Thank you, David Hockney

I started visiting the David Hockney website earlier this year while I was working on my dachshund paintings. I remembered he had done a book of paintings of his two dachshunds, and I googled and found his official website. I had become a fan of his years before when I was living in Southern California and first saw his strongly graphic and brilliantly colored paintings of the hills and canyons west of LA. I'm sorry now (duh) that I never saw any of his shows while I lived down there, but that was back in the days when I was afraid to go into art galleries. I think he's a brilliant artist and he's really made me think—in ways that find lots of blank spots in my brain—about what it means to create two-dimensional images of three-dimensional space. I gather from my reading that that's what cubism was all about, but as much as I love Nude Descending A Staircase, I don't get the sense of space from cubism that I do from Hockney's work. I think that to actually see what's in front of you and be able to analyze the differences between what it looks like and what it actually is, and then to convey that sense of direction and implicit motion in the painting, has got to be the most difficult thing a visual artist can do. I've been trying to capture an emotional sense in my paintings, but he gets not only the emotion but the feeling that your mind is really there inside the scene. It constantly boggles my mind that he was able to ask all the questions he must have had to ask in order to create those paintings of his interiors, and especially of LA and the iconic drives around it, like Mulholland Drive.

Anyway, I discovered to my great delight that since 2004 he's been making hundreds of paintings of his native Yorkshire countryside in the UK, and has made available on his website several slideshows of plein air sessions that I watched over and over for days on end. I really love how his paintings embrace all the trees and small plants—down to the hedgerows and roadside weeds—of the countryside, and the individual attention he gives to every single plant. Since I'm a complete sucker for the plant kingdom and good landscape paintings, nothing could make me happier than seeing one of my favorite artists take this particular journey.

I went back to his website last week and found a DVD for sale, David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, that focused on his Yorkshire work, and I ordered it. It arrived yesterday and I spent the evening watching the almost two hours of material. It's great, really great. You get to watch him set up, get his paints out, make his initial sketches and go to work on them, in the wind, in the cold, while the light changes and all the colors shift, while people come by and stop to watch—or ask him if he wants to come paint the wall in their pub. And he talks about the work, he answers questions and asks some, too. Several of his friends and contemporaries add interesting commentary. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it, but my favorite scenes are of him painting, and of him talking about how he went around for months with sketchbooks, drawing the individual species along the roadside, learning each one. His passion for his work just makes me feel that much more committed to the absolute necessity of painting as a way of life.

This morning while I was warming up in my studio I realized how much he is inspiring me. First, to focus on the images I feel a strong connection with, even if they don't look like conventional painting scenes. And second, not to be afraid to paint them even if they seem complicated or too detailed. Watching him paint shows me it is possible to pull out and simplify the few forms and lines that comprise the important elements of a scene in a way that conveys all of their emotional weight and visual textures. And third, that this year I need to start getting out into my garden to start drawing and sketching my beautiful plants, even though my garden as a whole is still in its infancy and not the paintable paradise I hope it will be in a few more years. I want to make a sketchbook like his. That's my goal for next year.

There's one other thing I want to mention that I really love about his paintings—the way he paints roads. He shows a road as what it really is: not an object, but an experience. It's the experience of driving through a place, of winding this way and that, going up over hills and down the other side, seeing different patterns and colors on each side. I love driving slow along the local narrow country roads—when I'm not getting tailgated—and luxuriating in the visual riches everywhere you look—fields of wildflowers, tall stands of firs and little Christmas trees in overgrown weeds, cows of many colors, dogs wandering, and cats hunting moles. I love to see the small differences in the plants from one month to the next, the changes of colors as growth and death leapfrog each other through time.

You can also find this DVD for sale on Amazon. Now that I've discovered him again, I really hope he keeps making more slideshows and videos. And more paintings, of course.

Cold-weather time is studio time!

Flying Kimonos

When the garden went to sleep with the first frosts, I was pretty darn ready to hang up my garden gloves and get back into the studio. I was also ready to try something new. I'd been buying printed origami paper over the summer when I came across it, and one day I picked up an awful old leaf painting on a small canvas, and started collaging on top of it. My first thought was to recreate the leaf shapes against a contrasting background, and when I finished that it didn't look anything like leaves. After looking at it for a couple days I decided the shapes really looked like flapping kimonos. I went on the web and found some images of Japanese doll faces, and found ones of both a young girl and an old woman, and added them. After that I added some very un-authentic (but fun) streamers along with some clouds, and finished it up by painting on top of the background to separate it more from the design. It's no work of art, but it was a really fun change.

Clifton Park Woods

Just last week I was rummaging through the local Goodwill store and came across a beautifully carved and painted wooden frame with just a few small nicks in it. I thought about it for a minute and snapped it up. I brought it home and took out the botanical print that was in it and cleaned the old paper off the back. I played a bit with a color scheme that would look good in it and decided on a fall scene that I photographed in central New York in early October and had been wanting to paint. I worked on it for a couple days and was really pleased with how it looked in the frame.

So far, so good. I have a small stack of fall scenes I'll be working on for the next several weeks. And I'll be sneaking out on nice days to whisper encouragement to the buds on my hellebores, and try to talk my two forsythias into giving me some flowers this next year. In a few hours it's the winter solstice, and knowing that the days will begin to lengthen soon does a lot to keep me looking forward to the signs of growth that are starting even now. Nature may look asleep, but she's really busy dreaming!

Priceless Gold

These are the days I look forward to as summer winds down in September. When the leaves start looking old and tired, the sun starts moving south, and the ground is as dry as baked bones, I start thinking of the sweet, cool rains of fall, the chill mornings and freshening breezes, and the slow awakening of the red, orange and gold colors lying hidden in the greens.

My garden is loaded with gold this year—and I feel richer than I ever have! My oldest Sango Kaku maple was the first tree to show color, and that was early in October. Now most of the other trees are in show-off mode and I'm spending a lot of time at the back windows just enjoying looking out.

Thanks to the maples, dogwood, and the weeping larch, my path down from the house is a lot more colorful this year.

If you go to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden when the maples have turned and look past the long bridge, you'll see a beautiful pair of Japanese maples—one red and one gold. Ever since I saw that arrangement, I've been wanting to recreate it. I'm on my 3rd and 4th maples now, but I think I have the ones I want—my small O Isami, and the red Beni Otake.

Almost all the maples are in color now, including my little laceleaf viridis:

and the beautiful crimson palmatum Hilleri, which has gone through pretty much every shade of red now, from dark brick to orange-red and lipstick, to finish up at cherry. It finally got taller than I am this year.

The Satomi dogwoods are sharing the spotlight, with the one in the most sun going gold and red again, not as dark so far as last year, in fact so bright it glows. It's hard for my eyes to separate the colors in person, it's actually easier to see in a photograph. This is the one I planted bareroot as a single stick, and after 6 years it's at least 7 feet tall.

Although I can see bits of the big O Isami from my house, I have to walk down into the garden to get this view of my little maple grove, the O Isami and three Sango Kakus.

My paths are going to be getting a bit of dressing this winter. One of my friends has a bunch of long pine needles she really wants to get rid of. I got enough the other day to line the first two paths. I hope to get a thick enough layer to suppress the weeds. They're very nice to walk on. They're too slippery to put on the sloping paths, but I hope they work for the level ones.

The hydrangeas aren't going to bed either, without one last show of color, a lot more muted but still beautiful. These flowers were rich purple in full bloom, now they're pale blue-violet with fuschia frosting.

Have you ever seen a hydrangea do this? Maybe it feels like a poinsettia this year. I don't remember if this mophead is a named variety or one of the bargain pots I got at Fred Meyer, or what color the flower is. I'll have to wait until next year to find out again.

What a wonderful finish to the gardening year—to wake up to such riches.

Oh my—O Isami!

My big Acer japonicum O Isami is so gorgeous I wanted to give it its own post. I've gotten several good photos of it at the peak of its color over the last week and a half, and I can't decide which ones not to share. Every look I take at this tree makes my jaw drop.

It started out going lighter and then shifting to gold, but as soon as the leaves got gold they developed crimson edges, and many kept getting more colorful every day.

The individual leaves developed different patterns, a tapestry of opalescent brilliance.

I couldn't resist breaking off one of the more colorful leaves to play with.

I selected this variety two years ago at Meadowcroft Farm after seeing a 12' specimen growing on their grounds and seeing its rainbow of colors—red, pink, orange, gold and purple, and multiple shades of each color. I love the rounded leaf shape too; I'm somewhat partial to the maples that show it—circinatum, shirasawanum, and many of the japonicums I've seen. I tried one in a shady area and it didn't develop any color past a medium gold, so when I got this big one last fall I knew I had to put it where it would get more sun. This one gets full direct sun till about 11am.

A week later it seems to have maxed out color-wise, and last night's rain brought half the leaves down, but the leaves are almost as beautiful on the ground as they were on the tree. They make a great background for the Pinky Winky flowers and the fading hosta.

As long as it keeps looking like this, I'll keep going down to look at it.

New glass for the Beavercreek Craft Fair

Another art and craft fair this Saturday, right here in beautiful downtown Beavercreek! I've been cooking glass for the last two weeks and have ten new pieces to show. Since I found out this summer how great the paler colors look in shady areas and even inside a room out of direct light, I've been wanting to make more pieces in these delicate tones. This took me a long time to figure out because I'm naturally drawn to the deeper, richer colors, but in a shady garden like mine, they just don't show up nearly as well as the lighter colors. So I have a bunch of new ones—like this one:

I've also been wanting to work out some shapes like my big radiant stars, but in a smaller, less pricey size. I think this 5" one has possibilities. I'll see how it does this weekend:

The BCT craft fair this Saturday is at Beavercreek Elementary out on South Beavercreek Road, and they're going to have over 100 vendors! That seems HUGE to me. I'll have my glass and greeting cards towards the back of the room where Santa will be posing for photos. I'll have cards of many of my paintings, and also of photos that I've taken around Oregon.

I've signed up for another local craft fair the first Saturday in December, at the Lions' Club Craft Fair. It'll be just south of Oregon City on Hwy 213. It's a lot smaller than the BCT fair, around 40 vendors, and it should be fun too. Both shows are from 10am to 4pm. I'd love to see you there!

The sorrow of loss

The art and gardening community lost a really wonderful person recently, Bee Smith. I went to her wake yesterday and saw her beautiful garden again, and listened to young and old people tell their favorite Bee stories and their tributes to her strong and loving personality, her talent for getting people to do things. As one young woman said, Bee was mature in all the good ways, yet in all the other ways—and that was also good—she never grew up. I only knew her for a couple of years, but she welcomed me with a big smile to gatherings where I got to know most of my current closest friends. It was painful to see so many of those friends feeling so deeply the pain of this collective yet very personal loss, and I woke up in the middle of the night crying for them and for myself, reflecting on the longness of life and the shortness of our friendships, and remembering how hard it is, every single time, when you lose someone who's important to you.

I try really hard to be philosophical about death, trying to see it as just a part of the Big Picture, and trying to have the knowledge that I will one day die make my life even more rich and purposeful. But that doesn't make the sorrow any less real, or any less important. My logic compels me to believe that if anything in life is important, then everything is. That means that loss and sorrow are in themselves two of the things that we simply must experience in order to become human. I don't feel like I can explain that, or justify it, even to myself, at this point in my life, but I believe that someday—in some lifetime—I will understand enough to be able to.

Late this afternoon something dawned on me about Bee. She was so strong and fearless that you just wanted to lean on her. But what you didn't realize is that all that time you're spending with her, that fierce energy and hunger for life is rubbing off on you. You don't feel it happening—the only thing you know is that being around her, you gradually go from being completely intimidated and at times mildly horrified by her bold decisiveness, to thinking, "Oh yeah, of course we can do that, what a great idea." And now that she's gone on to her next job, you find that she woke up something in you, that you're resonating with a bit of that boldness and independence, with trust in your own ideas. You feel your kinship with all life, including rocks, and feel like everything is going to work out just the way it's supposed to. Bee was the kind of person who could do anything, and everyone who knew her is stronger for it. Everybody needs a Bee in their life at some point. I'm really glad she was in mine.

New colors, new big designs!

I finally stopped making glass for the Art In The Garden show this Saturday, and got pictures of them all today. The wind wiggled them a little but wasn't a big problem.

First, my favorite new color combinations...

Cranberry and greens

Shades of blue, aqua, and plum

Four or five shades of green

Cranberry, orange, and gold

I also started playing with larger designs, to fill up my new kiln. These are a bit over 6" across. First I tried using 1/2" strips...

Deep cobalt and aqua

Deep cranberry with grape streaks

Then I started seeing what I could do with the thinnest strips I could cut, almost down to 1/4". It took a couple tries and I had to change my firing program to get good solid joins, but I finally got what I was shooting for...

Aqua, lime green, and 2 shades of pale blue

Orange streaky glass with rich yellow.

These new radiant stars take a lot longer to cut and I used up a lot more bandaids, but I love the look. I also worked with pale tints of glass for the first time, and found that the paler pieces work really well in dim light situations, either very shady outside, against dark backgrounds, or even inside a dimly lit room. The pale tints, which would wash out in bright light, show up wonderfully in shade or shadow.

I'll have all these pieces and more at Estacada on Saturday, from 10am to 4pm. I'll also have a selection of prints and paintings and photo cards.

I hope to see you there!