Have Brush Will Work for Art

It's been an intense past couple of weeks as I've been on the road going from paintout to paintout. I've met some wonderful people, artists and country. The weather has been spectacular and I've found homes for quite a few paintings.

The end of August saw me in Hood River which is an amazing location. 10 minutes in any direction and you can be a different landscape. East to the desert and steppe, South to Mt. Hood, North to Mt. Adams both dormant volcanoes and West towards Portland and what is know as The Gorge.

Everyone I met is there because of the wind. Windsurfers and kiters. I've never seen so many skinny people. Winter it is skiing. A lot of good energy and I look forward to going back.

Check out the event blog at http://pleinairhoodriver.blogspot.com// They even had a pleinair writing event. We'll have to wait a bit to see the results but it should be interesting.

Cathleen Rehfeld was our coordinator. She had pre-arranged sites such as the Whitehouse Bed and Breakfast where I painted this painting I call Madame Pear Bottom. I hadn't notice the figure until Joe Howard took a peak over my shoulder and said, "Looks like you've been away from home to long." I didn't get it until he pointed out the nice female anatomy of my pear tree. I honestly didn't paint that on purpose but now that's all I see. Sheesh!

Cathleen not only guided us around but is an awesome painter. The sale of that weeks efforts was awesome and couldn't have happened without the support of Rich Kruger a true patron of the arts that Hood River is fortunate to have. We painted at the Cathedral of the Airplane otherwise known as the Airplane and Auto Museum, http://www.waaamuseum.org/, every plane flies and there are over 100 planes. An amazing place if you ever get the chance to visit. One of my favorite highlights was the Maryhill Museum and a painting, "Solitude", by Lord Alfred Leighton. It is an awesome technically accomplished painting, done in the pre-Raphaelite manner. The painting itself is over 100 years old and there is not a crack in it although it is highly glazed. The work reminds me of opera and what it is possible for the human hand or voice in the case of opera, to achieve. It is also curious to find such a treasure, as well as many more, to be found on the arid steppes of the columbia river.

I then went to Coupeville, WA. I made it in time to get my canvases stamped and painted into the night doing my first 'nocturne', wearing my LED hat to see by. The painting was of the Dog House Tavern in Langley and came out well although I didn't get a photo of it before it found a home.

I was home a couple days to check on the horses and chickens. All was fine so I took off for Coeur d'alene, Idaho where the Oil Painters of America were holding there western region show at the Devin Gallery. They also held a paintout in which I participated and found a home for another painting. Each time I sell a painting I meet another great person with an interesting life to learn about. An emissary of art, my paintings are my calling card. OPA was well attended but the real show for me was at Stephen Gibbs, Art Spirit Gallery which was showing works by George Carlson, one of the geniuses of the today's art world. He had a series of oil paintings which were highly inspired. Reflecting "Big Ideas" as Bill Reese would say. He is the one that considers Carlson a genius which made me look even more closely at Carlsons paintings and sculptures. Carlson's work shows me what is possible if one commits to the highest levels of reflection.

I'm off to Wenatchee to paint with William F. Reese, one of the patriarchs of oil painting in the Pacific NW and the nation. I hope a little of his knoweledge rubs off on me, then I am off to Ellensburg for a paintout and N. Idaho for a paintout and benefit for creating a wilderness area of Scothman Peaks.

Stay Tuned

Thoughts on painting, "En Plein Air"

I've painted, en plein air, from Maine to Washington state. I've stood on the dock painting lobster boats as they came in from lobstering and traded paintings to lobstermen for a sack full of lobster. Parked on the roadside painting landscapes of the Rockies or Wallowas, folks stop, look over my shoulder and take photos of me painting the landscape. We trade email addresses and they send me photographs, sometimes we trade paintings.
Whether painting on the side of the road or the wilderness, the thing I like about plein air painting are the 'Paintouts'. Paintouts have become a popular way for galleries, festivals and communities to ramp up the exposure to art. Such events are an opportunity for artists to meet other artists and compare their work. Galleries and community art festivals get an opportunity to showcase their local artists and invite outside artists, sometimes of great stature, to their community, which can be a great economic boon to all parties. Artists are invited to "paint the town", after a day or two, paintings are collected for a show and reception where the work is displayed, and awards presented. It's a great way for art to bring artists and the public together. The public gets to see artists at work and are thrilled to find ordinary scenes brought to life by gifted painters.
Artists have always turned to nature for both inspiration and knowledge. The Impressionists made a practice of working directly from nature. Today painting "en plein air", literally, painting "out of doors", has become something of a movement along with an interest in "daily painting" in which painters challenge themselves to do a painting a day. Google 'daily painting' and you will find blogs and websites displaying extraordinary galleries of artwork. Many of these pieces are available directly from the artist or sold at auction on Ebay for very reasonable prices.

Painting 'en plein air' fits our busy lifestyle. In an abbreviated world of acronyms and sound bites, small quick paintings done on the spot, are only appropriate. It is the artist freezing a moment of time, focusing like a Zen master and deriving inspiration from an intense reflection upon nature, like haiku poetry, distilling the moment into it's essence. A process where the heritage of the Impressionists meet the oriental art of Zen masters.

Much has been written about the Impressionists' interest in oriental prints. I think they were as interested in the process as much as the product. Untill Monet and the Impressionists took painting out of the atlier and Salon into the streets and forests, official art was considered to be work done in the studio. To consider work done "in the moment", on site, en plein air, was revolutionary. We can thank Monet for elevating everyday scenes to the extraordinary and bringing art to the common man. Painting was no longer an activity for the affluent but something anyone could do. With the advent of paint in tubes, artists developed a portable studio. The french easle and pochade to carry wet canvas, became synonymous with the image of the artist at work.
It is a privledge to make a living as an artist but it is also a job that puts bread on the table. Like a carpenter or plumber, doctor or dentist the artist and his tools find work enhancing our lives and culture, turning the mundane into the thing of beauty to be appreciated in our busy hyphenated lives.


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"Market Station" 11"x14" pleinair oil

I had a wonderful time at a paintout organized by Jim Quinn owner of Timberstand Gallery in the booming tourist town, Sandpoint Idaho.



Sandpoint is not the same town of 40 years ago when I broke my leg skiing at Schwietzer, the local ski hill. I hit the midway station and wrapped my shin bone on the ski patrols first aid station. They thought an avalanch had hit the building. OUCH!



Back then, it was a town of loggers and other hardy souls. Today it has been discovered by the wealthy and is becoming a destination resort with world class golf courses and high end homes and condos. I only hope they have an interest in decorating their abodes with quality artwork, especially mine.



10 artists from the US and Canada got together for 3 days to paint the town. I counted 70 paintings finished for the last days reception and show put on during the weekly Friday Artwalk in which the town becomes a parade of patrons through displays of artwork around town. Quite a crowd filed through Timberstand Gallery. It was also encouraging to see a few sales.



Jim puts on a great event. He engages the community. We painted at the Seasons Condominiums who went out of their way to make us comfortable. Painting in the direct sun on the beach the consierge provided bottled water, sun screen and even umbrellas. Later we had a private reception the tenants of the facility attended. The painting I did that day found a home with the 'penthouse' owner, a Ms. Kettle, who it turns out was quite familiar with the area I am from in Republic, WA, as her family is engaged in mining.



Being the Summer Solstice lots of things were going on at the same time in another part of town . http://www.shopthefrontier/ put up their road show down at the Old Mill.


I did this little sketch of the old elevator which is something of a landmark in the town. Abandoned there isn't much farming going on around this resort town.


The Arts Alliance was an interesting venue with demonstrations by sculptors and craftsman as well as a great band the "Kartel of Love" who played their own compositions which included a sax, trumpet, cello and even accordian. It was great to be surrounded by the energy of young people out to change the world. Reminded me of my long hair days. Seems each generation has a cause but they don't seem to change much, war and pollution. The same lines of protest repeated each generation. I'm certainly not being critical. Thank God someone is vocally opposing the war in Iraq and challenging the convention of our consumer lifestyle.


As I was driving to Hope, ID, I spotted this big bull moose in a slough. I stopped and got a few pictures untill he spotted me and the race was on for the car. I don't think he was chasing me just trying to figure out who was there as I was down wind and moose don't see too well. I didn't get to set up my easle but I got some great digital pics. Holy Smokes! Moose sure are big!

This is what attracts folks to the area. Wildlife in your backyard, ski hill and the beautiful Lake Pend O'rielle, pronounced Ponderay.

One of the first presence of the white man was the Hudson Bay Trading Post built by the famous explorer of the West, David Thompson who built the Kutunai Trading Post at Hope, Idaho. Today the post is memorialized by a granite monolith attesting to the white man's presence in 1809. Not very long ago. I guess the area could have easily been part of Canada if Hudson Bay had done things a little different. We've come a long way in 200 years and not all of it for the better. It is amazing to me that we have gone from what was a wilderness to our modern consumer lifestyle in so little time. Makes me wonder where we will be in another 200 years. I hear China is building a coal fired generator a day. Hope folks will be able to breadth by then.

Young people singing their hearts out about the sad condition of the world, affluent tenants living in million dollar condos, the artist stands in the middle observing, not judging but noting the significant difference and ferreting out the substance of life as our life ticks away. The present becomes the past we wonder as Gaugain did "Who are we, where have we been and where are we going?"

I'm heading out on an adventure to Dessert Isle of Maine to paint and drive horses. I've got my pochade packed with blank canvas and stocked up on paint supplies. I'm looking forward to maritime subjects and meeting new folks in a part of the country where there is plenty of history that is much older than that in the west.