First Painting

Celebration! 

Oil on canvas, 10x10

Deming, NM

I am so glad to be in the West that I stop outside of Deming, NM, to paint. The sun is warm on my face - even hot! - and I see mountains and red earth and a sky as big as forever. I paint the mountains and the grasses and that eternal sky with abandon and with joy. I'd do another, but I need to press on. 

I arrive at Dad and Paula's house in Tubac just after dark on Wednesday. It has been a day of awe-inspiring landscapes. I see mountains and plains, beautiful rock formations, the start of red earth and the buttery yellow grasslands that spark my heart and imagination every time. 

As I drive this last stretch, I think about driving, and how much I love it, and the space and time it gives me to look at the land, and understand it, and contemplate how I'd paint it. 

Peter always tells me that I come back from these trips and paint better than ever. In part it is because of all the painting I do on these trips, but in part, it is because of all the driving and all the looking. 

The road spools out beneath my tires, and my eyes find the light and the dark, the shadows and the colors, the recesses and the highlights of everything around me. It is pure pleasure. It is my school, my church, my new ideas and my hopes, all together. 

Here is my painting in the landscape: 

***

Scenes from the Road

A house in New Mexico

Painted on the roadside in Deming, NM

The New Mexico highway stretches out toward ridge after ridge of blue mountains

 I love the sky and the hills and the flat land, and how all the colors and shapes come together in this western landscape.

Me, a little blurry from all the traveling, at Dad and Paula's.

***

Dog of the Day

It's Heather MacLeod's Ginger, up in Maine, wondering where her favorite car went. 

From DeFuniak to Las Cruces.

I drive from the horrible hotel in Florence, SC, to DeFuniak Springs on Sunday, the second day of the trip. By morning, I am energized enough to do a little exploring in DeFuniak.


A hotel clerk gives me information on the place, and points out some cool photos on the walls. Native Americans, probably Seminoles, were living in what is now DeFuniak when a survey party for the Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad happened into the place.

They thought it was beautiful and serene, and then they found the round lake - one of two perfectly round lakes in the world (the other is in Switzerland). They loved the place, and named it for Frederick DeFuniak, president of the railroad that employed them.

This very cool old machine will give you directions to 100 places.
A knob at the top turns, and the directions show up in the
clear space up there. They are very simple, but right! 

I drive around the round lake before heading west. It is a small lake, and charming, surrounded by Victorian Houses and a cute 1950s-looking little downtown.

From there, I make my way across Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, and into Texas. I push on to get to the western side of Houston. I've seen morning traffic there, and want to avoid it.

On Monday, I drive 747 miles across Texas. It is a long day, a long, long day. I love open spaces, big skies, a horizon that goes on forever, but Texas, and especially western Texas, just doesn't do it for me.

It is unrelentingly brown, and every time I drive through, it makes me feel that people have just given up. Homes stand abandoned and rotting. The cows I see on the highway look hungry and thin.

Over and over, I see places that make me think that people came there with great ideas and high hopes, and then left, disappointed and broken. So the cheery yellow New Mexico welcome sign makes me happy, even after 13 hours of driving.

The last exit in Texas is, yes, Exit Zero. 

***

Scenes from the Road

Truck carrying uncut licorice? 

The Atchafalaya Swamp Freeway runs for more than 18 miles across the Atchafalaya River and its swamp in southern Louisiana, between Lafayette and the Texas border. It's a pretty amazing feat of engineering, twin spans, two lanes each, going on for miles and miles and miles. 

Had to look twice at this sign! 

Cool! A real plane at a rest stop near Pensacola, FL. 

Overpass in Pensacola 

Who doesn't want to live in Niceville? 

They grow rice in east Texas, and I think these are rice fields. I saw Sand Hill cranes along this stretch of road, but they were too far away for me to capture in a photo. 

***

The Name Game

 Have you ever noticed that you can make great character names from road signs? First name, last name, there you go. Sometimes it works better if you take the second line first.

***

Dog of the Day

It's Rusty, outside of the hotel in DeFuniak Springs. Rusty was cute, 

but he was pretty serious about defending his people. 

A Rough Night in South Carolina

 I leave in the rain on Saturday, later than I'd planned. How can there be so many last-minute things to do?

As I near I-95, I decid to drive down the coast all the way to Jacksonville, FL, and pick up I-10 there. This adds a few hours to the drive, I know, but keeps me out of a long stretch of Georgia and Alabama, where there isn't much of anything, including gas stations and service areas. And what's a few hours on a drive of many days?

By the time I make my way through Virginia and North Carolina, and cross into South Carolina, it is dark. I've been seeing South of the Border billboards for 105 miles (!), and as always, I am tempted to stop in this vast neon-bright mecca of kitsch, but I smother the urge and push on.

I begin to notice that the hotel parking lots look mighty full. It is Saturday night, after all. So I stop at a rest area and make a reservation by phone for an America's Best Value Inn in Florence, SC.

When I arrive, I see a hotel that looks a little old, a little tired - but I figure, So What? I'm a little old and a little tired. And I've already paid.

But the room is horrible. It is around the back of the hotel, which is darker and grungier than the front, and is clearly where the weekly/monthly/yearly guests stay. The strike plate is missing on the door, so the lock has nothing to latch onto. The spindle is missing from the toilet paper holder, the faucets are rusted and on backwards, and someone has left two hairclips attached to the curtains to keep them closed. It seems that perhaps a weekly renter has gone somewhere for the weekend, and the hotel has rented her room to me. And when I turn the sheets back, it is clear that they're not clean. Eeeww!

I go back to the desk, and, listening to someone else's conversation, I understand that not only am I in a disgusting room, but also I've paid $50 for a $30 room.

    Dog of the Day

I complain bitterly, and  and get a better room. It's a little old, a little tired, but clean. I leave well before dawn on Sunday, never to return.

The only good thing about the place is the cats. One was stationed by the lobby door, and the other, atop the Pepsi machine. He jumps onto a plant stand, then onto an ATM, and then up onto the warm top of the machine.

And so he deserved to be the Dog of the Day!

***

Scenes from the road

I start seeing red-budding trees in North Carolina. 

By the time I get to Georgia, the buds are popping everywhere. 

These guys are fishing on the Georgia/Florida line. 

A lone cow heads home for dinner in Florida. 

I stop in Jacksonville to have lunch with my friend Eric Bryson,

at my favorite Vietnamese restaurant. 

The Plan

Here's me with all the 10x10 canvases
I've prepared for the trip! 

 I'm leaving in just a few hours for Arizona, and taking you all with me. The Origins Painting Trip is officially beginning! 

My plan is to drive more or less straight through to Arizona, and not stop to paint on the way - though if I see something that I have to paint, I will. 

Once I get to Arizona, I'll paint in and around Tubac, and will send posts from there. I'll do the show in Tubac, Feb. 4-8, and shortly afterwards, will head to Fort Defiance, and paint around there for a couple weeks. So expect a bit of a slow start, cranking up to a flurry of painting from the middle of February on. 

I'll be making paintings for all of you, in the sizes you bought with your sponsorships - and I will be making a few extra paintings, too. Some of these will be for the giveaway - I'll choose the winner in the middle of the trip - and some will be just up for grabs. 

So please make sure to open the emails from me! When I post one of the free paintings, it will go to the first one who claims it. 

Many of these are likely to be smaller paintings, perhaps on panels, or even on paper, but my hope is that you will like them! 

***

NO WILD PROMISES here, but I am bringing the video camera, so you might get some video from the road. I might try Instagram, too - if I can figure it out. If five million teenagers can do it, I should be able to. We'll see. 

***

IF THERE ARE places you'd like me to paint, or moods or weather you're longing for, please let me know. I'm happy to be on the lookout for red earth or turquoise skies, adobe houses or saguaro cacti. And if I can get to the spot, I will! 

***

YOU SPONSORS change the shape of the trips. Your sponsorships make it far easier for me to take the trips in the first place. And even more than that, your sponsorships change my perspective. 

It makes a difference to know that I am painting and writing not just for the random person who stumbles along, but for each and every one of you. 

Thank you so very much for your faith in me and your generous support. 

***

Here's the van, half-packed and nearly ready to go.