full moon rises… oh my, but I digress).

As much as I am drawn to this area, it seems the police are drawn to me here as well. I’m a slow and mostly careful driver and don’t get pulled over much, but I was pulled over  ight here, maybe 8 or 10 years ago, driving my old GMC van. Pretty sure my muffler fell off just prior to being pulled over. I managed to stop and retrieve it, throwing in the back of the van, muttering my best impression of an Aussie friend in Baja when part of his old Ford Hornet wracked itself loose over a large rut in the road, “Reckon we might need that later, mate.”

And you should have heard that old van without the muffler. It was the best aftermarket upgrade I’ve ever had done to a vehicle. Sounded like a big ol’ motorcycle, a rumbling racket of yellow radness. RIP Vandura, you were a beast.

But it wasn’t the missing muffler that I was pulled over for. The officer said my license plate light bulb was out… Really? Who gets pulled over for that? I think he just wanted to take a look in the van and scope out all the contraband that wasn’t there.

He starts by asking for my driver’s license. I hand it to him and in the photo on the license I was actually really clean cut, fresh shave, button down shirt, all that. He looks at my big ol’ bushy beard and rat’s nest of unwashed hair pouring out under my hat, then back at the photo and says, “I don’t see a beard on here,” to which I say, “no, no it’s on there officer,” and proceed to point to my last name on the license. (These days I’d have likely been pulled out of the car and pinned down for reaching out the window like that, but like I said it was a while back.)

He laughed and changed his whole tone after that and let me go. He didn’t even write a fix-it ticket, and come to think of it now, it never even crossed my mind to fix it either.

Fast forward to this day, and while painting up on this hill, a police car pulls up just at the base of the hill right behind my van and I see the officer in the patrol car watching me up here. This being public land, I certainly wasn’t trespassing, I was parked legally and all that, but it still stirred up that distant memory of the earlier interaction I’d had on this stretch of road.

Then, I kid you not, later on as I packed all my gear (and this painting) back down to the van, another officer pulls up and watches me load my gear back in the van. Just staring me down the entire time, like he was waiting for me to make a false move and let all the weapons and drugs spill out of the van into the parking lot, because everyone knows that’s what artist’s vans are usually packed full of, right? Ok, maybe not. But still to this day I’m not sure what he expected see. He must not have seen it either, because as soon as I’d loaded everything back in the van without any spillage of contraband, he drove off
without a word.

Good grief, this seems to happen a lot in these parts. I guess that’s just me around here. Matt Beard- Almost Wanted Fugitive Van-Driving Art Guy.

-Entry on August 22, 2017


We’ll Cross that Bridge When We Get to It

California coastal plein air artwork of Rocky Creek Bridge on the Big Sur coast of Montery county

08/19/2017

Under the authority of a king in Europe, there is land in California, owned and private today, that was divided up and given to friends of the throne. It’s wild to think of the history behind some of the barbed wire we see all over the coast here. I don’t blame anyone. I’d have accepted any land they offered me as well, and to be honest, it’s not hard to imagine what these pristine lands would look like if the gates were open to us all. Pack your trash and leave no trace is truly some sort of elitist psuedo hippy mumbo jumbo now. I’d rather be kept out of some places than to allow myself and everyone else to trample nature into a twisted banal backdrop for the drama of humanity’s less noble urges. Still though, when I see the signs telling me to stay out of places like this, I bristle at the royal throne, whose guilded vanity was built on the backs of those they defeated by force. I am at once the oppressor and the oppressed in this drama, no matter which side of the fence I happen to find myself. But under all these layers of understanding, it is clear we have lost something, though I am not sure what.

I slowly enjoyed a beer when I finished this one, under the watching eye of the drone that flew repeated laps out to see and back again, right up to the van, I thought it might fly in at one point. This was no film project, but pure anonymous surveillance as it hovered there safely out of reach, it’s owner sitting somewhere looking through this one way mirror into my world. I even looked for something reasonable to throw at it, if it tried that again. It never did, but the world keeps going forward and the throne is always thirsty for more. It wants all that it’s eyes can see, and now it has eyes everywhere. Enjoy your quiet moments while you can, a day of reckoning will come sooner or later.

I guess we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get to it.


Dressed in White

08/18/2017

Not a fun place to attempt to park this huge van… Drive around, drive around, drive around, repeat for an absurdly long duration, ok, finally, park! Then get out and walk around looking for one spot to paint, knowing the time is short and I’ll be long gone by dark, my one chance to paint this crescent of sand on this trip.

As I walk, I listen. Every language on earth spoken here. A true magnet for the world. It’s nice to hear. I’m not sure why some places draw the world’s travelers and others just up the road draw none. But that’s fine with me. The tongues of men can’t be spoken everywhere. We’ll leave that task to the tongues of angels.

The angels often speak more clearly, even amongst a sea of human voices. Today, the angelic choir is dressed in white. Beneath the arc of the cypress, the glare of white sky on white sand, the pounding of the ocean’s heartbeat up and down the beach. These voices need no translation.

Painting is just another way to sing along. Sometimes I can be a little tone deaf, but still I try. Bear with me.


Stick a Fork in It

Plein air artwork from Spooner's cove in Montana De Oro State Park on the San Luis Obispo coast of Central California

07/25/2017

I’ve been on the road for 2 weeks now. I’ve slept in my van in grocery store parking lots, picking ticks off my face that must have crawled out of my painting gear as I slept. I’ve wrestled the sun and cursed at the wind. My back is tired, my feet ache, my lips are chapped, and the distinct itch of poison oak is catching up with me from a week of exposure. I’m heading home tomorrow, but today I am here.

The sun had grown tired of my grumbling and refused to join me for this last effort. The waters will not be illuminated today. The air is full of mist. My mind is full of other places I’d like to be. Home, mostly. But today I am here.

One last round with mother nature. It’s not a victory song, it’s funeral march, as Leonard Cohen would say, it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.

I long to see this coast in another light, on another day, and perhaps I will in the not too distant future. But today I am here, and I cannot deny this moment. There is joy in the muted earth, joy in the slow passage of time, joy in the rumble of ocean below.

But I also cannot deny the joy of completion. Stick a fork in it. I’m done.


A Matter of Convenience

Plein air painting of San Simeon Pier on the Central coast of California in San Luis Obispo county

07/24/2017

Chumash land: just the way it always was…

Spanish imperialism: all of your earths is ours now

Mission San Miguel: we graze our cattle on all your lands now

Mexican land grant: all of your ground is Mr. Pico’s now

George Hearst: I found gold, I buy your dirt from Pico.

Willam Randalph Hearst: Thanks dad, I like big castles

California state parks: Thanks king Hearst, we like beaches.

That’s my nutshell of the entire human history of this piece of coast dating back as far as we can know. Well, that and the Portuguese whaling community that made use of this convenient bay and the deepwater beyond to manhandle 370 whales into lifeless economic commodities in just 10 years. Yikes.

All told, it’s a very sheltered beach on a rugged windswept and swell-pounded coastline. A convenient place to build a wharf for offloading materials to build, oh say… a castle, or something like that.

Now there’s still a wharf there today. And ghosts from other eras still linger beside the towering Eucalpytus. History has unfolded at a different pace here than most places on the coast, and it’s tangible.


From the Overflow of the Heart, the Mouth Speaks

07/23/2017

8th day on the road, 23rd painting completed, 2nd one on this day. Last one of the trip. I’m exhausted.

There’s something about a rivermouth sandbar that really holds one’s attention. I wanted to get the whole scene here: the inland valley leading to the now hot and dry heartland this river flows from, the coastal coolness of rugged rock and sea stack shrouded in fog and cloud, the beach, the driftwood, and the sand piled up creating a focal point for bending lines of swell approaching from deep water. I wanted to show it all.

Perhaps I took on too much. It happens. But then again, it’s all in there and if I’m gonna roll by and paint one painting here, I’m stoked this was it.

The big disappointment was the extended time it took to finish this complicated composition ate into the rapidly closing window to go surf a few down at that sandbar. I maybe could have swung it still, but by the time I finished up a thick fog had rolled in, and it was getting dark, and bobbing around a sharky rivermouth lineup alone and barely visible for marginal but fun looking two foot waves for some reason just didn’t sound as fun as it did when I’d started the painting.

So instead I paused there to enjoy a celebratory beer for a week of hard work, and thought I heard the river speak. “Another time” she said, “Another time.”

From the overflow
Of the heart
The mouth speaks

Sometimes
Only a
Whisper
Other times
A raging torrent
That
Gives life
And takes it away

Many moons ago
We heard her speak
“Another time”
She said

Just today
We heard her speak again
We hoped this would be
Our invitation to join the waters
Where her words meet the Great Unknown

The fog rolled in
The moon rose in the east
And once again
“Another time”
Was all that we heard


Machine Work

Plein air artwork of the Borradori Garage in Cayucos on the San Luis Obispo coast of central California

07/22/2017

A bit of old California here. Not too many places are left like this along the coast. An old industrial building (built long before the man/nature dichotomy narrative had reached its current crescendo and even man’s industry was a thing to be celebrated as a wonder of nature itself) placed right above a small fishing pier on a pristine stretch of coast. It’s a wonder that it has survived all these years and hasn’t been replaced by an upscale restaurant, or hotel, or craft brewery, or all three.

I couldn’t help but wonder of the history of its survival, if its current existence has been won in a series of hard fought battles from preservation minded locals against outside monetary interests, or if it has just been simply overlooked in its quiet corner of the coast.

Sidenote: I was approached by the police yet again while painting this one. I was in the back of the van, doors open to the view. They pulled up slowly, just enough to see in the back, and they sat and watched for quite a while. I thought they might be curious about the painting, but they never got out, never said a word, and slowly backed up and left. I guess I wasn’t the one they were looking for that day. I know that wasn’t much of a story for you either, but I always get a kick out of the little events that unfold when painting out and about in public. I’ve never had a police officer approach and watch me while painting in my home studio.


Russian Interference

07/22/2017

8th day on the road, 22nd painting completed, 1st on this day

The Russians are planning to claim this coast for themselves. It’s true. From San Francisco to Trinidad Harbor, they’ve left secret signs, “possession plaques” buried at various strategic locations.

This painting is located near the first of these plates, and within a year or two, they will be back to stake their claim, renaming this location as Mouis Rumyantsev(Point Rumyantsev) after the current Russian Minister of Commerce.

Alarmist political prophesy? Hardly. These are just the facts. I have proof.

Besides, it’s not like this stretch of coast has been claimed by Spain yet.

Did I mention it’s 1810?

All history aside, I love Russians. Although it was many moons ago, the only people who ever invited me into their limousine in the middle of the night in San Francisco to go make crepes back at their apartment were a couple of Russians.

Take that, America.

I should also let you know that I refused the offer, but in spite of how suspicious it may have seemed, it was also very much appreciated.


Soaring with Rick Griffin

07/21/2017

7th day on the road, 21st painting completed, 3rd one this day

Painting the California coast is something that rose out of my admiration for the California Impressionists of the early 1900’s.

Before that I was painting skulls and bones and waves, which rose out of my admiration for Rick Griffin (1944-1991) and his artwork. I learned of his art when he passed away and the Surfer Magazine ran a tribute to his life and art featuring his mindblowing works from the psychedelic era.

If I hadn’t started surfing after my big brother did 7 years earlier when I was 11 or so I wouldn’t have been reading Surfer at age 16 and likely not encountered Rick’s art in the same life-altering way.

In a similar vein, if my brother and I hadn’t been so keen to explore and surf the California coast from junior high onward, I wouldn’t have appreciated the California Impressionist’s work nearly as much when I encountered later, as it was my connection to the coast that was triggered by those paintings and made me want to explore that direction in my art as well.

So here I am today painting up and down the California coast, exploring, still hunting for waves I haven’t seen yet. Whispers here and there, accidental discoveries, pure curiousity, whatever leads around the next bend, it’s all fair game. I’d heard of this wave for years, but only recently learned it was one of Rick’s favorite waves to surf when he lived in the Bay area.

Standing over the cove, watching the windblown lines clean up around the rocky headland, it was a full circle moment thinking of the maker of so much influential art hooting and hollering on the waves below.

A hawk soared past as I painted, circling the cove repeatedly, at times hovering just to my right or left on the updraft before diving and riding the wind tunnels down and around the cliff faces below. I don’t normally add flying birds into paintings as they are so ephemeral to the landscape. This one seemed appropriate though so I snuck it in there.


Avoiding the Evil Leaf

07/19/2017

Some days are easy, other days you have to dig deep. Those are the days you find out what you are made of. I’m just a painter, but compared to working in the studio, plein air painting can seem like a battle with the universe itself.

Confession. I am naturally lazy. A water person. I don’t push through, I flow around, always looking for the path of least resistance. So bear with me as I recount what went into painting this one…

First, I’d slept the night in a grocery store parking lot so I could put myself in quick striking distance in the morning to sneak this 2 hour driving detour in the middle of a much longer trip just for this painting.

I arrive to find the 1 mile trail to the beach from the carpark has been washed out, but fortunately there is another trail still open, slightly longer, but no matter its a nice morning, not too hot, and I’ve got the time.

But remember I am lazy, and I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed hauling my whole studio on my back for what ended up being a 4 mile round trip of tromping around looking for this view. The tromp included a long stretch of dry sand, a dead end up a poison oak infested goat trail (apparently goats get skinnier as they climb, and eventually become ghosts, according to their trails anyway), a few hops over barriers set up by the park to keep folks like me out of their closed trails, and one tepid tip toe around the loose eroded cliff face that was the reason this trail was closed.

The view you see in this painting finally called to me and required setting up the easel in a patch of dry grass and poison oak. I watched the oak closely and it was quite a chess match of slow deliberate movements to get everything in place without contacting the evil leaf.

The painting itself was a joy and a half after all that. Nevermind the ticks that I continued to find crawling out of my hair the next two nights. For real.

That’s what I love about this art form though. There is no other way to make these paintings than to literally put yourself in them and deal with nature’s realities.


A Reluctant Admission

07/19/2017

7th day on the road, 19th painting completed, 1st one this day

After collecting an official “Vehicle Immobilization and Potential Arrest Notice” on this private development the day before, I was careful on this day to stay in the designated public access area. These pay-to-play private coast mentalities have always struck me as odd. I’ve even read interviews with the developers where they talk dismissively of the area locals who felt they had the right to cross the land to get to the beach to dive for abalone, as they had done for literally generations before this development came along. But that is another story.

Speaking of another story, as I was heading back to my van to get my gear after scouting my location for this crisp morning painting, I saw a whole herd of fire trucks rolling across the meadow and watched with amusement as firemen, piled out of their trucks and headed to the stairs with their frisbees in one hand and walkie talkies in the other. Must be nice to have “emergency vehicular access” privileges. I figured without my painting pack full of loose straps dangling rusty buckets on my back yet, I didn’t yet look like a misplaced hobo, so I made sure to enquire if they had a permit for this “operation” in my most serious voice possible. Sheepishly they all deflected to one another and scattered down to their frisbee games, eager to get on with their fun.

Busted.

If I’d been a little better dressed and grayer in the hair they may have been a bit more nervous about brushing me off so easily, but it really was a beautiful morning, and I’d have done the same in their shoes… er, boots… er, sandals… whatever.


Tea and Oranges

07/18/2017

6th day on the road, 18th painting completed, 3rd on this day

I had this place pinpointed on my map for months. Not for it’s beauty, though it doesn’t lack in that area, but because it’s a place that means a lot to a friend that commissioned me to paint it on my next trip through. This is located in a long stretch of heavily regulated private development. Not knowing where the nearest public access was for this beach, or if it even had one, I figured I’d just pull up to the private road that led down to it and accept the risk involved.

I scoped the place on foot after leaving my van in the clearly not-for-public car park. When I returned to get my gear a few minutes later my plan was to leave an apologetic note on my windshield explaining what I was up to and hope for mercy. Instead I found a security guard already writing up an official “VEHICLE IMMOBILIZATION AND POTENTIAL ARREST NOTICE” to go where my note would have been placed. These guys worked fast. I proceeded to explain myself and he explained this was the first notice after which (if I was found again on the property) I would face fines and further consequences.

Realizing this was just a warning then, I read between the lines that this was my free pass to go paint and enjoy this private slice of earth for the afternoon and rub shoulders with this distinctly upper class of exclusive beachgoers, although none of them brought me any Tea and Oranges that Came All the Way from China… that title being a reference to a line from a Leonard Cohen song of a different name that played as I pulled onto this private lane, and also perhaps a sneaky double reference to the security guard who may or may not have gone by the name of Leonard.


Get Off My Lawn

07/17/2017

6th day on the road, 17th painting completed, 2nd one this day

A big inspiration in my art life came from an unlikely source. It makes perfect sense in hindsight, but at the time when my older brother got a copy of Bank Wright’s classic book “Surfing California” when I was maybe 11 years old, I had no idea the years of exploration that would follow, and that would lead naturally into what I do today, travelling and painting this state’s coastline from border to border.

One spot in that book eluded me for years until this trip. I’m embarrassed to say it’s the only one that I recall being listed by it’s actual address on Highway 1. Why I never thought to look for the address sooner (maybe, you know on a map or something?), I have no idea. But here I was on this trip armed with a fully functioning map. Nothing could stop me now. Except I couldn’t remember the address. I must have stopped and hopped around the bushes at 3 or 4 different properties before almost accidentally arriving here. In fact I nearly drove by it, except for seeing the wave from the road. What? It’s even visible from the road? Good grief. I’m not nearly as observant as I sometimes pretend to be.

Sure there were NO TRESPASSING signs every 10 feet on that fence, but then why did that one spot have a clear trail leading away from that broken section of fence and along the bluff and down to the water, hmm? Methinks I’m supposed to go over there.

Only problem was my nerves while painting in full sight of the house and highway 1 out in the open on clearly marked private property without ever having spoken to anyone with any knowledge of the deal here. Of course I could have gone down the bluff a bit to be out of sight, but I liked this angle the best. I’ve never looked over my shoulder so many times in one painting. Kept expecting old man McCrakken to come out of his house yelling, “Get Off My Lawn!” Thankfully, he must have been napping and the whole scene remained quiet as a church on a Tuesday morning from start to finish.

We hopped your fence
And stood on your land
In clear view
Of your house
(And the highway)
Thank you
For not releasing the dogs