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

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 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. 

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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. 

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Dog of the Day

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

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! 

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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. 

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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. 

San Xavier - and One Smart Dog

San Xavier

Oil on canvas, 10x10

At the request of Lois Vanskike, one of the sponsors of this trip, I go to Mission San Xavier del Bac - with my dad - to paint, and to look around. 

The place is absolutely fantastic, and well worth the visit. It's the oldest intact European structure in Arizona, according to its website, and is a national historic landmark. 

The mission was founded by Father Eusebio Kino in 1692. Kino was born in what is now northern Italy. After taking his vows, he came to Sonora, in northern Mexico, then moved to California and eventually Arizona. There, he helped the local people develop their farming techniques, and to raise cattle, sheep and goats. He brought 20 cattle to the area; during his life, the herd grew to more than 70,000. 

In addition to starting the mission at San Xavier, he also started the Tumacacori mission, just south of Tubac. 

When you're driving down I-19 from Tucson to Tubac (incidentally, I-19 is the only interstate in the US that's measured in kilometers), you can see the mission off to the west. It shines a brilliant white, and Dad tells me it's called the White Dove of the Desert. I've wanted to visit ever since I saw it, so it's really a treat to go there with Dad. 

We walk around the church first. It is heavily decorated inside, with carvings and paintings and tons of gold. The ceiling soars, and angels and cherubs dance around up there. Underfoot, the stones are bowed and worn from thousands of years of feet walking on them. The church still functions as a church, even now. 

A renovation is underway, but it's not done yet. 

Here's my painting in the landscape. 

Here's Dad, sketching. Below is his sketch. 

And here's Dad, inside the church. 

Behind the church is a lovely courtyard

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Dog of the Day

 This dog was hanging around at the snack bar at San Xavier. There are lots of stray dogs around Indian reservations in Arizona. This was clearly one of the smart ones - he'd found where the food was, and he was sticking there.

First, I gave him some corn chips, and he liked them. Then, I gave him one of Dad's french fries. Then I got up and got him a hot dog, and gave him the whole thing. Then I gave him another french fry, and he turned it down!

Then he took a few steps away, laid down on the warm cement, and rolled all over, scratching his back and making a satisfied groaning noise. When the next folks came in for lunch, he was ready to eat again!

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!

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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! 

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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. 

Prickly Pears - and an Excellent Painting Lesson

Prickly Pears

Oil on canvas, 10x10

Sunday is sunny, Dad and Paula are off playing golf, and I set out to see what I can see and paint what I can paint. I have my regular issues finding a safe place to pull off the road - it always seems that when there's an excellent subject to paint, there's also a huge ditch, or a 6-inch-wide shoulder, or some other impediment. 

But in Sahuarita, where pecans are king, prickly pears are princes. Or, after painting them, and realizing how deceptively difficult and cranky they are, perhaps I should say they are princesses. 

The genus of prickly pear cactus is Opuntia, named for the ancient Greek city of Opus, according to Wikipedia. They have flat, roundish or oval cladodes - the pear part, I'd imagine - with large prickers and small, hairlike ones called glochids that come off the plant easily, and stick into human skin even more easily. I did not get close. 

I think they are beautiful, in an alien-creature kind of way. I love the rounded paddles, and the way they catch the sun. Some of them have purple tinges, and even nearly fully purple cladodes. They all look a little like heads to me, and grouped together, they look like a crowd, a gathering. 

And they are very tough to paint. But I had fun experimenting, and think this is probably the first of a series of prickly pear paintings. 

My painting in the prickly pear landscape. 

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THE DAUGHTER of a couple who collect my paintings gave her mom a workshop with me for a Christmas present. The couple has a home in Tucson, and so I traveled up there in the rain on Saturday to paint with Barb. 

She is a talented painter, who has a real feel for the palette knife. We had fun, and made paintings that I like very much. She liked only one of the two we made, but my guess is she will come to love that other one. 

Here's Barb with her painting (the larger one) and mine. 

Here's the two of us with both our paintings, in front of a copy Barb made of a painting I made! 

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 Above is ocatillo. I think it's such a cool desert plant! When it blooms, it gets bright red flowers at the very tips of the branches. Below is a saguaro cactus. They only grow in a small area of the US; it takes 70 years, at least, for the saguaro to grow its first arm. Some never grow one. Sometimes you see them with holes in them - I think that birds have drilled the holes, to make nests.

 Rain, on the way home from Tuscon. 

This is the entrance to a restaurant that has since closed. I think I might love to walk into the mouth of a giant cow skull. What about you? 

Seen at a gas station in Sahuarita. 

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Dog of the Day

(Perro Detector)

 All you lazy, couch-potato, slugabed dogs, take note. Perro Detector is hard at work out here in Arizona, while you are lolling about, taking it easy.

The dog is stationed at a Border Patrol checkpoint just a hair north of Tubac on I-19. I am not sure that this is legal, but it has been here for years. People have made the effort to fight it on all sorts of grounds, and have failed. Perhaps the smartest argument I've heard is that the checkpoint should really be at the border, yes?

At any rate, agents stop every vehicle traveling north on I-19, and the dog is out with them much of the time. I saw an agent let the dog loose in a car this week, searching - I guess - for drugs.

If I wanted to smuggle people across the border, I think I would hire ME, and my giant van. I've never been stopped, or even elicited the slightest interest from the Border Patrol people, in spite of the fact that I could carry a small village of illegals in the back of my van.