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The weather in Portland has been unusually warm and sunny for about a week. On Wednesday afternoon, we took Bus 14 downtown and walked a half mile or so from the bus stop to the Portland Art Museum. This was how the city appeared from the museum facing east. -- Jer
I turned on my favorite classical radio station (KBPS) today, and discovered they are in the midst of a pledge drive. Ugh. I support the station, but I can't stand the pledge drive days. So I thought of going to NPR, but it was Talk of the Nation and I couldn't stand hearing about the nation's trouble du jour. And the CD player in my current radio is really really bad, so bad that I can't even bear to play it during pledge drives.
And then, I knew -- today was the day! I would buy my long-desired Tivoli Radio and CD player.
I had done the research in Basin, in a futile search for a decent radio/CD player there. So I knew exactly what I wanted. And just down 7 blocks away is Stereotypes Audio new store; Stereotypes carries the full line of Tivolis. I bought radio, CD, and second speaker from a nice guy with a British accent and an interest in art (and an understanding about pledge drives), carried the boxes home on foot (the Brit didn't bat an eye when I said I was walking), and now it's hooked up and playing. Oh joy!
The first CD I played was a baroque collection with Pachelbel's Canon, and I wept at hearing all those sounds, clarion clear and stunning. The next CD was Jussi Bjorling's collection that is titled and begins with the duet from the Pearl Fishers ("Au fond du Temple Saint"). I wept again. But then I always weep during this particular piece.
Sometimes I think a little deprivation makes relief ever so much more intense.
And oh yes, I got the last of these little critters before the price went up by $100. A highly satisfying day. Tommorow I'll try my Johnny Cash and Odetta and Eartha Kitt and Bev Sills.... --June
Igloos or Snow Village at Oo-Pung-Ne-Wing
This is my digital photograph of an artist's impression of an Inuit village on Baffin Island in about 1860. It comes from a book published in 1865, and the copyrights have expired. I wasn't sure how this photographic process would work, but I'm pretty happy with the results. I propped the book on an easel and held the camera at the same level as the book to avoid distortion. June and I played around with the lighting in her studio, and I tried flash and no-flash and picked the best of a lot of about a dozen photos.
The book is Arctic Researches and Life Among the Esquimaux: Being the Narrative of an Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin in the Years 1860, 1861, and 1862 by Charles Francis Hall, an Arctic explorer from Cincinnati. -- Jer
Terry, Gerrie, and I went to Reed College on Sunday to hear Faith Ringgold and to see "Working History: African American Objects" at the Cooley Art Gallery. But this blog isn't about the exhibit or the lecture. It's about going to Reed and using the women's rest room.
I arrived earlier than the other two and wandered through the campus without the aid and comfort of my buddies.
However, it was OK. No Young Things laughed at me or anything like that. There was the sign I had to photograph:
The Cooley Gallery is inside the library, so I had to find the library entrance -- it's definitely on the "wrong" side of the building. And once inside, I had to negotiate with strangers for directions to the women's restroom, which was through a small door, down a couple flights of stairs, and around some corners.
But the deciphering of directions was made worthwhile by the restroom's decor:
Inside the stall was a large pad of sketch paper, hanging from the top of the surround. And on it were all kinds of messages; definitely the upscale way to do graffiti. I couldn't resist -- had to add some of my own. And I photographed the sheet, but decided against publishing it --I didn't want to offend any of my older friends, who might be unaccustomed to the language there <snort> -- June
You can read Gerrie's account of the Ringgold lecture. She had fun, even though she didn't get to go to the restroom.
OK, I confess (pun alert). I've missed a couple of turns on the blog. I've gone into a photographic slump after the Basin trip, though I'm incredibly busy with other interesting things. I don't feel like doing another photo of the camellias of Portland even though they are blooming. So here's a Catholic Church from the Boulder River valley southeast of Boulder, Montana. Hmm. Haven't seen a sky like that since December. -- Jer
The sun is shining and The Teach says I should be doing pleine aire painting, capturing the morning shadows.
It's also 36 degrees at 9 AM.
So being a type A student, I go off to paint at 9:15, but I don't go far. Just down the street from us is a food bank and "direct service" agency, the FISH Emergency Services. FISH and I have something of a history; FISH is perhaps best known for its distribution of food bags, and when Jer and I were the distribution point for a local organic farm group, FISH got the surplus that accumulated in our garage. FISH is where I once accidentally dumped a wheelbarrow full of organic potatoes. The potatoes were to be delivered to the back door (on the right in the photo below) and when I came to the lip of the parking lot, the wheelbarrow stopped and the potatoes didn't. FISH is also where I became acquainted with people like Shortie, who helped me pick the potatoes up -- but not without grinning a bit.
FISH is located in a big house at the corner of Hawthorne and 14th Street.
My aim in painting Portland these days is a spin-off of my Basin, Montana work: I want to depict something of the city with a clear eye, neither satiric nor sentimental. And I want to have some personal connection with what I depict.
I admire immensely the work that FISH does -- and it's only a couple of blocks away -- and the house, while modified since its heyday, still has a definitive character -- so this week, every morning after coffee, I gathered up my pleine aire gear and headed out.
The gear consists of the turquoise backpack which holds the paints, brushes and palette; the gold-ish foldup easel, the blue folding stool, and my painting smock, which doubles as a coat over various layers of sweaters and vests. The smock has great pockets that hold the odorless mineral spirits and the fingerless gloves.
Given the nature of the temperatures, and the fact that the best viewpoint to paint the FISH house is in deep shadow, the 3 paintings I have done are basically oil sketches, blocking out the scene and adding the lovely morning shadows. Then I uncramp myself from my stool, clumsily fold and pack things with my freezing hands, and head back home.
I haven't yet started to really work the paintings but here's what one sketch looks like at the moment. Each day I've unintentionally set out without one of the three primary colors (this one was done the day I forgot to include yellow), so each sketch begins as a kind of grisaille in the color of the day, and then gets touched up with whatever else I can concoct from my palette.
I will have to finish these 12 x 16 oils, but I'm also thinking of painting a large version of one of them. I was not so inspired by the 11 (now 12) Traffic Calmer paintings, although I am feeling like a couple of them are finished. The Traffic Calmers turned out to be portraits of the golden city which backs the residential streets; but FISH may be able to hold some more heartfelt emotions. --June
The flowers are on an odd schedule this year.
The camellias in our front yard and the neighbor's Christmas Roses (hellebore) are just now getting around to blooming -- normally they would have popped out much earlier. By now our walks would be littered with camellia carcasses.
On the other hand, the forsythia are right on schedule for forcing and the pussy willows (not pictured) are in their usual late February decline. This may be one of those years when the flowers come in bunches, rather than spreading themselves out in the slow leisurely way that we are accustomed to.
The art in the background is one of Terry Grant's Crows. She (the crow, not Terry) keeps us all in line. --June
Norris Geyser Basin, Yellowstone, January 2008
-- Jer
Heading off to Tuesday night's painting class, I had starts on 7 of the 11 paintings we are to have finished by next week. That sounds more impressive than it is in actuality: I'm using oil paints, and even with a Liquin medium (which dries faster than linseed oil), I block out my paintings and then give them days to dry before I attempt to tidy them into meaningful images. None of the paintings on today's blog have been touched since the day I first threw down the paint.
I like to have a colored surface onto which to start my paintings but for two of the three above, I started on a white gessoed surface. The painting with the big red blotch is a pleine aire work that I roughed out Monday when the sun was shining brightly. The one of the bottom left had a burnt sienna undercoating in acrylic before I began. And the one on the top started with a white surface.
Here's a closer look at the top painting. A couple of the earliest works in this series were begun on gray and gray/black backgrounds and they are so gloomy that I'm tempted to wash them out completely with white and start over. But not until I have enough to get by the assignment with.
The last one is a leap into abstraction, working with curvy lines and a very large brush. I'm rather fond of this direction, and I'm hoping the instructor will allow me to go turn some blank 12 x 16" masonite panels vertically as well as continuing with them as horizontals. I have a vertical start which I'm very fond of -- but it could be that the grass is always greener in the other direction. --June
Steam rises from a hot spot in Yellowstone National Park.
-- Jer
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