Once upon a Concertina -Last Posting

The curtain comes down on this tour of works on paper. The last dance slowly spins into the fading light. A lone concertina presses air to reed and casting a plaintive cry into the valley below. The trail narrows beyond the hill. The pilgrim in search of the creative muse moves on. Always watchful for a stirring or a subtle movement among the shadows. Listening.

To be continued in the spring.

RS

Dreaming Flight

The windy canvas shaking. Poles teetering in the theater tent. Above the flying Follieros. Swinging parakeets. Wings tied of golden hemp. Playground fantasies. I sleep. I dream. To fly away and still be happy.

Der Ring des Nibelungen

FOUR EPIC OPERAS all under one tent all at once LA STYLE Mix it match it confuse it ABSTRACT IT color it fly it devour it release it obstruct and reduce it. The Bishop the Baker the Candlestick Maker. The ghost and clown the Hula Hoop Lollypop Girl with paper wings fluttering. Neon light burning. The one eyed SEERER seeing and Beelzebub prancing beneath the knight errant flying the golden horns honking through rolling traffic stalling yet beyond the Bavarian grave the MYTHOS RISING

Refugee

If your world is quiet and your belly full and you sleep tonight and dream. Then be happy. The refuge in flight the horror of the forsaken . Every hour a lifetime. Hope flickering, forgotten. Pray for her. Pray for all of them out there, on the run.

The High Wire

He walked upon the high wire. Danced. The slender strand between his toes. The world so far below. Hopes and fears. Eyes gazing upward. The clown his rolling ball and flapping shoes calling him forth. Balance the art of life. Precarious the path. Delicate the foot that treads upon it.

When he fell into the ring there was silence. The trapeze artists slipped down there velvet cords. Draped themselves upon him.

The suspension of disbelief, uncertain.

Ships of Dana Point

There of course is nothing like a tall sailing ship. And when they bundle at harbor in a nest of rigging and masts they become even something else. Complexity. Confusion. Diagonals and verticals tangling together hovering over a bobbing horizon. Maritime mayhem. And what delight to stand and swash down watercolor. A gaiety of wind and light. A very simply sketch. You can see the undercarriage of simple pencil lines. Each shade of color nothing more than a one movement of the brush. The sailing ship as life simple. In balance. A vision of the future perhaps?

The Confederate

There were moments when she doubted. Plenty of nights when she could feel the cold steel against her skin. She never flinched though. She just stood there. Staring out. He was true to his word. He never missed. They lived well. Well enough. Still there was something missing. When they carried her out that Saturday night her face was powder white, her open eyes slowly fading.

The Watercolor Sketch

Here the watercolor medium and the light interact without violation or intrusion. A layered dropping of pigment building the simple forms. Spanish painter Jose de Juan captured with only a few strokes. The small notepad sketch. Personal, no obligation. A great way to bring your consciousness down to a quiet level.

Castle Green

Its a pleasure to paint charm. Here the old hotel is nothing but. The architect has done all the work for you. No need to believe something into existence. Just play with its cylinders and cones, its reds and greens. A painters play toy.

Mayhem. Delirium. Desire. Ecstasy. Fever. The ring of fire. The coughing sawdust. Madness in the tent. Carnival rides creaking rust and oil. Shouts and laughter. The gypsy trader thrashes for the bridle. Fate rearing up against his will of destiny.

JPL#2

The San Gabriel mountains rise like a great wave above the valley. Fire storms have deforested the slopes to the summit and beyond. Painting with watercolor and gouache is a game of uncertainty. It is fast and direct but so is the winter sun. In front of you is a wide expanse made complex by the JPL campus. The shadows and colors run from washed out to deep darkened values, high lights appear and disappear. Everything is about setting the stage for the last thirty minutes. I am amazed and somewhat bewildered at just how much of what I do with this medium is in preparation for those final moments.

Chinese Garden in Spring

Waiting for the advent of spring. Nobody around. Water tumbles to the stream below. Some geese fly across the pond. The San Gabriel mountains rise in the haze beyond. At some point if you paint long enough you arrive at place where the paint and brush play themselves as keys on piano. Your fingers and wrist move with your feelings from second to second. Paintings are the accumulation of a thousand notes performed. They have a sound that we interpret with our eyes.

JPL #1

There by the hillside tucked beneath the burned out mountains. A village. A community looking to the heavens. Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Standing on the Devils Gate Dam the view is wide the sky immense. The sun is diffused by the milky thin clouds. Striking blows of burning light not found. The scrub trees in the marsh pale into violet. Dead trunks submerged in winter flood. I am painting as if waiting. Putting down what is before me but hoping for a spark to detonate the even plain. The sun sets without fanfare. A pinkish yellow haze fading. The last day of January going out with barely a whimper.

Parking Lot

You never know where a painting can be found. A melody may be right under you foot. You start tapping. It appears. Here the gouache game played in C major. Looking for the rhythm in the landscape and capturing its sound in paint is indeed a great part of the pleasure of painting. Light flickers as the earth turns. Shadows leap over sidewalk curbs, palms turn their yellow fronds outward. Everything in transition. Moments broken by captured strokes. Hours vanish. In the end you are standing in an empty parking lot. Rapturous and undone.

Believe the Gypsy

The old squeeze box routine is timeless. This little paper dragon can spin tales of sorrow and tales of joy. It has a life of its own. It breathes. I never tire of playing with the character. He always stirs me up. I feel the reeds singing. The melancholy spirit we all share. So sad and so humane.

Mission Capistrano

The January sun rolls over and down through the terra cotta damp portico. Someone moves through the shadow. The sound of boots echo. California is held in the walls of the mission. The eyes quicken, colors collide. Above blue skies forever. The Spanish loved it here.

The Conservatory

It sits like a great cocoon. The pupal waiting to emerge into botanical butterflies. Glass plume house of sun and breathing plants. Here the misery lies. The artist captivated by green houses since a child, spell bound by this leviathan of glass house architecture, races to capture its charm and in two hours as the gates close, fails at his attempt. The balance of nature askew, the trees irresolute, the mountain shade uncertain, the luminous vision of glass and nature crumbling. I walk away unhappy. This the price of urgency and impatience exasperated by the rapid wane of winter light. To be contunued...

The Wandering Child

A refugee from the broken tent. Violated. Left alone. She had an uncanny ability to see. Dreams and visions played within her. She grew into adulthood. She got married. He was from an island in the Mediterranean. She remembered sleeping in coffin on her wedding night. There were children. She tried to be present. She was called away again and again. I saw her when she was a child. This watercolor is a memory.

Pinata

to swing with all your might

into the unknown night

the sweet blind pursuit of dangling prize

stars bursting children laughing

to walk on air your feet dancing

the paper moon erupting

meteor and sugar trails

confetti falling from the sky

swing away with all your might

the waiting cloud burst of your dreams

Hanauma Bay

The sun and rain played havoc with my first painting on the Hawaiian shore. I could not find more than ten minutes in the bright sun before fifteen minutes of rain would pour down. This went on back and forth for some four hours. I ran in and out of a cave in the rocks behind me carrying my easel with the canvas. The wind was howling. It was a hell of a day of painting It wasn't suppose to be like this. So this gouache is the end result. A formless rendering of Hanauma Bay. Ambivalent in light and value. It would set the tone for some ten more gouaches in Hawaii that would follow. All of them very flat in perspective and color. But I like them. They capture something that only the island could deliver. My own intentions denied by the circumstance of the world around me. Inherently Hawaiian.

The Shadow of the Oak

Its hard to paint really. To connect with something outside yourself in a meaningful way. To believe in the action that you are taking. Its hard to know what to do. Yes there are known paths to things. Techniques. Laws of science. Rules of thumb. There is a method to everything. But here along this trail under the old oak I forget. I am lost again. The only way out IS to paint. So I set out looking for the dark undertones. I lay in washes as dark as I dare with pure watercolor. I let it dry. I do it again. So often and particularly in the winter time with its low riding light time simply passes too swiftly. I am late. Opaque gouache pigments enter. There is a strong sense of urgency. The paint is stiff and dries on contact. You have to live with what you put down so you don't think. Don't even look at what you are doing. You just let the strokes fly as fast as the hand and wrist will allow. The sun has set. The greens have turned violet. Too dark to even see. You come home and lift the paper to the light. And there it is.

Huntington On the Edge of Paradise

The road rises gently up the grassy knoll. Palm trees sway in the rising breeze. Figures walk the outer road. The desert garden is in full bloom. Its a riot. Aloe trees firing red rockets into the blue sky. Agave candy cane ribbons blue tequila longings swarm the ground. My eyes can't see through the smoke of color. Its a blizzard of cactus broom sticks twisted and spinning like animated sounds in a mushroom dream. Paint it. Let it take you down with its overwhelming confusion of perfect design.

The Pier in Winter

Santa Monica Pier. The last refuge in the great western migration. Here you smell the dream. It's a dazzling golden roller coaster beneath the spinning wheel of fortune. Coney Island now so far away. Dark haired mass of grinning happiness crowd the scene. There are some dissenters along the boardwalk, so beware. Nevertheless the fiddler plays, the Chinese juggler totters, the painted trinket makers with their "sleight of hand" dazzling the congregants. At the end of all this I roll out my cart of dreams. The bright light of the the last afternoon burning down upon the mass. Waves crash beneath me. There is a buzzing in my ear. Carnival sounds. The smell of popcorn and creosote. A man with a painted mustache rambles on about Dufy. I like Dufy. Its four thirty, the sun is doing a quick winter exit. The fisherman have given up. I had barely found my footing on the slippery pier as the last rays of light fall on the western edge of the North American Continent. The suspension of disbelief bought for a quarter.

Waikiki

The pleasure of the beach is not often found nose to the grind of color on paper. But the pursuit of this image was a delirious romp on the paradisal edge. Conte crayon, watercolor and gouache all in play. The details were found and rendered then lost again. The fact of things sometimes argues with the rule of emotion. A picture trying to emerge can seem less vital than the sensation experienced by its creation. Here a clear image would seem wholly appropriate. The motif classic. Yet there surged over and over again a need to penetrate into the shadows and exfoliate the outer shell to try and render the ecstatic joy of being there. I think of the sojourning souls who dove deep into the ocean of the abstract long ago in search of expression.