The End is Near...Again

The year is winding down and it is doing so in unseasonable fashion. Whereas the last several years have seen Decembers white and cold, this year December has been more like October. No snow, little rain and days in the fifties and even sixties this weekend. El Nino is responsible for this according to those who track this kind of thing. I've been doing some work on the beach, but it is mostly moving not making so I don't have anything to show for it. November's storms washed and arranged the beach several times, so I have also spent some time collecting and salvaging. As far as painting is concerned I have done some small things to ease myself back into work and I just finished a piece but haven't photographed it yet. They are both beach pieces...one of milkweed and the other of the typical matrix of pebbles and leaves that carpet the littoral.

A Prodigal Son Makes an Offering

 

It has been a while since I have been here, but I have been preparing for a solo show since December that had about 35 paintings, 30 digital photos and a large stone installation. These things take some time and energy and something had to give, so among the things I gave up were eating and blogging. Now the show is up and running so I make an offering. Below is a frontal view of the current "Beachwork" along with a side view. It is about 14 feet high and runs up the bluff about 45 feet. Work has come to a temporary halt as resources are currently unavailable. But this is the state of things as we move into Fall.

 

On a perfect October weekend I went down to the lake to do some tinkering and beachcombing. The result were these two pieces with white stone, milkweed leaves and sticks.

 

This is just a strange message sent by the lake. I am unable to translate it, but it looks interesting.

Stone Migration

 

A new iteration of the wall has begun. The lots on which the old wall sat were bought and so once again the herd of stone migrates eastward and takes shape in a new spot. This time instead of paralleling the surf line the wall will climb the bluff along the track of an old staircase on the public access.

The photo above is all that is left of the old Stonewave and that stack will be gone before long.

All the stone that was moved in the Fall and Winter ended up in the stacks on the left of this photo

  and in the platform and from there I began the process of organizing it into a wall.

 The wall runs up the bluff right now about forty feet and at its tallest it is about four feet. I don't yet know where the stone is going to go from there. At this point it is just a footprint or a foundation. Once I get that built then the fun begins.

 The tree will definitely have something to say about how this will ultimately turn out. I just have to watch and listen a bit.

Until then the herd just mills about.

Making Pieces of Memories

 

The lake has opened up. The ice dunes are finally gone from the beach. On the horizon you can see some remnants floating eastward...late April. I have been putting together the MU show for September and these are a few of the fragments. The first image is a photograph taken of a cave in Belize and that is followed by a painting playing with the memory of the cave.   

 

 

                                   
 This is another memory that came from a recent trip to the Grand Canyon and a little slot canyon there. It grew into the larger piece that is depicted in the previous blog entry. I'm liking this little piece more and more of late.

 Closer to home out in Walnut Creek somewhere I came across a deceased crawdad and thought he needed to be remembered as well.

 This little fragment I've done a number of versions of. The studio was too cold one evening so I cranked out the memory of a memory while watching Game of Thrones.

 Out on Presque Isle I found a knot that I thought was pretty thought provoking, so I reinvented it. But now that I think of it, it may not have been Presque Isle after all. That's the problem with memories.

Broken

 

Winter's back is finally broken. After weeks of single digit weather and months of

 below freezing temperatures we have finally seen the freezing point breached. For those who have survived, it is time to move on. I went down to the beach for only the third time in 2015 and this is what it looked like...

                          Ice dunes line the shore, not as high as some years but very deep...

           Out on the lake a little plate tectonic action has heaved up a ridge of ice plates...

 I made an addition to my stone stacks,I filled in the gap with snow just to see what would happen.

                                                                 Kind of interesting...

 

My first big piece of 2015. 6' x 4.5' a reinterpretation of a slot canyon in the canyon.