Back from Beyond but Still Traveling

I'm home painting my familiar haunts after a whirlwind tour of the Northwest. Done harvesting hay with the horses, I saved August and September for plein air paintouts. I've got the garden harvested, the hoses put away so they won't freeze, the lawn mowed and am mounting the snow blower on the tractor to be ready for winter.

My creative batteries are charged and I have lots of ideas for the studio this winter. Meanwhile I'm enjoying my favorite season and painting everyday. Fall is perfect for a plein air painter. The weather is cool with few bugs but the crickets are chirping and birds are passing through on their way south. The bears are storing up fat for the winter and the wood rats are packing off everything that isn't nailed down.

The fall colors are just beginning to turn. It's a very dry end of summer and I hope the leaves don't just fall as they sometimes do when there has been a draught.

Painting in Hood River was cosmic, literally. I got my chakras adjusted by new friend and massage therapist Mark Larsen, founder of http://www.menwithsticks.com/. A giant of a guy successfully opened up long neglected chakras in my body and I can now see better. Very important for a painter. Mark is also a painter, set designer, muralist and all around creative guy with WHOLE lot of energy he likes to share.

It's pretty common knowledge for those that pay attention to such things, that once you start down the road paying attention to details of not only the world around you but your spiritual self, syncronocity kicks in and cool things start happening, seemingly out of the blue. For example. I was set up by the side of the road in a little tiny burg called Hunters in eastern washington continuing my project of painting the small towns of rural eastern washington and a fellow that looked a lot like what Buddha must have looked like, came over to check me out. Turns out, after two hours or so of palaver that we had met at the Barter Fare. He is knows as Organic Al, an ex drill sargeant that came home from Nam and proceeded to try to make up for all the dastardly deeds he had done to his Karma. Atleast 70 years old now, he's a cosmic guy with a cherubic smile, Om Mani Padme Hum he encouraged me to continue to tune in. "We're all travelers in the cosmic dance and obliged to help each other along whether it is painting, praying or cooking soup!" Peace, Harmony, Laughter and Love is his mantra.

I feel painting is my way of tuning in and sharing. It's all about light. Painting is a concerted study in light. With the help of those such as Mark Larsen and Organic Al I find painting is as much the pursuit of spirtual light as physical light. Perhaps that's a painting I will eventually accomplish? Anyway, it's the journey that counts. Every painting is an experiment. A new attempt at perfection.