Great Sand Dunes Journal, Second Installment

I took a l little trip to NYC Sunday to walk around and see the Kandinsky show at the Guggenheim. It was fun watching the landscape speed by from the train window again. It made me think maybe I hadn't quite finished painting the northeast corridor landscape. The streets of NYC were freezing when we got there, this time of year the sun doesn't get high enough in the sky to be able to penetrate the valleys between the buildings.  The wind, however, manages to race through and chill us to the bone. Once we got to Central Park though, the sun shone on the snow dusted landscape and the wind dispersed, so we decided it was nice enough to continue our walk of the 54 blocks to 88th street.

Kandinsky was great, the Guggenheim is a perfect place to see it. It looked like a big Kandinsky wedding cake, turned inside out.

Anyway, here's the second installment of my Sand Dunes Journal. Hopefully I'll post it all before the holidays, but they do have a way of barreling over everything...

GREAT SAND DUNES NATIONAL PARK
Tuesday, Sept 22

We are lucky that our internal clocks are still on Eastern Standard Time, since we're awake by 5:30 to look out and see the dunes glowing pure white like bone china, the mountains dark behind them. Realizing that this phenomenon will not survive the rising sun we grab our cameras and head down to the road to get an unobstructed view. The sun is already peeking over the Sangre de Cristos and lighting the valley, and as it creeps toward the western end of the dunes the cold white turns to frosty ochre. The mountain's shadow contracts and the highest dunes reflect the pale morning sun with rosy glow.

It's chilly so we keep moving while we watch and I turn to the east to scan the plains. A few hundred yards off I see a pair of elk, shy of us despite their distance.

We stay until the dunes are almost fully lit then return to the apartment for breakfast before heading down to the Visitor's Center to check the forecast. It predicts a chilly, windy day, so a hike to Revelation Point seems like a good way to take advantage of cool climbing temperatures without the danger of sandblasting.
CONTINUE READING....

The business of painting, hold the paint...

I was hoping to have my next installment of my Great Dunes journal by the next time I posted, and it's close, but not done yet. Sorry to keep you in suspense (as you say—oh, there's more?) But, if they're not literary masterpieces, it's still good for me to labor over them. I did write down my impressions every day while out there, but in trying to make something of it, and going over it again and again, it really helps me sort out the experience and remember my residencies more richly.

I got an email this week from the latest residency I've applied for — Denali National Park— but was afraid to click on it, being at work and all, and not wanting to switch my mood from stupefaction to disappointment. But it was just a notification that I'll hear in the next few weeks, so there's still hope!

Meanwhile I've been working on a video for my upcoming show at the Bert Gallery in January. They've been filming interviews with the artists to go along with their recent shows, and the thought of having to go on about my work in front of a camera made me immediately volunteer to work with my husband (a filmmaker) to come up with a little video that hopefully will be more interesting than my talking head. So we returned to the shoemaker's shop and took some shots, and will film in my studio, and perhaps I can edit it together in something approaching a coherent piece.

Some of the pressure is off for now though. I found out I misunderstood about the Providence Art Window gig, the letter asked if I COULD install by December, it didn't say I would be SCHEDULED  to install in December.  So it's still on, but sometime in the future...and out of my head for now, where it's safer.
I am in a holiday show at Imago gallery in Warren though. I submitted these 3 little paintings of the Badlands National Park, so stop by their lovely new gallery if you get a chance.
My pieces are recession priced...such a bargain! Warren was hopping last weekend when I went, too. Granted it was the lighting festival, but it really is getting to be a very arty scene there, and it will look so festive with the colored (not snooty white) lights strung across Main St.

Great Sand Dunes Journal, First Installment

I'm finally getting around to posting the first part of my artist in residence journal. More is coming soon, just as soon as I can finish typing it out and adding some photos. See the first two days here...

GREAT SAND DUNES NATIONAL PARK
Sunday, Sept. 20
By the time we make our way through the mountains and into the enormous San Luis Valley there is no light left in the sky or on the road. Our headlights cut through the night to reveal only 50 feet of dead-straight asphalt, a few deer in the scrub by the side of the road, and the occasional kangaroo rat hopping to safety just in front of our tires. CONTINUE READING...

Winter mountain

I'm sick. Again. Seems like it's been every few weeks lately, but as long as it's not the swinely variety I will survive. It's frustrating though to have all day at home and not have the energy to get into the studio. I'm going to post a link to my Great Dunes page on my website soon, but for now, another found painting.

The wave

I was cleaning my studio this week and came across a few paintings on paper that I had forgotten that I did, so I'll post this one while I'm finishing up some other work.

Discovering Cindy Tower

In my random time-wasting/procrastinating/web browsing I stumbled upon this great site that has video of interviews and studio visits with artists that are really well done and not nearly as pretentious as some I've watched where either the videographer can't get out of his own way, or the artist is deified to a laughable degree.

The video above is about a fascinating artist - Cindy Tower - I'd never heard of, but plan to find out more about. I want to go paint with her! Enjoy...

The more you think about it, the more sense it makes.

On painting...

"The only thing to do is to do what you are going to do the way you would have liked to have done it."
—— Arthur Dove 1931