Westfork Days

Oats in the boot. Maybe two weeks to go before it's in the milk

Training Wheels

At the moment we are in between putting up grass hay and oat hay. We put 1100 bales of grass hay in the barn, the best year we have ever had, about a ton an acre.
While we are waiting for the oats to come on I'm working with the Percherons. We have two Percherons that don't know much. This guy, Mountain Man (we didn't name him) doesn't know anything and is 15 years old.
Starting an older horse to be a productive work horse is far more challenging than if he were a youngster. Not only is he big and can cause lots of trouble but everything is abnormal for him.
Basically I'm trying to 'de0-sensitize' him to strange things like harness and going with another horse so I have fabricated 'training wheels' i.e. an old pickup truck with a steel bar in the box that I can tie the horses to. They have to go when the truck goes and stop when the truck stops (sort of). There are a few tricks, none of which are hard and fast as anything can rattle an inexperienced horse.
The near horse on the right hand side of the picture is Lucky and about as solid as the Ford Truck he is tied to. The off horse is the white horse and knows nothing. He's the guy we are trying to start. As you can see I am standing on a tire that they are skidding along. This saves a lot of walking and gives the 'green' horse an idea of how to pull a load. I built up to this point working the Percheron single and getting him used to his tugs around his legs until I felt he was ready for a double tree. This went fine until we rolled across some rocks which upset him and we ended up in a knot. Poor Lucky puts up with alot. I got them untangled and went back to the basics.
Not sure how far I can get with him but we'll keep after it. I hope he's ready for fall field work. He's a nice guy, just doesn't know anything.

Westfork Hay Ranch

Ranch boss Betsu on her Ford Horse.

Ranch Boss Betsu and the 1000th bale

Ranch Boss in the Clover

This has been an extrodinary year for hay this year with nearly double the amount of hay we usually get.  A long, cool and rainy spring has made the Sanpoil an Eden of growing things.  We have more birds nesting and butterflies, bees and wild critters than we can remember seeing in years. 

I had one of those "life moments" when I discovered a wonderful field of clover.  Millions and millions of white and red clover, 2' tall.  It smelled fabulous and buzzed with the sound of any number of pollinators including some of my own Carnolian Bees.  If I get any honey from them I'll have to label in Piney Woods Clover Honey because the field of clover was among some of the biggest pines on the Westfork Ranch.

In an effort to keep my painting arm in practice I keep an easel handy and record things that need painting.

This is a composite of many mornings greeting the sun while waiting for the dew to burn off the fields.

Plein Air Ranch Retreat

We're having a retreat at the famous, notorius and exclusive Gregg's Plein Air Ranch in the remote mountains of Eastern Washington.   Creeks, cliffs and cottonwoods.  Draft horse models and barbecue.   It's so beautiful your painting will paint itself!

Sept 30-Oct 1. Check it out!  http://www.pleinairartistretreat.com/

 map;  Gregg's Plein Air Ranch

Gregg goes to Washington D.C.

I've had the opportunity to visit Washington D.C. since I was a youngster. The first time I visited the National Gallery of Art I was 15. I learned I wanted to be a conservator but that never happened. This trip with my wife Betty, who was there on business, I had the good fortune to visit the frame conservator for the Lund Foundation at the National Portrait Gallery, Martin J. Kotler, who is also a plein air painter. I learned more than I knew there was to know about frames in the short hour or so that we visited. Now I look at frames as much as I do the paintings.
Every trip I learn of another museum. I visited the National Gallery of Art where there was a great new exhibit of Gaugain's work and the The Dale Collection of Impressionists. I visited the National Portrait Gallery and discovered the archives of the Luce Foundation, with over 3000 pieces of art to view. I visited the Corcoran where I discovered the video installations of Grazia Toderi who believes we are light from the comets that made the earth 3 billion years ago and makes video art to let us see what she means. I visited the Rothko Chapel at the private Phillips Gallery and came away with a new mentor. From Rothko's work, I discovered how to emmancipate my paintings from being just a slice of reality and hope to pursue the possibilities. I've already completed one piece that is an homage to Rothko that works well. Both my wife Betty and I now see many Rothko's that need to be painted. It is peculiar that 'realists' emulate 'the masters' ad naseum but few profess to be followers of abstractionists. Perhaps I am wrong and have only been traveling in a particular circle of artists and will come to prove myself wrong. But I must say that abstractionists and conceptual artists such as James Turrell (who has an installation "The Black Box" at the Corcoran) and Grazia Torderi are my latest inspiration.
Here's a quote from Toderi, “Orbite Rosse” (Red Orbits, 2009) is a double video projection created for the Venice Biennale. The projected light brings out a stratification of transparences and lights, of cities that are superimposed and continuously transform, and two broad ovals, celestial or terrestrial maps, colored planispheres or cosmograms, upon which luminous tracings dance, trajectories, “invisible cities,” imagined thinking of Italo Calvino and the large lithograph “Venetie MD” (Venice 1500) by Jacopo de’ Barbari, now in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice. “Projections” of light that penetrate our consciousness through the two mysterious “red orbits” of our eyes, which direct the images of our head-world"
Whether it was Rothko, Toderi or the Einstien Planetareum, I seemed to be pre-occupied with the tenet that we are all light.
Another self appointed project was to document 'horses of Washington D.C.'. I photographed some 200 horses. Generals on horseback, Degas's sculptures, Renaissance paintings of Rubens etc. Where ever I saw a horse I took a snap. What became apparent is that up until recent history the horse was the most common companion of mankind. It points out the enormous change that has occured to our world. Mankind's relation to the horse is an emblem of how divorced from nature humanity has become.

I included some of my notes. Click on the notes to expand the screen, then ctrl +, you might be able to see my marginally legible writing.

Studio Work, Winter 2011

This winter I decided to make a body of work using the visual vocabulary of the horse that I have acquired over the years in a fashion that would take me out of my usual habits and pursue a few ideas about process that I haven't had a chance while doing the 'plein air' thing.
Working towards a group show at Emerald Downs this summer I have found it a challenge to contain the size of my efforts to the allowable largest size in the show permitted of 48". 
I have discovered roller brushes and acrylic latex which has enabled to get me out of the habit of muscle memory.  I only wish I had more space.  Perhaps 100' long walls.  Wouldn't it be a gas to splash colorful horses all over?!

It's unfortunate that the process I'm using isn't more handy and I could use it 'en plein air'.  Maybe that is what I will try next?

This piece is 30x40,  I use Greek names to elevate the poetic substance of the piece.  It helps me to think of the horse out of my conventional context.  I used acrylic latex over a previous oil painting with heavy body.  There are some cool impasto layers that imprinted on the roller bushes and made tracks across the surface of the canvas.

  I later exploited this element and made stencils.  Truley establishing the vocabulary of images into a lexicon of visual vocabulary.  I actually have a box of stencils I can bring out anytime they fit.  I'm thinking stamps might be cool but the roller has done well as a stencil tool.

Jazzed, I used the roller directly and ran out of room on a 30x40 canvas so I got out a 18' roll of canvas but my wall was too short and I could only use 14'.  Guess I better find a bigger wall!

Unfortunately taking a photo of a large canvas in my cramped studio doesn't make for a very good representation.  Sorry.  I don't quite know where I will go with this piece and I wish I had spent some time doing an underpainting so maybe this one will go away and that will happen but it sure was fun!

Links; Reese, How to Draw A Horse, DVD

William F. Reese, master artist passed away last year.  I stopped by to visit his wife, Fran and had a woderful visit and as usual went away with treasures of wisdom, one of which is an instructional dvd, "A Tribute to His Love of Horses," that Bill made before he passed away about how to draw a horse.  Bill was meticulously thorough in his knowledge of horses.  He had a life size skeleton of a horse and studied the anatomy of the horse in university.  The dvd is wonderful for me in that Bill's presence, his stern yet encouraging words are as if he is still with me.  Bill and I shared a high regard for the beauty of the horse.  If you are one to work with horses in your art this dvd is a must have and can be ordered from Fran through their website, http://www.williamfreese.com/ .  Have a look around as there are many other valuable items for the artist.  I also highly recommend Bill's books on painting, "The Painter's Process".  A no non-sense book of wisdom for all aspiring painters.

In the Shade of the Sun I Sleep

In the shade of the sun I sleep

my soul wanders,

I wake behind the veil into the light

my soul sleeps.
 
All the night is my world as I dream.
 
All the day is not as I live.
 

W. Blair Bruce "The Smyths"

I saw this painting in Ottowa at the National Gallery of Canada. It is extraordinary in that it 'vibrates'. scroll down to see the details of his technique. It is a large painting, maybe 6'x8'. I also love the genre.  Wheelwrights have heated up an iron tire of a wooden wagon wheel probably to repair the fellows (spokes) of the wheel.  I like to think the fellow in the lower right corner is the wagon owner.  You can see another tire in the fire in the lower left.  Perhaps a new tire.  Pretty tough way to fix a flat!

I'm off on another tangent in the studio using glaze techniques which is very interesting and brought back the image of Bruce's piece. The piece hung near the Group of Seven gallery which is why I went to Canadian National Gallery in Ottowa. I wasn't dissapointed by the extensive G of 7 collection but I discovered this piece and was delighted. The online photos don't do it justice as it is one of those paintings that has to be seen in person to appreciate.
When I was in college, 40 years ago, sheesh has it been that long, I pursued something like this technique and have always been interested in 'broken color' of the impressionist but this is the first piece I have seen that emmulates such a tangent as 'additive light' as opposed to the 'subtractive light' common to most painting techniques. Computers and stage lighting use 'additive light' techniques.  Bruce still employed the pointilist/impressionist technique of placing complimentary colors side by side to achieve a vibrating effect but had an extraordinarily exuberant yet deliberate brush technique using transparent glazing techniques.
I think I will pursue this techniaque to achieve the challenge of dipicting Washington rainforests.
An interesting life, W. Blair Bruce married the Swedish artist Caroline Benedicks and had a classic romantic life of love and art.  Read about their history care of the Hamilton Public Gallery dedicated by Caroline to her husbands work; http://www.artgalleryofhamilton.com/aa_brucebo.php

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