Tuesday Morning Sun

Tuesday Morning Sun, 10x10

This painting, and the one I made with it, Morning Majesty, come easily to me, which is always a joy. It is a cold morning, frosty even, and I find a place to pull off the main road, a place I haven't seen before, though I look every day. 

When I paint back east, people always honk at me, and often shout at me. This is worst in New England and New York, but it happens pretty much everywhere in the east. 

Here, on the reservation, no one does this, and I am thankful. I will be painting, focusing hard on what I'm doing, and in the best of times, the real world sort of falls away, and it is me and the painting. Then some idiot comes along and feels he has to honk and yell at me. I have often jumped so hard that I've smeared the painting. And it always pulls me out of the painting, out of the zone. 

Several Navajos have come up to talk with me while I've been painting on the reservation, but they have approached me quietly, and asked if it was OK to talk and to look. This happens on the Eastern Shore, too, and I do appreciate it. 

Here are my two paintings in the landscape

***

 Around the Region

Matthew Bia works the desk at the Microtel in Gallup where I stay during my time painting on the reservation. He is a nice guy, who answers a lot of my questions, and is interested in my painting. He says that he and the staff at the Microtel work seven days a week, just to make ends meet. Below, Historic Route 66, near the hotel where I stay. Hotels and gas stations and convenience stores line up on Route 66 west of Gallup. There's a strange 7- or 8-mile gap between the commercial area on the west side, and old, downtown Gallup to the east. 

*** 

Saw this guy riding, out on the reservation, and, as you can see, walking up the hills. 

I love this small metal building, gray as the February trees that surround it.

On a day when the wind makes me stop painting, in the Petrified Forest, I drive into the

 non-national-park area of the Painted Desert, on the way to Keam's Canyon.

Here's my van, about halfway through the trip. 

***

Dog of the Day

Saw this mastiff at the show in Tubac. He was sweet, but very slobbery! 

Outside Steamboat

Outside Steamboat

Oil on canvas, 10x10

The drive from Fort Defiance to Ganado takes about 30 minutes. About 40 minutes past Ganado, you arrive in Steamboat, Arizona. 

In 2010, according to the Census, there were 56 households in Steamboat, and nearly 300 people. The median yearly income was $9,276. There is a gas station/convenience store, a place that appears to fix cars and other machines, a church and some houses. 

Steamboat's page on the Navajo Nations Chapter website says that the town's Navajo name, Hoyee, means "State of Fright." The site says that there is a V-shaped canyon there, with an overhanging cliff and a spring at the convergence. The spring was a place where travelers could get water, but locals were afraid of being ambushed if they got water there. "Steamboat" comes from a rock formation that supposedly looks like a steamboat. 

The town fascinates me because I can't imagine living there. But Wachapreague - where we live, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia - is not that different! Same general size, though Wachapreague has a grid pattern to the streets, a town green, fire department, restaurant and hotel. All of Wachapreague's 200 or so residents live in the 192 square acres that make up the town. I think many of the people of Steamboat live on the plains. 

It takes 90 minutes to get to Salisbury or Virginia Beach from Wachapreague - but then you're in a big city. It might not take much more than 90 minutes to get to Gallup, but then you're in Gallup. And Onley is 100 times larger than Fort Defiance, in terms of shopping and amenities.

But it is beautiful. The plains stretch out pale and silvery between deep-red buttes. The sky is the size of the world. There is nothing there, but the quiet of the landscape makes serene that which could be desolate. I love standing in that landscape and painting. 

Here's my painting in the landscape

*** 

The plains shimmer under a huge sky. 

Wild horses, cows, sheep, llamas and dogs roam all over the reservation. I have seen

 horses pretty much everywhere I've traveled. 

I've really come to love the sage that grows all over. Its stems are gray, its leaves a soft, silvery green, and its flowers a light mustard color. At certain times, I could smell the scent of sage on the air. 

Here's the place in Steamboat where I think you could go to get your car fixed. 

Gallup must be a major hub for trains. This one had four engines, and a far-as-I-can-see line of double-decker boxcars, stacked on on top of the other. It seems pretty miraculous. 

***

Dog of the Day

Here's Minnie! I met her in Tubac, and she was a funny, friendly dog. 

High Noon, Patagonia

High Noon, Patagonia

Oil on canvas, 10x10

This post is a little out of order! I started the painting while I was still in Tubac, but didn't finish it until yesterday.

When I'm in southern Arizona, one of my favorite places to visit and to paint is Patagonia and the surrounding area. Patagonia is about an hour east of Tubac, through the mountains, and it's a pretty drive. So before I left last week, Dad and I set out to visit the town, to paint and sketch, and have lunch at the Gathering Spot, a fun little restaurant.

First, we drive around a little, imagining living here and there in zoning-free Patagonia. As of the 2010 census, Patagonia has a population of 913. It has the Gathering Spot and a couple other restaurants, a few very interesting shops, an arts center, the Politically Incorrect Gas Station (PIGS), a post office, a police station, a bakery, a nature preserve, a hummingbird sanctuary and who knows what else. Author Philip Caputo ("A Rumor of War," "Indian Country") lives there, and Jim Harrison ("Legends of the Fall,"  "The Big Leader") calls it a "preposterously beautiful" spot.

After our tour, we set up to paint - well, I paint and Dad sketches. We had such a fun time painting and sketching the San Xavier Mission the week before that we think we will try another building-painting. Dad has always been very good at buildings, and has loved sketching and painting them. For me, buildings are difficult, a real challenge.

So I have my issues, and we both struggle for a few hours before calling it quits and having lunch. I do like this painting!

I don't manage to shoot my painting in the landscape - but here's the landscape, or streetscape, 

as it were. Beautiful downtown Patagonia! 

***

Patagonia Views

My fascination with small trailers continues. I think the people who own these two ham can campers are using them for storage. All around the area, however, people are pretty clearly living in campers. This little one to the left looked to be more of a vacation or weekend getaway, though who knows?  Someone might be living there. 

I've never seen a metal building like this!  

Rocks on the way back from Patagonia.

I saw this cow on the way from Tubac to Fort Defiance.

George, waiting for supper... 

Here's my stepmom, Paula, showing off jewelry she bought from Cynthia Battista,

 at the Tubac Arts Festival

Here's Dad, in front of their house, as I leave for Fort Defiance. 

***

Dog of the Day

Don't know whether this guy is using the truck to walk the dog, or if he is retrieving his wandering dog, or if he's just driving along and the dog is running beside him. Neither is very young, but that dog is booking right along. 

First Fort Defiance Painting - and a Tubac Piece, Too

Three Brothers

Oil on canvas, 10x10

I leave Tubac in a wailing windstorm, making promises that I will turn around if the wind is too strong or too scary, with me in the tall van. Out on the highway, I am blown around a little, but it's not too bad. Nothing I can't handle. So I push on, driving slowly and carefully.

I don't make it to Fort Defiance, or Gallup, where I've decided to stay, but I do make it to Holbrook, Arizona, that first night, and to Fort Defiance early the next day. I drive around a little, and then set up to paint. This painting shows just part of a huge, muscular rock formation that lines one of the roads bordering my first hometown.

Here's my painting in the landscape. 

As I paint, three young Navajo men stop to see what I'm doing, and to talk.  Darren Dejolie, on the left, is a pretty amazing photographer. His brother, Chad, in the middle, is a Red Sox fan! Franklin Tsinnijinnie is an artist who's interested in starting with oils. He showed me some lovely drawings he'd done. I will see if I can get one to show you.

***

I drove through Fort Defiance a few years ago, and as far as I remember, it is unchanged since then. It is not much of a town. There is a large, new hospital that seems to employ hundreds of people, judging from the cars in the parking lot. There are at least two schools, and a gas station. A lot of abandoned buildings. The hospital where my dad worked is just a shell, and according to Dad, the house we lived in is long gone. But it was a log home, looking, I am sure, like this one. 

There is a mission, with several buildings. I counted four churches. Lots of folks in town live in trailers. Others live in houses that look like they were built by the government. Many of the homes and trailers look perfectly fine, humble and livable. Others are just awful, falling down and with yards strewn with litter and broken-down vehicles. 

And there are homeless, hungry dogs everywhere. Dad tells me that this is a longstanding issue. When we lived there, men would go out once a year and shoot all the stray dogs. I understand why they did this, but it makes me deeply sad. The dogs I see every day here break my heart, and if there is anything that brings this phase of my painting trip to an early close, it will be that I can't stand to see these homeless, hungry dogs any more. I have bought a bag of dog food, and am feeding the ones I can. And I have an idea about how to help - I will let you all know more when I have done more research. 

Meantime, I will say that most of the dogs I see do not look like they are in bad shape. Many, but not all, are thin. Most have shiny coats, and seem to be in no pain.

***

Scenes from the road

Really? Who would want to live on this street, in Holbrook, Arizona? 

I am sure I took photos of these creatures on an earlier trip, but I just couldn't resist. They're in Holbrook, AZ, outside of stores that sell petrified wood and fossils. I saw a dozen dinos on the road between Holbrook and Gallup.

Horses in the town of Navajo, Arizona, on I-40. The town consisted of a gas station /convenience store, five houses and this spread with two horses. Wow. 

Here is a hogan, the traditional Navajo home. They are often eight-sided, though they can be of any shape, and any size. Traditionally, they are made of mud and wood. The door faces the east, so that the Dine people (Navajo word for Navajo people, with an accent on the "e") could welcome the dawn. While the hogan is no longer the primary home for most Navajos, many of them have hogans in their yards. One article I read said that the revival of the hogan in the Navajo Nation accounts for a resurgence in carpentry, construction and other related fields. You can read more about hogans by clicking here. 

This wild horse was standing in the field by the driveway I pulled into to make

 the painting at the top of the blog. He stared at me for a bit, then walked off. 

Another of the amazing rock formations near Fort Defiance. 

There's a streak of yellow rocks on the road from Gallup, NM, to Fort Defiance. I'm planning on painting them. North of Fort Defiance, I found a place where the hills are green! I'm hoping to paint these, as well. 

 ***

Extra! 

Barrio, Tubac

Oil on canvas, 16x16

I am painting faster than I am writing blogs, and of course, this is something that happens. If I paint for 8 hours a day, and spend a couple hours getting there and back, it doesn't leave much time for me to write blog posts! So I am a big backed up on paintings - but no worry, you'll see them all! 

My friends Cynthia and Kevin are staying in the Barrio in Tubac, a very pretty development of brightly colored adobe houses. The setting sun lights them up beautifully! I painted this just before I left Tubac for Fort Defiance.  

My unfinished painting in the landscape. 

***

Dog of the Day

Yes, the Dog of the Day today is a duck. Dad and Paula tell me that this duck had a mate, another white duck, and one day, she vanished. They don't know if she flew away, died, got run over - they don't know what happened. But one day, this duck was alone. Dad and Paula think that maybe he can't fly. 

One day, another white duck came along, and Dad says they were happy, thinking he had another mate. But that duck left, too. They saw this one trying to make nice with an egret, but that didn't work out, either. So the duck of the day is a lonely duck, though the other ducks (mallards, so not white ducks like him), do seem to have taken him in as one of the flock. 

Elephant Head - and My First Award!

 Elephant Head

Oil on canvas, 10x10

The show is over, and though I don't have many sales during those five days, I manage to have fun, I meet a lot of nice people who enjoy seeing my art, and I win an award - my first ever.


I'm taking a couple days to recover, to meet with people who are contemplating commissions, and to repack the van and get set for the next phase of this trip, the funnest phase! Painting!

It's always difficult for me to find a comfortable balance between making art and selling art. The selling part is necessary, and I'm working hard to improve at it. The first and truest joy of the process is making the art - but sometimes, I admit, I get wrapped up in the success or lack of success of the sales part.

This is a five-day show, and three paintings sell. None is big. The booth fee is $600, and finally, on the last day of the show, I earn enough to pay for my booth, and make $100 or so profit. Three sales in a five-day period means lots of long stretches of time with no sales, and my mind plays bad games with me during those periods. But it is just that kind of show, at least for painters. Three painters near me have fewer sales than I have, and two painters I meet, who have done this show for 15 years or more, say this is the slowest one they've ever seen.

On the upside, the folks who buy my paintings love them, and I have a few good commission possibilities. And my first award. It is a sort of general, we-like-your-art award from the Chamber of Commerce, which puts on the show. It s an invitation award, meaning I am automatically in the 2016 show.

On one of the days when I have zero sales, I set out after the show to paint. I know it will help me get my perspective back, and it does.

Here's my painting in the landscape

Elephant Head is a particular formation, at the north end of the Santa Ritas behind Tubac and the next town up, Amado. Until a couple days ago, I've never really been able to see anything in it that resembles an elephant, but on that day, I do see it!

***

Scenes from the Show

Here's the line of people waiting to register, before the show started. 

My booth, early one morning. 

Ted Albrecht is a character whom I met a few years ago at the Fourth Avenue Street Fair in Tucson. Believe it or not, he was even more glittered-up at that show. 

(You can see a photo of him at that show by clicking here). 

These horses pulled visitors all over town during the festival. I was worried about them at first, that they were working too hard, and not being treated well. But when it got too hot, a tractor was brought in to pull the people. And it was pretty clear that the driver and the guy riding on the back (the pooper scooper!) really loved these horses. 

I won my first award! The Chamber of Commerce runs this show, and they liked my art so much that I was their choice to be invited back for the 2016 show. So that's pretty darn exciting! 

***

Dog of the Day

These Irish wolfhounds were gentle and quiet, and really cool dogs! The older one, who's taking a breather on the pavement, weighs 140. The younger one has yet to fill out, and might end up weighing even more, the owners told me.