Category: Thoughts

Things I’m learning in Artworld.

There isn’t much to report on the Mineral King Road. Work is in progress, but there are People in Charge Who Make Important Decisions, and we are the little people not in charge, awaiting those decisions.

Meanwhile, I am in a holding pattern. Do I continue to draw and paint, without places to sell, building up a large body of work? Or do I just go pull more weeds?

There is a show coming, but it is a Long Way Off (that’s how I am thinking of the show, capitalized, titled “Long Way Off”). I have been thinking, planning, digging through photos, wondering if there is a way to rework unsold pieces, or if I should just paint over the top, wondering if there are too many repetitious subjects, wondering if I am clever and creative enough to paint new subjects that people might want, or if I am clever and creative enough to jazz up the unsold pieces for Long Way Off.

In order to decide what to paint, I chose the subjects, then looked through my existing paintings to see what sizes were already done. I went through my numerous files of photos, and chose ones that stood out. I don’t know why they stood out, but I just went with my gut instinct.

The categories are ag, the lake, the river, hills, Mineral King, Sequoia, trees, Hume Lake, Balch Park, Yokohl, and of course, citrus with foothills and mountains. In other words, everything I love about Tulare County (plus Hume Lake in Fresno County). In more other words, places I frequent, not too far away, close and close-ish to home, places I know.

There is plenty of time to figure this out. For all I know, the Long Way Off show might decide that I am passé, a has-been, and cancel the show.

I am not worried, simply curious about what might be next for my ever-changing art business.

Now I think I’ll go pull some more weeds.

Drawing and Thinking

The business of art is fickle, always changing. An artist can just make whatever she feels like making and hope it sells. However, if an artist wants to earn a living, she needs to pay attention to the ever-changing world of what people want, what they can afford. She also needs to pay attention to selling opportunities, another ever-changing set of circumstances.

For a handful of years, there have been three places that sell steadily for me. One was next to a popular restaurant, which has now closed, diminishing foot traffic by the gallery. Another is a seasonal store in the mountains, and it most likely will be unable to open this year due to a ruined road. The third is in a building which recently changed hands, the lease will expire so things will go month-to-month, and with Sequoia National Park being closed so long, the traffic in town has diminished tremendously.

This may or may not be connected, but I have no commissions.

The murals which I thought were in the bag have fallen into indecision on the part of the customers.

So, I am drawing simply because I want to.

I will continue to think, and continue to share my thoughts.

Dangerous and Expensive Gardening

This is a bit incomprehensible to me, but I paid for dirt. PAID. MONEY.

After spending some time with my amazing gardener friend, I learned so much. I have dirt; she has SOIL. We live a mile apart, but our gardening quality is about 1000 miles apart. So, I learned about her SOIL: it is called “nitro mulch” and it costs $50/cubic yard. The nursery delivers for a fee, so I bought some.

She also taught me about something called Milorganite. It is a slow release fertilizer. I bought some of it too.

Finally, she taught me about something called Deer Out, a concentrate that you mix with water and spray on everything that deer might eat. It isn’t poisonous, it is water repellent, and the deer hate it.

I spend a morning pruning, weeding, transplanting, fertilizing, and spreading mulch, because THIS WILL FINALLY BE THE YEAR AT LEAST PART OF MY YARD LOOKS GOOD FOR LONGER THAN THE 15 MINUTES OF SPRINGTIME!

Excuse me for shouting. I am pretty excited about the possibility of keeping flowers blooming.

When I was finished and gathering my tools, I heard a sprinkler. We don’t have sprinklers that sound like that. I followed my ears and found Pippin far too interested in a shrub that sounded as if there was a sprinkler inside of it.

Trail Guy was off being Road Guy (working on the Mineral King road, more to follow in another blog post when I actually have something to report). I called my neighbor, who has killed many rattlesnakes for me.

This rattlesnake was far far under a compact shrub THAT WAS IN FULL BLOOM. Neighbor had to do a fair amount of hacking to even be able to see the buzzworm. I kept the cats away, and hung around in case my help was needed. At one point I used a pitchfork to pry the shrub up so that Neighbor could reach in with a shovel and drag the beast out where he could finish the job.

A friend texted me a photo of a rattler he encountered on a recent hike. I texted him back that Neighbor had just sent one from my yard to hell. The friend replied that snakes don’t go to hell because they lack souls; instead, they are from hell.

I’d rather have a hacked up shrub than a living snake.

Gives me the shivers thinking about it. Let’s just calm our nerves with some photos of the better parts of that dangerous and expensive hobby of gardening, shall we?

Tucker wasn’t around for the snake action. Jackson was, and I had to shout him away from it. The cats are excellent about letting us know when there are snakes, but then we have to be excellent at keeping them away.

Some day I may have to do my own dispatching of snakes. This one took extraordinary skill, strength and determination, and if it wasn’t for Neighbor, I just don’t know what I would have done.

Six Garden Meanderings

Apparently I haven’t gone back to work yet. But I am throughly enjoying late springtime in Three Rivers.

I looked up online why garlic bulbs grow too small and the reasons are legion. Planting too close together, too early, too late, too shallow, too deep, beginning with small cloves, not weeding enough, and the most likely: poor soil.
The roses are getting tired.
The bugs are eating the basil in some places and not in others. Good thing someone taught me about rooting cuttings in water so I haven’t completely wasted my money buying these plants.
I am determined to get these cuttings of myoporum rooted so I can plant this hardy groundcover in a rough area of our church grounds.
You are curious about the porch plants that showed up with the cats last week? They are called “Queen’s Tears”.
This is the pile of rocks that I helped move the other day. Maybe I’ll go back to work soon.

Three Rivers

Six Meanderings

Tulare County roads department is supposed to finish making the lower part of the Mineral King Road passable this week. Whether or not it will be open to the public is not known.
When it is hot, the cats lie on the concrete of the front porch.
Front to back: Pippin, Jackson (whose tail is always up), Tucker.
When the heat backs off a bit, I hope to return to this painting. Yeah, yeah, I could use the swamp cooler, but you may have noticed that I’d rather be gardening. When I actually do work on it, you will get to see some photos.
This place has the most beautiful views of Moro Rock and Alta Peak.
6. So does this place:

It is good to live in Tulare County this time of year (but remember, you don’t want to move here because often we have terrible air, we are all fat and undereducated, and there is no Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods.)

Drawing For Fun

A friend of mine drives for Sequoia Sightseeing Tours.* He had some passengers from Michigan and learned that one is an artist. So, he told her about me. Because people can’t get to Sequoia through Three Rivers right now (wrecked roads from winter floods), they sometimes don’t know how to spend their time. My friend suggested they visit my studio (not open to the public but open by appointment.)

He called to ask permission to give them my contact information. I said yes, then I vacuumed the studio, made sure things were put away, and hung out the flag.

I thought that it might be fun for them to see a piece in progress, so I opened up my flat file drawer labeled “In Progress” (Captain Obvious here) and pulled out a drawing that I started so long ago that I can’t remember when or why. I think it had something to do with drawing for fun.

I began working on it, realizing that I draw for money, not for fun. This is because:(1) if I drew for fun, there wouldn’t be as much time to do other fun things; (2) if I didn’t draw for money, I’d have to get a job; (3) if I drew for fun, those flat files would be so full that they wouldn’t open; (4) if I drew for fun, I wouldn’t have paintings to sell, only drawings; (5) if I drew for fun, I’d end up putting a ton of money into framing, and where would that money come from since I wouldn’t be drawing for money?

This is from a photo taken in 1997 and used to draw the little picture you see next to it. It is the light, shadow and detail that appeal to me. (This drawing was on the back cover of the dust jacket for The Cabins of Mineral King, by me and Jane Coughran, published in 1998, long since sold out.)

I looked up from the drawing and saw this out the window.

Back to the drawing board.

In spite of listening to an interesting podcast, I almost fell asleep at the drawing table. That’s because I got up really early to go walking. I’ll show you tomorrow.

P.S. The people didn’t call. Maybe they fell asleep.

*If you take a tour with Sequoia Sightseeing, ask for Steven. He is terrific!

Maintaining

Workwise, I have a whole lotta nothin’ to share. Any day now, I could get a green light to begin on some murals (when it is too hot to paint, thanks, all you decision makers). So, I am enjoying the free time to continue yardening, meet with an old friend, help out on a church project, and unfortunately, deal with an insurance claim.

These iris love wet feet. They are not natives but are domestic flowers that have escaped someone’s yard and established themselves in this seasonal drainage on one of my walking routes.

Yes, we love red, white, and blue around here.

Only one of my favorite dutch iris bloomed here.

But then look what showed up by the studio!

The lavender is abundant, luxurious, extravagant, and if I had my thesaurus handy, I’d keep going.

Remember when I showed you some pistachio trees mostly submerged along the highway? (Scroll to the bottom of that linked post to see the picture). Part of the grove got planted in a seasonal lake, which filled up this spring and the pump couldn’t keep up. Those submerged trees drowned.

Morning sun is so beautiful on our surrounding hills.

While sitting at The Fourway (that’s what we call a main intersection, because it used to be the only stoplight between our rural areas and the county seat; now there is one more, but we call it “Spruce” because that is its name) WHERE WAS I? At the Fourway, waiting for the light, amused by the message on the back of the pickup ahead.

On my way home, I stopped for gas at a super busy little place along Highway 198. Been there before, no problem. This time, a problem. Sigh. Poor Fernando. The guy in the huge pickup who backed into me was watching out the other side. It rocked the car as I was waiting to pull out onto the busy frontage road. I was afraid to get out and look, but he signaled to me that it was small damage. He was a gentleman, instructed me to take photos of things, including his insurance coverage and registration. Then when I got home, I learned that he had already called the insurance company (we have the same one, which helps.)

With 247,000 miles, should I get this repaired? Should I start looking for another car? (Not because of a little bumper divot, but because of the high number of miles, and the catalytic converter on the edge) How does one find a manual transmission? How does one find a simple car with a manual transmission? (Only Honda or Toyota need apply, because of Mark and Foreign Auto in Visalia.)

Life is a series of decisions and choices. (My very wise dad used to say that, causing me to roll my eyes, and now I fully agree.) Life is also about maintenance.

I will try to maintain here.

Thoughts About Life in Three Rivers

Thoughts About Life in Three Rivers was my first thought for a title. Perhaps a more accurate title would be “Thoughts About Life in Rural California.” Or simply “Life in California”. Or even “Life in These United States”.

Last week at 12:30 AM the power went out. Trail Guy made coffee that morning using our campstove, a logical and competent move.

After a few hours, we decided it would be prudent to hook the refrigerator and freezer to the generator, since these unexplained power outages can go on for hours. This is a little Honda generator, very efficient, lightweight, easy to start; we bought it last summer just for circumstances such as this.

The new generator wouldn’t start.

(That’s a topic for another conversation.)

Around 9 AM the power came back on, but the situation brought home the uncomfortable truth that we rely heavily on electricity, which is becoming less reliable.

Our landline phones used to work without electricity until they became fancy cordless phones; now they are being replaced by cellphones which often rely on wifi due to spotty cell coverage, and the wifi relies on electricity.
Same situation for texting, which relies on cellphones, which rely on electricity to recharge
We communicate via email, which relies on computers, which need electricity to charge. And those computers rely on wifi which needs electricity.
The state badmouths normal cars, telling us to get electric vehicles. Then they tell us to not charge the vehicles.
Homes aren’t supposed to be built with natural gas anymore, and some states are outlawing gas stoves, pushing electric stoves.
Gas-powered chainsaws, leaf blowers, lawnmowers and other tools are being replaced by electric tools; the batteries to run those tools need electricity to be recharged.

We are told to switch to electric everything at the same time less electricity is being generated.

The three power plants in Three Rivers aren’t generating very often (one is kaput); water is now considered a “non-renewable resource” for generating electricity.

A year ago, a big freeze in Texas proved that those windmills and solar are not reliable.

Solar panels don’t get enough sunshine when we have overcast days or wildfires.

The more “gentle” the generation of power, the more resources those items require to be built and to run.

Windmills kill enormous numbers of birds; the ones in the Atlantic ocean are killing whales. Solar panels and batteries use precious minerals, mined in terrible conditions by horribly abused people. Disposing of those batteries puts toxic stuff in the landfills.

All this is supposed to be “saving the planet”? Do these people not understand how electricity is generated or what the downside to all the alternatives are?

Where is the logic in this push to use electricity, while at the same time we are generating less?

Something is happening to common sense, and it is not an improvement.

Cowboy logic is endangered.

P.S. My opinion is not about politics: it is based on logic and reality. The poor decisions of the lawmakers are not based on logic and reality but based on what benefits the lawmakers, what looks or sounds good to the lobbyists, the media, and giant blocks of low-information voters.

Happy Birthday, Ann! (stay in Florida)

california Three Rivers