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.

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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. 

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

***

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!

***

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. 

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. 

***

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! 

***

 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. 

***

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.

Mountains and Mesquite - and Scenes from the Area

Mountains and Mesquite

Oil on canvas, 10x10

After four days of rain, the sky cleared, and I went out to paint. It felt great to be in the clean, crisp air,  surrounded by the colors and scents of the desert, with the sun warm on my face. There is something here, in the steep climbs and bright folds of the mountains, in the bare yellow earth and the strange and fascinating vegetation, something in the way the sun hits all of this that calls to me to paint.

It's not like the scenes at home don't call to me!  I love painting on the Eastern Shore, and in the hills of Virginia, and all along the East Coast. I love the fields and marshes around Wachapreague, the houses and the beautiful sky, the ocean and the boats.

But the scale here is so different. The sky is enormous and, often, filled with clouds of brilliant, raucous colors. The mountains are pure muscle, with the power of the fire and the brute, cataclysmic shifting of the earth that made them, still all but visible in their jagged edges and steep flanks. And all of this somehow sends its power out, to me as a painter, and, I believe, to everyone who lives here and pays the least bit of attention.

Here's my painting in the landscape

***

Scenes from Tubac

It rained for days and days...

Here's my dad, and in the background, my stepmother Paula. 

The Center of the Arts here in Tubac has an annual national exhibit called "Aqueos." It is limited to water-based media, and it seems to run around the same time as the Tubac Arts Festival. Dad and I went, and had a great time. Here's my favorite painting: 

The Center also has what they call a Masters Gallery, with a very few, extremely talented and experienced artists selected. The newest master is Nick Wilson, who lives in or near Tubac. He is an amazing sculptor, and also makes incredibly, really astonishingly detailed animal portraits. He paints with razor blades, I found out in one article - and he does paint hair by hair. Here's one that made me laugh, a bunny perfectly plumed as a parrot. My favorite of the paintings in the Masters Gallery is one that's a little off the mainstream - this one of a cowboy on horseback, pausing to read a letter. I love it. 

***

 Here are a couple scenes from the area, after the rain stopped falling. 

With the Elephant Head formation in the background, some good-looking cows hang around, waiting for the weather to clear. My dad says that the Arizona economy depends on "the Four Cs - cattle, cotton, copper and climate." Who knew? 

***

Dog of the Day

Dad and I saw this serious guy guarding his car, and doing a great job.