After finishing up a series of twenty paintings, the old group of paintings have merged into a larger more recent group of works. What I have learned through teaching painting and through moving into projects out of my comfort zone,  is to enjoy the process even more and go where the impulse takes me.
I have learned to push through that point where the confidence of my skills gets lost in venturing from what is comfortable.

Some things that have changed recently is the enjoyment of thick areas of paint, my older paintings tend to have smooth layers of paint and in my new stuff, the paint sometimes moves across the canvas from a clump of paint right from the tube. It is almost like I am doing palette knife painting without the palette knife. The movement from the inspiration to the actual finished piece is getting faster and more spontaneous. I am jumping into the night scenery and the water inspirations from previous with an excitement and a new found knowledge of my medium and subject matter.

I’m caring much less about the realism of colors, not so much of form but of colors, I’m much more interested in the overall effect. I have different techniques that I am using that I haven’t tried before and my sense of exploration is growing daily. Another aspect of change I am experiencing is the feeling of perspective-I’m capturing images from different vantage points, this idea includes a painting of the ocean from a birds eye view and the view up a tree looking at blackbirds or the stars at night. I am increasingly attempting to change my vantage point of the viewer and the standard traditional view of a landscape is being altered.

I have always wanted to perfect the landscape as realistic as possible, now that I have gotten to a point of realism that suits my overall vision it is finally time to adjust the viewers perspective. I am venturing somewhere between realism and impressionism and finally to the point of surrealism.

I am also working on poetry that suits the paintings-from this standpoint I am excited about the idea of
an inspiration being registered through words and images. I hope that landscapes can illustrate feelings and emotional responses and feelings and emotional responses can be illustrated through words.

I am in the process of getting the most recent series of twenty out to the website, I will have a new series page. I am also learning more about flash and intend on having more interactive options to the website. One of the many added options is a small but very interactive gallery, where all of the paintings on the wall you can link to either the website or a larger version of the painting. The discipline of the scripting has been very grounding for me. It’s amazing how you can learn one small aspect of a program and that small aspect can lend itself to more options. Yesterday I created a skeleton of the gallery and working with flash, I was able to move the viewer through the gallery and to other scenes in the gallery, honestly it will be a while before this will be live but I am in the process of perfecting the movements and positioning of the veiwer to start.

In the studio, the twenty paintings that have gone live have been replaced with an additional fifteen paintings that are waiting to be completed or finalized. I hope to have the new page on the website before they go live on the blog so stay tuned. The water scene above is the start of the surrealistic change of perspective. Another image below is the start of several night scenes that are still in the stage of being painted.

I was just going through old stuff, getting the spring cleaning itch I guess and I discovered an old box of treasured keepsakes. The contents of the box was a sales associate tag from a first job, letters from close friends and matches from various bars. I don’t like the fact that at one point this collection meant so much to me but now its nothing more than garbage only escaping the trash because it had been hidden under debris for so long. Here is my dilemma, when in life do collections of things lose their worth? For me, I believe its the dreams and aspirations that mean much to the younger person but as we get older other more important tangible aspects of our lives push the urge to collect the trivial things in our lives to small boxes we lose or tuck away.

I want to collect things again, things about now, about the places I go and the people and things I see. I think as children we are so excited about life and possibilities and experiences we tend to collect remnants, keeping a piece of our memories that we can go to again and relive. I used to photograph everything, I have photo albums filled with pix of my life from when I was ten to probably my early thirties. We shoot pictures, collect things, we are excited about our lives and the possibilities and somewhere along the line we lose that desire to maintain keepsakes. Time and people pass through so quickly and we don’t have a chance to stop and capture moments never mind trinkets.

I think my turning point was the end of my marriage. I look at a garage almost like a beach where all the belongings of your life wash ashore. All of the objects in your life seem familiar but they tend to blend in with the dust and the memory becomes so obscure you lose the need to maintain your collection. Another aspect of your belongings is the move from one life to another, you tend to see your
collectables as more weight that you have to carry and less like the fond memory. Boxes of stuff flood into the garage, whatever you can carry gets gathered into your vehicle and by the time you get to the next destination all you know is the objects of memory are just clutter in your life.

So now I am in the process of cleaning the slate, discarding remnants of my life that don’t lend themselves to my future. I want to start collecting small objects, I have seen artists that tack things up in their studio and my studio is filled with notes and unfinished works. I don’t collect tactile stuff, stuff to inspire me to write or paint and I think I am missing a great aspect of the artistic experience. I know when the child becomes the adult, we lose much of what was important, much of what made us children we stop wasting time and interest for. Although I realize that every part in our lives, we gain and lose stuff, I feel the artist and the poet must keep the child that sees things as only a child can see alive somewhere. Something breaks in us, some piece of us that finds joy in insignificant things but I do believe this is where the artist lives and those pieces of youth must be preserved.

I have taken the artist way class and I know much of what the course is about is getting back to ourselves, getting to know ourselves again, I am eager to get back to the eye of an artist that is excited about sunsets and nature, the collector, the child that was passionate about life. I plan on starting a box today, I can hardly wait to see what piece of my life is the first to find its way into my box of treasures-I plan on keeping it small and simple so it never becomes the weight I can’t carry but important and of substance that it doesn’t get lost in the debris and thrown away during another one of my spring cleaning jags.

So what would you keep in a box of memories? What do you collect? What objects would fill your box and why? Would love if even just the followers might comment and explain their boxes that they would create.

I have just released twenty new paintings,  I say new but they’ve been hanging around waiting to be finalized for several years, now after finishing the final touches on the twenty and putting them into the blog and out on the website-still working on that. It’s kind of unnerving to go back to the studio with all the remaining paintings in varying degrees of progress. How do I keep the momentum and how do I avoid cookie cutter finalizing-there are so many varied ideas in all different states.

I think the first task is discipline, just showing up and attempting to paint when there really isn’t much floating around at the moment. I start one oil, put that aside do some finalizing on another and than mess with a large pastel, suddenly I am back in the process of painting. It’s a state where you don’t really recognize what you are working on, everything kind of blurs and you go into a zone where you know where each blob of paint goes and what needs to be highlighted and what needs to be left alone. During the process I can’t really fully see what I am in the middle of-it is only after observing the image afterwards that the detail and the specifics become more apparent.

Today I reconvened a pastel of two light posts reflecting in a park pond. It is a large image and therefore hopefully a dramatic image. I am excited about the fact that the colors are just kind of flying across the page-darkness isn’t black, it is reds and blues and even browns but each element of the scene must heighten the effect of the light, the colors become dark but only by touching the areas of light do they take on their final colors and the working up of the darkness is more complicated than you would think. I used to blur pastels, even using the whole palm of my hand to rub the hues but now I much prefer working up the colors slowly. I don’t even mind the movement and the changes of colors that the layering effects, it adds to the depth and creates darkness that is not opaque but more transparent. The viewer sees all the colors and how they react, they  don’t consciously realize the colors but the glowing of the light makes the process secondary which heightens the effect of the light. This particular image will be cold and dark with a great accent of light. I plan on doing more night scenes for this series.

Another night scene I am just starting to work on and started the underpainting today, its a view of Lake Ray Hubbard, an actual recent view with all the lights reflecting on the water. I have attempted this image  before but always tend to lose the lights and colors too much turning a night scene into more of a dark image that misses the vibrance of the colors. In this case there are several images in the scene that are lit up and stand out-one image is a steeple in the nearby town, it is a small intimate image that allows the light to tell a story and street light to illustrate a town at night. I am striving more lately to have some sort of story behind the painting, some of the stories are real and actually happened but others are more poetic snapshots of some time and place that didn’t necessarily happen but the viewer has the ability to create his or her own story from the elements in the painting.

I am finishing up a second swallow image as well-it is an image of swallows and passionvine under a bridge. I am enjoying the freedom of this new series and feel the previous series is a pathway toward the work I’m doing now. If the previous series was an introduction of looking at the landscape from a different perspective and adding a story and figures of people that add to the imagery without taking away the basic element of the landscape. This new series will take up where the previous ended with  more experimentation, more blobs of color and richness of light and darkness. I have given up the safety of the landscape I know and have welcomed the idea of adding elements and perspectives I haven’t explored previously.

One particular change in perspective is looking straight up a large oak tree-the blackness of the tree takes you into a cloudy sky and the sillouettes of the blackbirds fill in the image almost as if there were fingers reaching into the clouds. I want the viewer to follow the branches into the sky and almost become lost in the branches of the trees in a sense becoming a part of the tree. The blackbirds will be  haunting and dramatic against the soft cloud filled sky.

The momentum has picked back up quite quickly and I feel I have many exciting elements to explore in this new series. I can’t wait to process and debut the new images, these will be more fresh and spontaneous than previous and the ideas I hope will be of recent and updated images. I will keep you posted and would love any comments on the previous images and the new ones coming up.

After several years of painting, stagnating, painting and more procrastination-I finally have a new series of paintings coming out. They will be up on the website shortly with more information about each. I will give a brief explanation of the images and hopefully you will see there is a thread that kind of connects the images-nothing particular as far as a common theme but more of an idea of telling something of a story.

These paintings are experiments, waterfall series and overall explorations of color and form. I look at them more of a starting point for a larger series that is in the works. This next series will be more with a bit of an edge or theme and the reason will be that the ideas and images are fresh. This prequel to the series is more like an introduction to taking chances and exploring without the fear of any failure.

The subject matter is different, there are people in the works, there are structures and more wildlife, this is the beginning of jumping into the exploration of anything from portraiture to wildlife. The images tell a story that is not necessarily happy and serene and that’s the idea-I really didn’t think first of how peaceful or beautiful-it’s more the idea of how it feels to be there.

I am also working on perfecting the water-the different aspects of it-from the clarity to the opaque surface that only reflects and hides the bottom. I hope the viewer will be taken places with temperatures and emotions to enjoy in each place.

This painting is of Navarre Beach Florida-the original idea is from five years ago, the first time we stayed in a condo overlooking the ocean. It is a bit of an exaggeration of the light and the colors in a moonscape. I hope the viewer can imagine standing on the deck looking out across the ocean-an intimate moment with the moon. This oil painting progressed slowly and was only finished just recently with some accents of light.

The next painting on the right started with the sky, it stayed just a sky for several years probably. The beachcombers were always intended to be there but they didn’t materialize until long after the original sky was created. This painting brings a bit of the happiness of the ocean but also a little bit of the loneliness of a single parent-her face is barely discernible and I hope you can tell she is pensive while playing with her son in the waves. The waves and the sky are also both less detailed than previous works allowing the imagination to fill in much of the gap of the details. I wanted to feel the depth and get the feeling of cold windy day and let the viewer fill in the rest with their imagination.

The blackbirds on the left is an image I have seen on numerous occasions and am still perfecting, call it just an intro to the blackbirds, a larger scene which will have much more details of the purple grackles and their shimmering purple and black feathers. I have several sketches of the blackbirds a sunset, early evening and splashing in a puddle. The image on the left is of a coming storm. Blackbirds are a recurring theme in much of my poetry and writing-they are symbolic of darkness and impending sadness or regret. They also create a mood of sadness or violence.

The pastel to the right is of a park in Wylie Texas-it is called the dragonflies-you can’t really notice the dragonflies in the image but they are in the sky around the trees. This image was from after a storm during a the football practice four years ago-again the image stayed in the sketch form-I still don’t believe it’s finished as the dragonflies need more of a presence-The light captured my rendering more than the dragonflies and the image became more the storm and the tree than the focus on the dragonflies. For a future image I plan on having several large dragonflies with brightly colored wings and the storm is more muted and blurred in the distance. I will probably finish this image with oil paint to allow for more detail with the dragonflies.

The oil painting on the left started out with an orange sky and cool blue water, it was loosely based on an image of the highway coming home during sunset and originally inspired by a early morning at the oil rigs fishing with my oldest son. This image was inspired attleast twelve years ago when we went fishing in Galveston, I think it’s incredible how long the ideas stay before they actually become reality, it’s just a very long process and I’m not sure if they perfect themselves over time or maybe they allow themselves with my skill level or strengthening of my observations in nature. Either way, it is a long process and a very interesting process of becoming a finished painting from just a fleeting idea.

The pastel of the cars in the city was an
image of the rain which I have never
quite perfected. The blues and the dark reflections is how the rain becomes a mirror. I envisioned this probably twenty years ago and I
have many sketches, I still have not perfected the idea but the basic flow and the feeling of the city I believe is a great start. I am working on creating more images of water that are not actually just lakes or oceans, the way water reflect the sky at night or in the rain. Other options that I am pursuing is a night scene of a fountain-all ideas of water and its many different appearances in unique places. In the past I wouldn’t have pursued the car-it wasn’t where my skill set was but more the idea than the perfection of its individual pieces. I believe the overall idea supercedes the flaws of rendering.

This whole series I wanted to have fun with whatever object I introduced, not bogged down by details. I wanted to attempt to capture the images that have been sketched out and waiting to be finalized for many  years. I feel I have accomplished the flow and the light and hues that bring emotion and temperature to the standard landscape.

The waterfall oil painting is of Petit Jean, this is the start of a collection of waterfalls including Turner falls in Oklahoma. This is the first image I started and it was after teaching a student how to paint water, rocks and reflections that I was able to work with the details and perfect the reflective nature of water in my own painting. I believe this mini series of waterfalls will have probably five new paintings from across the country from trips I took with my son-this one is from a spring break trip to Arkansas.
The next idea will also be the caves that we observed which I think will complement the images of the waterfalls.

This is an image where the water is dark and the mirror blocks out the bottom, something I normally capture in most of my water scenes. In this image the reflection made the water surface completely opaque. More time was spent on the rocks than anything else in this image.

This oil painting is of a killdeer, I have envisioned this image for many years and just recently began sketching it. There is supposed to be a bit of darkness in the coming storm. I still haven’t decided if the bird needs to be more of a sillouette but it is an image that is still in the works. I also captured the whisps of the water in the background catching the last bit of light.

I don’t do a lot of wildlife but am in the process of trying to capture more as they are appropriate in specific scenes. This image is supposed to be a golf course and the storm is looming in the distance.

Continuing with the wildlife theme, the swallows on the left capture that moment before a storm, the awkwardness of a chance meeting between two male swallows. I have started a series of swallow paintings, this is the first that I’ve finished. The painting hung on the wall for a year before being completed recently.
I blurred out the distance and introduced the fog that captured an image of a late afternoon fog and the communication between the two birds is the main focus instead of the background.
I left much of the background with less detail again so the viewer can fill in the details with their imagination.

The sail boat is an oil painting, it began as the sky and the light in the distance. It was an image of Lake Ray Hubbard in Rowlett, Texas. It started more light and pale and as I finished it up I ended up darkening the foreground and the boat hoping to focus more on the light breaking through the clouds. I left much of the detail to the viewers imagination-another image I tried to leave a bit less overworked.

The next painting below is a sunset image of a clearing not far from my house. The image began as just the trees and kind of stalled in the water. I like the idea, the initial light and color but the water just seemed to end abruptly, again it’s amazing how a painting can seem unfinished and it not actually be missing anything but accents of light, the boat on the left was an afterthought to strengthen the idea of perspective and distance, the image below seemed to be finished when I simply detailed the trees and made the light in the foreground become its own element-I thought any image in the foreground would detract from the light instead of focus the eye-I hope this image comes across
somewhat raw and appearing as if there’s a power of light
piercing through the dark trees.

This image was originally just the sunset sky, I saw it while my son and I walked the bridge in Rowlett-it was seven years ago or so and the image just sat there unfinished for six or so years before finally adding some people in the foreground and a person in the background. The image really focuses more on the sunset and the sky was what I saw that day we walked the bridge. The people are really for scale and distance and only to complement the sunset sky.

The oil painting on the left is an image of Wylie originally, just the moon and the waters of Lake Ray Hubbard, I have seen the sunflowers for many years and have made mental notes on many ocassions, I have several very detailed sketches of the big trees and the many wild sunflowers that grew in that area. I also have an image of the same field in the darkness and starkness of winter with a torn up turf ground and the blackbirds flying through the field. the girl was an afterthought but I wanted you to not be able to see her face, she is almost like a ghost in the scene and you can’t tell if she is pensive, sad or just emotionless. I really focused on the rich blues and violets that fill the shadows around the sunflowers, the garden is supposed to be more dramatic and vibrant with just a calm pastoral feel of the lake and the moon in the distance. This painting took probably two years to perfect.

I would consider the meadow on the left to be more of a study. It started out as just the flowers and the woods in the distance. I was attempting to capture depth in a small painting, the flowers give you the detail to realize depth and the field in the distance is the late fall as the trees are losing their colors. This painting sat on the wall for a year before finally finishing up the final details.

The pastel of the umbrellas are from an image I caught at work, there were two people walking in the rain and it was quite recent. It is a very quick sketch and another way of looking at water. I wanted the umbrellas to capture the coolness of the rain, each person is turned away from each other showing how we are all very isolated. I still plan on working more on an image similar to this but I felt like this captured the general idea because of its simplicity and the space between them that alludes to the loneliness and the coldness of the rain, the umbrellas brighten up the scene as a complement the coldness of the scene.

This scene is from Uncertain Texas, when my son was just two or three we watched the fireworks, the sketch waited for nine years before it became an oil painting. I am still perfecting this one and will probably have several different views but this image captured pretty much exactly the scene that fourth of July, it was probably one of the longest fireworks we had ever witnessed.

I have loved art for as long as I can remember and in my mid twenties had an annual ritual that included photography, painting and writing. During the first half of the year I would be painting-actually from fall into winter and as soon as spring came I would be doing photography. It wasn’t something I planned, it was just how I envisioned creatively and it just happened that spring seemed to inspire me to photograph and fall and winter seemed to be for painting.

For the longest time this is how it went until one year I sold a photograph and lost my artistic soul for photography-afterwards instead of reacting to the inspiration I asked myself if it was salable. I believe this is a problem-you need to react like an artist and capture the initial impression and only after find a place to market the image, never the other way around. I took a break from shooting photography.

Besides losing the eye for photography I also had just learned much about what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong with my painting after meeting with several gallery owners, again I would question myself about the painting instead of it flowing. This was actually a very good plateau for my artistic learning-after several years of fighting myself the painting techniques again became second nature and I would be able to paint and be creative without questioning the process.

Another important aspect of that period of time was that I was getting married. After a five year engagement, we were finally getting married and the honeymoon would take me to a place where I would be inspired and that inspiration would be the impetus for years of painting and writing.

I was in the White Mountains and walked the mile long trail to the cascades. The cascades is a collection of waterfalls that climb straight up. As you walk up one waterfall, another one makes itself known, I was enthralled with the water, the sound, the color. I believe there were five or six total and each of them was very different. We walked to the top of the falls and were able to get shots of each. This became the impetus of the next group of paintings and lots of writing.

On returning to normal life another creative outlet became available-I would build waterfalls in fish tanks, the creativity and the manic excitement was the same as painting. I had multiple waterfalls at the same time and each time I finished one, I had an idea for the next one. In the process, I learned the way water moves and how it can divert it’s path with a rock in the wrong position. I fell in love with the sound of water falling and I would paint and create free standing waterfalls-this passion lasted for probably five or six years and my son and I enjoyed many evenings watching tree frogs and salamanders in the tanks that I built-it was a very cool hobby.

Now I am back to photography, although still not quite to the extreme as I was originally. I still have the passion for painting and photographing water and that trip to the cascades is what started the inspiration. One of these days I plan on doing free standing, welded waterfalls that stand on their own outside of a tank but that will come some other day when time and money allow.

In a visit to an artist friends’ loft, recently, I learned that I want to start living more like an artist. Does this mean the dark or weird side of the artistic cliche, the Van Gogh ear cutting incident comes to mind. No, the type of living I mean is those few that have found a way to make art their life and living-they have a freedom about them, an open mind to  new adventures without reacting as much or at least not showing the stresses we all share living on a daily treadmill.

I don’t feel like we ever truly notice this treadmill scenario until we get a chance to step off for a moment. This does not mean going on a vacation where the treadmill is the same with just a different process; have to go here than there, have to eat at a certain time, stay on budget-this change simulates the standard treadmill but adds a new environment for the stress to lessen. We are rewarded with a change in thought and a relaxed state but we don’t actually feel that feeling of clear thinking and exploration of who we are and what in life is our passion. I suggest going somewhere, somewhere nature is abundant or the environment is different enough or dramatic enough to be a great backdrop for thought and relaxation, once there do what you feel like doing at the time, no plans, no expectations and suddenly instead of a vacation you have a introspective moment away from your life. You are able to understands things clearer, be excited about thoughts and ideas and be motivated to achieve what you have been envisioning in your life, this is the feeling I have gotten only recently and the difference between the two types of vacations are quite dramatic.

Through this introspection I have realized, I don’t want to keep painting the same landscape, perfecting the same effect or even seeing the landscape the same. I want to tell stories in my paintings, subtle stories that the viewer can fill in with their experience or memory so each painting becomes the viewers own story or idea relating to their own lives and background. I have decided to take more chances and err on the side of failure and exploration rather than safety and success.

In the past I have been driven to create art that fits into a preconceived style or subject matter that i felt I was capable of. It takes confidence and security to step out of the norm and paint what you feel like regardless if its good and relying more on the fun and open expression of paint or whatever other medium you would choose. When I was very young I would do puzzles, I enjoyed finding the tiniest detail out of the large picture and identifying an insignificant patter out of the larger whole, this I believe strengthened my eye for detail. As I got older I found it very hard to do a puzzle in my free time because the time I spent could be better served painting or creating something that was mine, I still agree with this thought and don’t intend on getting back to puzzles anytime soon but the idea of the  puzzle is still a significant one in my desire to live more as an artist. To learn more and get better, I believe an artist must take chances, get out of the box and have fun even if, like the puzzle idea you’ve seemed to have wasted hours playing. I believe playing and exploring is a part of what makes the creative side see things that might not be readily be seen by the more logical side of our population.

Logic and order ignores that which is not obvious, sees things as a standard and ignores comparisons to non-like things, this is directly contrary to the artist’s way, we must see things in a different state, see things that are not actually there in the obvious standard fashion. I realize now how abstract painters see things out of chaos, creates form and excitement out of colors, patterns and texture. There are so many reasons we create, I want to create for the joy and for the success of capturing what I see and showing it to a viewer in a way they haven’t seen it before, I don’t want to be a formula painter that paints the same landscape and beauty over and over without the viewer being able to inject themselves or feel something from the finished work. I want someone to say, I feel scared, cold, I remember a childhood memory, anything other than just looking at a pretty landscape-I desire to get into the viewers mind and change a mood with the intangible being the catalyst.

One thing that has recently changed in my paintings and writings-the need to stay within some line, some standard that is understood. Granted, I don’t want to lose all reality and all purpose but I don’t believe the artistic life rests in the real world-it is the in between point-the place between creativity and inspiration and the discipline and logic that connect this intangible unseen landscape to the eyes of logic people that see things different than the artist.

I want to start pinning things up that inspire me. I want to start going to places to collect things and paint-I want to leave logic somewhere behind and go out and enjoy life. It’s really a simple thought, a very simple idea of living in the world instead of just living. Life is stressful, it is very easy to get lost in your life and stress and not realize the little things, this is where the artist creativity lies, in the small simplicity of everyday life. I think this is what separates a good painting from something amazing-to be able to capture a moment in time and show people in a way they don’t see it..

I have recently looked at art from full time artists and there is a different aspect of creativity-a purity that is not interrupted by the logic of the day to day. Again, I don’t feel like you need to give up all logic and give up all process of normal life but the path between the two needs to find some happy medium. I think that the artist that sees through logical eyes miss much of what the artist needs to see and explain to the world. I believe that logic and discipline are as important in the process as the creativity itself as there needs to be some path to a finished product but there must be a freedom, a dropping off of logic and reason and a celebration of the sublime. This is where the artist and the craftsman part ways-I want to be an artist, I want to go places, taste things and experience life from a creative standpoint. This is the purpose of this blog-wish me luck….

About twenty years ago I painted this, it was after a trip to Glacier National Park where I learned many obvious and several not so obvious points of traveling. I was very much into photography at the time, in fact it was a growing passion at the time and was just beginning to lose my eye for it, which I will explain in the midst of describing this trip and the lessons I learned about creativity, traveling and altitude sickness.

I had never dealt with altitude sickness before and I didn’t diagnose the problem until many years later only that the subtle symptoms I experienced in Montana became more acute in Colorado and New Mexico when I started to learn to ski. The overwhelming feeling of acute altitude sickness is the mental confusion and lack of the ability to have the brain communicate to the extremities. For Montana, having not known about the altitude problem I did not prepare myself with Diamox is something I learned about as a precaution on the second time skiing. So all of my plans for Montana was to photograph every scene big and small with a large format camera, three 35mm cameras with multiple lenses, I was prepared for everything. If I remember correctly I had bought thirty plus rolls of film and had all the expectations to take my next masterpiece photograph-move over Ansel Adams-I was young, give me a break.

On the problem of losing my eye, or my focus-this came from a wonderfully horrible experience of selling a photograph for a large amount of money-one slide and I felt I had arrived. It was for a major wireless company and I used my vacation week at my than seasonal job to take pictures of a nondescript city over a lake or some body of water that would be nondescript to capture the effect and sell the product without distracting from the overall message. After getting great scenic and impressing them with my skills as a photographer, the final meeting and I took some great stuff for a scenic but unfortunately not for their ad. I was crushed-the last day, we are talking about going to Buffalo New York or somewhere else where a nondescript city sits on water-I failed, simple as that. I went home and thought about the process, I had an epiphany, I would go to a yet undisclosed place, photograph the sunrise on the hood of my car-the fill-in water-It worked, I sold the photograph. So what was the problem-after that everything I saw was where I could sell the image. I started seeing things as objects of sale instead of some intangible that I just thought made a good image. I lost my eye, once I used to photograph a fence on the side of the road, an open area of a field for no other reason but I was inspired-it’s the difference between an artist seeing things and a business person questioning the creative image before it even appears.

I went to Montana with an eye for the sale and left one thing home; the creative simplicity of the artist that saw things from a creative eye and not a businessman looking to be paid. I carried all my film, cameras, tripod and lenses on the plane and through the field, I must have looked very foolish because in retrospect it must have been a clumsy fumbling appearance which brings me back to altitude sickness. I was in the middle of this incredible landscape and I dropped lenses, dropped tripods, had film falling into streams, lens caps down hills and polarizing lenses rolling off bridges into a creek. It was an embarrassing ordeal but I lived through it. The clumsiness and lack of clarity in my head is what I attributed to altitude sickness as in a more extreme case the confusion and clumsiness is almost debilitating-in this case I just looked like an idiot and lost equipment.

What also occurred to me during this trip is, if you want to have a photography trip-go alone or with people that understand photography and the changes in light during the day. If you see a beautiful image of a lake and the lighting is just right-the image will be gone by the time you get back, so the idea of “we’ll get it when we come back down the mountain” just doesn’t help the situation. I watched more amazing shots fly by the window than I was able to frame in the lens.

Glacier is an amazing place where the photo ops just leap out of every corner but that doesn’t make a great photograph. Good landscape photographs are common, great landscape photos are pretty regular-God has already done the work for us. It’s the amazing photographs-the ones that speak without a word, a shot that shows you something you don’t and can’t see without a photographer framing it and lighting it so the viewer will notice it in a different way. I realized it is almost easier to shoot great work from a place that wasn’t beautiful, it made you work harder, you had to look for the image, you had to find something that no one else noticed. In Montana my eye was just not where it needed to be and mixed with the aggravation of altitude sickness, I came up with good and even descent photographs but none that no one else couldn’t have captured with a descent camera. I was disappointed with the outcome but the lessons I learned I feel have really helped me get a better eye for art and photography as well as learning there are different kinds of trips and they shouldn’t be forced and combined-nothing good comes from that process.

Another thing I learned being in Montana and watching the waterfalls and pristine areas-I love water, waterfalls and the clarity and crystal clear feeling of water is something I have sought after ever since. Sometimes failure is the best way to learn-so get out there and explore, fall down, drop stuff but have fun and learn things-until the next time. I will talk about how I really came to love water and waterfalls and the side project that became from my obsession with waterfalls.

San Francisco, caves, friends and the Pacific

I Planned this trip for months, I was finally going to take Matthew on his second flight in his life, the first one was to Colorado but it was so long ago he doesn’t remember it. The hardest part of a trip like this is the breaking away from your life. Work was intense at the time, life was hectic and suddenly it’s spring break 2012. I had so many ideas and the worst  thing you can do on a trip like this is plan too much in too little time, the more I make these activity filled trips the more I learn to leave a bit of flexibility in the plan.

Everything works out in the end, not necessarily the way you plan but that’s where the flexibility comes in and that’s when you need to be able to force yourself to calm down and get off the ledge. It’s supposed to be a vacation, this is why you go away to get rid of stress, so why was I so stressed. The stress quickly dissipated and we were on the plane and on our way to California-I saw the excitement of my son and felt as if it were my first time on a plane, it had been a while. We flew Virgin Airline which I would highly recommend, their service, the new airplanes, the great attendants and the descent price, I can’t say enough positive things about them and I have travelled again with them after this trip.

We arrived in San Francisco in the middle of the afternoon and by the time we got to the rental car and our hotel it was the evening and we were both exhausted. We ate at IN-N-OUT Burger-my sons’ choice-I couldn’t help thinking we finally have them in Texas and we need to go to California and get IN-N-OUT-it was good as always and a great way to start our California odyssey.

The next day was sunny and beautiful, a typical California day, blue skies and we were so excited to see the redwoods for the first time. We started in Redwood City-one minute your on the highway and the next minute your driving around mountainous areas in the middle of the redwood forest-one of them anyway. We went to the Big Basin Redwoods State Park-California’s oldest national park. We were going to take a three mile hike to see a waterfall-it was an amazing walk, just the two of us and through the whole hike we talked about bears, cougars and anything else that might pose a threat to a hiker. The trees were tall and dwarfed us both, there is a wonderful feeling of being so insignificant, the smell of the air, the cool breeze, my son and I in a great mood-I couldn’t ask for anything better. We got off the trail once and got a bit turned around but we made it to the falls and were able to relax before heading back. It felt great to be in the woods, like coming home-no I wasn’t raised by wolves-I just love being deep in the forest-it’s the ultimate escape from stress for me.

I’ve always heard about the redwoods but to actually be standing beneath them and to realize how long each tree has lived gives you bit of perspective of where man fits on the geological scale-a small pixel on an enormous screen. I could have stayed there for the whole vacation but we had many miles to go and a short bit of time to achieve that goal so we were on our way to San Francisco. We made it just after morning rush hour but before the afternoon rush so the ride was very calm and without stress, I was impressed with the way drivers didn’t hang on your bumper, in fact I even had someone pay it forward on a toll, it was a bit different from the rush hour in downtown Dallas.

Our first place to visit in San Francisco was Aquarium of the Bay-a medium sized aquarium with many very interesting displays. I loved the window walk where you walk through a glass walkway filled with sharks and large jacks. We both were tempted to go get our fishing rods but they frown on that sort of thing in an aquarium. I liked the fact that there were different areas along the aquarium that described the local bay sea life with an emphasis on conservation.  There are also interactive areas where you can touch the sea creatures and learn about the pacific coastal marine life. Some highlights were the moon jellies, which are lit with an orange light, the seven gill shark which I hadn’t seen before in an aquarium and the giant octopus which we were able to watch as it was very active. After a long day at the redwoods and a wonderful evening checking out the aquarium, we were both starving and seafood
seemed the obvious choice.

We ate at the Fog City Fish House on Pier 39-it was amazing, the view from the window was the bay and the sea lions-we watched the tourists and watched the sun go down. I had Anchor steam ale- a local beer which was excellent, my son had a bread bowl full of clam chowder. The menu was great, the soup was wonderful and it was a great end to a beautiful day. After we ate, we went down to the harbor and watched and listened to the sea lions.

The next day we explored San Francisco- we started out with donuts- yes donuts-again my son’s idea-we are in San Francisco and we ate donuts, we argued a bit but made the best of it. We walked around the city near the harbor, checked out fisherman’s wharf and I got a chance to pay into the California government fund-live and learn, if you park on the street between the lines, make sure you fit perfectly because if you don’t you will pay a fine. On to the San Francisco zoo, with a bit of aggravation but I got over it-who can be mad at the zoo? We enjoyed checking out the polar bears and learning from the keepers about their distinct personalities. We also got to watch a
grizzly bear very close-I think it was a highlight. We also enjoyed the komodo dragon, the scenery was wonderful and I think the animals were very well cared for.

We drove up the coast and found a beach to walk and it was great taking off our shoes and running in the sand, the water was cold and the mountains surrounded the ice blue water. There was a fisherman catching sea perch, locals with their surf boards and just us and the ocean. You don’t realize how much you miss the sound, the feeling of the water rushing and the smell of the salt water until you haven’t been there for a while, I’ve been to the Florida coast and that is beautiful in it’s own way but this was the Pacific, the mountains on the edge of the horizon, the mist and the sound of seagulls-it was an excellent walk even if for only a few minutes. I was glad to be at the ocean, it’s funny how universal that feeling of being enthralled by the ocean is, especially at night when the moon shines on the water-but I digress and we were hungry again.

A bit of a ride along the coast and we discovered a place that both of us have pictures of on our cell phones, it was that memorable. The place is called Louis’-I just can’t say enough about this place. We have had hamburgers and steak burgers before but none that ever tasted like the one we got there-it’s huge and it tastes like every barbecue enthusiasts’ dream. It is served with fries and even if you aren’t hungry-which would be a shame- the view from the window is amazing-like I said it is on both of our phones. If you go to just one place I describe on this blog-this is one of them. Just a wonderful place all around, they don’t take credit so bring cash. After we ate we worked off our meals climbing on the cliffs next to the ocean, scenery, incredible food and anchor steam beer-I had arrived. After exploring the cliffs for a while and enjoying the beach we were off to the golden gate bridge-we couldn’t go there without walking the bridge right? Look Louis up on Yelp-they have many nice pix of the place and even a picture of the burger I was talking about.

We walked in the park near the bridge and got to the area where you walk just in time for sunset. If you get a chance to walk the bridge, make sure you watch your back as the bicycle riders tend to come out of nowhere and they seem to have the right-of-way, which means if you and bike collide-they will always win-just physics. We got to watch the bay as the colors changed and the cold breeze off the water got colder as the sun went down. We even got to enjoy the wonderful smell of pot on the way back from the other side, I didn’t like the fact that he pointed it out but we happened to walk behind a couple that were enjoying a bit of a toke for the evening, by the time we got back to the car, we were really hungry again and for some reason felt like Doritos.

We got to watch the bay as the lights came on and got to get a preview of Alcatraz from afar. We watched the bay fisherman and listened to the seagulls, each of us watching for a great white shark that we imagined cruising through the water. By the time we got back, we were very cold and extremely energized, it was time to go back to the city and get a taste of the night air and what else? Seafood of course, which brings me to the next great highlight of the trip, another memorable restaurant-The Franciscan Crab.

Learning my lesson earlier in the day, I parked in the paid parking area, it was more affordable than the ticket. One thing about California in general, they have perfected the way to pay for parking without needing an attendant. I felt good to know it was paid for and there wouldn’t be another ticket that evening.

Back to the Franciscan Crab-we were a bit warn out from a very busy day and were quite a bit under dressed but they seated us where no one could see our disheveled selves. It was quite a fancy place with a cost to boot but I was determined to enjoy the best of San Francisco and now was not the time to skimp. We ordered the dungeness crab-too two crab and the garlic clams-it was quite a feast. The crab is roasted with a Parmesan like crust, the flavor is amazing and the meal was perfect for both of us. I can’t say enough great things about this place, wonderful meal, wonderful service and did I mention a great menu.

The next day we were on our way to the caves and to visit a very good friend of mine. I was eager to see a new landscape, although it was hard to leave the Pacific. The drive to the caves was through wine country, it was beautiful and it was nice to see the California countryside, an area I had not previously visited. The first cavern was Black Chasm, a cavern that boasts rare helictite crystals. The rooms were large and dramatic and there were several features we hadn’t previously seen in other caverns.

The next cavern we visited was the Moaning caverns, this cavern had a spiral staircase straight down, one hundred sixty five feet straight down and the wonderful thing about this is you couldn’t fathom the depth. This is a perfect example of what I have described in painting, if there are not visual cues to explain to the brain a distance, distance becomes indiscernible. At the bottom of the cavern you feel like you are looking up fifty or so feet but instead they can fit the entire statue of liberty in the cavern, It is a bit unnerving as the eyes and brain tend to have a problem discerning the distance because there is no visual cues for perspective. That was a highlight of this cave, also the fact that you go straight down into the cavern was a very cool experience.

We spent the next couple of days with my good friends that live near Fresno, it was a wonderful break from the road where we picked up right where we left off-I know cliche but it seems great friendship just seems to be a small constant in our busy lives. We enjoyed talking about the past, the present and the future and we laughed like we were young again, well at least younger. The next day we went to a very cool place that I would never have known about if it weren’t for them- Forestiere Underground Gardens. It is an amazing and inspiring story about a Sicilian immigrant who sought his fortune in America-he built an amazing underground garden complete with living areas, grottoes, patios and garden courts-created by this self taught artist and builder, the story was both interesting and especially in this day and age of what the media would like to call hopelessness- an immigrant sought out and forged his own dreams-that’s how I see America and always will-but I digress.

The next day we were off to Yosemite and a real adventure began. We got to the valley and were amazed at all the waterfalls that seemed to appear out of the iconic peaks as we passed through. As you drive through the park you drive parallel to a perfectly pristine river with clear blue water. We would stop and take pictures as we went along the way. It is almost an overload to the senses as the beauty of nature is everywhere. We parked the car near the visitor center and walked, and walked and walked and never once felt tired or fatigued. We were amazed by a large herd of mule deer that seemed indifferent to our presence. It doesn’t get much better than sitting on a baseball field watching deer play in the field in front of you. We attempted to walk one of the long hikes that took you up to the top of the falls but it was a six hour hike I think and it was too late in the day to start-we will go back and try again. We did get to climb around the lower falls and took a decent hike through the area around the lower falls.

The next part of the trip never happened-we were supposed to go to the Inyo National Forest– here’s the problem and why better research is necessary-you can’t get there from here, well not the way you expected, we drove around in circles for a while, almost two cooperative deer and saw a bit too much snow without having chains on the tires and we finally decided to stop and regroup. I talk about this in a previous blog post more in detail but we both learned many lessons that day and I was able to practice what I always preach-don’t panic and always be flexible enough to change your plans. The pass was closed and to get to our next destination we would have had to go back up to Reno Nevada and down the other side of the mountain range-about six or seven hours-we were already tired. Every time we ended up on the snow covered roads, I had visions of a ranger having gone home and just remembering they forgot to close off the road I was on, to be safe we stayed in Groveland.

We had wonderful pizza in town at a small diner and stayed at the Groveland Hotel. They had the very best beds of any hotel we have been to-giant feather beds that look uncomfortable at first site and when you lay down you get lost in a ridiculously comfortable bed under a giant warm comforter, I don’t think I have gotten a better sleep since. The hotel is rich with history from the gold rush days and the whole place was very atmospheric. The breakfast was really good too and great coffee-just what we needed to start another long day on the road.

The next day we were on to lake Isabelle, the landscape was different, the beautiful pines of Yosemite gave way to a rockier and more rugged landscape of peaks that surrounded Lake Isabelle. We got to explore the lake on our own, there wasn’t any other visitors walking around and climbing the rocky hills around the lake. We got to hike and attempted to rent some poles for fishing but couldn’t seem to find rentals-it is a beautiful blue lake and you really feel like your on your own-a feeling I love. We both enjoyed the hike and climbing the rocky hills around the lake, it was very cold and windy but it didn’t dampen either of our spirits. We stayed at Paradise Cove Lodge and it was a nice comfortable place to stay-very nice people.

Our next destination; Bakersfield-again, interesting place, not a place I would visit regularly but definitely glad we passed through. A memorable highlight we found was an oasis-24th street cafe-it was really great. I had Cajun eggs- pan fried poached eggs with Cajun sauce and crawfish-I think it was a special as I could not find it on the menu but it was really good. My son got pancakes-it was a great lunch and we were on to Los Angeles. We stopped at the LA Zoo and I think the highlight was the chimps as they were feeding them and the gorilla enclosure was an interesting display. It was definitely worth visiting
and the atmosphere was very open and the environments natural.

We went through the small towns around LA looking for the Hollywood sign-I know, kind of touristy but it was his call to find the sign and we were determined to find it. The first place we stopped was a small city park, we drove to the top of a hill, walked around an area and were directed to another place. I was impressed with how active the locals seemed-you can tell they were locals and not tourists, tourists look around and seem like their lost, locals are plugged into their cells or tablets and walk quickly as if they have a purpose-very much a sweeping statement but I would bet I was accurate.

Next we went to a hill up the road that overlooked the observatory and we finally got a glimpse of the sign we had searched for. It was a great walk but both of us didn’t like the smog that seemed more evident than before. For the next few hours we drove down toward the coast. Both of us were very eager to see the ocean again. Our next stop was the San Diego area. This was the longest bit of driving we had taken on the trip but it would be worth it. My son became the navigator and found the first place in Oceanside-Monterrey Bay Canners– The atmosphere was great, food excellent and it was so nice to be back by the ocean again. That night we walked around seaport village and stayed in Oceanside.

The San Diego Zoo was the largest and most impressive zoo as far as size and variety of species. The polar bear swims in the water just the thickness of glass away from you. There was a very large komodo dragon, a great reptile house and so many highlights it is hard to narrow them down. We had to wait for the panda to make its appearance and that was well worth it-they are kind of celebrities and walked around as if they knew it. We also got up close and personal with a peacock who also escorted us out. We left exhausted but felt like we definitely got our money’s worth.

After the zoo we went to the nearest beach and we enjoyed just hanging out near the waves. It is amazing how relaxing the ocean is, it was cold and overcast but it didn’t interfere with our excitement. We probably picked one of the few days where San Diego isn’t warm with a perfect blue sky-we had been lucky as there had been rain up and down the coast and we had been ahead of it each day, when we were in San Francisco it was raining down south and vice versa, unfortunately it caught up with us that day.

The rest of the evening was heading to San Francisco, Matthew had made a reservation at a hotel up near Monterrey so that evening we would have to get up to Monterrey which was another six hours. We ended up meeting with close friends for dinner in Ventura. The kids got re-acquainted and the adults caught up on old times over drinks and seafood. Unfortunately it was late and I still had a six hour drive ahead of me. I really wanted to show him Highway 1 but it wasn’t going to happen that day as it was overcast all day. It was a long ride and exhausting at that and I was happy when we finally got to Monterrey. Over this whole trip he navigated using his IPhone-I must say it paid for itself on this trip and Matthew successfully navigated us away from the cliffs of highway 1 and made the trip a bit less treacherous driving late at night with fog and rain.

We got in late to Monterrey and slept in the next morning.
The next morning we had a wonderful breakfast at the Monterrey Bay Lodge– I had an omelet that reminded me of the ones my dad would make when I was really young. There’s a strong flavor, maybe organic eggs or really fresh eggs, whatever the reason they were delicious and the memories that rekindled was worth the cost of the meal. We were planning on walking around Monterrey and going to the aquarium that day. It was very cold and rainy and we had to run for a long distance under each awning on the street to avoid getting completely soaked and having the wind at our face, it was a long walk to the aquarium but a memorable one. I feel like it all depends on how we deal with things-it could have been a terrible windy rainy day that put a damper on our trip to Monterrey or we could laugh about the experience and share another memorable day-we always try to chose the latter.

The Monterrey Bay Aquarium was well worth the run or even the cold swim. It seemed like it just kept getting better, when you walk in there is a giant aquarium with large fish and kelp bed, you are looking up from the bottom of the kelp beds. There are places where you can see the native bird life, touch the native crustaceans and watch as a wave crashes right in your face-it’s behind a clear plastic window but after dealing with a polar bear at the zoo, a wave seemed quite harmless. We walked through all the different areas and just when we thought we were finished we found
another room to explore. One of the strongest and last impressions was a giant room where yellow fin tuna, mahi mahi and hammerhead sharks, all amazing, all huge roamed as if we were out in the middle of the ocean, It was hard to
leave.

By the time we got out of the aquarium the weather improved and the wind died down, we got to walk around Monterrey a bit, buy some souvenirs and eat at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company– I got a great beer, we enjoyed some amazing seafood and the atmosphere was great. It was an outdoor lounge and luckily the weather was more appropriate for outdoor seating.

We stayed in San Francisco again that night, a better hotel than previous, right in the middle of the activity. We were able to walk down to the cable cars and ride them around the city. We walked to the pier 39 and ate at another restaurant, The Crab House, we ate amazing dungeness crab, got a magnificent view of the harbor and just had a wonderful evening. We got to enjoy riding around town without the car to cost me any money or headache. That night was a wonderful time in the city and the next night we would be going to Alcatraz.

The day before we left for Dallas we ended up meeting with yet another really good friend, she’s an artist in the Oakland area-we got to visit her studio, drink stout at a great little pub and have great conversation. On the way back to San Francisco she directed us to the Oakland Zoo. A small zoo but very cool, the highlight was a monorail that allowed us to see the whole zoo. It was a great place to spend a few hours before going to Alcatraz.

We walked through San Francisco one more time on the way to Alcatraz and found another childhood memory; fried glazed donuts. These are small donuts that they fry in oil and lightly powder with sugar-I used to make them with my family when I was very young, Matthew was impressed, They were great, I only wish we would have gotten a few more when I had the chance. Finally it was evening and we were on our way to Alcatraz, this was a ghost tour for us, we were looking for ghosts-it was a night tour. I must admit we taunted any entity we could find which we didn’t find any and they assured us there were no real ghosts but we both chose to believe it was haunted-no experiences but we are still believers, because we enjoyed the eerie feeling. We even were locked in to one of the cells for a minute-which was creepy but no ghosts, how disappointing. The tour was really informative and we very much enjoyed the whole thing including the boat ride across the bay.

The next trip we are planning will be a kayak trip across Oklahoma, seven or eight lakes in a week-lots of kayaking, fishing, exploring and a zoo or two if I can squeeze them in or talk him into it. The next trips will be more detailed as per the food places, the specific hotels-good or bad, because the writing will be done on the trip instead of after the trip. I hope these stories are not too long and if there is any specific interest in traveling or questions about the road tripping please feel free to comment. I hope the photography will improve greatly as well with a new camera. Until than, get out an explore, eat, drink, and experience it all-life is too short after all.