PS from Sisyphus

The lake has been pretty calm for the last couple of weeks and there is no ice as of yet. That means the beach is still vulnerable to a big storm. Just to illustrate what a mild storm can do I have a before and after picture from the last little blow. In the first picture you can see a wall of about four feet in height and 35 feet in length running along the base of the bluff parallel to the waterline approximately 15 feet from the surf line.

 In this picture you can see what a moderately powerful storm did to the wall. Some stone is lying in the foreground, but the bulk of the stone from the wall was washed down the beach about fifty yards. I rebuilt it over the next three weekends only to have it washed out a second time. I have managed to put a smaller version in place in the hopes that it will provide a little protection to the bluff in the case of a small storm, but hopefully nothing big will come along before we get some ice dune protection.

Recollections

Been pretty busy the last couple of months getting a show together for Glassgrowers. It ended up being a dozen pieces and for the most part I was pretty pleased with the result. Several of the pieces were the result of the summer trip to Nepal and Tibet. Lots of wonders on that trip including the clarity of the light and the astounding colors. Every temple or monastery that you walked into was a riot of color. For a western trained artist it bordered on anarchy. It was shockingly lovely and a little disturbing.

The painting below is a kaleidoscopic view of Potala palace in Lhasa. This was the newest of the experiments after Strasbourg and Rome. 

 This was my first attempt at understanding the anarchy of color that every temple houses. Textiles, paintings and sculptures are all just celebrations for the eyes. It will take some effort to understand it.

 A little study of light on yak craniums. As subject matter I couldn't resist. I have done a couple of traditional landscapes as well to explore atmosphere.

 Also drawn to water patterns on a koi pond near Potala. There will be more work to do, but I feel I learned some things with this set of paintings.

Beachworks Revisited

So, part of the summer was spent on the beach restoring the ruins of the previous Beachwork which was obliterated by some amazing spring storms. These storms also washed away a good 10-15 feet of the base of the bluff. You can see the erosion in the top photo. That ledge of exposed earth is about 6 feet off the beach in height and probably 15 feet back from where it used to be. Priority one was to run a wall along the new base to keep the lake from eating any more of it. In particular saving that oak right in front. Happy to report that the oak has survived the summer storms and has now made it mid way through October. I am cautiously optimistic.

 The other part of the project was to reconfigure the wall that runs back up the bluff. In this photo you can see where it stands. I will just keep running the sloping wall up and back until the stone runs out. We'll see how it goes.

 In a totally unrelated subject. Great mushroom from the side yard of the school. Pretty impressive.

Tibet and Nepal

 Had a magical experience this summer, in part thanks to a grant from Erie Arts and Culture. Visited Nepal and Tibet. Whose imagination doesn't run like a spastic 9 year old when hearing the names Kathmandu, Lhasa and Mount Everest? Words for describing it are like watching a shadow puppet version of  a great film. Even pictures can only give a hint at the magnificence.

I did a painting when I got home just to anchor me a bit while I continue to process it all. Below are some photographs that reveal a little of the overwhelming beauty that one has to deal with when there.

THE FACE OF GOD

On the Beach:The War for the Oak

So here is what the lake is capable of when it wants to make a point. Below is a photograph of the front end of  the Beachwork from last year. Notice the oak tree embedded in the wall. It is about 15 feet from the front of the Beachwork . Notice how much stone there is to the left of the tree. In the next photo you can see the front view of the structure complete with a bench and the staircase leading up to the tree. The stack of stone to the left of the tree is about 18 feet high. A pretty impressive stack of stone...now the photo next to it is what was left after April storms. All of the stone from the tree forward is gone. The oak is now the front of the wall.

The restructuring has began. A wall/bench is being placed down in front to try to protect the oak from the next storm. It is in a pretty precarious spot right now. My goal is to get it through the summer.

Two consecutive weekends of laying courses of stone along the front have resulted in a modicum of protection, but we have yet to get a serious blow.

 The wall is becoming more substantial as the second weekend passed. The next step is to integrate that wall into the surviving Beachwork. It's not pretty work at this point, pretty much Emergency Room triage. We'll see how it goes.

Beginning Another End

Couple of paintings from the month of May. Top one about 24" x 30" or so, pretty labor intensive.  This is the first of the paintings for which Rome was the source. Took a bunch of photographs of  various Roman ruins and did a lot of superimposition. The whole time I was working on it there were a number of unknowns. The preliminary sketch phase was a bit general so in the end I was doing some orchestrating . I worked from the bottom up and took a chance with the Pantheon dome and I think it worked out, certainly better than I had anticipated. The band of arches across the mid-section of the painting was an arcade from the Colosseum and I had to keep it from being too obvious and skated on the edge, but think it also held together.

The dead Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks from the previous post are in a plastic bag in my room at school. One of them did not make it. The entropy of biological decay. The second bird is still intact and posed for this picture..

New Piece and Other Tragedies

Did a piece for the Spring Show, but didn't have time to photograph the finished version. This is a photo of the central part of it. I think it is the last of the leaf motif paintings. That horse has been beaten. There is a border of deep red leaves around the finished work and it is raised on a wood frame. It makes the work look better, but this gives you the gist of it.

When I arrived at school this morning there were two freshly killed Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks lying on the ground. They had crashed into the library windows, which are quite large and would have been indistinguishable from the sky for these unfortunate migrants. Such delicate beauty.

Veni, Vidi and then it may have won, but it was close.

Had the opportunity to go to Rome for a bit over break. While there I was able to overdose on churches, Roman sites, museums and cultural what-not. Pretty exhausting series of 12 hour days seeing as much as could be seen and appreciated without going into overload. A delicate balancing act. Too many amazing things...Bernini, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Raphael and a pleasant surprise  of Velazquez at the Doria Pamphilij and DaCortona at the Barberini. Christian churches and all of the included treasures, like catacombs, temples to Mithras and Baths turned sacred space. My favorite Roman sites were the ones that smelled of neglect...Augustus' Tomb and the Appian Way. Anyways, it was a welcome escape from Erie's endless winter.

Took a walk out the Appian Way on one of the last days as I was in need of some greenery. I can only spend so much time in a city before I need some detoxing. The Appian Way was a pretty interesting place to detox. I loved the fact that I could walk on those stones.

You can say a lot of things about the Romans good and bad, but these guys could build like nobody's business. Massive brick and marble structures are as common as crows on garbage night. It isn't always pretty, but it is not possible to ignore it. The brick business must have been a good business to be in.

This was a little treasure in the Roman Museum. Don't miss it. Livia's Dining Room. Apparently subterranean, to make it feel less oppressive the walls recreate a magic little garden almost as refreshing as a walk on the Appian Way, but certainly less strenuous.

Synchronized Track and Field...the next big thing for the Olympics. Screw the Half-pipe.

How I felt every evening when I retired to my local bar for a cold beer and some pizza.

In Like A Lion

So March, which can usually be counted on to give us a break from the cold, snowy monotony of December, January and February, has failed miserably on that count. In fact it is being a bit of a douche bag. I biked to work on the morning of March 1 in 40 degree weather, road home in a steady rain and ten minutes in the door the rain turned to snow on the prow of a Nor'easter that was pounding the coast and 8 hours later we had 10 inches of snow and no power. The wind and weight of the snow took down trees all over town like a lumberjack on meth. 

This is a tree in my front yard bowing to the rising sun the morning after, followed by a picture of a thirty five foot long spar of a silver maple that snapped off of a giant tree in the back yard and pitched head down in the yard held up by some power lines. Spectacularly beautiful, this storm, but deadly for people along the coast of New England.

Since this storm we've had two more and we are really close to having over 200 inches of snow which beats the old record by quite a bit. Go big or go home I guess.

Finished a couple of paintings while waiting for the weather to break. On the train to Colmar this summer I was intrigued by this field of sloping yellows and this is what came out.  Homer could take a diagonal and turn any landscape into an adventure. Lessons learned or at least attempted. Two versions trying to work some bugs out...don't know if I did, but I do like the end result.

This version has been altered considerably since the photo was taken. 

 

The Weight of Winter

This year's version of Winter has been a bit relentless. Started early and we are now in mid-February and we have finally gotten a couple of days above freezing. There have been some sunny days, but they were the crystal-cold kind of days that make it hard to understand why the sun isn't doing its damn job...all show and no heat. We topped the record for snowfall a week or so ago and I'm pretty sure we will add a few more inches before the deal is done.

 I've been down to our beach a couple of times to see the ice up close and personal. I don't know if the lake has completely frozen over, but at least on our beach things are locked up, but in a way that suggests some dynamism.  Big plates of ice lie stacked and shuffled like decks of cards all along the shore.

 When you see these huge slabs of ice tossed around and jumbled up it gives you an additional sense of respect for those people who have tried to traverse the Arctic in attempts to get to the pole. Trying to sled, ski or walk any distance on these surfaces must have been grueling. The scale of the slabs in the Arctic and the disarray of the ice-scape must be on a much larger scale than our local version.

 In a totally unrelated train of thought. I finished a second piece, a pretty labor intensive work, derived from photos I took of the cathedral at Strasbourg. I did a smaller study earlier and with what I learned, I did a bit more elaborate version. Happy with the results. It was one of several works which made use of a lot of  different yellows. I needed to get away to something a little warmer than the blue-grey palette of daily life.

To add to the weight of winter, this week saw another horrific school shooting. And although a lot of factors go into the mix to get this result. The fact that in this country you can buy an assault weapon of the kind that was used is appalling. Children deserve better than this, but legislative cowardice is not likely to go away any time soon. And of course it would only be one small part of a bigger problem.

A First Winter Visit to the Beach

During the warm spell I finally made it down to the beach. The first time for the year. Despite the bitter cold of the first couple of weeks of January and the end of December, the lake remains open. Ice runs off the shore about 100 feet but even there it is shattered into plates. Below you can see a lovely little ice peninsula stretching out a ways, but as you can see it is calm and iceless out to the horizon.

The plates of ice that crowd the edge of the frozen dunes along the shore take on all kinds of shapes and sizes. It was worth the trip down just to see this. If there would have been a bit of surf the whole thing would become more dynamic, but it has its own charm at rest as well.

The eastern wall stretching out from the Stonewave has been largely obliterated and what remains is encased in ice for the time being and the embankment survive intact for now. In this light the wall looks pretty grim.

Two painting recently finished. The leaf piece is in a watercolor show at Mercyhurst U right now and the other is another wave experiment that didn't quite turn out the way I planned. I will try one more time.