Personal | Cabin Art

A Day of Many Moving Parts

One day I had a bunch of things to juggle, beginning with a “telehealth” appointment. I stared at the landline off and on for 2 hours before giving up.* Rural clinics run by large corporations are bastions of bureaucratic inefficiency and incompetence.

I called a friend who knows people and how to get stuff done. Within an hour, I was at another doctor’s office, and within another hour, I had the promise of a referral that I was seeking. (my feet. . . sigh.) It was a quaint old building with interesting details.

Then I raced to a place where I could get cuttings of myoporum, an easy-to-transplant groundcover. Next, I met the piano tuner at church, and planted some greenery while I waited for Mr. Tuner to do his magic. The two redbud trees that Trail Guy and I planted last fall are in bloom now!

I also fielded a few phone calls and texts. FOUR close friends are dealing with difficult situations right now, and it is good to check in with them (a newly deceased parent, a husband with delicate surgery, a friend with a disruptive cancer diagnosis, a husband with a substance problem). I didn’t talk to all of them, but was alert for any incoming requests for a listening ear or a praying heart. At the same time, I was coordinating with Kaweah Arts Nancy, to deliver merchandise for her opening at the new location. PLUS, I was helping her connect with the piano tuner, because she is also responsible for the Remorial** Building here in town and has an event coming soon that requires a tuned instrument.

The piano got tuned, the calls made, the paintings delivered, and I came home. There was time to admire this dragon arum calla lily. (It seems early this year.)

Too jeezled up to paint any serious details, I sat with lists, canvases, hanging hardware, tools, and stacks of photos, making decisions about what to paint for the Silver City Store in the summer. This is how that process looks. (The jar contains those little moisture absorbing packets that come with each canvas, saved because someone told me they are handy if a cell phone gets wet—may I never need to know this experientially.)

I had made a list of subjects and sizes and ordered canvases for the missing sizes. I pulled out the canvases that were available, and began choosing the right photos, adding hardware and inventory numbers. It was a rough-ish day, so I didn’t trust myself with titles other than the obvious, such as “Sawtooth #49”. I had no idea if that is the right number of times I’ve painted Sawtooth, so I made it up; later I went through my list of Sawtooth paintings and learned there have been 57 other paintings of this iconic Mineral King landmark. (Yes, I changed this one to “Sawtooth #58”.)

I thought the decisions were good ones, but then started doubting some of the sizes and some of the subjects. How many people actually hike to White Chief and then patronize the Silver City Store? Not as many as those who walk on the Nature Trail! So why was I planning two paintings of White Chief and none of the Nature Trail? Recalculating. . .

The next day without time wasted staring at the phone waiting for a phone call that never comes, racing down the hill to a clinic, meeting a piano tuner, transplanting, or coordinating merchandise drop off (but not a day where I don’t check in with dear friends who are on the struggle bus), I hope to finish the details on 3 paintings for the fall show at CACHE, and then begin the first layer on nine new paintings of Mineral King.

Lord willing, the creek, etc. (Read James 4:13-15, if you are so inclined. . .)

*The doc NEVER CALLED, and then the clinic had the audacity to send me a reprimanding letter titled “Missed Appointment Letter”. Believe me, they will be receiving a reply, and I had better not receive a bill!!

**The way our neighbor taught us to say “Memorial” when she was about 9 years old.

Spring in Three Rivers

In the middle of a day of painting, I took a short walk.

Last year at this time, we were preparing for a wedding. I spent a fair amount of time preparing the yard where the wedding was to take place. This year I revisited the site, and the cows remembered me. When they saw I was weeding a little bit, they came to the fence to ask for treats.

These are some of the weeds I pulled to feed the beeves. They could also be considered wildflowers

Since it was a workday, I didn’t linger, but I did enjoy more wildflowers on the stroll back to the easels.

Redbud is actually pink, or magenta, or purplish pink, not red.

Three Rivers

Non-painting Topics: a Mental Ramble

This is a bonus post, because I got up too early this morning and have many non-work-related thoughts. No reason, no point, just sharing a mental ramble…

I just read a memoir (currently my favorite genre) titled “Holy Ghost Girl“. Holy cow, holy guacamole. I believe in the God’s healing power but am very appalled over the mess that these so-called healers make of their lives.

I just listened to a three-part series of sermons by Jack Hibbs on UFOs. Again, all I can say is holy cow and holy guacamole.

These aren’t holy cows. I don’t know what a holy cow actually factually is, other than perhaps the ones that wander the streets of cities in India.

It is raining today, which I hope will prolong the greenery and wildflowers that make March such a fabulously beautiful month in Three Rivers.

The annual studio tour is this weekend. It used to be exclusively a Three Rivers event, happening every 2 years. After it went county-wide, things changed in a manner that caused me to opt out. I hope it is successful for those who are participating, in spite of the rain. I am NOT participating.

This is a fairly outdated image of The Dome, taken as a screenshot from Google Maps.

Kaweah Arts has reopened in the building known as The Dome, 42249 Sierra Drive. I delivered a load of new paintings, along with previously shown paintings, notecards, coloring books, and The Cabins of Wilsonia books, but haven’t been inside the premises yet.

Some dear friends have been through a difficult time recently, so when they said they were bringing lunch over yesterday, we just put everything else aside to enjoy a few hours together on a perfect spring afternoon.

My neuropathy is not from diabetes, chemotherapy, or a back problem. It is time to see a neurologist, not in the Central Valley, and I continue to await the arrival of a referral so I can move onward with this unsolved mystery.

A dear friend has a weird cancer. I hate this. Undoubtedly, she hates it more.

The redbud trees are in bloom in Three Rivers. They look like Chinese tallow, but they are either Western redbud (native), or Eastern redbud (native somewhere else.) Western redbud are shrub-like with many branches originating at ground level; Eastern grow like a tree from a single trunk. Or perhaps Eastern are just pruned that way; maybe Western could be forced into a single trunk tree-like formation. (These are speculations from a sleep-deprived mind.)

Thanks for stopping by.

Watching Deer or Oil Painting?

It’s kind of hard to focus on painting when this is outside the door.

Apparently, I’m not the only creature to appreciate spring in Three Rivers.

This little herd is just one body short of a baseball team. It looks as if this is a deer park, rather than my lawn. Actually, it isn’t even a lawn; we stopped watering it a decade or more ago. Water costs too much here. I love it green, but I’d have to work more and sell more instead of staring at the deer if I wanted to keep it like this through the summer.

Besides, lawn mowers will be outlawed in California in 2025. . . we don’t want to wear ours out if there can be no replacing it. (California is a special kind of stupid.)

We’ll look at the oil painting aspect of my life in the next post.

Three Rivers

Painting on a Rainy Day

On March 1, a Big Storm, nay, a Very Big Blizzard was predicted. I painted that day, of course working on more pieces of Tulare County’s prettiest places.

I just couldn’t leave this one alone. A couple of things were nagging, so in spite of thinking it was finished, I made a few more tiny improvements. Can you see what they are?

AND NOW I SEE SOMETHING ELSE TO FIX!! Sigh. Will this painting ever meet my ever-increasing standards??

The trail painting needed another layer, some corrections, and the wildflowers.

Then, it finally rained. Trail Guy raced out to tell me to come look, hurry hurry hurry. So, I did.

Tucker had diamonds in his fur. The camera didn’t quite capture the magic.

So, I went back to the easel to work on White Chief (Mineral King). First, I redid the sky, then added some refinement to the peak. (You’ll have to wait until you see it in person to appreciate the amount of detail.)

After that, I worked on rocks and grass.

Finally, I worked on the water, bigger rocks, and placed some trunks of trees, doing my best to not arrange them like an orchard. There is an automatic bent to put things the same distance apart; I do it, my drawing students do it, and we all have to remind one another to keep things looking natural and a bit more haphazard. (Of course, if we are trying to make something perfect such as stairs, we cannot make it look right.)

This one is shaping up very nicely. I love White Chief (in Mineral King), and it feels as if I am there when I am painting it (minus the gasping and sweating and tired legs). The trees, more waterworks, and the rocky thingie on the bottom left remain. Then I’ll probably keep polishing and refining, because that’s what I do.

Spring is Short so Enjoy it Now!

Spring is exceedingly short, a beautiful season that could be cut off by a quick few days of heat. Last week in one of my regular posts of watching paint go slowly onto a canvas, I ended the post with a photo of my yard (“the yard”, “our yard”, the place outside of my home, oops, our home and my studio, etc.) and that photo received the comments. I think I can figure out what you, O Blog Reader, wants to see more than watching wet oil paint land on canvas.

Today we will have a spring fling thing.

These tiny blue flowers have the odd name of Speedwell, or Bird’s Eye Speedwell.

Baby-blue-eyes might be my favorite. You have to know where to look for them, and I do. Every year. They are earlier this year than usual.

These tiny bright spots should be called Magenta Maids, but the real name is Red Maids.

Looks like popcorn, but these are actually the bloom on Miner’s Lettuce.

Miner’s Lettuce and Fiddleneck are the earliest wildflowers in Three Rivers.

Last week Blog Reader Anne asked if I ever sit in the white chairs. Indeed I do, and Tucker often joins me.

But then Pippin butts in.

He’s kind of irresistible.

(Jackson isn’t very social nor is he loving or even friendly. He’s fine—Thanks for your concern.)

The flowers behind the white chairs have the unlovely name of “freeway daisies”. When the nursery owner showed them to me about 25 years ago, I said, “Those leaves are hideous so I bet they’ll do well in my yard.” The leaves without the flowers look sort of spiky, but the prolific flowers and easy propagation have overcome any objections on my part, although they do clash in color with the flowering quince. Since the deer don’t eat either of them and they bloom, I can handle a bit of color clashiness.

A few days ago, a dear friend tiptoed up to the front porch and left this incredible pot of tulips. They don’t grow well around here, so they are a HUGE floral treat.

They look electrified in the morning sun!

Just hanging around the tulips caused me to look for other things to photograph in the yard.

This guy is early too. It is profuse in the pots by my studio all summer long.

Finally, I saw this freesia in my not-quite-awakened lawn (the one I let grow tall in the summer so Tucker and I can play hide-and-seek in the grass). How did it get there??

I love spring. LOVE IT!! Especially in Three Rivers.

Three Rivers

Frustrating to Productive, All in One Day

I had a day that began in frustration, feeling as if I was spinning my wheels and wasting precious time. First, I made a big list of what needed to be done on paintings in progress, or what needs to be finished, or what should be started next. Then, I lost the list. So, I did my best to rewrite it from memory.

Next, I decided to see if I could sell my four broken watches on eBay. Sure enough, lots of people sell broken watches. I took photos, then began the process of listing them. I had to try four times, and it still wouldn’t take.

Some had the batteries replaced and stopped working immediately. One has a back that WILL NOT COME OFF. I love that one in front, as much as a person can “love” a thing. Sigh.

I was pretty frustrated, so I went for a walk. On the walk, I came up with a couple of good ideas for the upcoming (next fall) solo show at CACHE in Exeter. Then I encountered a friend walking the opposite direction. She reversed course and accompanied me to my destination. So, it was a good solution although I wasn’t planted in front of the easels.

Eventually, I made it to the easels where I started two new paintings.

Then, I tackled this one, an olive grove. Challenging, to be sure, but also forgiving, because who will say, “Nope, you have that limb in the wrong place!”

That’s what I did one day. It started with frustration and ended with incremental progress, both in the idea and painting departments.

P.S. The listing finally took on eBay AND I planted some tomatoes, ridiculously early.

Ten Things Learned in February

1.Have you ever heard of a leucistic raccoon? I read about it on The Frugal Girl blog in the comments and had to look it up. Leucistic means an abnormal condition of reduced pigmentation affecting various animals (such as birds, mammals, and reptiles) that is marked by overall pale color or patches of reduced coloring”. (But why isn’t it albino??)

2. There is a website with all sorts of information about comfortable shoes for women, recommended according to one’s foot condition. Alas, Barking dogs shoes doesn’t mention neuropathy.

3. While we are on the topic of comfortable shoes, there is a brand I’ve never heard before of shoes with wide toe-boxes. (Have you ever wondered why we squish our toes to a point in shoes? What’s the point?) The brand is Bronax. (I’m still wearing Crocs.)

4. Never let cockleburs get into your hair. NEVER.

5. While wasting time on the internet, I stumbled across this little piece of wisdom. “When you desire, admire, don’t acquire.” It isn’t necessary to own things just because you like them. This is important for those of us who try to keep our possessions to a minimum. I am in that group, because the more I stuff I own, the more stuff breaks (and gets lost).

6. Straw sausages have a weird name: ~~waddles~~ wattles. (Thanks, JC!) (And thanks MB for correcting the spelling)

7. I drive a “three-peddle car“. This charming term came to me from a friend who loves cars, so I am now using it. (Thanks, JR!)

Pencil drawing, “Mineral King From The Bridge”,

8. Theobot is Artificial Intelligence to describe art. I posted a drawing to it, and it came up with 4 paragraphs of flowery gobbledygook. This is one of the paragraphs, and the robot didn’t know to use the article “an” when a word begins with a vowel. It used the word “tranquil” twice in one sentence. (I won’t be using AI for a long time, if ever.) “The background features majestic mountains, their peaks lightly shrouded by clouds or mist, conveying a sense of elevation and the grandeur of a alpine wilderness. The careful shading and attention to detail throughout create a realistic and tranquil scene reminiscent of a tranquil wilderness escape.”

9. A blog reader (Hi Marlena!) told me that Jackson looks as if he might be a Savannah cat. This is a breed I’ve never heard of. I looked it up, and decided that no, more likely he has Bengal in him, because he looks like our former cat Samson. However, Samson was active and liked water, whereas Jackson is fat and grumpy and always hungry.

10. Just for fun, here is a list of about 100 things you can do to boost happiness in your life—The Emotion Machine.com

February’s Last Hurrah

What’s a “last hurrah”? In this case, it is one final look at some of the reasons that February is my favorite month in the foothills of Tulare County (the flatlands too, because the stonefruit orchards begin blooming, along with trees that line parking lots).

The flowering quince color clashes with the freeway daisies, but Jimmie crack corn and I don’t care.

Fiddlenecks are the first wildflowers of spring around here.

Probably a flowering plum (with sorry fruit).

HURRAH FOR FEBRUARY . . . see you same time next year.

Walking in Three Rivers in February

One bright February afternoon, I took a walk in Three Rivers with my friend in Texas. We were on the phone together for the entire 3.5 miles, catching up on many topics, and sending photos back and forth. These are the pictures I sent to her (and a few extras).