ART IN THE SUN

News For December

2012-01-06T11:47:00.000-08:00

It was a busy month in December and the new puppies really kept us hopping. We had forgotten how much mischief new puppies can get into, in a blink of an eye, but overall they are working out really well and are already getting somewhat housetrained, which is a big plus. We are now working on taking walks with a leash and Murray took to it right away, but Elsie is a little fearful of strange sounds as we walk along, so I end up carrying her most of the time. Our Christmas was quiet but lovely with my brother coming over for dinner on the 24th and then we visited with Jim and Nancy for a delicious brunch on Christmas day. We have been painting a little and Allan has finished a new boat painting (left) while I have finished a couple of paintings, one of which is from a photo of the Apache Lake Drive that we took with Jim and Nancy back in November and the other is of a yacht that we saw while in Maine this summer. It is my first boat painting. It was kind of a foggy day with the sun trying to shine through the clouds and I am sure it must have been a yacht that can cross the ocean, it was so big in comparison with some of the other boats that we had seen that day.

December was also the month of being rejected by the Empire 100 show down in Tucson, but we were expecting it because our paintings were really not western, having no cowboys, Indians, or horses. So maybe this year we will try to paint something that might get into the show, that would be fun. Our neighbor did get two paintings into the Empire 100 so she and I traveled down to Tucson to drop them off and had a great lunch at Tohono Chul Gardens as well. This Wednesday we went to the Phoenix Art Museum with Jim and Nancy to see the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition and while we were there we also saw a LIFESIZE PASTEL PAINTING (right) by William Merritt Chase, one of the American Impressionists who we had seen in several museums back east this summer. What was interesting about this pastel painting was that Chase wet the pastel and applied it with a brush. Some of the detail was remarkable. (Left and Right)

It was another beautiful day here in Phoenix and we all sat outside in the Cafe for a delicious lunch with Allan having the Cubano Sandwich with Garlic Fries, I had a salad with grapefruit, dates, and some kind of radish I had never seen before, but was very beautiful in cross section, Jim had a Chinese Albacore Sandwich with sweet potato salad, which he let everyone have a bite, and Nancy had Hummus with Pita. All in all it was a great start to the new year. For All Of Those Folks Out There who sent us email wishes and/or snail mail cards, thank you very much for wishing us a wonderful holiday season and both Allan and I are hoping that all of our friends and relatives had an equally wonderful December and will have a healthy and secure New Year.

News for November

2011-11-28T08:20:00.000-08:00

This month was very sad. We had to say goodbye to our two dogs who were both very ill. Ned had cancer and was given 4 months to live, and Alice had kidney failure and had even less time. Our vet recommended that we have them put to sleep together so that neither dog would be alone in their last month, wondering where their lifetime friend had gone. They were both the best of pets and had traveled all over the US, Mexico, and Canada with us in the RV. We will miss them very much. We said that we would wait a while to get another dog, but after a few weeks went by, we started to wonder what we were waiting for. So we have purchased two puppies who will be arriving this coming Saturday Night. They are miniature piebald dachshunds and they are coming from New Mexico. Murray is a wirehair red and tan color, Elsie is a black and tan longhair. They are just about 3 months old, so I think we will be kept hopping for a while with a couple of energetic puppies running around. Allan is really looking forward to taking walks with his dogs again, he hasn't been able to do that for almost two years.

......In other news...... I have finished a couple of paintings which I am entering in the Empire Ranch 100 Show down in Tucson. Allan is entering some paintings as well and neither of us knows how it will turn out as most of the artists who enter that show paint horses, or cowboys, or Indians. But here are the paintings that I just finished. Love to hear any of your comments....

We Are Not In Kansas Anymore ToTo

2011-10-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

Due to hints, suggestions, and outright soft pressure, I have returned to the blog for an update on what we have been up to since leaving Kansas City. With a short stay in Colorado Springs, we continued on to Taos where we had planned to stay for two weeks. The new pricing at the Taos Valley RV park quickly put an end to that idea, as it was over $300. per week. While we were there we checked on the little rv park out on the North side of town, as you head over towards the Rio Grande Bridge and it looks like our new Go To place when we are in Taos Town. As usual while we were in Taos, we hit all the museums to look at our favorite paintings and hopefully see some new ones too. We ate Green Chile Stew and Guacamole and many of our other New Mexican favorite foods including Tres Leches Cake. See Above.

We found a great route from the East to get into Taos with a minimum of grade elevation and a fabulous road which ran from Colorado over to Fort Garland and then went straight south. And the views were beautiful the entire way. . . . . . . . .

When we got back home to Apache Junction we decided to jump on some remodeling projects around the house as well as getting ready to submit some paintings to the Fall Show in Cottonwood. Since that time we have found out that Allan had all 3 of his paintings accepted and I had two of mine accepted as well. As one of the new Workshop Chairpersons in our pastel group I had to get to work on several workshops that are coming up this Winter. We were looking forward to going to the October meeting where Lorenzo Chavez was coming to do a demo painting. He chose to do a winter scene in Colorado and although it was primarily a blue photograph, the painting turned out to be quite warm in tone. See Right. . . . . . .

We were surprised this last week to have some RV friends come through our town to visit. We are always thankful to have Rose and Mike, the first of our Rockport, Texas friendships that we made on those memorable winters down on the gulf, be here in Mesa where they also have a winter home. And then we got a call from Renita and Mark, the second pair of friends we made at the same rv park down in Rockport and who we have since met up with on the trail, come for four days this last week. But then we got a call from Nancy and Jim, another couple that we have met up with out on the road and our third friendship from down in Rockport who called to say they were staying here in Mesa until the first of January. Well we had to have our 2nd Biennial Rockport RV Reunion and it has been so great to see everyone all at the same time. Everyone has been busy with many different things; Rose and Mike have become grandparents to Charlotte, Jim and Nancy have finally completed all 48 states and have gone up in a balloon in Albuquerque, and Mark and Renita are finally turning those rocks into gold, well almost.... they are making the most extraordinary jewelry and becoming quite successful marketing it as well. In addition to our reunion dinner, we also have been out visiting Organ Stop Pizza and heading out to Tortilla Flats for the scenery and the burgers. In the above photos you can see Mark, Allan, Nancy, and Jim looking out at the Bighorn Sheep (see below) and then in the lower photo is Renita and Mark checking out the scenery.

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO

2011-08-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

Heading into Missouri, Allan realized that the truck brakes were not functioning as well as they should be, so when we got to Kansas City we checked into a KOA for three nights so that he could take the truck to a brake shop. While we were here we decided to go to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art which turned out to be a lovely museum with free admission. We headed straight for our favorite sections of European and American Paintings. One of the first paintings we found was Van Gogh's "Olive Orchard" which he painted in the last year of his life while he was living at the asylum where he had committed himself with what was thought to be mental illness, at the time. Now there has been renewed investigation into his symptoms and it is possible he had Meniere's Disease, which is an inner ear disorder which causes everything to spin around you, a feeling of vertigo accompanied by a roaring in the ears with feelings of panic and depression. The swirling effects that are seen in his skies, trees, and shrubbery could be what he is actually seeing during an episode of this disease. . . . . There was an American artist from St. Louis, MO who spent 15 years in Paris and then an additional year in Giverny with Monet in 1907. Richard Edward Miller had two paintings in the museum, both of women and both in an impressionist palette but with a couple of differences. In "The Sun Porch" you can see the bright palette and the dabs of color or loose brush strokes except in the figures face and hands which are carefully modelled and are reminiscent of Gustav Klimt. Neither of us had ever heard of this artist before but we really liked his paintings. The light coming in the window and falling across her clothes was lovely and it was done with blotches of paint placed carefully. The blotches were so thick that they looked as if you could peel them off the canvas, but the hands are painted delicately, more like what you would see in a Sargent portrait. . . . . There was a John Singer Sargent portrait there of "Mrs. Cecil Wade" who was one of his first commissions in London after he was shunned in Paris for painting Madame X. In the Mrs. Cecil Wade painting he is at his best in his brush strokes which are unparalleled in evoking satin, pearls, lighting, wood, metal, textures of any kind. A close up of her right hand will show how delicate he is with his brush strokes, they are so fine, they are barely seen. We were especially interested in how Sargent painted edges. We have been learning about lost edges and found edges in past workshops. Here we got to see more of a penumbra effect along many of his edges. In the close up to the left, there is a ghost image of her sleeve against the dark background. And the background intrudes softly onto the upper portion of the sleeve as well. Everything Sargent does in this painting is subtle but it all adds up to a painting we just stood and looked at for almost half an hour. But Sargent was not always so precise. And he probably took extra care with his commissions, but on a trip to Majorca he painted a portrait of an Argentinean artist and you can see all of the impressionistic brushstrokes and lighter palette emerge. . . . . There were many more of our favorite artists and we had a wonderful afternoon visiting with them all. But we were getting hungry and we decided to go out for Kansas City Barbeque. We found the SmokeStack right down the street from the just opened Trader Joe's. Allan had the rib basket and ordered the corn cassarole as a side. A corn cassarole is canned corn, canned cheese, cream cheese, bacon bits, and garlic. It was not something that I cared for, but Allan ate the whole thing. I must be a barbeque wimp because I like Famous Dave's and haven't had anything that would replace it so far. Today our brakes were fixed by replacing the vacuum pump so we will be on our way west again tomorrow morning.

Turning West

2011-08-17T04:54:00.000-07:00

After leaving Acadia NP, we headed down the Maine coast to Camden where we had intended to stay at the State Park. We drove through pouring rain and arrived to find that we could not fit into our intended site, the only other site they had was filled with mud, and the weather forecast was for continued rain during the remainder of the week. They put us out into a field for the night while we hastily made some different arrangements. I called Lake Ivanhoe in New Hampshire to see if we could arrive two weeks earlier and they said "no problem", so the next day we headed up to visit with our friends who live across the street from us in Arizona during the winter. They have a beautiful cabin on Lake Ivanhoe and live right next door to another couple that have purchased a winter home in our same park in Arizona. We had a great time getting shown around the area by both couples and meeting many of their friends and relatives. One of the days was full sun and we took the opportunity to do some plein air painting. The top photo is our friend's cabin on the lake and the photo above right is Allan doing a painting of their rowboat at the small dock. It was a very relaxing time and we sure appreciated all of the hospitality and good eats we received from everyone. We started west on Monday, heading to NY to spend the night, and encountered nothing but drenching rain all day. The highway was puddled with water and on one of the interchanges, we had an idiot cut right in front of us and slow down so that Allan had to put on the brakes and we started to hydroplane and skid to the side. Allan was able to get us out of it, but it was a scary moment. These 3 photos are taken in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. Can't remember which is which, but as you can see it was a very rainy day and the big trucks throwing up all their spray just made it worse. Today we are in the middle of Pennsylvania and the sun has decided to come out for the day. We decided to spend an extra day so that we could visit the Amish Flea Market in Belleville. It was a beautiful drive through rolling hills and several state parks to an agricultural valley where many of the farms are owned by the Amish (and also the English, which I guess is the rest of us). The flea market was very large and we were able to buy fresh peaches, plums, and small fruit pies and moon pies which are crescent shaped. I got a bird house made of bark and Allan got jars of jam, a hacksaw, and a book. It was fun prowling around all the funky stuff that everyone was selling and it was the place to be if you wanted a hunting rifle that is for sure. There were so many people selling rifles we could have started a small army right there in Belleville. Of course it was the English selling all of the rifles and flea market stuff, the Amish were selling the produce and pastries. We saw numbers of their horse and carts out on the road and those horses are really stepping out. Allan was very taken with the area, he said it reminded him of New Zealand with all the green fields and villages down in the vales with the hills beyond. We then took a different route to get back to Bellefonte where we had lunch at the Gamble Mill Restaurant and Brewery. Allan had a pastrami sandwich and I had baby back ribs, which were both so good that we wolfed them down before I got a photo of them, even though the camera was sitting right there on the table. But the best part was the beer. We had a Sessions Ale and it was the first beer I have ever had that was perfect, malty and yeasty, smooth and refreshing, none of that bitter hoppy taste, it was the best beer ever. We told the waitress we would add a couple of six packs on to our bill and were told that they do not bottle their beers. Oh well, it was a beer and a day to remember.

Mt. Desert Island

2011-08-07T13:45:00.000-07:00

For the last week, Allan and I have been exploring the second most popular national park in the U.S. and it certainly has one thing in common with the most popular park (which is Yosemite... in case you didn't know), namely numbers of people. There are certainly some places on the island that are not as popular, such as most of the western side, but for the most part, there were bumper to bumper traffic jams (even with the bus shuttle system running every half hour), people standing in long, long lines for ice cream in Bar Harbor, or bicyclists from every bicycle club in America. They were especially numerous on the park loop road and there were hundreds, if not thousands, of bicycles at Jordan Pond where all of the carriage roads seem to converge and the hot popovers are served for Tea. This was the high season for the island and every pathway was an endless stream of people from just about any country you could name and probably a few that you couldn't name. Aunties from India teetering along the rocky cliffs after the younger members of the family, French youths all with the physiques of bagettes, elderly women with makeshift walking sticks made of branches, children fast asleep in their strollers, dogs walking doggedly along behind their masters; all were there. We were there too and spent the first day exploring Bar Harbor, which is mostly restaurants and gift stores, but charming.... very charming with pots of flowers everywhere and of course the harbor full of boats. We had lunch at the Bar Harbor Inn and although the food was good, I think that they thought we should be on a diet because there was not much of it. On one of the days we had to drive back into Ellsworth to take care of some errands and there we had a proper lunch at Finn's Irish Pub (left). I had shepherds pie and Allan had corned beef and cabbage. Both were delicious and the helpings were so large that we had leftovers to take home. As it turned out, right across the street from Finn's was a cafe where we had breakfast a couple of times as Allan really like the Corned Beef Hash and I was sold on the platesized Blueberry Pancakes which had little crispy edges and were filled with blueberries in the middle, with plenty of butter and Maine maple syrup. On our last day on the island, we took a cruise on the Sea Princess with a National Park Ranger who gave a nature talk while we were crossing over to Isleford on Little Cranberry Island and then up Somes Sound and back. We were able to see seals, bald eagles, osprey, and several kinds of ducks. But the best part of the boat ride for us, was getting photos of the harbors, the boats, and the scenery along the shore. Altogether between the two of us, we took over 600 photos while we were here for the week. Not all of those came from the boat ride, we got many photos from SW Harbor and also NE Harbor. Unfortunately we had to take many of the photos in the fog or drizzly rain since we were only here for one week and we only had one day of sunshine during our visit. But now that we have had a lesson from Michael on creating fog, we should be OK. One of the final places we had to visit before we left the island was the Atlantic Brewery. I had promised our friends Mike and Rose that I would bring them some Maine brews, so we stopped by and had some Mainely Maine Barbeque and picked up a sample of Maine beers to bring back to Arizona. Hopefully it won't get too hot on our trip home, it would be a shame if we needed a cold one before we got them to their intended recipients.

Campobello Island Plein Air

2011-08-01T14:08:00.000-07:00

It has been almost two weeks ago that we left Massachusetts, traveled through Maine, and crossed the bridge at Lubec to enter Campobello Island at the tip of New Brunswick on the Bay of Fundy. We had reservations at the Herring Cove Provincial Park which is within walking distance of the Herring Cove Beach (see above). Although the site had 30 amp electricity, we were sans water or sewer, so we had to embark upon a careful conservation program of dishwashing and toilet flushing. Thankfully the park had warm, clean restrooms with hot and cold running water and showers as well so we made use of their facilities as often as possible. We spent our first couple of days exploring the island, checking out all of the little harbors and taking photos of old buildings and boats. We were both so happy to finally be able to pull over in the truck and get out and take some photos without encountering a "Private Property - Keep Out" sign as we had on the coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The weather was clear and cool, unlike the 99 degree, high humidity weather we left when we spent a night in Freeport, Maine. Freeport, by the way, is a disneyesque mall disguised as a mild mannered coastal town. They were having a heat wave, as was the rest of the country and there were so many air conditioners on in our KOA that the electricity went off for about 5 hours in the late afternoon. So the air felt lovely on Campobello with maritime temperatures in the 70's. . . . . . On Sunday evening we went to Friar's Bay Gallery to get a welcome and introduction for the week's plein air workshop from Michael Chesley Johnson (see left, photo taken during the week while we were at Liberty Point) and his wife Trina where we also met the two other students; Mike from New Jersey and Pat from New Hampshire. We were not too surprised to see Pat because one day at the IAPS conference in June we had lunch at a table with many other artists and in the conversation found out that Pat was also scheduled to have a workshop with Michael in July. What a coincidence, only 4 people in the workshop and we meet one of them by accident before we get there. It's a small world. . . . . . . . . . .On Monday at 9:00 Atlantic Time we met at Michael's gallery where he talked about concentrating our efforts on a four value color system. This was exactly what Allan was hoping he would talk about and after we drove to Con Robinson Point in the Roosevelt International Park, Michael demonstrated how to begin a painting using four colors that were in the four values of the scene. Michael had reminded all of us of Charles Hawthorne's 4 value system with the verticals (trees) being the darkest, sloped verticals (mountains) being the mid-darks, flat areas (land) being the mid-lights, and the sky being the lightest of all. Allan's painting to the left was his day one attempt at achieving this goal of a painting in 4 values. I am working on my painting of the same scene (above right) and felt that my achievement for the day was a) actually doing a plein air and getting something recognizeable on the paper, and b) capturing some of the color and value that I saw in front of me. My biggest achievement was getting over the jitters of working quickly, as I am a very sloowww painter. But Michael had a very strong teacherly instinct and was able to present material at the level we needed and adjusted his approach to be of the most help to all of us, each of us with different needs. On day two we went to Cranberry Point, where again Michael demonstrated what we needed to focus on for the session. Michael is working on a painting above while we were all doing our paintings and later he showed us the small painting he had done of me painting under my umbrella. By the way, we learned that the umbrella is not for us, it is for the pastels and the painting on the easel. . . . . . . . . On Wednesday we painted at Herring Cove Beach, which is the beach at the very top of this blog, and Thursday we went to Liberty Point, which is the most gorgeous spot on the island. Michael did a demonstration of a painting of a rock formation off shore which resembles a frog and cautioned us about making it too froglike. Allan jumped right in and started painting and the next day during the critique, we all had to laugh, as he had painted Jeremiah, in all his froglike glory (left). I escaped that problem by painting in the opposite direction (below). In addition to the four values which was on day one, we also worked on our composition, color, and atmospheric perspective. On our last day, we asked Michael if he would help us with trees and shrubs, so we all went to Little Duck Pond with the fog rolling in amongst the trees, and Michael showed us how to create trees, still maintaining the four values, as he added suggestions of bluish green trees in the distance with a sky made of light pink and mint green which believe it or not, looked just like fog. The week was the absolute highlight of our trip and will be something we remember forever. On our last day we went back over the bridge to Lubec to visit the Easternmost point in the United States. But it was surely an anticlimax to the previous week painting plein air with Michael on Campobello Island.

Truck Tires, Titles, & Tents

2011-07-20T06:04:00.000-07:00

Two days ago while Allan was fueling up the truck, he noticed a bulge extending out of the side of one rear tire. It seemed like just the other day that we had gotten new tires for the truck but after looking at our truck records, it turns out to have been over 60,000 miles ago. There was only one commercial truck tire dealer in the area where we were staying and they would have to order the tires, but yesterday the tires arrived and we drove over for a 20 minute transaction of two 10-ply rear tires replaced for a cost of over $400. That was surely not in our budget for this month, I can tell you.... but it is worth it to know that we will not be having a blowout while pulling the rig. To the left is a photo of one of our new tires. What was on our budget for this month was a screen canopy room so that we could sit outside when the mosquitos were out and about. After Cape Cod, where I got over 50 bites while sitting outside one night, we realized we would have to take some action or I would be confined to quarters for a good part of the trip. For some reason, Allan is not bothered as much by them as I am although he does occasionally get bites too. We did some research on-line and although there were a number of brands of screen canopy out there, none of them got good reviews. However, the L.L.Bean screen tent canopy got high to medium reviews and they have a full return policy so that seemed the way to go. We were going to wait until we got to Freeport and go to the Mother Store but when we were out the other day we ran into a small store nearby and purchased it there. I can definitely say it went together quick as a wink, it only weighs 15 pounds, and it fits under our awning which is where we wanted it to be placed. On the other hand it is only a screen room and is not waterproof so we will probably get a piece of clear plastic from Home Depot to hang from the outside of the awning if we should have some rain. It looks tiny in the photo but is actually 6'6" high and the dogs like it because they can walk around free of their leashes while we are sitting inside reading. Although for the most part we don't have a mosquito problem when we are traveling in the West, we really could have used this screen room when we were in Chama, NM last year. We had intended to stay there for 3 weeks but I couldn't go outside without mosquitos landing on my arms or face, so we ended up leaving early. One mosquito in Chama was practically swimming in the insect repellant I had on my arm, but was still resolutely drilling for blood. So hopefully the screen room will solve some of that problem. . . . . While we were hanging around Foxboro doing all of these tire and tent errands, we drove to a nearby town called Franklin to visit the Shire Used Bookshop in a converted mill. It was enormous and all of the original windows, fixtures, and wood floors were all still in place. We knew as soon as we stepped in the door that we would find some new treasures, there were dust motes shining in the air and the owner stood up to say hello and offer us some tea as we browsed. There is a quotation in Anne Fadiman's book Ex Libris by Vincent Starrett who said about book collecting in his book Penny Wise and Book Foolish, "Every new search is a voyage to the Indies, a quest for buried treasure, a journey to the end of the rainbow; and whether or not at the end there shall be turned up a pot of gold or merely a delightful volume, there are always wonders along the way." Well we did find some delightful volumes. Allan found the "Four Voyages of Columbus" with 5 of the 8 documents inside written by Christopher Columbus in the original Spanish, with English translations. He also found Toynbee's Greek Historical Thought, Combined Operations (the Official Story of the Commandos), and the Explorations Of Captain James Cook In The Pacific as told by selections of his own journals, and a few others along the same vein. I found Seven League Boots by Richard Halliburton, Sea and Sardinia by D.H. Lawrence, Travels With A Donkey by Robert Louis Stevenson, a couple of books of essays, and Bone In The Throat by Anthony Bourdain. Anthony Bourdain is making quite a literary presence of himself after his career as a top chef. First the books that he wrote on food, then the travel books, now he has embarked on mysteries. As we stepped up to the cash register, I couldn't help thinking of Henry Ward Beecher when he said "Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore!"

Boston (Chinese) Tea Party

2011-07-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

We left Cape Cod on Wednesday and headed for Normandy Farms Campground Resort in Foxborough (or Foxboro, its spelled both ways around here), Massachusetts so that we would be close to a train line that would carry us into Boston. But when we got here, we found out that it would be easier and cheaper to take the subway into Boston, but we had to drive further to get to a station. While we were digesting this piece of news, we were escorted to site 1005, yes that's right, there are over a thousand campsites here at Normandy Farms, ranging from the full hookup sites for big rigs, where we are staying, to small patches of lawn where you can set up your tent. There is every kind of campsite in between and I think every brand of trailer and tent is represented here. These Easterners are really into this camping thing and their sites are decorated with lights, flags, screen rooms and hammocks, dog houses for the dog, bikes, scooters, and halloween decorations. Yes, it is October here in Normandy Farms this week and the trick or treaters came around the very night that we arrived. We were given a sign to put in our window to let the little goblins know that we were Not Prepared. So no one came to our door, but they were out in force and the haunted house which was a converted trailer and the haunted cemetary were both open for business. Everyone has a fire in their firepit here in the evening and during the day there are sports programs, three swimming pools, and a clubhouse that is crawling with children. But we are in the quiet old fogie section and for the most part we don't see or hear anyone else. We have since been to Boston twice; the first time to get the lay of the land and figure out the subway system and the second time to hit the used bookstores. On our first subway visit in Quincy Adams Station, (see top left photo) we were able to purchase a charley card for $15 each which allows us to use the card as often as we want for 7 days. When we popped up from the subway, we were in the Boston Commons which was a good place to start looking around. As we walked along we could see that many old buildings were still standing amidst the taller new ones. (See Left photo) From the Commons we headed over to Quincy Marketplace (above right photo) where we had some lunch. Inside Quincy Marketplace it is lined with food stalls of every kind of food from just about every country. When we finally made our choices we had a hard time finding a place to sit and eat as the place was packed with both tourists and locals all trying to eat during the lunch hour. . .We then walked up to the North End, which used to be called Little Italy. And I can see why they would call it that, as every shop was an Italian Deli, or Italian Grocery, or an Italian Restaurant. If we had known what lay ahead of us, it would have made a much better option for our lunch. . . . . . . .Today when we headed into Boston, it was a Saturday and the traffic was lighter, thank heavens as it is usually bumper to bumper, and the subway was not as populated either. This time we stayed close to Washington Avenue where we visited the Commonwealth Book Shop (right photo) where Allan found a copy of Hakluyt's Voyages, a collection of eyewitness accounts of famous voyages in the age of discovery. I found seven books, mostly from the travel section which is one of my favorite sections of a bookstore. Among other titles, I got What Am I Doing Here by Bruce Chatwin (the author of Songlines), Corsican Excursion by Charles Elwell with Illustrations by Edward Lear, which I confess was the main reason I wanted the book, his drawings are so beautiful. I also thought I might like Barbarian In The Garden by Zbigniew Herbert, translated from the Polish in 1985, which is a series of essays about his travels in Italy. And Four Others. I could have easily picked up more, but Allan had heroically volunteered to carry any books we found in the daypack and I did not want to completely weigh him down. Anyway we moved on to the Brattle Book Shop (see photo to the left) a few streets away where they had numbers of books on tables outside for $5, $3, or $1 Dollar. Oh my goodness, I needed a wheelbarrow, but tried to hold back with only six additional books whereas Allan selected only two. He got The Life Of Leopold Bloom by Peter Costello who tries to reconstruct Bloom's life from the clues he finds in James Joyce's Ulysses. And he also purchased another navigation book by a Master Mariner named Captain Alfred J. Green, who tells stories of the voyages on his sailing ship. My greatest finds this time were Rose Macaulay's Pleasure Of Ruins, the complete classic unabridged text of her travels to Thebes, Corinth, Pompeii, and Angkor-Wat.... also I got an autographed copy of Holt's Sixty Years As A Publisher which is a series of essays on topics that originally appeared in periodicals around 1923. . . . and then I had to get ABC ET CETERA, which is the Life & Times of the Roman Alphabet, a book about word roots which is a topic that I got very interested in when I was a biology major in college. . . . . plus 3 more books that peaked my interest. Luckily, the guy at Brattle Books saw that our backpack was already heavy so he gave us a Brattle Bag to carry our new books. From here we headed over to Chinatown to see what was there and get some lunch. There were a few streets with Asian restaurants but it was no competition for the Chinatown in San Francisco which has stalls and shops, and plucked smoked ducks hanging in shop windows. But we did find the Great Taste Bakery and Restaurant, a pretty authentic place to eat, if the fact that we were the only caucasions amidst the remainder of the asian patrons who were all speaking Chinese, as were all of the waitstaff is any indication of authenticity. We had to point to the selections that we wanted and even though they had names that I thought I recognized, what showed up on the table was not quite that. I wanted potstickers, so I ordered fried pork dumplings, and what I got was 3 objects that looked like very large hush puppies. They had been deep fried and the outer layer was sweet bread like stuff with pork meat inside. They were good, but high in carbs and low in protein. I was lucky I got what I did I guess as some of the other options that could have arrived on my table were Chicken Feet with Chinese Medicine or Jelly Fish with Duck Web. After that narrow escape, we headed to the nearest subway station for home, Allan loaded down with books and me carrying the Chinese TakeOut Bag, maps, and camera.

Cape Cod Week

2011-07-12T06:30:00.000-07:00

In the last few days we have been exploring the different villages of the Cape, which means driving along through vast tracts of pine and deciduous forest interspersed with homes and business sometimes in little groupings and sometimes randomly placed back in the woods. It does not seem as if businesses have to be in a commercial district as they can appear just about anywhere, such as the Bank of America that was nestled between two residences in a completely residential area. This is also true of auto repair shops, a bookstore, beauty salon, or veterinarian; they just appear among homes along some street that is not in a town or even close to a town. And the towns are not large enough to be considered a town really, they are usually a main street with a few restaurants and gift shops, maybe the library. Very different than the strip malls we see in the west. The beaches are mostly private. Very rarely have we found a public beach anywhere and if we do find one, then there is an attendant on duty to collect the $15 parking fee. For us that is too much money to pay to walk along the beach for a half hour or so to take some photos, so for the most part, we have not been able to get to the beach. One exception was a beach about 10 yards wide with signs on either side reminding the public riff raff to stay on their designated strip of beach. In the first beach photo you can see the signs posted on either side of the public strip of beach. The second photo shows the warning sign which is what we have been seeing all along the shores of Connecticut and Rhode Island as well. . . . . . . . . . . On the day that it rained all morning, we headed out to used bookstores on route 6A and found several books at Parnassas in Port Yarmouth Village, a couple of nautical books at Columbia Trading Co. in West Barnstable, and one or two books in Titcomb's Bookshop in East Sandwich. After lunch we visited a needlepoint shop where I found a couple of canvases to work on this winter. . . . . . . . . . . On another day we drove through Hyannisport and then visited Trader Joes to stock up on coffee and other supplies, before heading to the most fabulous bakery we have seen in a long time called Pain de Avignon which is a French Bakery and the pastries were all enticing, the breads were all crusty, and the Frey's were busy loading up on scones, oatmeal cookies, and raisin pecan bread. . . . . . . . . . . One evening we visited Mary Anne Tessier and her husband Walt at their home for a wonderful dinner on the outside deck, talking about art and where to go while we were here. Mary Anne is also a pastel artist and is a member of our Arizona Pastel Assoc. although we met her originally at the home/studio of Nancy Clauss who was our teacher the first year we lived in Phoenix. On Sunday we saw Mary Anne again at an art fair that she participates in with her Yarmouthport Art Guild. It was fun to see all of her paintings and we really loved her paintings of the local scenery although we liked all of her animal paintings too. Yesterday we headed back up to Provincetown to have breakfast and give Allan a chance to walk way up the beach to get photos of the boats in the water. He also got some photos of plein air artists painting the local scenes. One of the artists seems to have lost control of his paper towels in the wind which is only one of the many hazards of painting plein aire. Tomorrow morning we will be heading off to Foxborough, MA where we hope to take the train into Boston for a look at the bookstores they might have. They also have an Art Museum which we hope to visit. We are looking forward to seeing another new place.

Provincetown, Massachusetts

2011-07-07T05:20:00.000-07:00

Allan and I arrived in Cape Cod on Tuesday morning after a short journey from Mystic, Connecticut without any brake difficulties at all, what a relief to have that problem cleared up. Because the island of Newport, RI is between Mystic and Cape Cod, we had to drive north up to Providence, RI and then turn about a 45 degree turn and drive south for the same distance. The traffic was as described in all the tour books, a steady stream of cars and trucks going in both directions on route 6, the main road that goes from one end of Cape Cod to the other. Thanks to the Droid, we found the Old Chatham RV Resort in South Dennis easily but getting the 5th wheel into its space was not as easy and without the help of our new neighbor to our right and our new neighbor across the street, both of whom moved their cars and helped to direct Allan back into the spot without knocking down any of the old pines or overhead wires, we would still be out there working on our divorce. The resort is about 98% full of seasonal singlewides, park models, old trailers with patio rooms, and permanent fifth wheels with skirting. All of these vehicles stay here all year long and the people close them up in October for the winter and then return to them in April when the park reopens. The park is filled with tall pines and reminds us of the Monterey Peninsula in California, except it is a little more humid instead of the cooler fog that Monterey usually has in the summer. We spent the remainder of Tuesday doing the laundry and taking showers as we had no sewer in the Seaport Campground in Mystic, CN and it was extremely inconvenient to have to make an appointment with their little honey wagon that they brought around so that you could dump. So we are back in the lap of luxury here in Cape Cod with sewer and a good signal for the verizon air card and sunshine, lots of sunshine. The first thing we wanted to see while we were here was Provincetown. We had read so much about it, historically it was one of the first places where the pilgrims landed, artistically it is the birthplace of the Cape Cod School of Art which was founded by Hawthorne, next run by Hensche, and then finally run by Lois Griffel, who now lives in Tucson. And of course it is famous as being a major gay resort with several of the guidebooks warning people if they are not comfortable with people of the same sex showing affection in public, they probably shouldn't go there. But as Allan and I are both from California, specifically around the San Francisco area... it was no problem for us and actually we usually find that some of the best restaurants and shops are in areas where the clientele is gay. We were not let down in any way... the town was right on the beach where the regular public was allowed to go without any payment whatsoever. The main street was lined with shops, cafes, galleries, and small hotels. The streets were so narrow that cars were only allowed on certain streets and even then those streets were one-way only. The pedestrians came in all sizes and shapes, wearing all sorts of outfits, families, dog walkers, couples holding hands, musclemen with gleaming torsos, harley davidson riders, bicyclists, and old men with crutches. Everyone was there and everyone was happy and friendly and glad to be walking in the sunshine. We had breakfast in the Post Office Cafe and it was one of the best meals we have had. Allan had linguica and eggs with pecan/raisen toast and I had potato pancakes with bacon and eggs. Then we set off for some retail therapy and purchased a funny little red plane which hangs from a rocker. As it rocks, the plane wings go up and down. Did we need this? No. Do we know where we are going to put it? No. Did we have to have it? Yes, absolutely, our memento from Provincetown. All of the photos are from Provincetown; the one on the top left is Commercial Street which is the main street of town, top right is Allan in one of the many fun shops lining Commercial Street, bottom left is looking out across the beach into the bay side of the Cape where the water is as warm as bath water, and bottom right is only one of the many buildings that were covered or surrounded in flowers.

Still Life ... Still Popular

2011-07-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago when we were in Washington D.C., I found a book in a used book store entitled Impressionist Still Life, A Phillips Collection. This book is a series of essays on many Impressionist artists and their influence on Still Life as a subject for their paintings. This book shed some light on the kinds of still lifes we have been seeing in the museums and pointed out how still lifes had changed from the mid 1800's to the early 1900's. Prior to Edouard Manet, a still life was usually fruit or flowers in some sort of arrangement designed to be decorative in the home. Prior to that, a still life was more religious or historical. When we think of Impressionism, we usually think of plein aire painting, outside in the light, with the landscape being the primary subject. So when Manet began to paint his still life paintings in the Impressionist style beginning in 1860, he was mostly mocked. His still life paintings had personal associations, notes of color, light areas, and strong brushstrokes. In his portraits, he tried to convey the nature of the individual by painting everyday things and he had small still life arrangements on the floor or on the table nearby. Nearly 1/5 of all his paintings were still life. In the painting "Flowers In A Crystal Vase, 1882" to the right, no effort is made to discriminate between the tabletop and the background and the flowers are depicted with strokes of color leaving them unclear and hazy. The ephemeral light casts a gauzy shadow across the table and the whole effect is lush and vibrant, similar to seeing the flowers on the bushes outside in the garden. Contrast Manet's painting with a painting by Severin Roesen (left) just 20 years prior. Roesen's painting is typical of the decorative style of still life and although it is very realistic, it is also contrived. This is the kind of painting that I usually just glance at in the museums and then walk on by. It must be because there is nothing personal about the work. I can see myself having a little vase of flowers, like Manet painted, but I can't see myself having that monstrous collection of fruit on my table for any reason whatsoever. This is a revelation for me.... a painting must have some connection with the viewer or it fails as art. . . . . . . . . Other artists were soon working on still life paintings in Manet's new direction including an American, William Merritt Chase who lived in France for a time and came home with new ideas. We saw his still life painting just this week, and I am including him as an example because he did a very large still life IN PASTEL. To the left is a detail of the above painting which shows the strokes of the pastels. Chase doesn't quite have the lightness of touch in his painting that Manet has, but he is a giant step removed from Roesen. . . . . In the 1890's Cezanne was also interested in still life painting, but he used it as a vehicle to understand color. His earlier paintings were fruit, apples or pears, just dumped on the table randomly, sometimes with an object, and no apparent design to the set up. His only concern was the color of the objects and even his brushstrokes did not follow the form of the fruit. This was in the Impressionist spirit of seizing the moment of a random setting. But as time progressed, he even stopped thinking about perspective and sometimes painted the painting from two different angles, establishing two different points of view. The tables looked warped and the edges would be at different levels. In the painting above right painted in 1900, the bowl seems tilted and the apples look as if they are going to fall on the floor. He felt that the human eye would see the truth. His work was the beginning of Abstraction, although he would have been appalled to think it so. . . . . . .From Cezanne's work came Henri Matisse with his paintings of tables littered with objects and fabrics such as the painting to the left called "Still life with Apples" painted in 1924, 24 years after Cezanne's painting above. And, Pablo Picasso was also greatly influenced by the loss of perspective in Cezanne's paintings and his experimentation led to Cubism as seen in his "Still Life With Fish" painted in 1923 (seen below right). This painting brought back old memories, since the first painting I ever did was a copy of Picasso's "Woman Looking In A Mirror". I took an art class about 45 years ago and felt very drawn to painting. From that time on, I tried to take an art class here or there, and after meeting Allan who had similar inclinations, we both signed up for classes when we could. It wasn't until our working life was over, that we were able to indulge ourselves and now here we are. . . painting pastels and traveling to art museums where we are giving ourselves a personalized art course. I don't know what kind of impact it will have on our painting, but hopefully it will be beneficial. Looking back at the long road of my past almost seems like I Am The Woman Looking In A Mirror.

Eastern Artists...Western Scenes

2011-07-02T04:44:00.000-07:00

As we have been going through the numerous art museums over the last month, we have noticed that many artists who call the East Coast their home, sometimes travel out West and paint landscapes of a different sort of scenery. Many of these artists end up staying forever, such as Georgia O'Keefe or the Taos Artists among many others. Back in the Hudson River School days, which is to say, the late 1800's, some of these artists made a more significant contribution. Thomas Moran traveled many times to the "Majestic West" and his large romantic paintings were instrumental in the US Congress deciding to make Yellowstone into a National Park. Moran was particularly taken with the Wyoming area and painted many paintings of its land. A favorite place that he returned to over and over again was Castle Rock and the painting on the left is entitled "Green River in Wyoming" which he painted in 1899. This is a fairly typical painting in the Hudson River style although it is rather understated compared to some of Church's or Cole's work. But you can still see the soft romantic haze which is in the far distance and the glow of light in the center of the painting. I sometimes think that Thomas Kinkade, the artist that paints all the little cottages with the lights in the windows and the setting sun lighting up the forest, took his inspiration from the Hudson River artists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A contemporary of Thomas Moran was Albert Bierstadt who was born in Europe but lived and painted in the US. He also traveled all over and painted studies of scenes that he saw which he later incorporated into a very large painting in his studio. He was not hesitant to use any of his studies to create the landscape that was in his mind and not necessarily geographically correct. A good example of this is "In The Yosemite Valley" painted in 1866 seen on the right. For those of you who have been to Yosemite, you will notice that Half Dome is missing and the trees are not pine and fir but a deciduous tree that is not in Yosemite. Not that they don't have deciduous trees, but the Oaks are usually small with the needle type trees standing taller. The granite wall face is OK but is not any particular geologic feature of the valley. None of this was known to the people from the East coast and based on his paintings like this, they flocked to the West to see all the wonders of Yosemite. I hope they were even more impressed by the real thing. . . . . . One of the artists who bridged the gap between the Tonalists and the American Impressionists was John Henry Twachtman and he traveled to Yellowstone to do a commissioned painting of the "Emerald Pool" in 1895. What a difficult subject this must have been for him and yet he accurately depicts the transparent color of the water with the mist and steam rising around the far edge. The horizon line is just visible in the distance and his impressionist painting becomes almost an abstraction.

Art Tidbits

2011-06-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

Today we visited two art museums; one is the New Britain Museum of American Art and the other was the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford. Both of these museums had excellent, wide-ranging examples of American and French Impressionists but there were some other art works that we came upon which were fun to see in their own way. First of all, there was an entire room of Jamie Wyeth paintings of ..... da da ta da.... Rudolf Nureyev. It turns out that Jamie begged Nureyev for three years to let him paint him at the theatre, rehearsing and performing. Finally Nureyev conceded and Jamie worked on sketches and paintings for over a year including studio paintings where Nureyev came to Maine to visit. They remained friends for over twenty years after that until Nureyev died. The portrait upper left was later made into a poster for the ballet "Don Quixote". There were several studies in charcoal and paint of the dancer including one of him in the nudie, sorry ladies (or should I say gentlemen) there is no photo of that sketch since I did not want to contribute to internet porn i.e. Rep. Weiner. In the same museum we also saw some unusual paintings by both of the older Wyeths. Andrew (Jamie's father) had a self portrait, he only painted two of these in his lifetime as he usually painted landscapes or barns, most famously the painting of Christina's House. The paintings by N.C. Wyeth (Jamie's grandfather) were also unusual as he was mostly an illustrator and rarely did paintings for his own enjoyment. The painting entitled "Sun Glint" was considered the best painting he had ever done that was not an illustration. . . . . . When we were in DC, I blogged about a Renoir painting that we saw at the Phillips Museum. I mentioned the young lady on the extreme left of the painting who later became his wife. Today we were able to fast forward a number of years to a portrait of Aline as Mme. Renoir where she looks much more matronly than she did for the portrait of the Luncheon. She had been a model for him in a number of the intervening years prior to becoming married and I noticed that in this painting she also has a little dog just as she did when she was younger. . . . . . . And just a little farther back in my blogging history. . . last year Allan and I visited D.H. Lawrence's gravesite in New Mexico where we saw a very faded beatup photo of a painting by Georgia O'Keefe of a mighty tree in the patio of his little cabin. She lay on her back and painted the tree at night with the stars all around. She said that she painted "Lawrence's Tree" so that it could be hung in any direction but today we saw that painting and it was hung on its head which was the direction that she had preferred above all the others.

Used Bookstore in Niantic

2011-06-29T04:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we headed "South" to East Lyme to visit the Florence Griswold Museum and after we left the museum we decided to check out Old Saybrook which is along the coast and see if we could find a quaint little town or a public beach. As it turned out, the coastline of Connecticut seems to be the same as Rhode Island, private homes line the edge of the water and there are signs everywhere indicating that it is all private, no parking allowed. As we continued on the coast road, it turned inland toward a town called Niantic, and as I was using the Droid Maps, I saw that there was a bookstore coming up on the left called The Book Barn. We started looking out for it, but there was no worry that we would have passed it as it was a huge piece of property, someone's home and barn with book stalls and book huts and book sheds, even book wagons, in addition to the books in the barn. For all you Kindle users out there... you are missing the bookfinding experience of beating the spiders off of the mystery books and side stepping the children sitting in wagons reading Madeline In Paris. When we leave the premises, Allan is still talking about all the treasures he had to pass up on this visit in order to purchase the Naval Histories of Samuel Elliot Morrison he found and I can't wait to show him the little book of travels that I happened to find about The Queen's Messenger, a man who traveled the world delivering personal dispatches from the Queen to her embassies around the globe and all of his experiences along the way.

Mystic, Connecticut

2011-06-27T17:21:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we headed out to the supermarket to restock the larder and then in the afternoon we drove into New London to the Lyman Allyn Art Museum where we saw a small but interesting collection of American artists over the last century. Lyman Allyn was a ship captain who raised his family on what is now the University of Connecticut campus and after his death, his daughter had the museum built to house his collection of art. There were several Hudson River School paintings, mainly by Church or Cole, although there was one Bierstadt painting of the Alps. There were numerous portraits of austere people from the 1700's and early 1800's and a sprinkling of American Impressionists, most of which we did not know. The painting to the right is by Charles H. Davis and is called "Sky". It reminded me of the cloud painting we did during the Liz Heywood-Sullivan workshop at IAPS. In a separate gallery of the museum, they had an exhibition of William Wegner paintings. He paints portraits using his weineramer dog as the face and adds different wigs or other clothing in each painting. No photos were allowed in that gallery unfortunately. Sunday evening we strolled through historical downtown Mystic and it is extremely charming with numerous shops and restaurants on either bank of the river linked by a drawbridge which rises every hour for the boats to pass underneath. Everyone is walking around eating ice cream cones and taking photos. We saw the famous Mystic Pizza (see left photo) which has been touted for the movie of the same name but is not as famous for the quality of the pizzas. Today we headed over to Rhode Island as their coastline is lined with beaches and we packed up our plein air stuff and some beach chairs and set off early to have a beach day. Oh woe is me. Were we ever disappointed. We arrived in Watch Hill which has a beautiful beach that curves out into the Atlantic and there was no parking except if you were a member of the yacht club or owned a "changing room". A changing room looks like little mini condos all connected together and runs along the edge of the beach with a large fence between you and them. If you own a changing room, you have a numbered parking spot and a key card to enter the fence and a room where you can hang out or change clothes or whatever. The photo to the right was taken from the yacht club parking lot where we loitered for about ten minutes before heading further up the coast looking for an available beach. We passed through Misquamicut with no view of the ocean, just tall fences with signs indicating who owned a particular portion of beach. We got to Weekapaug and found that even the State Beach had a fence and an exorbitant fee for out of state visitors. Allan was incensed. In Australia where he was born, the beaches are for everyone and people are playing volleyball and sunbathing and it is practically a national sport.... going to the beach. I felt the same way, hailing from L.A., where we all headed to Malibu every weekend. Allan thought it was terrible that the people could not get to the beach here, but I had to remind him that if you were a Weekapaug person, you could go to the Weekapaug designated beach and meet up with your Weekapaug neighbors and all the little Weekapaug children would play together on the beach. In the meantime they would not have to put up with any Arizona Foreigners on their beach or parking in their parking lots. We headed back to Mystic to console ourselves at The Oyster Restaurant (above left) where I had some of the best butternut squash risotto and shrimp scampi I have ever tasted in my life.

On To Mystic, Connecticut

2011-06-25T13:09:00.000-07:00

We left New York this morning and hope that we left all of the rain behind. We had hoped to see so much while we were at the southern end of the Hudson River Valley but instead we were plagued by truck issues and three days of drenching downpours. On Tuesday, a mobile rv repairman came out to see what was wrong with our truck and also our rv brakes. As it turned out, he found and fixed the short in the rv wiring right away, then determined that the bolts had loosened in the steering column of the truck, not allowing it to engage in Park, which kept the engine from starting. That was taken care of by Allan following him back to his house where he had a tool to get everything tightened up. So now we had wheels again but the rain was ushered in with much flashing of light and banging of drums up in the heavens, and it proceeded to pour steadily for all of Wednesday and Thursday. By Friday we were going stir crazy and so were the dogs. Ned was dying to get back out and see those cute little squirrels again. For those of you who have met Ned, you already know that he talks and has about three different sounds that he makes, but now he has a new sound... we call it humming with squirrels. Even though it was still drippy and overcast we decided to head off to Hyde Park and see Franklin Roosevelt's home. In our travels, we have seen several Presidents homes now and it always strikes me how unpretentious they are. Even though Franklin Roosevelt came from old money, the home that you see in the top photo was only two stories without the side wings until he and Eleanor had 5 children. Finally Franklin's mother Sara decided to enlarge the home to accomodate the larger family, so a third story was added for the children and the side wings were added because by this time Franklin was Governor and after he got polio he had to have servants to help him get around and care for him. Even so, the dining room was not much larger than you would see in a regular home. The spare bedrooms were definitely under decorated in spite of the fact that Churchill stayed there 4 times and other foreign heads of state, including the Queen of Norway and the Queen of England stayed overnight at his home. I imagine the Queen of England was nonplussed given what her home looks like. We were not allowed to take any photos inside the building so unfortunately I have no pictures to show you, but take my word for it.... we are living in a higher state of luxury today in our homes than he was even with servants. Eleanor had her own cottage about two miles away, still on Franklin's property, but leased to her and two of her friends until they passed away. She pretty much led her own life, after she discovered all of his infidelities and especially after he contracted polio. She acted as his eyes and ears traveling all over the globe to get first hand information for him as President and after his death she was asked by Truman to represent the US in the United Nations where she made a substantial contribution to human rights and at home in the civil rights act. Now world leaders came to her little cottage and were served pot roast on Franciscan ware while they got her opinions about issues on the world's stage. In the second photo, on the right side, is Franklin's gravesite in his mother's rose garden. His grave has the little flag and Eleanor's grave is right beside him. His little dog Fala is buried close by. All and all, an interesting visit.

How Well Do You Know Your Portraits?

2011-06-21T08:20:00.000-07:00

Today I am just hanging out, sitting beneath some beautiful trees with the sunshine peeking out occasionally, here in the KOA in Plattekill, NY. Allan is off in the truck getting a new bolt for the harness that is in the gear shift area of the steering column (you can tell from that description, I haven't a clue what the trouble is). A mobile RV repairman came out this morning and fixed the short in short order (yes, this is what you get when I am left to my own devices... weak jokes). So hopefully when Allan returns, we will be good to go and everything will work as it should.

So in the meantime, I am amusing myself by looking at some of the art that we saw when we toured through the National Gallery in our capitol city.

We saw a lot of portraits at the National Gallery for the simple reason that the 19th century collection we saw was donated by Chester Dale who was a Wall Street businessman who amassed a fortune in bonds and purchased art both in France and also in America.

Much of that collection was in portraits because Maud Dale (Chester's wife) believed that portraits reflected the society in which they were painted and would give historical information to the viewers for all time. She was also the person to influence her husband into buying French art.

When the collection was given to the National Gallery, its total collection increased by a third. So I have five portraits for you to look at and five possible artists that could have painted them. The artist names are given in alphabetical order and the paintings are in no particular order other than how the blog allowed me to line them up. So those on the left can be A, B, and C from the top down and those on the right can be D and E from the top down. Answers to follow on a subsequent blog. No prizes for the correct answers and no cheating by using the internet. Email your answers to sharon.frey@gmail.com or leave a comment on this blog which will get forwarded to my email address. Have fun......

Pierre Bonnard, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Renoir

Moving Right Along....sputter, gasp, sigh, kaput

2011-06-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

In a break from art museums, Allan and I visited the National Botanic Garden which is about 90% inside a conservatory, a very large conservatory. There were main jungle rooms, and orchid rooms, a desert room, and a Hawaii room, and touch/sniff rooms.... a second story in some of the rooms, in other words, a very large conservatory. Which I guess it has to be if it is the nation's repository of rare or endemic plants. It was located across the street from the Capitol, but you had to have a ticket from your senator to get in there, and somehow I didn't think John McCain would be likely to spring for a couple of old liberals like us, so we checked out the flowers instead. For lunch we headed back down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Grill where we treated ourselves to Dry Aged Steaks at the bar. Neither of us had ever had a steak that was dry aged (or that expensive) but there is a first for everything. It was probably one of the best steaks we had ever had. I asked what came with it and the waitress said "nothing, it is ala carte". So Allan ordered the cream corn side which she highly recommended and it was worth every penny as far as Allan was concerned, and he is a cream corn fancier from away back. I ordered my steak as a salad and I got an 8 0z steak without a stitch of fat on it, settled next to a fabulous salad with grilled asparagus in it. On Saturday we headed up above Capitol Hill to the Eastern Market which is partly farmers market with produce outside and a building with meats and cheeses inside, plus vendors with hand crafted items. Although it had been raining off and on for the last couple of days, it was a beautiful morning for just wandering around and looking in all the shop windows as we made our way back to the metro stop. On Sunday it was a day of rest for both of us, getting laundry done and taking naps in preparation for the long drive to Newburgh, New York the following day. This morning we woke at 5:30 a.m. to the sound of steady rain. We ate quickly and packed up the rig, got hitched, took off and found out that we again had no rv brakes and the new controller was indicating a short in the system. Too late to trouble shoot, by this time we were in rush hour traffic, on the interstate, in the pouring rain. Allan just tried to go as slow as he could and stay well behind the traffic flow when we were signalled over by a truck. What now? One of the side panel doors was flapping open. There was nowhere to stop but by the side of the highway in the traffic, but with that taken care of, we settled in to our routine of me scoping out any upcoming lane changes on the droid maps so that Allan could get over far enough in advance so that he would not have to use the turn signals as the right hand signal still seemed to cause the rv brakes to come on. When we finally pulled into the KOA in Plattekill, NY we thought our troubles were over for the day but after we registered, we came back out to a truck that would not start. So we made a call to AAA and they were out in a flash to find out it was not the battery, we had plenty of juice, it had to be something else. So they towed the truck with the rig to the site, thank heavens I reserved a pull-thru. We have a diesel truck/rv mobile repair guy coming out at 9:00 tomorrow morning, so we will see if he can find the trouble. Just another adventure on the road.

American Museum of Art

2011-06-16T17:57:00.000-07:00

In addition to the National Gallery, the Smithsonian has a separate museum for the works of American Artists. The American Museum of Art is housed in one of the four oldest buildings in Washington, DC and was originally the Patent Office. There have since been additions forming a rectangle around a central courtyard which houses the National Portrait Gallery as well, with paintings of all the former Presidents in a separate hall. Many of the paintings in this building were by artists that have familiar names to all of us, such as Norman Rockwell or Thomas Moran. And some of the paintings were familiar as well.. .. .. I am sure all of you remember the famous painting of "George Washington Crossing The Delaware"? Many of the artists were born in America, but actually lived in England or France. Mary Cassatt is a good example, and so is James McNeill Whistler. He is remembered for the painting "Whistler's Mother" but the painting we saw is titled "Valparaiso Harbor" and is done in thinned washes of color. Looking at this painting, it is easy to see how he got involved in a slander lawsuit in London with an art critic over the amount of time he spent on a painting and the amount of money he wanted for it. He ended up winning the lawsuit by claiming it was the experience that he put into the painting that counted not the amount of hours it took to do it. He believed in tonal harmony and simple design, later influencing John Singer Sargent whom he met in Italy. Sargent is another example of an American who was born in Italy and died in England. However he made his name doing portraits of American Society.... such as the painting we saw today "Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler" (right)..... oops, sorry it is hard to see the whole painting, there is a tourist taking photos in the way. A detail of this painting explains why everyone wanted Sargent to do their portrait. He was very good with faces and chose settings that would enhance and explain their character. This young lady was 26 years old and had raised her 6 siblings after her mother died. Sargent posed her sitting between two portraits of strong women but twisted her hands together to indicate her strength and the tension she was under. Her face reflects her determination but also her beauty. One artist that everyone knows is Winslow Homer and the painting of his here in the museum is "High Cliff, Coast of Maine". This is where we are going later in the summer and hopefully we will see some scenes just like this. Another artist which should have a familiar name is George Inness who was a landscape artist influenced by the Hudson River School of Artists and also the old masters. His painting is called "September Afternoon" and breaks many of the rules of composition that we have been trying to learn. First of all, we have been told not to put the horizon line in the center of the painting, and he did. Second, we were told not to put something bright right on the edge of the painting as your eye tends to go out of the painting and not return... but he did that too. And yet.... it works. And finally, Edward Hopper, who was influenced by Robert Henri and other members of the Ashcan School of Art. He is known for his interiors and other buildings but he was also a landscape artist and considered himself a realist. This painting is called Ryder's House.

The Phillips Gallery .... Details or No Details, That Is The Question

2011-06-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

Today we had to transfer from the Green Line train to the Red Line train in order to get to Dupont Circle, which is the area of DC where Embassy Row begins. It is upscale and yuppie, with young women striding down the sidewalk in their spike heels with short skirted business attire and young men with their oxford shirts, ties, and pressed levi jeans. Plenty of people in native headgear and everyone texting or talking into their phones as they head purposefully into the train station or adjacent office buildings. The Phillips Collection is housed in the former Duncan Phillips home. Duncan was the heir to a Pittsburgh steel fortune and spent his inheritance on procuring paintings for his collection. It was a hard life, but someone had to do it.... and we are just thankful that he wanted to buy paintings instead of spending his money on women and wine. One of the first paintings that we saw was "Interior with Egyptian Curtain" by Henri Matisse. Matisse had a whole period of time where he painted pictures filled with designs; wallpaper, curtains, tablecloths, ..... kind of like a man who wears plaids with stripes. But it wasn't until we were up close to this painting that we noticed that he did not even cover all of the canvas. If you look close at the detail of the plate with fruit, the white that you see is not a color, it is the canvas showing through. It must be like using the canvas as the neutral underpainting color. At the conference, Allan and I saw Christine Debrosky do something similar.... painting an acrylic neutral umber color on the paper prior to adding pastel strokes which were not necessarily connected, leaving the umber color showing through in the finished painting. Another French Impressionist who did not seem to be overly concerned about detail was Vincent Van Gogh. In his painting "Entrance To The Public Gardens In Arles", the painting from a distance seems full of details, especially all the brush strokes of the leaves in the trees, but when you get up close, you can see that he has left out the man's face and the hands are just small blobs of paint holding the newspaper. It can't be that he did not have enough paint as you can see how much thick paint is on the newspaper and in some of the surrounding areas. This painting was done a year before his death in 1888. In contrast to this lack of detail, Pierre-Auguste Renoir had a surprising amount of detail even in his larger paintings. "Luncheon Of The Boating Party" is a huge painting, taking up one whole wall (51" by 69") and is filled with many careful details. One of the techniques that Renoir uses to guide your eye all around the painting is to paint many of the details red. Epalettes on a shoulder, bands on a sleeve, lips, collars, and roses on hats are all red and help you navigate through what is essentially white and green. But if you look even more closely you will find details that are not even seen when you are looking at the painting from across the room. The wine bottles have reflections in the glass, the wine glasses have dregs not yet drunk, and the grapes have a blush. The man seated at the lower right of the painting is depicted as possibly one of the boaters or a working man. His fingernails even have a little dirt under them and also on his hands. Her hands have little dimples around the knuckles. And the cigarette is a beautiful detail. There is a book out which is a fictional account of Renoir during the time that he was painting this painting using known facts. Many of these people in the painting were his friends, some of them other artists, and he had several sittings with them, all meeting at this restaurant near the river. One of the women that he had intended on using for the painting was not able to "sit" after all, so a different young lady took her place and ended up being Madame Renoir. This final photo shows the detail of the young lady with her dog which she brought to the luncheon. Take a good look at her face, she even has eyelashes. This painting by Renoir has always been one of my favorites and I feel so lucky to now be able to see it closely and appreciate all of the details that he took the time to put into the painting and that I had never been able to see before.

National Gallery of Art

2011-06-14T16:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we arrived at Cherry Hill RV Resort in Maryland where Allan promptly began investigating our rv brake troubles. For the last couple of days, the rv has been bucking and jerking everytime we touched the truck brakes or used the turn signals. We found a nearby rv parts store and Allan found the parts that he needed to rewire the plug from the truck to the rv. Hopefully that will take care of the problem.
Today we caught the bus here at the rv park which took us to the Rail Station. We rode the train into DC and got off on the Mall about two blocks from the National Gallery of Art. The photo above left is only the West Building, there is also an East Building, so I had looked online for what was in each gallery and we concentrated on seeing the Impressionists with a few exceptions. One of the exceptions was the only Leonardo da Vinci in America. It is a portrait of Genevra de' Benci (a girl who seriously needs to get out in the sun), who is sitting in front of a juniper bush which alludes to her name. I should mention that we were allowed to take as many photos as we wanted and we could also get right up and peer closely at the paintings. This particular painting had its own guard but the remainder of the paintings in the galleries had roaming guards.
There were examples of many famous paintings by many famous French Impressionists such as Claude Monet (1840-1926). He had several examples of his work including one that is in most books about him entitled "Houses of Parliament, Sunset" (see left).

But we enjoyed seeing at least one of his lesser known paintings "Jerusalem Artichoke Flowers" (right) painted in 1880. What was extraordinary about his paintings was the brush work which is not noticed so much when you see the painting in a book.

If you look closely at a detail from the painting, you can see all the little brush strokes of color that is not only in the flowers but is in the background as well.

The vase that is holding the flowers has reflected light of pinks, yellows, and greens... while the shadows are done in violet, red, and blue. I remember when Allan and I took a workshop with Liz Kenyon which was all about the color residing in the shadow shapes of an object. This was a beautiful example of that idea. This was also the area where Monet had his darkest darks and his lightest lights. When you first look at the painting, you see all the flowers, but as you look further, your eye is drawn to the vase and the glow that is coming from behind the vase.

While we were walking around the museum today, we saw an artist copying a painting. It was a very involved scene from the 15th century and he had already put in 60 hours of work, not to mention the study and research of the painting prior to painting. In addition to the color pigments, this painting had thickened gold leaf crowns, swords, and buttons. He still had a long way to go. And after seeing Monet's paintings today, so do I.

International Association of Pastel Societies - Gathering of the Giants con't

2011-06-12T15:15:00.000-07:00

On Saturday and Sunday of the IAPS Conference, Allan and I both saw Lorenzo Chavez, but in different sessions. Allan saw him demo an arid scene and I saw him demo a painting of some peaks in Colorado with snow. In both demos, Lorenzo stressed a conte crayon sketch with lines that were directed towards the focal area and if necessary he added geographic features that were not actually there in order to have the edges of the painting pointing in the direction he needed for the composition. In the alpine painting he reduced the quantity of trees to a single treeline where he created his darkest darks and established a path up through the foreground to lead to the trees. He used yellow, red, and green along with the blue for the sky and kept the mountain to its basic form even though in the photograph it was heavily crevassed. In the arid scene, he used a stark blue for a flat shadow at the base of a huge rock formation. The blue of the sky is bounced off of the wall onto the flat plane. That contrast with the red of the rock was startling. In the desert, the shadows are crisp cast shadows and therefore there is a strong line of light on the edge of the blue and the way he shows that is by outlining the blue with a continuous thin yellow line.
Christine Debrosky was another artist, this one from our own Arizona Pastel Association, that Allan and I saw in different sessions. My session was all about plein air painting to studio painting. Christine believes that a plein air painting is essential for capturing the memories of lights and shadows. She always goes out plein air either in the early morning or later in the evening. She had numerous plein air studies for us to see and also explained about her clothing and palette. For the demo, she used plein air studies, photographs, and a Kodak photo manipulator so that she could zoom in on parts of the photograph to see details. Her paper was already prepared with an umber acrylic wash to set the stage as the color that would show through the final painting. She had a fairly detailed sketch already completed and used the remainder of her time with us placing Terry Ludwig or Gerault soft pastel colors on the Sedona landscape in small marks working over the entire canvas, bit by bit. In Allan's session, she re-emphasized her dedication to painting lights and shadows. She only photographs on the edges of the day, early morning or late afternoon. We have noticed this in the paintings she submits to our shows. The subject of this demo was a storefront in Sedona in late afternoon sun with a bright yellow sun form on a red coca cola sign as the focal point. Interestingly when she does lettering, in order for the lettering not to look amateur, she paints the negative spaces around the letters. As a painting technique, she offered this gem: always have in your hand, the shadow color of the flower and the lighted color of the flower when painting the flowers in a scene in order to balance the two against each other. As she paints she says to herself "warm vs cool, warm vs cool" to achieve beautiful foliage.
I also attended a hands on session with Liz Heywood-Sullivan on painting clouds. She emphasized an underpainting with turp to establish the areas of sky vs clouds and explained about putting the horizon line below the center of the painting. She also talked about the colors of the sky and how they darken as they rise from horizon to zenith. I really enjoyed the hands on approach to the demos as we were able to see the artist do a step, then we all attempted to do it too, then the artist would do another step, and we would follow.... and so on. I wish I could say that all of our paintings came out as well as hers did, but we at least got a better idea of how she got to a finished product.
I had signed up to see a demo by Clark Mitchell and he was not an artist I was familiar with, but I really enjoyed him as a person and very much liked his techniques. He told us that he had studied with Albert Handel for four years and you could certainly see the influence when you looked closely at his trees. He said that it is important to look closely at trees to see what the species shape is and also what the individual tree shape is doing. He did not do a painting from start to finish, but instead he showed us how he did an underpainting from a photo that he had, using bold bright colors underneath the local color he would add later. He is a true advocate of plein air painting and is also an environmentalist with a studio made of hay bale construction. He used a plein air painting (see above right) that he had done one morning out in Albuquerque of a canal scene to show us how he blocks in his local colors and changes the colors or shapes in the final painting (see above left) after evaluating his plein air study more closely. We were able to see many of his completed works, unframed, still on their painting boards, as examples of techniques that he wanted to show us. His examples of clouds were impressive and he said that you have to remember that clouds are made up of water vapor and to keep them soft in the painting.

International Association of Pastel Societies - Gathering of the Giants

2011-06-10T17:55:00.000-07:00

Over the last weekend, Allan and I have been attending demonstrations by nationally known pastel artists to acquire tips and techniques to further our skills and creative inspiration when painting in pastel. This conference is held every two years in Albuquerque and is attended by pastel artists from around the world. On my first day I watched a demo by Margaret Evans who is from Scotland and her painting of roses was very loose and impressionistic. Her initial sketch was only of the peripheral contours on the roses and then she made some marks with the lightest light to indicate where the highlights would be and immediately began working in some of the colors of the various roses keeping them all in different tones but in the same midvalues. Her darkest darks were in the foliage between the roses and behind the vase.

After lunch I headed into a hands on demo with Kim Lordier and I was very nervous about producing something adequate as her paintings are so fabulous, very early California Impressionist. But as it turned out, she is a very friendly person and put everyone at their ease and we all had a good time following her lead, step by step. In the photo to the right is Kim with her plein air palette and the small painting we are working on. Her focus was getting us to create an atmospheric perspective by changing the color of the trees as they receded into the distance and lightening the distance. Yellow is the first color to be lost into the distance, then red, with blue remaining.

Allan in the meantime was in the main theatre to see demonstrations by Albert Handel in the morning and Elizabeth Mowry in the afternoon. Albert, wearing his red suspenders and greek fisherman's cap.. began his talk by fondly remembering his time as a young artist at Woodstock observing trees. "They do twist and turn as they grow, you know". He spent a great deal of time drawing each individual trunk and branch and carefully observed how the cast shadows fell under and away from the joint of each branch coming off the trunk. The background colors he paints across the picture behind many forms and he says this creates a sense of rhythm. In applying the background colors, he treats it as a negative space and after applying each color, swipes and smudges the color with a kleenex to soften all edges in the background. One of his finishing touches lightly glazes one side of the forest with a violet color for atmospheric light.

Elizabeth Mowry is known for her ethereal misty backgrounds in her paintings. She accomplishes this very simply. She begins with masses of violet in different shades in the background, using a one inch foam brush with water, she washes over the pastel application. Next she spends a great deal of time with a carbo othello pencil moving the mist about and knocking off some of the pastel. And finally, she does something she calls dribbling, which resembles a feather-light glazing pulled downward. (To Be Continued)

Wednesday it's Alma... where in the world is Alma?

2011-06-08T18:40:00.000-07:00

Alma, Arkansas is on the western border of Oklahoma and if you are thinking it must be in the boondocks, you are absolutely right on the mark. We are staying in the Crabtree RV Park which is essentially a gravel lot between the Crabtree RV Sales and the Crabtree RV Parts and Service. Not much happens in Alma except the occasional tornado which just happened to knock over a giant tree onto an RV right here in the Crabtree RV Park. We can see the flattened RV from our window. Talk about a view. Tonight we let the droid find a restaurant for us and if we had not had a droid we would never have found this restaurant which was named Talianos. As in Italiano's. It was on a side street surrounded by old turn of the century homes built of brick and many of them were abandoned. But that did not deter us from searching for a culinary gem in the midst of wonder bread and barbecue. The inside was shabby chic with what appeared to be the original chandeliers and other fixtures. Check out the trim at the top of the doorway in the interior photo to the right. Very ornate. I ordered a chicken with pasta dish that came with loads of sauce and sun dried tomatoes. Allan ordered an Italian Beer and Lasagne, always good to stick with the traditional, but what a surprise ..... it was two large noodles with meat sauce between them covered with cheese and more sauce, no ricotta. But the bigger surprise, although I don't know why we were surprised, was that the bread basket held.... you guessed it, wonder bread. I am wondering how far east we have to go to find bread that isn't wonder-ful. I am anxious to get past the middle of the US of A for another reason as well..... Allan is starting to talk with a drawl, ya'll know what I mean.

And Its Tuesday.. So It Must Be Oklahoma City

2011-06-07T17:27:00.000-07:00

Tried to leave early this morning but we had a terrible night of awning flapping and the rig rockin and rolling to the high winds and even higher gusts which lasted until about 6 in the morning. On top of the night with no sleep, we always depend on Ned and Alice getting us up around 5:30 a.m. for their first break of the day, but I had forgotten we were in the Central Time Zone now and so the day did not break until after 6:30..... so now I know that the dogs are getting up with the sunlight and they can't tell time after all. Since we were running late, we only had a piece of toast and hit the road. We managed to escape most of the wind during the morning until about 10 o'clock when the crosswinds started beating us up as we crossed from Texas into Oklahoma. I am not sure why these people stay here in the midwest.... I could not take this wind on a daily basis, that's for sure. We are staying at the Council Road RV Park which turns out to be mostly seasonal workers for the oil fields. It is OK for a one night stand.... but wouldn't be a good place to stay otherwise. After an afternoon rest... we headed out to the Rib Crib for dinner which turned out to be pretty good. Allan had some tender dry rubbed baby back ribs and I had pulled pork. We knew we were back in the midwest again when we got wonder bread toast with our meal. These people around here seriously need a Trader Joes. No photos of our travels, food, or rv parks.... sorry, I am still recovering from the past weekend, so I am including a photo from the conference instead. This is me checking out some of the stuff for sale in the vendor area.

Its Monday So It Must Be Amarillo

2011-06-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

Today we took off early to avoid the high winds gusting across New Mexico and Texas. East of Albuquerque the scenery was fairly flat and the atmosphere was hazy with smoke from the wildfires in Eastern Arizona. We arrived in Amarillo, Texas at the Oasis RV Resort (thanks Mark and Renita for the referral) just around lunch time and the winds were just picking up to over 20 mph with gusts around 30 mph. We kicked back for the afternoon and then went to the Big Texan for a steak dinner. There are no shortage of places to eat around here, they are all lined up along the highway, west to east.

I haven't had a chance to mention much about the Pastel Conference so far, but we have had a stimulating weekend, watching demos, buying new supplies, going to banquets, having lunch with pastel artists from Chile, Australia, and Canada.... and many other experiences. On Thursday we watched a PaintAround with 5 artists who are known nationally for their pastel work. A paintaround is fun to watch as each artist has to bring a photo of something they want to paint in pastel.... they have 10 minutes to start their painting, then the timer says move and everyone puts down what they are doing and moves to the easel next to them. They then have 10 minutes to work on their neighbors painting, and every 10 minutes they keep moving around to the next easel adding to what has already been done, until they return to their own easel where they have the last 10 minutes to finish, before time is called. So all five paintings have to be completed within this one hour. Later at the banquet the paintings were auctioned off with the money donated to art scholarships. The artists involved this year were Maggie Price... our current IAPS president, Urania Christie-Tarbet.. our prior president and IAPS founder, Jamie Markle.. author & publisher, Liz Heywood-Sullivan... IAPS VP, and Fred Somers.. Artist. The top photo (from left to right) is Fred, Jamie, & Maggie. The middle photo is Liz and the bottom photo is Urania. That evening the Arizona pastellists all sat together for the buffet dinner and it was a wonderful way to start the conference.

2011 IAPS Convention Exhibition

2011-06-02T07:31:00.000-07:00

Wednesday we left Santa Fe early in the morning to avoid the high winds that are kicking up every afternoon here in New Mexico and arrived at the Isleta Lakes RV Park across from the Hard Rock Casino. The last time we were here the lawns were so green and beautiful but now everything is dried out and not as presentable even though we are paying a higher price this year. We had a quiet afternoon before driving over to the Fairgrounds to see the Master Circle and 18th Juried Exhibitions of pastel paintings by artists from around the US and a few from Canada and Greece. Every painting was worth stopping for a closer look and the judges said how difficult it was to assign awards when every painting was excellent. Three of the paintings were by members of our Arizona Pastel Group.... Christine Debrosky (Top Left) who is teaching workshops here at the conference, Karen Budan (Middle Left) our APAA president, and Linda Dellandre (Bottom Left). Allan and I were thrilled to hear Linda's name called out to come up to the podium and receive an Honorable Mention for her "Marsh" painting. We saw Linda do a demo when we were in Sedona and she makes it look so easy. I Wish! There must have been close to 500 people attending this event and they had all sorts of appetizers to choose while you were walking around and looking at all the paintings. Thursday we will be going to the convention to register and see some free events followed up by a buffet dinner.

Plein Air in Truchas

2011-05-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we drove up to Truchas, a small art community on the High Road to Taos. The community is located on a spur road which runs along a ridge at the foot of Truchas Peak. Creeks were burbling along and the spring flowers were edging the roadway as we made our way to the far end of the little traveled road. There are artist studios interspersed along the road with their signs out inviting you to come in and see the metalwork, weaving, paintings, hand made bells, and pottery that they produce way up there in Truchas. Its probably all they can do in the winter as it is more than likely snowed in for the season. We chose a scene that looks out over the Truchas Mountains and tried our hand at plein air painting. There was a bit of a wind and I noticed Allan running down the road after his painting which had taken off in a gust, but I was tucked down behind the back of the truck and was sheltered from the wind for the most part. The objective was to spend no more than 1/2 hour getting down the colors and forms of the distant view....making sure that the atmosphere had volume. Above is the actual view that I was looking towards and to the right is the study that came from that view. I think that I got the atmosphere coming down into the mountains but still need more practice at this plein air experience before we arrive in Campobello Island for Michael Chesley Johnson's workshop in July.

Sunshine in Santa Fe

2011-05-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

Today we had sunshine for the first time in several days and it seemed like a perfect time to head to the Plaza and get some fresh air. After we parked the truck, we walked along the storefronts towards the plaza but we were detoured around numerous trucks full of equipment and arc lights. As we approached the plaza we had to stay away from the west side as they were filming a movie with William Defoe and Tim Robbins. They were inside one of the plaza cafes and although we waited around for a bit, they did not emerge out into the street where there were numbers of camera crew standing around and extras placed strategically on the park benches. If we had only arrived a little earlier we could have been extras, oh well, that is always the way....when our ship comes in, we are always at the airport.

So instead we headed past the plaza down Palace Ave to visit the Nicholas Potter Bookstore where we both found some interesting used books. One of the books that I purchased was by Wolf Kahn and it was about the paintings he had done as he had toured across America. Another treasure I found was a book with the original text by Daniel Defoe as he toured Great Britain prior to the Industrial Revolution. You might remember him as the author who wrote Robinson Crusoe. Allan picked up a real fast read entitled "The Rising Sun in the Pacific 1931-1942, A History of United States Naval Operations In World War II". Prowling around a used book store always gives us an appetite, so we headed up to the Pink Adobe Cafe for lunch. Allan had a burger and I had the Green Chile Chicken Soup and both were delicious, but couldn't be outdone by the Pear Custard Amaretto which we shared for dessert. On the way back to the truck we stumbled onto another bookshop where I found yet another fascinating book called "Journalistas" 100 Years of the Best Writing and Reporting by Women Journalists. What a wonderful day.... good food, sunshine, and great books to read. Now if we had only gotten into the movies, our day would have been complete.

Las Vegas in New Mexico

2011-05-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we took a drive NE to see the town of Las Vegas which is about half way between Raton and Santa Fe. This little town was where the early visitors to Taos would depart the train from back east and complete their long travels by motorcar. The town still had a large train station but the remainder of the town was either boarded up or falling down. Most of the buildings looked as if they had not been painted or any other repairs since the early 1900's. Most of the town's inhabitants that we saw on the streets also looked like they have been going through hard times or in some cases were just released from prison. But we managed to find the book store which was called Tome on the Range and found several new and used books to drag back to the RV. I had already researched where to have lunch and we drove to Charlie's Bakery & Cafe which turned out to be a Mexican Restaurant. But in spite of the change in menu, the food was plentiful and good. As usual we could choose between the green hatch chile sauce or the red sauce but I got something I had never had before, a green chile relleno and a red chile relleno. After lunch we headed back to our rig, ready for our nap. For the last few days Allan (with the steel immune system) has had this horrible cold and cough, in addition to the lingering cough that I still have, so we are trying to get lots of rest, and just take short jaunts out into Santa Fe or beyond.

Finally...Back On The Road

2011-05-18T13:56:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Santa Fe, NM today, thinking we made it, barely. First off we had been waiting at home for our new automated awning to come in and be installed on the rv prior to our take off, and that did not happen. It never arrived and we had to cancel the order. Then the whole week prior to leaving, I had the flu. How bad can that be? Well after the first two days of seasickness (did I mention I was not on a boat) and several ejections of evil spirits, I thought OK, thats it. No, that was it for stage one. Stage two was where someone snuck in and poured battery acid down my throat and my head decided to crack into two halves around the midline of my face. At this point, Allan moved into the spare bedroom. Stage three began around day 5 with horrific coughing and expellation of all extraneous lung cells and throat tissue. Day 7 dawned bright and clear with only a steady hacking sound issuing from the sickie, that's me, and a relapse fever after Allan brought the rv from storage to be packed for the trip. We managed to set off on time Tuesday morning and arrived in Holbrook, AZ where the wind was howling and buffeting the rig about in the OK RV Park where we spent the night. This morning we got up and set off early to the tune of only minor coughing from the passenger. And now you are wondering where are the photos of all the fabulous scenery and interesting people. Well we are wondering where they are too. So I will include a prior almost finished painting, just so there is more color for you to see other than the published black and white. Stay tuned....

More Spring Paintings

2011-05-04T12:24:00.000-07:00

Knowing that we will be out on the road for months, we decided to finish off a few paintings that were sitting and stewing while we contemplated their completion. By getting them finished, we could also get them photographed in case we needed to submit something to a show while we were on our journey. Allan had been working on a scene from Cypress Gardens in South Carolina just outside Charleston. When I first told him we were going to Cypress Gardens, he thought he was going to see girls in bathing suits swimming a ballet underwater and he was surprised to find himself at a swamp of black tannin water with alligators and turtles swimming underwater in what was certainly a search for food unlike the ballet he had envisioned. But there were many beautiful scenes and it is worth a return visit someday. He has also been working on and off with a photo he took in Charleston, Oregon. There were many fishing boats in the harbor and a good time to get photos of them was early in the morning or later in the early evening when they returned from fishing. We are hoping to get more photos this summer of the boats in the harbors of the Eastern Seaboard. And finally Allan completed a painting of an old barn near Crescent City, California. This is another subject that we hear the East Coast has plenty of....Barns. We are looking forward to getting lots of photos for painting in the winter to come. I, on the other hand, have been painting flowers again. These are tulips that we got at Trader Joes this winter and I think they worked out to be a good still life. The pink flower is from a photo I took at the Chinese Garden in Portland, Oregon. The garden is similar to a Japanese Garden and they even have a tea pavillion where you can drink tea and watch the koi in the water and listen to a man play a traditional chinese instrument. Very relaxing.

Winter Work

2011-04-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

After the submissions in January for the Spring Sedona Show, Allan and I got back to work at the easel and have a few more paintings completed. Allan has been reading Lois Griffel's new book and tried a still life painting with some of the techniques that she uses for her landscapes. Lois blocks in a complimentary color underneath each form which then shows up when the final layer is put over the top. This gives a very vibrant look to the painting with many colors showing around the edges or coming through the final application of pastel.

Allan also wanted to try a painting that had a soft pastel colored sky that was similar to how Kim Lordier painted some of her skies. For this painting, Allan chose a photo that he took in Chama, NM at the train station last year. He then echoed the sky down in the ground which was a nice touch (in my opinion).

And in this third painting, Allan used a technique which we just saw demonstrated at our pastel

meeting by Richard McKinley. An underpainting is completed using watercolors and the watercolors are allowed to drip down in a serendipitous manner. Then the pastel is placed over the watercolor allowing some of the dripping to show through. Allan chose to use a photo we took at Mono Lake a year ago where the shrubs are covered in flowers and stand out against the sierras in the distance.

After we completed the Allan Garns workshop at the end of January, I wanted to try a painting using some of the values that I had learned in the workshop. I decided to do a subject that I had already done a year ago, but at a different viewpoint and that would be the Sheepherders Shed up at Boyce Arboretum. I actually enjoyed doing this shed for the second time. It seemed to be familiar and thus a little easier to portray on the second time around.

And speaking of the second time around, I decided to tackle a painting that had given me so much trouble in the past that I just threw it away. This was the bridge at Cypress Gardens in South Carolina. This is a bright pink bridge, but I tried to tone it down a little and get some of the values into it that I had just been working on with Allen Garns. It seems to have come out better than the first time, but you never know... I may give a third try someday.

Spring Show

2011-04-17T12:22:00.000-07:00

This last week we headed back up to Sedona for our annual pastel show. Every time we come into the Sedona area we are struck by the beauty of the landscape which is turned into paintings by so many artists. Our first evening we just drove around looking at the sunlight fading to shadows around each monolith. On Thursday we headed over to the Art Center to drop off all of the paintings that we had ferried up to Sedona and also to help hang the show. It was fun to decide which painting looked good next to another in order to show off everyone's work. Then Allan got busy pounding nails into the wall while other helpers hung the paintings or attached the name cards. After all the paintings were hung, Karen tidied up and Liz straightened all the paintings on the wall. We were ready to start the show and have the reception on Saturday. On Saturday we had over 100 visitors and two paintings were sold. Ellen Harper brought food and wine for everyone and awards were given out by Karen to those artists who were in attendance. Cheri Saffro is in the photo to the left with her painting "Lexis". On Sunday, Allan and I spent a quiet day babysitting the gallery and chatting with all the visitors who came by to see the show. We met Paul and Karen who are friends of our friends Mike and Rose. We also met a pastel artist from California called Colleen Howe. She talked about possibly doing a workshop with our group someday. Check out her website http://www.colleenhowe.com/ . Tomorrow will be our last day up here and we are going to go over to Prescott to see the galleries and have some lunch before we wrap up our visit and head for home on Tuesday.

Winter Review

2011-03-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

Here is the studio space where we have been spending a good deal of time and effort this winter painting more masterpieces in pastel. We were able to take a workshop by Allen Garns who teaches at the Scottsdale School of Art and learned something new about values and hues.

We submitted paintings in January to be judged by Richard McKinley for our Spring Show in Sedona and Allan had two paintings accepted for the show and I had only one.
To the left is Chimayo Church and to the right is Front Porch, both by Allan.

We will be staying in Sedona for the first week of the show in April and hope to do some plein aire painting while we are up there as well as attend the reception and man the show for one of the days. To the left is my painting for the show entitled Gardenias.

We are busier than ever with our pastel group as we decided to jump in and volunteer for some of the board positions this year, so Allan is nominated for the International Assoc. of Pastel Artists representative and I am nominated to work on the Workshop committee.

We will be leaving Arizona for the summer by May 20th this year and heading to Albuquerque for the IAPS Convention. After the convention is over we are heading East to visit with friends, take a workshop with Michael Chesley Johnson on Campobello Island, tour Connecticut, Cape Cod, and other coastal towns throughout Maine prior to heading back home at the end of September. The blog will be up and running along as usual as soon as we get on the road. I apologise to all my readers for not blogging during the Winter but I didn't want to bore anyone with the little that we do around here (other than paint). Although we did have some good lunches with Mike and Rose, visited with my brother a few times, and had my daughter and son-in-law come for a visit. We have also gotten to know our neighbors a bit better than we did last year and found a fellow artist living just a zigzag down the street. Still playing bingo on Wed nights but not winning as much this year as last year. But still, I won enough to purchase a new back door for the kitchen with a window to let in the light. So there you have it.... the life of the poor and undiscovered (artists).

New Paintings in the Galleries

2010-09-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

Several New Paintings added to the Galleries, including:
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Chimayo Church
by: Allan Frey

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Bill Williams River
by: Sharon Frey

Home Again, Home Again

2010-09-08T16:54:00.000-07:00

During our last weekend in Brookings, our daughter and son-in-law joined us for a few days and it was so good to see them again. While Stacey and I went to the farmers market, Allan and Pat kayaked down the Chetco River. We drove them up river about 5 miles and dropped them off and later when we got the call, we headed over to the harbor to pick them up. Unfortunately it was a gray, foggy day, with not a ray of sunshine to be seen....but that did not deter them in the least. Because it was near the end of summer, the river was low in several places and so they had to portage through the shallow spots. The photo above shows Allan pulling his kayak into the deeper water. The photo at left is Pat in one of the deeper areas of the river. Notice that they are both wearing their jackets...it just was not that warm. Meanwhile Stacey and I found numerous things to purchase while at the farmers market and it was also Pet weekend, so everyone had their dogs along. It was really festive and we had a good time too. Later that night we all went out to dinner. We were sorry to see them go the following day. We headed out for home not too long after, first stopping in Ashland for a couple of nights, then up and over the Pass, cutting east at Mt Shasta to Standish where we stayed overnight, and then on to Mono Lake for two nights before heading east and south to Las Vegas for a night and we arrived home last Friday.

It was 111 degrees in Apache Junction and we spent the evening and the following morning unloading the rv which I am glad that we did right away, as the air conditioner in our house started burning up and spitting sparks and generally biting the dust early on Sunday morning. One of our neighbors gave us a number to call for service and someone came out right away on Labor Day and when he saw how overheated I was, he went back to the office and brought out a portable a/c to put in our bedroom, so we would have one room where we could be cool. So now....it is Wednesday and we have a brand new system and a huge dent in our savings account. But everything is working, we are finally cool, and we met some neighbors who came out to watch the crane and talk with us whom we had never met before. Today we finally got the rv into storage for the winter but in October we will be getting it back out for a few days while we get a new water heater installed and new Arizona registration taken care of.

Last Coastal Stop in Brookings

2010-08-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

After spending two nights in Bandon where we got a little sun each afternoon, we headed down the coast to Brookings to stay at the Driftwood RV Park. After we got settled in, Allan took the dogs over to the beach where they examined every piece of seaweed and exoskeleton to determine if it was edible. They seemed to think that the beach was their personal snack bar. Notice that Allan is wearing his levis and a sweatshirt, that is because the temperature is in the 50's. Every morning here in Brookings is socked in with wet fog and the sun does not try to make an appearance until almost dinner time.

One of the first items on our Brookings agenda was to head down to Crescent City and get prescriptions refilled at Walgreens. While we were there we stopped at the visitor center to inquire about good access to the beach and were given directions to Kellogg Beach a little north of town. It was a beautiful beach with a line of stones along the wave bench and there were several people walking along looking for agates. One man had a garden rake which he used to uncover stones under the sand and he showed us several agates which he had found. We did not find any agates but did take home a small bag of stones for our garden and we also got numerous photos of the beach, the beach grass, and the sand dunes.

Yesterday was a trip to the past. We headed up the Smith River, a wild and scenic river flowing from Oregon down into California and out into the Pacific. When we lived in Southern Oregon many years ago, we used to bring our kids and dogs to the Smith to raft. We also used to drive all the way to Crescent City to gather old seaweed from the beach to dig into our garden for compost. It must have worked, we had more veggies than we could can on our woodstove. This was a perfect day for memories as the sunshine was warm and the forest smelled sweet as we stopped for lunch at the Patrick's Creek Lodge, an old historic stopping place for travelers long ago. We used to drive down from Oregon to have dinner there 30 years ago and we were pleased to see that it looked just the same. We had lunch in the dining room but looked into the bar where we had always had a drink before eating, back in the old days. After lunch we walked down under the highway bridge along the river to the NFS campground. We got excited for a few moments when we saw they were looking for summer campground hosts but then we realized that although we could deal with the no electricity hurdle we would not be able to get through the summer without cell phone or broadband coverage for our internet. Oh well, it was nice to fantasize about being back in Patrick's Creek again and we were pleased that we had a whole day in the sunshine.

Fish n'Chips in Charleston

2010-08-11T13:46:00.000-07:00

Finally we are back over on the Oregon Coast having a true summer coastal experience of moist, misty, cold, dense fog throughout the night and day accompanied by the mournful dirge of the foghorn. The good news is that we are only about 500 yards from our favorite fish n'chips place where we placed an order for halibut and chips not 15 minutes after we back up, pull forward, push back, tweak forward, twist backward, creep forward, curl backward, straighten forward, and inch back into our space at the Charleston Marina.

Since we would have had to move 5 days into the stay, we decided to move down to Bandon for 2 nights after we leave here, before ending our summer vacation in Brookings. After leaving Portland, we stayed 2 nights in Eugene at the Deerwood RV Park, where we stayed last year with Rose and Mike. While we were there, we managed to visit the farmers market where we loaded up on produce and baked goods. Then we drove over to Smith's Family Bookstore where we found more literary treasures to add to the growing pile in the rv. Smith's has so many books that they have given up putting them on shelves and all of the recent arrivals are just stacked in the aisles in front of the bookshelves where they should be if there weren't already numerous books on those shelves already. It is hard to envision how the new electronic books could replace the visual and tactile pleasure of searching through old books, finding a hidden volume on some subject that you previously hadn't given much thought about, and now finding that someone in the past had written something that stimulates your interest here in the present. For both of us, a used bookstore is more than just reading the books, it is all about the discovery of a book of which we were previously unaware. Here in Coos Bay we also found a used book store where Allan found several personal war accounts, of which he is so fond.

Yesterday however, we went down the coast to visit the sea lions and get some more ocean photos. We were lucky, the sun came out sporadically for about an hour. Today we went to the Coos Bay farmers market and found a man selling iris rhizomes. What luck. We had been looking for iris plants in nurseries and had not found very many to choose from. And how often do you see an iris rhizome seller at a farmers market? Well never, until today. It must be our lucky day, so we celebrated by going to our favorite fish n'chips place for lunch.

The City of Portland

2010-07-30T15:51:00.000-07:00

We have been here in Portland for one week now and we have not had a dull moment. Last Friday after we set up and rested for a bit, we headed over to Tualatin Commons for the free concert on the commons that happens every Friday night during the summer. This Friday, in addition to a Jazz and Blues Band there was also the ArtFest with tents set up for the art displays. We got our chairs arranged on the lawn and then wandered through the various art works and noticed that there were no pastel artists, mostly watercolor and acrylic. There were also many photographers and jewelers. Further down the commons we found the farmers market and proceded to purchase giant sweet boysenberries, fragrantly sweet marionberries, fresh strawberries, and plump little blueberries. We polished off almost all of the boysenberries and marionberries before we even got back to the rv. On Saturday morning we drove to Portland for the mother of all farmers markets held in the parkway near the University. We spent almost two hours wandering around the many booths filled with produce, fresh flowers, fruit, pickles, breads, coffees, chocolates, meat, fish, eggs, spices, soaps, granolas, pesto, mushrooms, and many other local products which I am probably forgetting right now. We loaded up on croissants, pickled beets, pickled carrots, fresh basil, tomatoes, green beans, crookneck squash, fresh cream cheese, and eggs. We could have easily brought home a lot more, but we have an automatic brake called the rv refridgerator, which only holds what it can, and no more. While we were walking around the market we were entertained by bands positioned at either end of the market boundaries.

On Sunday during our "at home" day, we discovered that our oven pilot light would not light and so on Monday we made a service call to an rv repair guy who came out and determined the problem was the thermocouple line which ran up from the pilot light to the top of the stove where it was connected to the regulator knob. He came out the following day to install a new one and it was too short. While he was locating a line that was the right size, we entertained ourselves by going to the factory outlets in Woodburn. Thanks to the economy, everything was on sale, marked down from the object's original outrageous price to some lower price, which was then decreased further by 50% off of the lowest knocked down price. So Allan found some new sandal slides and a couple of shirts, while I was able to find some cargo pants. On Thursday, we were finally able to get the oven repaired and immediately afterward we headed off to Beaverton to check out used book stores. One of the bookstores that we visited was only for online trading although they took a look through the books we were trying to trade and picked out a couple they would take. Then we went to the Cedar Hills Powells bookstore where we offloaded some more of our recently read books and promptly filled up our bags with more books that we found in the store. So we should be set for a few weeks at least in terms of reading. In the same shopping center as Powell's, we found a little Italian restaurant called Pastinos and they had the best $6.00 lunches of a choice of pasta, salad, and ciabatta bread. We were in heaven. Today we went to the Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland where we took lots of photos and then had tea in the teahouse while we were entertained by a Chinese man playing a traditional stringed instrument. Very Zen.

Heading West

2010-07-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

Monday morning we left Durango and headed for the OK RV Park http://www.okrvpark.com/ in Moab, Utah (Moab in the distance in the photo to the left). This is a PA park and we were given the PA rate of $19. as their busy season is actually not the scorching hot summer, but the cooler spring and fall when the jeeps, atvs, and other off road vehicles arrive to motate around the many dusty trails near Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. We were hot and tired by the time we arrived and the owner directed us to the BrewPub in town where we had a cold beer and a barbequed sandwich. Now that we were feeling so much better, we decided to drive through Arches NP which is only 5 minutes north of town. Allan's Golden Age Passport gave us free admission and we spent the next two hours driving and photographing as much as we could. This park is really for the serious hiker/walker as all of the famous arches are down trails. Everywhere you look are spires and formations in very red sandstone with beveled layers cut away by the wind and rain. Underneath the sandstone layer is an old salt bed layer and it is cut away easily by the wind leaving a hole underneath the harder sandstone. In the evening, when the sun is setting, all of the reddish rocks around Moab glow with a brilliant red, purple, or orange color. Quite spectacular. But the next morning we were off by 6:30 a.m. to Ogden, Utah. We stayed just off the freeway at the Century RV Park, no web site, but found on Google Maps and in the PA directory. No discount here, as this is their season with many seasonal perms in the park. We had dinner at the Olive Garden and went to bed early so that we could get up early for another long drive, this time to Meridian, Idaho. Meridian is just past Boise and we stayed at the Boise Meridian KOA. http://www.boisemeridiankoa.com/ Normally we do not use KOA as they are so expensive, but the person who answered the phone said that their rates had stayed the same as before they were KOA. This was another long day, but again with beautiful scenery. As you can see in the photo to the above right, at least we had a cloud cover for the day which made the drive more comfortable for all of us. Ned was up on his perch so he could see out of the window and Alice rode in her nest right behind Allan's seat. Both of them are looking at me to see if "we are there yet". On Thursday we drove from Meridian to Pendleton, Oregon where we stayed at the Wildhorse Casino and RV Park. http://www.wildhorseresort.com/ We were very glad to see the resort since just as we came over the hill from LaGrande, the wind picked up to gusts of 40-60 mph. We got set up and headed over to the casino for lunch, not expecting anything great, but it turned out to be one of the best meals we have had from a casino anywhere and one of the better meals we have had on the road. Everything was fresh, the salad bar was plentiful, the entrees included pork chops, really good fried chicken, swedish meatballs, chicken teriyaki, fresh sauteed vegetables, and beautiful desserts with the best custardy bread pudding I have had in ages. All this for $8.99. Plus they gave us coupons for free breakfast cold buffet, or discounted hot breakfast, which we had this morning and it also was terrific. Their RV Park (see above right) was beautiful and all the sites were well landscaped, FHU's, cable, and free wifi. There was a golf course available and a heated pool. A shuttle could pick you up to take you over to the casino to eat if you did not want to make the short walk. We would definitely stay there again. After breakfast we drove west along the Columbia Gorge to Tualatin where we are again staying at the RV Park of Portland. (See photo to left) http://www.rvparkofportland.com/ We will be here for two weeks this time, catching up on some ethnic restaurants, Powells Bookstore, Tualitin Concerts on the Commons, and visiting Gardens of note.

Durango

2010-07-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday we drove a couple of hours NW from Chama to Durango, Colorado. We decided to stay at the Westerly RV Park http://www.westerlyrvpark.com/ which did not get very good reviews from the rv park review site but it is across the street from Trimble Hot Springs and we felt we could use a few days of soaking in the mineral springs. The reason that this park does not get good reviews is that it charges just as much as the nicer parks but has a limited number of sites that are dirt and gravel with unkept grass between each site. There are a couple of perms living here and their stuff is sitting around making the whole place look dumpy. On the positive side, there are trees around the perimeter sites for shade and the FHU are good, as is the verizon service for our internet access. There are no amenities of any kind but they offer a discount of 10% to the hot springs, however we got a better discount just being seniors. The hot springs on the other hand are very well kept up and they offer a variety of services which we do not use, just being satisfied soaking in the mineral water (see above right) and taking dips in the heated pool. (right) The mineral water pool is divided into two parts; the far right side is about 109 degrees and the larger left hand side is about 104 degrees. Not many people sit in the "lobster pot" side or at least not for very long. The swimming pool is 86 degrees and feels delicious after soaking in the mineral water. The whole facility is clean and well landscaped with grass, flowers, and trees. http://www.trimblehotsprings.com/
On Friday we drove up through Silverton (below left) and on to Ouray to see the towns and the Rockies up close. The road to Silverton from Durango was 50 miles and it took about an hour to drive, but the road from Silverton to Ouray was only 24 miles and it also took an hour to drive. It is called the million dollar highway and it has been blasted out of the sides of the rockies and the switchbacks were incredible. We did see a couple of people towing trailers and they were going about 2 mph coming down that grade, back and forth through those narrow hairpin turns. The scenery was stupendous however, gorgeous on all sides, sometimes with rocky cliffs to your right and green meadows with tarns leading up to craggy spires on your left. We always thought the Tioga Road in Yosemite was a killer but this road topped that by a good measure. For anyone interested in staying in Ouray in their RV, the way to come in would be from the North and not from Durango. Halfway between Silverton and Ouray is a pulloff where you can read about the Iditarod Mine and see where they have reclaimed the land on the old mining site. It is hard to believe that there were about 4 small towns situated up here where the miners lived close to their work. Originally there were numerous mines, but the Iditarod purchased all of them and created a tunnel that extended all the way under the mountains to the west and reached Telluride. There are no roads to Telluride from this road, just the tunnel. In the photo above right, you are looking to the east at Red Mountain which was one of the mountains that they mined for many types of ore, silver included. The mountain is red and so the water in the creeks is orange and all of the rocks in the creek are also orange/red. What is interesting in both of these photos is that they were taken at around 10-11,000 feet, so the mountains in the background are at 13-14,000 feet. Silverton is almost 10,000 feet and just walking around the town made us short of breath.
Yesterday we visited the farmers market where we purchased some croissants for breakfast. The farmers market had many vendors selling beef, elk, and pork. There were 3 bakery vendors and several with produce, but not as many as we had thought there would be, as we had seen many veggie gardens along the highway. Then we walked through the town checking out some of the stores, where we found a couple of used bookstores and the Durango Arts Center. One of the bookstores was the kind of establishment where it is hard to conceive of the proprietor knowing where anything might be, or even what is in stock. We could barely get around to look at the bookshelves and if there was already someone in the aisle, then forget about getting past them. We finally gave up and continued on our tour around town, ending up in an old saloon for lunch, which turned out to be pretty good (for a tourist establishment). Today we are just kicking back, and will hang out over at the hot springs later today, swimming and soaking. Tomorrow we are heading to Moab for an overnight on our way to Portland.

Still In Chama

2010-07-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

This post is to let everyone know that we are still alive and well out here in Chama, NM. I feel like I need to write something to keep the blog going, even though nothing much is happening. On the 4th of July we had barbequed chicken and a salad, then as it got dark, we walked up near the office to a small meadow and watched the fireworks shot off at the fairgrounds about 1 mile away. It is interesting how uninteresting fireworks can be when there is no sound and smoke to go with the sparkles in the air.

Each day here in Chama starts off in the same way. Allan takes the dogs out and makes a small campfire where he drinks his coffee. I stay inside (away from the mosquitos) to drink my coffee and check our friends blog or write a posting for my blog. Then we have breakfast and start painting till about noon. After lunch we read, nap, or paint. Sometimes we take a drive, and a few days ago we took Hwy 17 all the way to Antonito, CO where we had lunch at a New Mexican Cafe before turning around and coming back. On the way over to Antonito we turned off on a forest service road to check out a lake up on top of the pass and there were already many fishermen who had gotten there before us. This view of the lake is above 10,000 feet but the weather was warm and the mosquitos were swarming like flies. The entire drive was extremely beautiful with one green vista after another, creeks bubbling along, aspens flanking the spruce forests, and craggy rock formations....but for some reason, the camera does not seem to capture what we see, only getting small pieces of the view at a time. The wildflowers were everywhere but they were all tiny as the altitude was so high and their season was so short. Next week we will be heading over to Durango for a few days before we continue on over to Oregon where we plan to spend the month of August.

Around Chama

2010-07-03T06:41:00.000-07:00

Here in Chama we are just kicking back, doing a little painting, cooking up some Green Chile Stew, and reading all the books that we purchased in the used book stores back home. The bird feeder is getting a lot of attention and we have seen Black Headed Grosbeaks, Brewers Blackbirds, White Chested Nuthatches, Stellar Jays, and Lewis'es Woodpeckers along with the usual doves and finches. The woodpecker just can't get enough of the suet and he is a constant visitor all day long. He chases off any of the other birds that might have the audacity of coming near his feeder. The little chipmunks even watch out for him.

We took a trip up to Pagosa Springs one day to check out Wolf Creek Pass and it was more daunting than we remembered. We are probably going to give Creede a pass and develop an alternate plan for the remainder of the summer. The trip up to Pagosa Springs was a beautiful drive of developed ranches covered in green grass with the Colorado Rockies in the background. (above right)

Another day we drove south to Abiquiu for lunch at the Abiquiu Inn and along the way we took some photos of the Ghost Ranch area of Georgia O'Keefe. She had purchased one of the cabins and a few acres from Arthur Pack, a naturalist who ran a dude ranch. Her cabin is not seen from the road and is not available to the public but is situated below the outcroppings of the mountains in this photo to the above left. From her cabin, Georgia could look out at the Pedernal Mountain to the south and it became one of her favorite subjects to paint.

Chama, New Mexico

2010-06-28T14:29:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we headed north out of Taos and turned west onto NM Hwy 64. We drove over the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and past all of the Earthships dug into the Taos Plateau. We crossed green valleys, aspen groves, and stands of pine before we dropped down into the Chama Valley. Turning north on NM Hwy 84/64 we found our way to the Sky Mountain RV Resort just 3 miles south of the small town of Chama, home to the Cumbres-Toltec Railroad. We got settled into our site which is not by the river but is up against a wood filled with singing birds. We set up our bird feeders, had some lunch and set out to explore the town. Chama is very small with a combined grocery/hardware store, a couple of cafes, and various small businesses, some of which do not look like they are open any longer. We traveled on out the north side of town and up Hwy 17 which is the route of the railroad and ends up in Antonito, CO about 50 miles away. The views were incredibly beautiful and when we got to Cumbres Pass we stopped to take a photo. Allan is standing at the summit of Cumbres Pass at 10,000+ feet but it looks like he is standing at the edge of a golf course. We turned around and headed back to Chama, saving Antonito for another day. Yesterday, we hung around the site, cooking and painting. Allan rode his bike into town and bought a $3.00 axe to chop wood for our firepit but when he gave the first chop, the blade of the axe broke off. He then headed back to return the Chinese axe and get the more expensive USA axe for $12.00. This axe worked well and he had a fire going in no time. Today we painted for a while in the morning while I started a Green Chile Stew for dinner and then made sandwiches which we took with us to Heron Lake for a picnic lunch. Heron Lake and nearby El Vado Lake are State Parks and there is camping available, some with W&E. But they did not have much for picnic people so we just pulled into an empty campsite and had our lunch looking out at the lake. Before we headed home we followed the road to the end and saw where the Chama River (right) flowed into the top end of El Vado Lake. There was a boat ramp there and it looked possible to launch the kayaks if we decide to go up the Chama River. The lakes did not look that kayak friendly and were windy to boot.

D. H. Lawrence Ranch and Monument

2010-06-24T06:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we headed up to the ranch where DH Lawrence lived with his wife Frieda and the English artist Dorothy Brett for several seasons prior to his death in 1930 while he was in Europe. He had been invited to stay here in Taos by Mabel Dodge who was instrumental in creating an artists community here in Taos in the early 1900's by encouraging East Coast artists and authors to come here and stay at her home. Many of these artists were completely taken with the area and stayed on. One of these was DH Lawrence. As he needed a quiet area to write, she let him use a cabin (above left)on a ranch she had purchased in what is now the Carson National Forest just north of Taos. It took us an hour to drive through Taos and up the mostly dirt road to this site and it probably was an all day trip for the Lawrences back in 1922. The cabin was in disrepair and Lawrence had to replace the roof but in spite of having no electricity or other amenities, he was able to be productive in his writing, producing a short novel (St. Mawr) and parts of the Plumed Serpent. He wrote everything in longhand at a bench under a tall pine tree (above right) in front of the cabin. At a later date when the Lawrences were not at the cabin, Mabel let Georgia O'Keefe stay there for a while. Georgia lay on the bench and looked up through the pine at the night sky and decided to paint "The Lawrence Tree" (above left). A print of this painting has been mounted under the tree and the original painting is in a museum back east. As Lawrence did not know how to type, Dorothy Brett typed the manuscript for him when she was not painting (Brett continued to live in the Taos area for the rest of her life and her paintings are in many of the local museums). Lady Brett lived in an even more primitive one room cabin (above right) near the animal shed where Lawrence had cows which he named and chickens which he fed. Lawrence wrote often how deeply the Taos air and landscape had touched his soul and he enjoyed interacting with the animals of the ranch and of the surrounding forest. After his death, Frieda returned from Europe with his ashes and created a monument (right and left) on the ranch where she mixed his ashes with the cement as she did not want Mabel Dodge to get them and scatter them, as Mabel and Dorothy wanted to do. To purchase the ranch she paid Mabel with Lawrence's handwritten manuscript of Sons and Lovers. After her death in 1956 she was buried in front of the monument. The cross and monument stone that you see in the above photo is her grave. His monument is inside the enclosure. The property was deeded to the University of New Mexico just prior to her death and they maintain it to this day.

Taos Museum Strolling

2010-06-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

At the Fechin Museum we had purchased a 5 museum pass, so yesterday we headed out to the Hacienda de los Martinez, a walled enclosure built in 1804 which served as the home of the Martinez family and the final stop on the Camino Real trail from Mexico. Martinez was a trader and his caravans moved goods from New Mexico down to Mexico and returned with Mexican supplies. The walls were built of two foot thick adobe bricks and had no outside windows as many haciendas in the area were attacked by Indians. This was a stark and primitive existence and although the rooms were filled with old objects of the past such as looms for weaving, wooden plows, and cases of rifles/muskets....we did not linger. Outside there was a small creek and a group of plein aire painters were hard at work capturing the beauty of the area. They were working in all mediums; oil, watercolor, and even pastels. This is the second time we have seen plein aire since we have arrived in Taos as there was also someone at the farmers market capturing the scene in acrylics.

We then made our way into town to see the Harwood Museum which we had visited last year. The Harwood is the former home of the artist Burt Harwood and his wife. Harwood was one of the original Taos Artists. The main gallery is a permanent, rotating display of the art from the original Taos group of painters and the remainder of the galleries are exhibitions that are always different. Last year we saw the art of Dennis Hopper and this year there was an exhibit of Gene Kloss, an early printmaker. But we usually spend the most time in the main gallery where we try and absorb the techniques of the early Taos artists such as E. Martin Hennings. Hennings work is sold everywhere in this part of New Mexico and we have purchased several small cards of his work which is all we can afford. He captures the big skies and long open spaces perfectly as you can see in the painting above right. We also saw a pastel painting (left) by Andrew Dasburg which he painted in 1957. It is a winter scene looking west and it has elements of the more modern painters of the time, almost cubist. Definitely an abstract of the landscape. In 1957 there was not the selection of pastel colors that we have today, but he apparently only needed a small selection to indicate the freezing winter of the mesa.

And finally we walked up the street towards the plaza to visit the Ernest L. Blumenschein Home and Museum. For those of you who did not already know, it was the serendipitous car accident outside Taos in 1898 of Blumenschein and Bert Phillips, two artists who were heading to Mexico to paint. After being delayed in Taos, they determined to stay and became the nucleus of the Taos Artists who began coming from the East to join them. Blumenschein on one of his many trips to Paris, married a New York artist who had had comparable success to Mary Cassatt in the Paris Salon. While in Paris, she worked as a successful illustrator of books and magazines to provide an income for them. After the death of their first child, she accompanied him to Taos where they made their home. Although he went on to become a famous and successful artist (see one of his paintings above right), she mostly gave up her painting to raise Helen, their second child and create a home where all of the Taos Artists gathered in the evenings. Later in her life, she finally went back to painting. One of her illustrations is to the right, and one of her later paintings is above left. An interesting side note is that although their daughter Helen was also trained in art in Paris and had two artistic parents, she never managed to acquire the expertise to become successful. This was the same thing that happened to Nicolai Fechin's daughter as well. She also gave a try to painting and woodcarving but ended up as a dance instructor.

An Artful Sunday In Taos

2010-06-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a day to hang around the rig, do some cooking, and finally start a painting of one of the many photos we had been taking. Allan got the Carne Adovado started, which had been marinating for the past 24 hours, and headed outside with his pastels. He set up his pastel box on the picnic table and started laying on the colors he had preselected for a painting of the Chimayo Santuary bell tower.

While Allan worked on his painting his two loyal friends hung out with him, waiting patiently for him to finish so that they could go for their walk. Actually Alice is anxious for the walk but Ned is finding it hard to go far anymore and would prefer to just layabout in his bed. He says that getting old is hell. We couldn't agree more. While they were outside, I was inside with my own painting on the easel. I had chosen a Truchas scene, late in the afternoon when the clouds were gathering for their afternoon thunderstorm. After looking at so many excellent paintings in the galleries of Santa Fe, I decided to try a different technique of using more neutral tones. It is interesting to me that although I set out to do something different, the painting still is emerging in my former style anyway.

Around noon, we both set aside our paintings and concentrated on finishing up our Sunday Dinner. We had acquired some English Peas at the Farmers Market and we quickly shelled them and started them cooking. Then we took the fresh lettuces that we had also gotten at the same time as the peas, and made a beautiful salad. Sometimes...nothing beats home cooking. What a great day.

Taos Art Museum in the Fechin House

2010-06-20T05:55:00.000-07:00

Here in Taos, we are staying at the Taos Valley RV Park. The park is completely full and it appears that some of the occupants are here for the rodeo next weekend as there are many horse trailers among the 5th wheels and motor homes. This event combined with the 4th of July on the following weekend must be the reason that I had such a hard time negotiating a time frame for our visit. There are also many river rafters who stay here while they raft the white water of the Rio Grande during the day. It is a popular park located a couple of miles south of the old town and the summer prices reflect its popularity. We are paying about $35/night with discounts for FHU. The park is dotted with small trees, sagebrush, and chamisa...which gives a wonderful fragrance to the whole area and each site has a picnic table and barbeque.
Saturday morning we headed off to see the Taos Art Museum which is located in the historic home of Nicolai Fechin, a Russian artist who relocated to the US following the Bolshevik revolution. But as we were traveling through the Plaza district, we spotted the Farmers Market and stopped in to see if we could find some good produce. We managed to find some delicate leaf lettuces and some fresh english peas. Here the peas are just starting to produce and we had finished our own crop of peas grown in my brother's garden 2 months ago. The climate always has the last say in these matters. However, the climate had nothing to do with the delicious bran muffins we found, loaded with apricot and apple chunks....so we added a few of those to our bag of goodies, along with some homemade granola.

Then we weaved our way through the plaza over to the Fechin Home and Garden. Fechin had purchased a two story adobe home which he then began to remodel, adding extensions to the home and enlarging some of the interior spaces. He painted during the day and then in the evening hours he worked on the house. He was a simple living man who enjoyed gardening, cooking, and his art. He had trees brought down from the forest to be planted around his property and many of them are still there with a beautiful garden situated around them. His own father was a woodcarver of Russian icons and he had learned this art when he was young, this skill combined with the architectual classes he had taken in art school gave him the ideas of reworking the adobe (see the fireplace above) into different forms and carving all of the doors, lintels, furniture, posts, niches, and cupboards from his own hand. The short swinging doors between the dining room and living room (photo above right) were carved freehand after making a rough drawing of the design he wanted. He used hand woodcarving tools and they are now a part of the National Cowboy Museum. There were no power tools used for any of the woodwork on the home. In the photo below right, he created a sunroom on the second floor with his own design for the windows. Every door in the home was hand carved including the doors of each cupboard and closet. His daughter was small in stature and he designed special furniture for her as can be seen in the two small chairs in the sunroom. He even designed all of the metal work for the home creating original lamp fixtures, latches, and hinges. He worked on the house for only six years when he was divorced and he moved to Santa Monica with his daughter. (An interesting aside....the Santa Monica home was purchased by Serge Bongart, another Russian artist after Fechin's death. Serge gave art lessons and Urania Christy-Tarbet, the founder of the International Association of Pastel Societies took lessons from Serge.....Allan and I then attended one of her demos at the IAPS convention where she encouraged us to look at the Russian artists in the use of color. Isn't everyone connected by only 6 steps?) Fechin's daughter returned to the house after her mother passed away at the age of 90 and began to arrange for the home to become a showpiece of her father's work. It became a Historic Site and then later the Taos Museum of Art acquired it to display not only Fechin's art but all of the collection of the Taos Artists from the early 1900's. Fechin's self portrait is to the left.

After walking the garden and peering in at Fechin's studio, we walked back through the plaza to Antonios for lunch. Of course after lunch we had to try the desserts and Allan had the flan while I had a tres leches cake. My cake was so huge that I could only eat half of it, so we brought the rest home in a doggie bag. Allan is giving this flan a first place for presentation but it only moved into second place for taste and texture.

Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe

2010-06-19T06:44:00.000-07:00

On our last day in Santa Fe, we decided to go all the way to the top of Canyon Road and visit the Randall Davey Audubon Center. This is a lovely spot at the very end of the canyon above the reservoir and covered with trails. We walked a one mile loop trail through chamisa, sagebrush, wildflowers, and even grasses that were blooming, but the only birds that we saw were blue jays and hummingbirds. We did see a horned toad who was not happy with the intrusion and took off right after I got his photo.

We also walked around the home and gardens of Randall Davey who was an artist who had studied and travelled with Robert Henri and also studied with Charles Hawthorne, both of the Ashcan School of Art. Davey moved his family to this home and studio in Santa Fe although he continued to travel to art schools back east where he taught art. In the photo upper right, his studio is to the left of the front gate and the home is to the right. Davey came from a middle class background and became an artist against the wishes of his father and although he had moderate success as an artist, he continued to have to earn a living to have his polo ponies and fast cars. After his death, his home and gardens were donated to the Audubon Center and although his gardens were filled with bird feeders, we did not see many birds as they probably come in the morning or evening and we were there close to noon.

For lunch we traveled back down Canyon Road to El Farol and sat on the patio and order tapas for lunch. After eating every last bit of the halibut with balsamic arugula, pork tenderloin with roasted figs, sweet red peppers with feta, mushrooms in sherry sauce, and deep fried avocados with salsa....we proceeded to order dessert. Of course Allan had to have flan, but this was the all time best ever flan he had ever had. It was a rosemary-lemon infused custard nestled in caramel sauce. He tried to eat it very slowly to make it last. I chose a Raspberry Panna Cotta that was delicious and wolfed it down, it was so good. It was a fabulous lunch to end our stay in Santa Fe. We have had so many good meals here. The Pink Adobe, The Blue Corn Cafe, El Farol, The Pantry, and the Chimayo Inn. We will have to come back again next year and try some more.

Bandelier National Monument

2010-06-14T06:41:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we took a drive up to Bandelier National Monument which is adjacent to the Los Alamos National Laboratories on NM Hwy 4. This is the location of one of the original groups of the Pueblo people and it is estimated that they arrived about 10,000 years ago. Originally they were nomadic and hunted on top of the mesas but as they acquired the skills to farm corn, beans, and squash, they migrated down to the bottom of what is now called Frijoles Canyon where there was a year round creek which supplied them with the needed water for growing crops. This creek eventually ends at the Rio Grande. The people continued to hunt on the mesa tops as well as in the canyon but also raised turkeys for the feathers as well as for food. The photo on the right is looking west into Frijoles Cyn and the southfacing (right side) cliff face is where numbers of people created their dwellings. The walls of the canyon look like limestone but are actually compressed tufa from two large eruptions of a volcano in the Jemez mountains which you can see in the far distance in the photo above. The tufa is soft enough that it erodes easily and the Pueblo people found that they could use obsidian tools to dig out holes large enough to live in. Adolph Bandelier, the self taught anthropologist who made the Pueblo people's history his life's work, called them "cavates". In the photo to the left you can see some of the cavates and at the edge of the cliff face is one of the constructed dwellings that were sometimes as high as three stories. On the canyon floor were numerous pines that were used as roof supports for the houses and also for the kivas. The pines were also used for making looms. Blankets and clothing were made from woven yucca, cotton, and turkey feathers. It appears that some of the people preferred to live on the canyon floor nearer to the creek and there is an entire village which is partially excavated showing rooms and kivas. The photo above right was taken while we were on the cliff face looking down. The village below was large enough for 400 people but archeologists do not want to excavate the whole thing as the building materials are soft and the winds in the canyon erode what has been revealed very quickly. For those people up on the cliff face, they used pine to make ladders to reach their cavates. Some of these cavates were large enough to be a kiva and probably held about 30 people. Other cavates were only large enough for one or two people to sleep with smaller niches for storage.

The entire walk was about 1.5 miles but we walked an additional 1 mile path to the Alcove House where there is a 140 foot climb up 4 different ladders. After we got there and took a look at the climb, both of us decided that we would not go up. The walk was not a loss however as we were lucky to see some wildlife as we strolled through dappled sunlight next to Frijoles Creek. The first was a rock squirrel. I had hoped to see an Aberts Squirrel with the little pointy rabbit ears but no luck, just the ordinary looking rock squirrel who kindly posed for a photo. But just around the corner we spotted a flash of gold in the trees above and were lucky enough to see a Western Tanager. He was a beauty and hung around for a few moments, long enough that I was able to get a photo of him peering down at some possible predators. He was the perfect ending to a wonderful warm sunshine day in a beautiful canyon full of history.

Canyon Road

2010-06-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we walked the Guadalupe Railyard Shopping District and found a few treasures along the way. At a consignment clothing store called "The Beat Goes On" I purchased a new shirt and a pair of espadrilles from Spain. The store had really high end clothing and their prices were pricey but sometimes a bargain can still be found. Allan wanted to get a new cap from the fly fishing shop but when he tryed it on, it made his head look pointy. So we gave it a pass. Then we stopped by a used book store and found a couple of mysteries by a Cuban author and also a Landscapes of New Mexico art book which was very inspirational. We ended up our day at Tomasita's at the Railyard where we had very hot red chile plates and of course Allan had flan. As it turned out...we still like the Inn at Chimayo the best. But last evening we decided to go to a local brewery called The Blue Corn Cafe for dinner and we had fantastic fish n'chips with two different beers; a lager and and ale, both good. We would definitely return.

Today we walked up Canyon Road looking at all of the galleries and there were plenty to see. We were able to see many pastellists, some with very different techniques. Carole LaRoche uses pastel to paint bright color animals with human eyes looking out at you with very plain dark backgrounds. And of course we stopped at the Ventana Gallery to see some of Albert Handell's paintings. When the sales guy realized that we were just Albert worshipers and not potential buyers he gave up and wandered off. Most of Albert's work displayed today was in oil, however, there were three small pastels of local scenes. Two other pastellists that we saw were Margaret Nes whose pastels are very abstract with simplified shapes, and Will Klemm whose pastels are very ethereal. Further up the road there was a gallery that handled the artists from the early 1900's including Gustave Baumann, the printmaker. Although I have seen many of his prints in books, it was inspiring to see the originals full size. A few were on sale for the bargain price of $28,000. and the gallery indicated that it was willing to negotiate the price. Somehow I don't think any price we could afford could have been negotiated. Some galleries were handling Russian or Chinese artists. We were surprised by the number of foreign artists that were represented. And there were several artists that painted landscapes in oil or acrylic that we admired. We tried to take notes on techniques or colors that interested us since we could not take any photos. There were any number of artists who concentrated on painting clouds with the sky taking up at least 3/4 to 7/8 of the painting.

When we reached the top of the road, we stopped at El Farol to have lunch. Allan had a pork tenderloin sandwich and I had a curried chicken salad sandwich. Sounds mundane? No....they were some of the best sandwiches we had eaten in a very long time. And it was a beautiful setting in a lovely warm day. After lunch we headed back down the road to our truck, stopping at all of the galleries that we hadn't seen on the way up.

Museum Hill

2010-06-10T06:20:00.000-07:00

Wednesday we got a late start as Allan took a bike ride around the adjacent neighborhood while I got a load of laundry done. Then we headed off to Museum Hill in the SE of Santa Fe where there are 3 museums dedicated to Southwest Arts. The first museum that we visited was a Folk Art Museum and the collection actually was international although it did include exhibitions of some specific SW artists in the first gallery. There were exhibits of tin art, pottery, weaving, wood carving, straw art, and handmade books. One of our favorites was a painted woodcarving entitled

"I don't care if it rains or freezes as long as I have my plastic Jesus."

Of course it would not be a complete SW Folk Art exhibit without some Day Of The Dead Figures and although there were several to choose from, we liked the Penitente Death Cart carrying La Muerte (the death angel).

In a separate gallery was clothing from all around the world. What was interesting was that the clothing was grouped so that you could look at a selection of shoes and see the similarities or differences between how shoes were made in different countries. Cowboy boots from Asia and Mexico were almost identical, for example. Whereas some wooden high heel and high toe sandals from the Middle East were very unique as they were used by women in the bath houses so they could walk through water without getting their feet wet.

One of the exhibits was a prayer stone cloth for Muslims in Afghanistan which was embroidered by the wife for their husband to take to the Mosque and use when they were kneeling and touching their forehead to the ground.

Later we walked a short distance to the Wheelwright

Museum where we were not allowed to take photos but we enjoyed the Navajo Rug Weaving Exhibit and then went downstairs to the authentic recreated trading post which was their gift shop. Unfortunately, all of the gifts

were by real Navajo Artists and the price range was way way way beyond our gift shop budget.

The Town That Never Was

2010-06-09T06:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we set off to Los Alamos to see the town that never was, exhibited in the Bradbury Science Museum. This is where Scientists from Europe and America gathered together to create an atomic bomb in order to stay ahead of Hitler's War Machine and try to end the war. This town has always held special significance for me as I had personally met Glen Seaborg at a science conference in Palm Springs where I was able to hear him lecture and shake his hand in the reception afterward. He was the Berkeley Physicist who discovered Plutonium which is the heavy metal created by nuclear fission that is in the atomic bombs. He kept the first sample of Plutonium in a cigar box and it was about the size of a quarter. I have also read every book written by Richard Feynmann, another physicist who lived in Los Alamos in the early days of creating the first atomic weapons. In conditions that were not always perfect, these men and women came together to create a weapon that would end the war.
The first atomic bomb was originally named the Thin Man to honor President Roosevelt but it later became known as Little Boy. This is the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. The second bomb was a different design and was called Fat Man to honor Winston Churchill and it was dropped on Nagasaki. Although many people deplore the creation of weapons, it was a time when people came together in a common cause and a number of these scientists went on to develop many other uses for nuclear energy after the war, many of which are indispensible in the fields of energy and medicine today.
Today Los Alamos is home to many companies who work together and research new capabilities for nuclear energy and new ways to store it safely. The research facility used to be where the town is now but as the town grew around them, they moved over to the next plateau to the south of the town. In this topographic map, the town is on the middle plateau where all the little white dots are located and there are residential areas spreading onto the plateau to the right as well. The research facilities are on the plateau to the left where there are small red and blue pins. There was no town originally, it was just a boys ranch school and ranches. The early scientists used the boys school as the first research facility until more buildings were built. The plateaus are at about 7000' elevation and the canyons between them were steep, so all of the homes are built on the top of the plateaus. The town is located in the Jemez Mountains and the views up and back from Santa Fe were tremendous. While we were in Los Alamos we visited the local art center and much of the work there was of the surrounding mountain vistas. One pastel piece that we noticed was of Aspen Trees and highlights were created with metallic pastels.

A Sunday Drive

2010-06-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we decided to drive part of the High Road to Taos. We headed north out of Santa Fe to Pojoaque where we turned east on 503. Not far along was a side road heading to Nambe Falls and Lake, so we turned on to this smaller road which turned out to be part of the Reservation and continued for about 5 miles to a gatehouse where we paid a day use fee and also a photography fee. The falls were actually quite a walk up a canyon but we were able to walk part of the way and see the river amongst all of the oaks. Later we drove up to see the lake which is really a reservoir. But it was surrounded with vegetation and we could have taken our kayaks (had we known) as there were canoes out on the water and it was very peaceful there.

Then we headed back to the main road and continued on towards Chimayo. As we neared the town we stopped at the Chimayo Sanctuario which apparently has some sacred soil of which people are allowed to take a pinch to use for healing. When we arrived there was a service being conducted so we did not get to see the inside of the Sanctuary or get any of the soil, but the outside was very interesting with crosses planted or mounted everywhere. People had even made little crosses of sticks which they put in the chain link fence.

By now it was getting close to lunchtime and we had been given a recommendation for the Rancho de Chimayo Inn. We were very pleased with the stairstep patios and flower gardens along the verandas. And we were even more pleased by the food. Allan had Carne Adovada again and I had Carnitas. Both meals came with sopapillas and honey. Of course Allan had to try the flan which was homemade and I had a dessert new to me called Natillas (little clouds). There were many choices on the menu that sounded good, so we will have to go again. Lucky for us, it is on the high road to Taos, so we can come from that direction as well in a couple of weeks when we are staying in Taos.

After lunch we headed up to Truchas. This was a makeshift town of buildings; some falling apart, some built with odds n'ends, some newer adobe homes, and some horse ranches. The terrain was on the ridge of mountains and there were grassy meadows and pastures with creeks running along the edge of the road. Many of the homes had signs out indicating they were artists of weaving, or sculpture, or found art. We passed an artist along the road painting plein aire in oils of a scene across the mountain valleys. There were wildflowers everywhere and the feeling was more alpine than high desert. We turned around and headed back to Santa Fe and we will finish traveling the high road when we are staying in Taos.

On To Santa Fe

2010-06-05T15:39:00.000-07:00

We picked up the rv from storage last Friday night and it took us four days of cleaning and packing to get ready for take-off. Here is the rv in front of our house (which has now been painted sage green and white) and the length of the rv takes up the entire width of the property. We said goodbye to our neighbors and headed off on Wednesday morning early. We took a new route up through Payson and although it was a little slower due to the up and down nature of the road, it was also very scenic and we were surprised to find that the Upper Mongollon Rim was forested with lakes and small meadows. We arrived in Holbrook right before lunch and since it was Wednesday, all the cafes in town were serving $1.00 tacos, so we had a few tacos and went rockhounding in some of the surrounding rock shops. We managed to find some nice petrified wood for our cactus garden back home and saw a very old roadster at one of the shops. The OK RV Park in Holbrook http://www.okrvpk-llc.com/ is a good place to pull in for the night with long pullthrus and FHU, but it is not a destination unless you are looking to do some serious rockhounding in the surrounding areas or you are hankering to see the Petrified Forest National Park. We were on the road bright and early the next day and arrived in Albuquerque at the Enchanted Trails RV Park. http://www.enchantedtrails.com/ We got the PA rate of $15.00 for the night but it was on an all dirt pull through site. In comparison, the Casino RV park on Hwy 25 has grass and walking paths around some small lakes with more modern FHU facilities. We arrived in Albuquerque in time for lunch, so we headed down to old town where we knew of a great carne adovado at the Cactus Cafe. They did not let us down and we had a wonderful table on the shaded patio. Friday morning we got a later start as we did not have far to go. We arrived in Santa Fe at the Trailer Ranch RV Resort www.trailerranch.com around eleven and got a beautiful site along the back wall in the shade. We set out all the patio furniture and just kicked back for the afternoon, reading and napping. Steak on the barbie for dinner. Today we did some grocery shopping; first at the farmers market where we picked up some chile/corn/cheese quiches and other baked goods for breakfasts later in the week. Then we headed over to Trader Joes to get yogurt and finally we stopped in at Sunflower where we found the rest of the items on our shopping list. We spent the rest of the afternoon reading, needlepointing, and napping. Four days on the road and we have done nothing but eat, read, and nap. Is this great or what? But lucky for all of you out there....we are gearing up to check out some of the local sights. Los Alamos, Bandelier National Monument, Santa Fe Plaza, and Canyon Drive are on our to see list. But for now....have to get ready for chicken on the barbie.

Time To Hit The Road

2010-05-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

Usually we are on the road by the end of April or the first of May, but this year we had a few setbacks; some financial, some medical, and at least one was the weather in the direction we were headed. But now we are one week away from being on the road again and we are really looking forward to seeing some new places and gathering some new photos for fabulous paintings. This year we are making a loop around the four corners region, starting in Santa Fe....then moving up to Taos...going west again to Chama where we will stay almost one month....and then north up to Creede (which is Stephen Quiller country for all of you artists out there)....backtracking to Durango....and finishing up at Priest's Gulch which is on the road to Telluride. Hopefully we will be home around the beginning of September. Allan has been working on getting the truck ready and today it is getting a new compressor for the air conditioning. Next weekend we will be pulling the 5th Wheel in front of our home to be washed and packed. At least we won't have to pack everything we own this trip as we now have our permanent base here in Apache Junction. We have still been painting almost every morning and we both have completed several paintings since the Sedona Show. We are applying (with 3 of our artist friends) to have an exhibition at the little gallery in Boyce Thompson Arboretum. One of Allan's entries is seen at the top of this post. It is the truck that is in the Australia Exhibit at the Arboretum. One of my entries is seen above right. It is a group of barrel cactus in the Arboretum demo garden.

Sedona Show

2010-04-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Allan on his Honorable Mention for "Charleston Marina" at the Arizona Pastel Artists Assoc. Juried Show in Sedona. Allan was thrilled that all three of his paintings were accepted for the show and even more elated when he heard that he had also won an award. We drove up to Sedona on Saturday so that he could hear the judge's comments and accept his award in person. The photo to the left shows Allan with Vince Fazio, the Director of the Sedona Art Gallery and the judge of our Spring show in front of Allan's painting. It was a very long day of driving but well worth the effort to hear the judge discuss how he was looking for a looser, painterly technique and had found it in the winning entries. Allan was in very good company with 5 out of the 8 award winners being professional artists.

And then this morning we had more news from Sedona. My painting of "Cathedral Rocks" was SOLD yesterday. This has been a great show for both of us and we promptly went out to lunch with Mike and Rose to celebrate.

Sedona Show Entries

2010-03-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at the monthly pastel meeting, Allan and I turned in our entries for the judging of the Sedona Show in April. Allan had about 6 to choose from and we polled all of our neighbors and friends to see which they would choose as his best work. Everyone was in agreement on the old pueblo house on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. Then there were some split votes on the remainder of his paintings but most of the votes went towards his two boat paintings so he went with the popular vote choices. The red boat is near Oak Harbor on Whidby Island and the yellow boat comes from the marina in Charleston, Oregon. If this show is anything like the last show, then these will probably be the only two marina paintings entered in the judging. Who knows whether that is a good thing when the show is held in a landlocked state?? But we are hoping for the best. It is very hard to know what a judge will be looking for, especially when the judge is not a pastel artist. We will not know what the results of the judging will be until the end of March when we get our notices in the mail. In the meantime, Allan is doing a new painting.... our house. It was painted a color that is not in compliance with the parks official colors, so we had to agree to paint it within 6 months of moving in. So this is the month of painting our pink house a sort of greyish, sage green with cream trim. Allan got two of the small walls done and then it began to rain, again. So we are holding off for a few days and then will start again. Already the neighbors like the new color and so do we.

For my submissions there were not that many choices as I had lost a month of very little painting while I was ill, but I eventually tried to make up for lost time and painted two paintings of landmarks in Sedona and if they get into the show, maybe someone might buy one of them as a memento of their trip to the West. The 1st painting is of Cathedral Rocks and is from a photo taken in the spring when everything is green. Allan had to ford the stream in order to get the photo to see the rocks at this angle, but it is the best view. The 2nd painting is Slide Rocks up in the Sedona canyon and it is where everyone goes to swim, although the rocks get kind of slippery with algae when the weather warms up, hence the name "Slide Rock". Again... we took this photo in the spring when the water was higher and the foliage was greener. The last painting is from Taos, NM and is a drive around the eastern back side of Taos and Eagles Nest. The drive is called the Enchanted Circle and it is also spring in this photo which was taken in May. The snowmelt was running in little creeks throughout the entire drive and in this view looking south, we would be approaching Eagles Nest where there is a huge lake and a great mexican food restaurant. We have been planning our trip for this summer and have decided to cut the trip to 3 months and go a shorter distance since we are on a tighter budget now. We are thinking of heading down to the southern gulf states and maybe the top end of florida and then turning around and heading back, trying to be home in September. We probably won't leave here until around the 1st of June or the end of May. This will be a very short trip for us, but we will still get to see the ocean and it should be nice and warm, just what the doctor ordered. Even though February was a month spent recuperating, we managed to have some good times with Jim and Nancy who visited our area for the month of Feb, and also Mike and Rose who returned from the Bay Area to get settled into their new Mesa home.

Nice Try

2010-02-16T18:14:00.000-08:00

The landscape below is one of the paintings that I was working on in January when my health got in the way of my art. I certainly had good intentions when I announced in my last post that I was going to be a more frequent blogger, but right after that rightous announcement, I was felled by a "cardiac event" and ended up in the hospital for a few days, even more days of bed rest, and some subsequent hobbling around. I had been having chest pains in the middle of the night since after Thanksgiving and had attributed this to indigestion, but a few weeks back at 4 in the morning, I knew that this was not something I ate which was returning to haunt me in the wee hours, this was the real deal. Allan rushed me off to our doctor first thing, who then sent me on immediately to a cardiologist who promptly arranged for a bed in the Cardiac Hospital here in Mesa. After prodding me, poking me, x-rays, sonar scans, blood tests on the hour, nitroglycerine drips, and blood thinner shots in my abdomen, I was scheduled for a angiocatheterization the following day. The good news is that I did not have a heart attack and in fact my heart muscle was healthy and my vessels were clear of blockages or plaque. The bad news was that I have a form of angina that is prompted by stress or extreme cold. I am now on some medications and have some nitroglycerine spray for any unforeseen attacks...so the doctor has assured me that if I stay in sunny warm locations and stay away from anything that can cause me to feel stressed, I will be just fine and on the other hand if I do not take his advice then it is possible to bring on a heart attack if the angina is not taken seriously. So needless to say...Allan and I are planning a suitable rv trip for this season.....where we can relax and just be tourists and see the sights and enjoy the summer. It also appears that our friends Mike and Rose, who also have had a traumatic event happen to them this January, might be joining us on our travels. We hope to see more of the type of scenery that Allan photographs for his boat paintings, like the one he did above left.

We did manage to fit in a portrait workshop by a well known portrait artist by the name of Dodie Ballentine prior to the hospital and we just recently attended the pastel meeting for the month where we were given a demo by the President of the International Assoc of Pastel Societies, who was also the judge of our winter show. The photo to the left shows Maggie Price giving the demo at our meeting.

The hospital stay managed to slow me down considerably in terms of paintings produced this month but Allan has been churning them out....so he will have plenty to choose from for the Sedona show coming up in April. Below is a painting that I have started on some dry pods in a dark background and it is only about 40% complete. I hope to have it finished in time for the show deadline. Allan has been working on several seascapes and boat paintings and to the left is a painting that he is planning on submitting for the show. I had already finished a painting for my brother of his cabin, so if I cannot get anything else finished, then he has said that I can submit his cabin in the rockies painting for the show.

Back On Line

2010-01-16T17:45:00.000-08:00

It is hard to believe that one month has gone by since my last post, but time has just been flying by and finally I have some time to catch up. One of our biggest goals was to finish some paintings to submit to the judge for the Pastel Winter Show which will be held in February and both of us put pastel to the easel and worked hard to produce several paintings each. After getting feedback from friends and neighbors we each picked the best 3 for submission. Then the fun began (read hassles) with none of our 4 photo editors able to to do both the decrease in pixel resolution and resizing to inches. OK, fine....we headed off to Best Buy to get the expensive Adobe Photoshop Editor and brought it home only to find out that we did not have enough RAM on the (old) laptop to load the program. Quick emails to my brother for HELP and he came to the rescue by ordering the RAM from some internet site and then coming over to install it for us. While he was here he also installed the new program as well to make sure we were up and running, OUR HERO for the day, for sure. But then we had some downtime learning how to take a digital photo of a painting which should be a piece of cake, right? What is the problem, other than the painting was a little crooked, the camera wasn't centered, the wind blew the easel over, it was like wading through mud. Then we had to load the photos onto the computer and learn how to manipulate our new program and the clock was tick, tick, ticking down towards the date it all had to be mailed, during the Christmas season no less. But finally it was submitted and we just received our letters of acceptance two days ago. Allan had a seascape accepted and I had a pomegranate and a sheep shed accepted. Now we are getting the accepted paintings framed for the show which opens Feb 5th and we are right back at the easel to try and get more paintings done for the Spring show deadline of March 7th. We have also started up our weekly art lesson/consultation/critique with Nancy Clauss, the artist we worked with in Scottsdale last year. In addition to all of this we have been visiting with friends and neighbors, playing BINGO every Wed night (don't laugh...I have won two jackpots) and helping my brother with his landscaping/having lunch once a week. In the middle of all of this, both Allan and I had skin biopsies done, Allan had new glasses made, and I had the flu for over a week. Oh yeah, and it was Christmas somewhere in there. But my new year resolution is to be a more frequent blog writer....I guess anything would be an improvement over the lack of blogs in the last month. But we have been keeping up with all of our blogging friends and it sounds like everyone is as busy as we are and having a great time too. My son-in-law is envious of all the fish that Mark and Renita are catching down in Rockport (although their photos are all pretty suspicious with everyone dressed in down jackets....the fish are probably freezing and moving too slow to get away. We heard from Jim and Nancy too....they are giving up their jobs at the Rose Parade and leaving sunny California for even sunnier Arizona where we will see them in February. Rose and Mike will be staying a while in San Francisco and we will be glad to see them again when they return. Take care all......and let us know what you think about the paintings.

Art At Last

2009-12-03T06:28:00.000-08:00

Even though we have not been on the road for the last two months, we have been moving along through the days, some of them in a blur of activity. Some of the highlights have been taking the open studio tour of artists in Hidden Hills with our friends Rose and Mike. We all picked studios we wanted to visit and managed to see paintings, sculpture, metalwork, photography, and more. All of the homes are in desert settings and it was fun to see some of the outdoor garden art in various locations. We had lunch at the golf club and it was delicious. All in all, a great day.

Also we have been painting almost every morning and some creative juices are flowing again finally. To the left is a painting that Allan is working on. The photo is a scene from Trinidad, CA taken this last summer. I have been working on several and have even taken out some old paintings that needed reworking. We are trying to get several paintings finished to have some entries for the Winter Pastel Art Show.

The painting to the right is Cypress Gardens in South Carolina and is being reworked now that I know a little more about values. Also I finally finished my Tea Towel Challenge painting for the January meeting and I am starting on two new paintings as is Allan. Sometimes it is hard to tear yourself away and hours go by before you know it.

In addition to everything else that we are doing, we have also been trying to establish new Doctors for our yearly checkups and prescriptions, which means new blood tests (ouch) and adjusting to new routines. Good thing we made the time, as both of us had diminished kidney function which meant (for us) that we were both dehydrated so we are now drinking half our body weight in ounces of water. And since our new doctor adjusted my thyroid meds, I am feeling more energized. So good news all around.

Here in Rancho Mirage, everyone is decorating the outside of their homes with Christmas decorations and there is a contest on to see who has the best show. Well of course we had zero decorations but since all of the neighbors were putting something up, we headed off to get some of our own. Gotta keep up with the Joneses. So this last photo is of the front of our house now that we are ready for Santa.

Getting Settled

2009-11-14T17:34:00.000-08:00

Now that we are back in Arizona, we wanted to get back on track with our pastel paintings and get more involved with our pastel society. On the first Sunday of November was the monthly pastel meeting and it was in a new location, on Thunderbird Road in North Phoenix at a framing shop. The owner was kind enough to allow our group to meet there once a month for free. You can see that we are in the back warehouse part of the shop and Karen Budan, our president is standing at the front of the room leading the meeting. This year there are a few new activities each month. One is bringing a new framed finished painting and everyone votes for the artist of the month. There were several to choose from and they were all good, but this month Karen got the top honors with her still life of fruits and vegetables. Also there was a critique of the paintings submitted for the art challenge. A month previous to this meeting, 10 people signed up to do the art challenge and received a green, glass goblet at the end of the meeting. This month we saw the many ways that the goblet could be included in a painting, including; on the sandy beach with a string of pearls, on a bed with a cat paw reaching inside the goblet, tipped over with an ice cream sundae slid across the table, with the proverbial bottle of wine, and so on. It was great fun to see what ideas each person had. So I signed up for this months art challenge and at the end of the meeting all 10 of us received a yellow tea towel. Yes indeed, this will be a challenge for me as I really haven't conquered drapery yet, so I will need to figure out a good idea without too many folds.

Also this month we went to the Fall Pastel Art Show Reception in Mesa, AZ where we saw all of the entries that had been selected by this show's judge, Allen Garns. http://www.allengarns.com/ Here is Allen talking with two of our members against a wall with some of the many excellent pastel paintings. The painting that he gave the Best of Show Award was called Lipstick and it was my favorite painting there as well, although Martha had done a great portrait of a dog looking up longingly called "is that cake?" and it was my second favorite painting and I was glad he gave it an honorable mention. He spent some time prior to the awards explaining how he went about selecting the paintings for the show, telling us that the first things he looked for were drawing and composition. After that first pass, he then looked at value and color. So I need to make sure my drawing skills are up to snuff and study some more on composition.

In addition to moving in to our new home, trying to get furniture, and getting our studio set up, we have also been visiting with my brother and meeting up with friends. Mike and Rose started going out to look at mobile home parks also and it did not take them long to find something. They got into a really nice park over in Mesa and their home was really set up well with new appliances and fans and fixtures, painted walls, carpeting, and drapes. Its almost as if they are moving into a brand new home. And they got a great deal in terms of capital outlay, spending about half as much as we did. There are some great buys right now in this area for a winter residence...for all you potential buyers out there.

Update From Apache Junction

2009-10-22T13:18:00.000-07:00

Well folks...we did it. We found a place here in Apache Junction, Arizona to be our Winter home/studio. We had heard about great HUD home deals and low foreclosed homes for sale, but when we saw that we would have to put a lot of work into them and be in a neighborhood that did not look all that safe to leave unattended for months at a time while we travel, we decided to look at other options.

We next investigated Park Models in RV Resort Parks. Boy oh boy, are those park models small. The bedroom is smaller than the bedroom we have in our fifth wheel and there is barely space to turn around unless there is an Arizona room added on. And the prices are not cheap. And there are tenant rights issues as well.
So we inquired into manufactured home resort parks. OK, senior mobile home parks for you sticklers. However, there are several types and we found a home in a park that includes all of the amenities that the RV Resort had. Our park is called Rancho Mirage and it has a heated pool, spa, workout room, tennis courts, small golf course, shuffleboard, activities, and so on. For us, one of the important things it had to offer, was security. It is gated and we will be able to leave in the summer and not worry about break ins. It is a double wide with 2 bedrooms and 2 full baths, so we have lots of room to pursue our projects and have guests visit as well. The kitchen had all new appliances and included a laundry room and breakfast nook. There is a small enclosed back yard for the dogs where we intend to add a lemon tree to join the orange and tangerine trees already established. And there is an attached shed/shop for our bicycles. We decided to decorate in "Early Ikea" and have used the dining area as a living room.

One of the biggest reasons that we chose this particular home is that it had a window with north facing light and a skylight above it for the area which will be our studio. We will be getting some professional easels sometime next week and hope to start painting very soon. The alcove at the far end of this room will be a workroom for framing. It will also have storage shelving for holding frames, portfolios, mats, and all of our art books. As you can see from this photo, there is probably another trip to Ikea in our future.

p.s. A side benefit to finding a winter home was relieving our rv of about 500 pounds of weight at least. We will be zooming down the roads now that we are not carrying all of those books and art supplies everywhere.

4 Buffets in 4 Days In Las Vegas

2009-10-03T10:43:00.000-07:00

As the Eastern Sierras dropped in temperatures, we headed over to the Oasis RV Resort http://www.oasislasvegasrvresort.com/ in Las Vegas for 5 days before we head over to Phoenix to check in for the Winter at the Sunrise RV Resort. While we are here in Las Vegas, it seemed like a good time to take Alice and Ned to PETCO to get a shampoo and trim. They came out looking like brand new dogs and they smelled good too. Allan has been busy making some minor repairs to the truck, getting its oil changed, and running it through the car wash. And of course, it would not be Las Vegas without going to a Buffet. As I researched the possible choices, I noted that the lunch buffets were quite a bit cheaper and had most of the dinner menu items. So we headed out to the Mandalay Bay Buffet which is on the list of the 10 best buffets in Las Vegas. www.lasvegasdirect.com/topbuffet We were seated in the Garden Room where we could look down on the inner landscaping of the Mandalay Bay and it was a perfect luncheon setting. The salad bar selection was very good, although it was spread around on separate counters. I loaded up on the ice cold boiled shrimp and Allan went with a more traditional salad, including many of his favorite items, such as pickled beets and grilled peppers.

After our salad, we headed back for some of the main courses that were offered and we had a wide selection. There was a pasta station, an Asian station, a Latin station, Sushi station, and prime rib station. There was even a pizza bar. As you can see from the photo of my plate to the left, reading like a clock, I took a little Osso Buco with mashed potatoes at 12, lasagne with chicken cacciatore and asparagus at 2-3, Sweet & Sour Pork, Fried Shrimp, and a Potsticker at 5-7, Short Ribs with delicious sauce at 9, green beans at 11, and the absolute best Beef Barbacoa and pintos in the center. We had to go back for a little more barbacoa, oh my.

Then we should not have even looked at a dessert bar, but in for an inch, in for a mile. Allan chose the fruit tart, lemon meringue pie, bread pudding, and the tiramisu. The tiramisu was excellent. Upon reflection, this buffet's excellence was in its entries, then the salad bar. The service was attentive as well. The downside would be the desserts. Other than the tiramisu, they were all pretty dry. We would go here again. And again, and again.

On Friday, we decided what the heck, let's try another buffet. This time I made the pick and we headed over to Le Village in Paris. The decor here had been touted as somewhat Disney like but we liked it. Each station was set up according to a district in France with the dessert bar in the middle. It looked like a small village under the blue sky.

The salad bar was minimal. Some lettuce and a few items to put on the lettuce. But in its stead was a grilled veggie bar where the veggies were being grilled and set out fresh. Shitake mushrooms, zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers were some that come to mind. Here you could help yourself to thin flatbreads, grilled veggies, and some fantastic sauces such as aioli, romescu, pesto, hummus and others. There was also boiled shrimp and other seafood to use as a starter instead of salad. Where they really fell down on their faces were the soups. I have been in the real Paris, where the potage is excellent in every small bistro. But here it was inedible. Thin watery off taste French onion soup and gloppy starch tasting clam chowder. Not good. Where they excelled was in the vegetables that they offered along with their entries. A creamed lightly curried cauliflower dish, braised herbed carrots, scalloped potatoes, leek mashed potatoes, tiny half yams big enough for two bites. And they offered Osso Buco, short ribs, sliced pork loin with spiced apple sauce or navy beans, and especially the quiche was good. The best station of all was the crepe station. Allan went back twice. The crepes could be made with ham and spinach, but of course we went for the cherries with raspberry sauce or fruit compote which was exceptional and had tart damson plums in it. And Allan had the flan as well as the creme brule. We would sin here again.

Well since we were on a roll, on Saturday at noon we headed over to another of the top 10 buffets, this one in Planet Hollywood and on the list for its gustatory offerings from around the world. The Spice Market Buffet had a very Las Vegas Entrance and we went through the doorway and down the long escalators to the cashiers before being shown to our table and ordering our traditional ice tea. Our first course of soup was again a disappointment. Only slightly better than at the Le Village Paris Buffet, but still lacking in taste. The salad bar was a little better with the ubiquitous boiled shrimp offering (notice how jaded we are becoming) and a few grilled carrots and garlic cloves that were not given the proper amount of time on the grill and were still raw. However, there was an Italian Antipasto area with some very nice meats and cheeses. As we moved on to the entries, we became a little more excited as this buffet had a few items that we had not seen before. There were the various stations from different countries; Asian, Mexican, Italian, etc., but we made a beeline straight to the Middle Eastern station. Here we loaded up on Tandoori Chicken, Vegetable Curry, Naan, Mango Chutney, Tabouli, Couscous, Hummus, Baked Tomatoes with Lamb Stuffing, Samosas, and Persian Figs. Everything at this station was good and Allan went back for seconds. There was barely enough room on the plate for some of the other offerings from the other stations but Allan managed to find a little room for the Carved Virginia Ham and I helped myself to Tempura Shrimp. The dessert station turned out to have some of the freshest desserts we had encountered so far. Allan had his usual Flan, which he said was as good as the Flan at the Paris Buffet, and also he had the Bread Pudding which was exactly how he likes it, nice and custardy. I noticed a dessert that I used to love and hadn't seen in a long time, Banana Creme Pie. Well, I had to give it a try and it was delicious. The bananas were fresh, the pudding part of the pie was creamy and the whipped topping was not too sweet. Perfect.

Sunday was our last day in Las Vegas and we headed back downtown for one last buffet, this time Cravings at the Mirage. This buffet concentrated on Asian specialties with Chinese Curry Beef, Fresh WonTon Soup, Potstickers, and Dim Sum. The Japanese entries had Sushi of course, plus cucumber rice wine vinegar salad. The salad bar did not have too many selections and a station attendant tossed your selections for you. The carving station was very good with a very tender prime rib. There were many selections of seafood, but because it was Sunday, we did not see the Brazilian Station as it was supplanted with breakfast items. The dessert bar seen to the left did not have the number of options that we had seen over the past few days, but Allan managed to find a Lemon Pie to try. Most everyone, including us, went to the Crepe Bar for dessert but the crepes did not even come close to those made in Le Village at Paris. So after 4 days of gluttony, we have come to the conclusion that our first day was the best overall. We would definitely go back to the Mandelay Bay Buffet again. Le Village at Paris came in a close second and we would return there as well. The last two days were just OK and I doubt that we would go back for a second try. Now, Back To The Diet.

Paddling Convict Lake

2009-09-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

After our successful Mono Lake paddle with Mark and Renita, we decided to take the kayaks and canoe down Hwy 395 to Convict Lake a few days ago. Convict Lake is a small glacial lake with spectacular scenery and brilliant blue water. It got its name from an incident many years ago when some convicts were trying to escape up the creek and murdered Mr. Morrison who was a store owner at the lake and was one of the members of the posse. The creek is now called Convict Creek and the mountain to the south of the lake was named Mount Morrison.

The lake has a small resort and restaurant with cabins and there are camping spaces for those with smaller rv's or tents. There is a small marina where you can launch your own boat or rent a boat to fish in this no-wake lake. We parked our trucks and unloaded the canoe and kayaks in the boat launch area which has been made into a tiny harbor because of the afternoon winds. While Allan and Mark were assembling the outrigger on the canoe, I was putting the paddles together for the kayaks. We loaded up our cameras and lunch and were set to shove off.

We all paddled out further in the lake to take a closer look at the mountains rising up as a backdrop all around the lake. Mark and Renita are in their canoe with Mount Morrison rising up on the left side of the photo, Laurel Mountain barely seen on the right side of the photo, and the Sevehah Cliff in the background with its many spires and indentations. The lake was so still when we first set out that the mountains were perfectly reflected in the water.

At the far end of the lake was a small sandy gravel beach and we all disembarked to stretch our legs and look around. Allan went off to check out Convict Creek hiding in the aspens that lined the wheelchair accessible trail that encircles the entire lake. Mark waded out into the water to check for caddis larvae and determine if the lake was healthy, and it was. While we were resting in the shade of the aspens, I was able to convince Renita to try my Folbot kayak. Mark said he would give Allan's kayak a try also, so they took a short cruise along the far side of the lake. Judging from the smiles on their faces, it looks as if they like the Folbots.

After Mark and Renita came back, we all got back in our respective boats and headed over to the shoreline under Mount Morrison to eat our lunch and then as the wind was starting to gust just a little, we headed back to the boat launch, paddling a little harder than when we first started out. Great weather, great lake, and great friends. Doesn't get any better than that.

Hiking Up Little Lakes Valley

2009-09-27T10:26:00.001-07:00

Between Mammoth Lakes and Bishop, California on Hwy 395, there is a turnoff at Tom's Place on County Road 12. This unassuming road travels west approximately 6 miles to one of the highest elevation trailheads reached by a vehicle in all of the Sierras. The parking area at Mosquito Flat trailhead, elevation 10,300 ft, was full to overflowing with hikers and their dogs setting off up the trail to the many lakes in the Little Lakes Valley. To access the virtual hike of the entire trail all the way up through Morgan Pass, you can go to the following link http://www.rockcreeklake.com/ , click on Hiking, and read #1 Mosquito Flat, clicking HERE at the end of their paragraph.

As Allan and Mark started up the trail, they were surrounded by the end of summer change of color in the aspens covering the sides of the mountains. The weather could not have been more perfect and the sky was clear. As we got further up the trail we encountered Crankcase Grade, the only moderate climb on the trail causing us to stop periodically and catch our breath and giving us a chance to take some photos.

In the next photo, Renita and I are coming up the Grade. You can see Rock Creek in the background.

Near the top of the Grade is the split in the trail. If you go to the right you will travel up the Mono Pass Trail which is considered strenuous and leads over the John Muir Trail ending up at Tuolumne Meadows.

We took the easier trail to the left which continued straight up the valley to the first lake in the chain, Mack Lake. Although this lake is only 1/2 mile from the trailhead, it seemed to be longer because of the climb up Crankcase Grade. But looking down at this first lake nestled under Mount Morgan, it was well worth the effort. According to the internet information there are trout in all of these lakes and we did see some fishermen during the days hike trying their luck.

After continuing along the trail which still seemed to be climbing, we came over the top of a moraine to look down on Marsh Lake, a lovely lake surrounded by grasses and sedges. Although it is one of the smaller lakes in the chain, it is also one of the most beautiful. We walked along a smaller trail around one side of the lake and found a shady site to have our picnic lunch. Allan, Mark, and Renita are all standing on the path along Marsh Lake as we get ready to continue up the Little Lakes Valley.

To get to Heart Lake we had to cross Ruby Creek which was meandering across the meadow before reaching the lake. This was a lake with a shallow sandy beach and was popular with families wading into the water and dogs swimming out to fetch thrown sticks. Mark found a shady site to just sit for a moment and appreciate the scenery.

Our final lake for the day was Box Lake which is one of the biggest of the Little Lakes. We stopped to just sit and listen to the wind rustling a few branches above us and then reluctantly we got to our feet to begin the walk back to the trailhead. It was the perfect scenery to remember the Sierras during the coming winter and it was the perfect sendoff for Mark and Renita who are departing the Sierras this week.

Folbot Kayaking Mono Lake

2009-09-19T16:44:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, we had the perfect day for putting the kayaks into the water of Mono Lake. There was no wind and the lake was glassy smooth, so smooth that just a gentle stroke of the paddle and we were gliding along for minutes at a time. We put in at Navy Beach and with a little adjustment of the outriggers for Mark and Renita's canoe, we were off to explore the Southern edge of Mono. As we were launching our craft, there were thousands of the little black flies that are so important to the ecosystem of this lake, but they were not even interested in us because they are all vegans. They crawl over the rocks and submerged tufa eating the algae that grows underwater. The flies along with the brine shrimp are important food sources for the many birds that come to Mono Lake to nest each year. Osprey use the tufa towers to make their nests and we could see many abandoned nests which will get rehabilitated next season for the next crop of chicks. The California Gull makes the long migration from the coast each year to build their nests on the islands of Mono Lake which is why it is so important to keep the water level high enough so that there is no land bridge from the mainland to be used by predators. In the photo to the left, you can see a lone gull who has not flown back over to the coast yet. He is keeping a watchful eye on the paddlers below. Most of the other gulls had already departed although we were lucky to see about 20 earred grebes that were still in residence as they dived for the brine shrimp that were floating like snowflakes by the thousands in the saline water.

Allan in his yellow Folbot Citibot kayak is gliding along past a tufa tower in the photo to the right and in the photo below left, I am in the teal kayak taking pictures. This is only our 4th outing in the Citibots and we are still working out some kinks that they seem to have. Our previous Folbots were Yukons and we loved everything about them except they were a little too heavy for me to carry and they took up a lot of room in the underneath storage of the RV. The Yukons tracked better in the water and they had a larger cockpit, allowing you to turn around or even stand up if you watched your balance. We could carry more in the Yukons as well and they felt generally more stable. But weight was an issue for us and we used the Folbot Forum to sell the Yukons and we purchased the Citibots this year which only weigh 24 pounds and come in a backpack for easy portability. However the engineering of the frame is not the same as the Yukons. The frame has to slip into one end of the Citibot and then a zipper is employed in the stern to fasten the skin back together. This is not as easy to assemble as the Yukon. Also the seat of the Citibot has not stayed in position as it should and we have had to use velcro tape to make sure it does not fall back into the stern. Both Allan and I have had the seat "fall in" while paddling and it is disconcerting to say the least and almost impossible to get it fixed while in the boat since the cockpit is too small to manuver around much. But on the other hand, I can pick up the whole boat and walk it down to the water by myself and that is a big plus. And it uses only a small amount of space in our RV. I guess there are pros and cons for everything but the end result is that we can get out on the water in beautiful locations with good friends that also appreciate the beauty of the sierras not only seen in the distance and but also in the lakes reflection.

Paddling Mono Lake

2009-09-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

This last weekend we had a visit from our daughter Stacey and son-in-law Pat all the way from Eureka, California. Pat, who backpacks in the Sierras each summer hoped for one last walk in the high country before the long winter set in. On Saturday morning, while Stacey and I were in Mammoth shopping, Allan and Pat took the kayaks to Navy Beach on the shore of Mono Lake to paddle around the tufa towers. Allan is in the photo to the left getting a close look at the tufa. A short prior trip to the ranger station had alerted them them not to go near the osprey nests but there was plenty to see otherwise. Allan mentioned the thousands of brine shrimp swimming below them like snow underwater. And they saw numbers of gulls that hadn't left for the coast yet. Pat is in the kayak to the right paddling in the reflections of clouds that later turned to a five minute rain shower. They finished off their expedition with a great hamburger at the Mono Cone, don't miss it if you are in the area.
The following day we made a picnic lunch and headed up to Virginia Lakes where the aspens were already turning their fall colors. Pat packed his picnic lunch into his day pack and packed up his fly rods to walk even further past Virginia Lake along a fairly level trail to Blue Lake and then cross country up and over a ridge to Moat Lake at 10,573 ft. While he was walking and fishing, Stacey and I tried to capture some of the beauty of Virginia Lake with water color and pastel. Allan walked all around Virginia Lake and Lake Trumbull taking photos for our winter painting. After a while, the three of us had our lunch while watching the other fishermen on the lake catching trout and keeping an eye on the little ground squirrels running around begging for food. We headed back after lunch and Pat returned later in the early evening with plenty of photos of his short trek. This last photo is of Blue Lake with Upper Virginia lake in the far distance. When Pat returned to civilization, we all got together for Polish dogs and chili beans while watching the football game. Stacey and Pat called it an early night as they were getting an early start in the morning to head back to Eureka. We all had a great visit and Allan and I were really glad they took some time to come and hang out with us for a little while.

Walking Saddlebag Lake

2009-09-10T16:41:00.000-07:00

Labor Day we arrived at the Carson Valley Inn RV Park where we spent two nights waiting for our arrival date down in Mono Lake. http://www.cvinn.com/ This park turned out to be just the ticket for a short term stay. It is located in Minden, NV which is just down the road from the Trader Joe's. The RV Park residents can use all of the facilities at the Inn including the pool and spa. Plus there are a couple of restaurants and a casino if you are so inclined. We happened to be there on a Tuesday which is the evening of the Minden farmers market. It was a small market but we were able to get fresh mixed lettuces, plums, and peaches. There were several vendors selling Hot Dogs, Brats, and even Chicken Pies. So we ordered a dog with a beer and listened to the music for a short spell.
On Wednesday we spent the morning doing the laundry and cleaning the inside of the rig before we started the 90 mile drive down to Lee Vining.

The Mono Vista RV Park http://www.leevining.com/ has a strict check-in time of 1:00 p.m. and we did not want to arrive too early. The drive down 395 was absolutely beautiful with some of the trees turning colors already. We checked in and were pleasantly overwhelmed with the scent of the sage and the junipers. It had been too long since we had been here. We spent the afternoon and evening reminiscing about all the great times when we had camped here in the past number of years. Today we headed up Tioga Road to Saddlebag Lake with a picnic lunch and our cameras. Hwy 120 is a steep grade and we travelled up over 2000 ft in about 15 minutes turning off just before the entrance to the Yosemite National Park. The road is gravel and/or paved all the way to the lake as it parallels Lee Vining Creek. There were fishermen stationed all along the creek trying their luck. The weather was warm and sunny and we found a place along the creek to eat our lunch.

When we traveled further up the road we were treated to spectacular views of Saddlebag Lake. Fishermen and women were heading back to their vehicles with strings of trout. Yes, the sign at the right says that we are at 10,087 feet. This is one of the most accessible lakes in the Sierras and there are more lakes just beyond Saddlebag as well. There is a small cafe here at the lake which offers a water taxi service to get to the far side of Saddlebag. From there, you can walk on a series of trails around the other lakes, all easy walking and then you catch the water taxi back in the afternoon. The photo to the right shows some of the boats you can rent and the water taxi at the end of the dock. We are looking forward to coming back and taking the taxi and walking the lake loop trail.

As we headed back down the Tioga Road to Lee Vining we could see the Lee Vining Creek Canyon way down below us. Many years ago we used to camp in the forest service campground along that creek in a tent. Those were great memories but I do not think that I would want to give up our Montana for a tent any longer. What a great day and tonight will be the Steelers vs. the Titans, the football season opener.

An Unlikely RV Park in Likely, California

2009-09-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

When we arrived in Tulelake, the town looked as if it had shriveled up and was ready to be blown away by the winter winds. Everything seemed abandoned and we decided to keep on traveling and look for another spot to rest for the night. The Google Map Search for RV Parks in the area led us to the Likely Place RV & Golf in Likely, CA http://www.likelyplace.com/ which is about 20 miles south of Alturas on 395. We called and reserved a site for the night and were told that when we turn into the park, not to get discouraged if we do not see the golf course or rv park. Instead we will see cows, horses, and other wildlife until we travel 1.5 miles up and over a small hill. Sure enough....there was a lovely rv park and golf course inside of this very large ranch carpeted with wild natural grasslands and small pines. We were assigned a site on a terraced hillside with more sites above us and below us. We checked in at the Golf Clubhouse which housed a small cafe serving breakfast and lunch. There was a lovely covered veranda where you could eat your lunch overlooking the golf course and adjacent to the clubhouse was a large carport where all of the golf carts were located. The manager explained how the old ranch owner used to sit and watch all the rv's heading up and down 395 without any really good parks for them between Reno and Klamath Falls (actually we have not found anything good yet in Klamath Falls either). The ranch owner decided to make some rv spaces and figured the rv'ers would stop if there was some golfing and fishing as well. So he started off with 10 rv spaces and a 3 hole golf course. This has been expanded over the years to a full 18 hole course with terraced hillsides of rv spaces. There is also a walking trail around the entire golf course where you are able to see deer and different varieties of birds. Although the only wildlife that we saw was in the evening as the sun was setting when a covey of quail wandered around by the front door of our rig. Ginger, our cat was sitting outside on the step within 2 feet of them but only gave them a cursory glance, and they did not even notice her. We were very pleased with this park and the rate for the night was only $25. It is only a short 1.5 miles off of 395 and another 1.5 miles inside the ranch and it was a perfect stopover for the night. And for those of you who play golf, well maybe you might want to stay a little longer.

Casey's Riverside RV Park in Westfir, Oregon

2009-09-05T20:51:00.000-07:00

Usually we stay in Tualatin when we want to be near Portland, but this time we decided to stay at the Pheasant Ridge RV Resort in Wilsonville which is just a few exits further south. http://www.pheasantridge.com/ This is a lovely landscaped park on a terraced hillside. They have clean as a whistle restrooms and showers with plenty of hot water and an indoor swimming pool with spa. The prices seemed on a par with other parks with the Good Sam discount and we stayed two nights so that we could do some stocking up at Trader Joes just up the freeway a few exits. The only negative note came when we tried to make the turn out of our site when exiting. Notice the white pole stuck in the ground at the end of the site? I am sure it is there so people do not drive over their grass but it barely gave us enough room to make the turn and we had to back up and try again at a different angle. Plenty of help and advice from all the neighbors and we were on our way.

We headed south through Eugene, turning east at Goshen on Hwy 58 for 30 more miles to Westfir. After we saw the park where we had reservations, we almost did not turn in. There were several very old mobile home perms near the entrance and it did not look too inviting, but we decided it was only for two days so we turned into the driveway and drove on past the mobile homes to the office where we could see that Casey's Riverside RV Park http://www.caseysrvpark.com/ was actually past the office and along the river. And it was beautiful. Many tall trees and flowers everywhere, green lawns all manicured. There was a community barbeque area with a free soft serve ice cream machine. And of course the middle fork of the north fork of the Willamette River rushing along carrying its many fish, according to our new neighbor. Many of our rv neighbors have been staying here for the summer for a number of years. It has great weather and is within driving distance to Eugene for more serious shopping. We are giving it some consideration for one of our stays next summer. We will definitely stay longer next time. Today was rainy all day so Allan made Chili and I worked on my needlepoint in the morning. During the afternoon we just laid around and read our books and napped and then after dinner we got out for a walk with the dogs and met some new neighbors, Bill and Jana, who had traveled to many of the same places that we have been. It is always fun trading traveling stories and locations. And tomorrow we continue east and south to Tule Lake, the land of ducks and horseradish.

Tommy Thompson Trail at Fidalgo Bay RV Resort

2009-09-01T19:38:00.000-07:00

Our last few days in Anacortes were mostly taken up with housekeeping prior to departing, but we did manage to drive down through Whidby Island to Langley where we had lunch, browsed a rare book shop (where the prices were too rare for us), and stopped at the Meerkirk Rhododendron Gardens on our way home. Of course their were no rhodos blooming as it is not the season, but the pathways were fun to explore and we had the whole park to ourselves.
As we prepared to leave Fidalgo Bay RV Resort, I decided that I had been remiss in not getting any photos all month of where we were staying, so the last evening I tried to walk around and get some pics of the place we enjoy so much. Our site is in the back section of the park, where all of the long term rv'ers stay. These sites are less expensive and the monthly rate includes the electricity making them reasonable for long stays. The photo on the right is looking across the tidal flats to the long term sites in the park. The photo is being taken from the forested point of the island where there is a trail that can be taken to walk out to the eastern tip of the island and look across at the refinery. This is an interesting view and although it is true that a couple of times during the month we could smell the refinery, for the most part it was a beautiful site in the evenings with all of its lights lit up and reflecting in the white steam that was released from the stacks.
Most of Fidalgo Bay is a tidal flat and so a causeway was built across from Fidalgo Bay for pedestrians and bikes. It is part of the Tommy Thompson Trail which extends from the part of the island where the refinery is all the way into Anacortes. In several places along this trail, you can stop to pick blackberries or use the restrooms that have been placed periodically. There are also doggie bags and trash cans available. The trail is almost perfectly level and it is used extensively by everyone, young and old.
For all of you rv'ers who like to pay a little more for the front row seats, this is a photo of the bay front sites with the premium prices to match the view. You can see the forested portion of the park behind all of the rigs. This park is not landscaped. It is all in a natural setting with gravel in the parking sites. All watering is done by the clouds.
Today we pulled out of Fidalgo Bay and headed south down to Centralia which is about 20 miles south of Olympia. We stopped at Midway RV Park http://www.midwayrv.net/ This is a nicely landscaped small park with some perms but they all have pretty gardens. A good stopover midway between Anacortes and Portland.

Artist Ridge Trail to Mt. Shuksan

2009-08-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

After calling the forest ranger station up at Mt. Baker to determine visibility for the day, and getting an affirmative for clear and sunny skies, we jumped in the truck and headed back up Hwy 542 to see the mountains without any smoke to interfere with their beauty. On the way up we made a short detour on Glacier Creek Road where Allan was able to photograph the salmon at the end of their run. Many of the large salmon were devoid of any color and lying dead at the sides of the stream but a few were still struggling valiently to swim further upstream.
We continued on up the highway to Picture Lake where we sat in the shadow of Mt Shuksan and ate our lunch. Then we walked the 1/2 mile trail all around the lake helping ourselves to wild blueberries which were growing everywhere. Back in the truck, we continued to climb to the very end of this highway where we parked at Heather Meadows again, but this time we were able to see Mt. Baker in all of his glory. Far below we could see Baker Lake where we had just been the day before. Then we walked out to the end of the Artists Ridge Trail to see Mt. Shuksan one more time. On our way back down from Heather Meadows we stopped at the visitors center to look at Bagley Lakes. Next year we intend to do the walk around the upper and lower lakes. In the photo you can see lower Bagley lake with American Peak in the upper left corner. Outside the picture on the other side of American Peak is Canada Peak and these two peaks are on the US Canadian border just a few airmiles away. This area has turned out to be one of our favorite places and we look forward to returning here next year.