Welcome to Playland

Many people feel this way in El Paso.  

Sometimes you have to wonder what people are thinking.

For instance: who decided on the dying steer as part of the play area at the Outlet Shoppes of El Paso?

Did his or her kids run up saying, "Yes, yes! I want to crawl all over the plastic despairing remains of an animal! Make one look sad and sick, please, oh please!"?

An Elephant's Memory of Blizzards

Whenever the blue cloud untangles itself from the red sky, we will continue to pray for you—in our invisible ship, our invisible
fortress—

for the divine discourse of the soul,

for the end of the in between,

and for the windows to open unto an unentangled sky of white clouds free-floating against the insane blue—

and embrace each other like mighty humans.

-- Neil de la Flor, excerpt, "Prayer for a Blue Cloud," An Elephant's Memory of Blizzards




Neil de la Flor has a new poetry collection out: An Elephant's Memory of Blizzards.  His second solo collection is being published by Marsh Hawk Press.

You should go buy it.  Right now.

Neil's hat, Almost Dorothy &
Floyd the dashboard frog

Note that net proceeds from the first 30 books sold will benefit The Center for Positive Connections where de la Flor is on the Board of Directors. TCPC provides HIV prevention and health education, social and emotional support, mental health counseling, holistic health treatments for those living with (and affected by) HIV/AIDS in South Florida.

For information on buying the book, and getting your very own signed copy, see:
http://almostdorothy.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/an-elephants-memory-of-blizzards-by-neil-de-la-flor/.

Snow Day!

Snow, yucca, well-house & hacienda. 

Gorgeous and unusual snow arrived here, leading to a complete halt of anything productive. I opted to stomp around in the snow with the also delighted dogs.

Since it is virtually always sunny here, I follow the weather less and less, and so the snow came as a complete surprise.

Not much will blowtorch me out from under the comforters in the early morning, but a window clouded with blowing snow is one of them.

Change invigorates the soul.  And leads to a great many photographs.  

Visual Journal

"Dinnertime?"

My mother gave me a sketch-a-day notebook for Christmas, which I tested out today.

I hope to use it at least semi-regularly for quick sketching (any practice helps) as well as keeping track of any other odds and ends that further my creative work.

Leo is in favor of art, as long as it doesn't interfere with the dinner hour.

Happy New Year!

Changeable

Changeable
acrylic on canvas
30" x 48"

New work I've been playing with...it has morphed in various ways, including number of arms, wing size, color schemes, and a lot of messing around with drippy, watery paints. I'm not sure that I consider it done, but I think I'll let it rest for a while at least.

At one point, the canvas looked like this:





And way, way before that, it looked like this:

The original sketch painting was based off a photo from unsuccessful huckleberry picking years ago in Oregon. I could never get proportions and faces to look anything more than cartoonish, and once I had erased many things many, many times, I eventually lurched into more abstract worlds.

You never know how a painting will evolve (or I don't, anyway - which is possibly a problem, as well as an advantage).

Antlered Cat

"Merry Christmas.  Now get me out of these antlers."

Before/After

Dug around in my closet yesterday and decided to renovate an old painting to add in shading. This led to lots of other changes.  None of it was a quick process, given that I'm still training my eyes to see the effect of light, and translate shape onto the canvas more effectively, but the changes in the overall impact of the painting ended up being substantial.

Bite Wounds, before and after changes.  

Recent Work, "Sunned" and "Ophelia"

Sunned
acrylic on canvas
16" x 20"

Ophelia
acrylic on canvas panel
12" x 24"

Penguin Love

Skate Park Penguin

Tiny graffiti at the Las Cruces skate park includes one penguin. I'm not sure if the artist was making a visual reference to DK penguin longboards, or maybe just thought, "hey, penguins are cute, and this skate park needs one right here."

In other random news, I learned a new meaning for an old word. The metal edging at the skate park is called "coping."

Fort Selden

Old covered wagon with the ruins of Fort Selden behind it 

In the interest of doing something new - anything new - I played a little GPS roulette and ended up at Fort Selden in Radium Springs, NM last weekend.  It's a quiet place, and I was the only person in the small museum besides the ranger despite the fact that state monuments are free for New Mexico residents on Sundays.

From the museum, I learned that the fort housed infantry and cavalry, including Buffalo Soldiers; that the officers' wives often described the place as dusty and unattractive; that Douglas MacArthur, the WWII general, spent a couple of years at Fort Selden in his childhood and sported a longish blond hair that made me mistake him as a girl in the photo; that in the 25 years that Fort Selden was active (1865-1890), more soldiers were killed by fellow soldiers than with run-ins with Apaches in the area; and that the soldiers had a particularly monotonous diet, among other odds and ends.  The museum painted a fairly grim picture of boredom, dust and disease -- hardly a desert paradise.

The Joy of an Overcast Day

View from Lover's Lane on the way to the Hacienda (visible far right) at dusk. 

Clouds all day here today, a rarity in the land of perpetual sunshine, and one worth celebrating given the wonder that they add to the sky.  My art groove remains semi-stalled, with limited writing and painting, but the sky would not let me neglect taking some moody autumn photos.

New Mexico Fall

 

Pictorial Weekend, Silver City, NM

Back door of A Space Gallery, and real sky
http://aspacestudioartgallery.com/
Silver City, NM

Covered Walkway and faux sky,
downtown Silver City

Virus Theater, Rocky Horror
http://www.virustheater.com/virusindex.htm
Buckhorn Saloon & Opera House
http://www.buckhornsaloonandoperahouse.com/
Pinos Altos, NM

You can buy fun, but sometimes,
it's easier to rent. 

Please!
Sign at Western New Mexico University

Happy Stage, A Space Gallery,
http://aspacestudioartgallery.com/
Silver City, NM

Odysseys

Sunset at White Sands National Monument

Synchronicity in action: an old friend sent me a book called Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer's Odyssey to Navigate Life's Perils and Pitfalls, an absorbing read written by Zen teacher Norman Fischer; a week later, I found myself in the car with another old friend en route to White Sands listening to her recite Tennyson's Ulysses (the Roman name of Odysseus).

To have friends that read books, recite poetry, travel distances long and short on foot, by car, by boat and otherwise through time, space, intellect and emotion -- this is evidence of being favored by the gods, Greek or otherwise. Journeys epic and mundane are all about the company.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.  

--excerpt from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Ulysses 

Man in the Arena

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

-- Theodore Roosevelt

Reflecting Seattle Sculpture

Seattle skyline through sculpture

I like odd framing in photos, and a conveniently located sculpture offered that up: Seattle through sculpture.

What particularly interested me were the reflections of sky, clouds and skyline seen on the swirling sides of the sculpture.

Contrasting Views

We worked with charcoal last night in art class, and I continued with my ongoing problem with contrast.  I add in contrast - and then I smear it away, tone it down, erase it one way or another, whether with paint or charcoal. It seems a good metaphor, that I should be more bold instead of backing away.

Not a T-Rex
charcoal on paper

And no, by the way, the still life items on display did not include a T-Rex -- that's just how my drawing came out.  I think the skull was from a horse, although I forgot to ask.  

But my, my, what big teeth it has.  

Artful Dumpsters

Las Cruces has some fine looking dumpsters.

Robot or lighthouse? 

Toss No Mas!

Talk to the Hand

Talk to the Hand
Acrylic and Sharpie on paper
11 1/2' x 17 1/2'"

Talk to the Hand, a little goofy cartoon fun, with some '90s flashback slang. Originally, there was another half of this, a woman's face, but she didn't really go anywhere, so a little judicious folding and tearing led to the current size.

The F words seemed to work with the overall theme.

For the Burn Pile

Yes, yes, I do know it's ugly.  But here is the good thing about taking a class: I know why it's ugly (at least in part).

Fugly Veggies with Apple
Oil pastels & pencil on paper

Composition failure: I was trying to go large with pumpkin (it was a small pumpkin, maybe 8 inch, so its relative height to the corn is more-or-less accurate), but somehow I didn't go quite large enough, so it's just floating *smack* in the middle.  Nothing quite anchors it to the edges of the drawing.  The lumpy little white squash, for instance, is more appealing in its corner as filling in the missing pieces gives the viewer something to do.  

Yes, that's supposed to be corn: I attempted drawing the corn at least 5 times, with lots of erasing ensuing.  What's the big deal, you say, it's just straight rows? Nope. Curved rows with all kinds of different shapes and colors, which was somehow made worse by the fact that the corn was tilted at an angle, and I was drawing the corn larger than life.  I don't know why drawing larger messed up my ability to see it, but it definitely did.  I was overwhelmed by details that didn't add up when I tried to connect them.  Eventually, I left the corn undrawn, and just went mad coloring with the pastels, which at least gave the idea of it, albeit a hideous one.  

Don't even get me started on the horrible stalks.  The corn was having a bad hair day.    

Did you really choose that background?: Umm, actually no.  I had turpentine on brush from smoothing out the pumpkin and it sloshed over into the straw-haired corn, and so I ended up just going with the odd orange. It doesn't work, and I don't like it, but I blame it on inhaling too many toxic fumes.  

Have you heard of contrast?: Heard of it, yes, but I clearly didn't apply it here.  Everything is lumped in the middle range, adding to that level of boredom. 

Rotating perspective aka Rotten Apple: That's a fold of tablecloth blocking the apple (yes, it's an apple -- trust me).  A fold only appears at the corner,  and the white squash on the other side is clearly seen from a different view.  Ugh.  

Pumpkin-y: Aren't pumpkins usually more uniform in color?  Yes, they are.  I just wanted to scribble with the pretty colors, so I did. And there is a mild attempt at working with light at the top, but its so mild it falls into the snoozer no-contrast look.  

In retrospect, I should have either avoided the corn completely, or only drawn the corn, since it was making me crazy.  I should have spent much, much more time drawing, and a lot less scribbling with pastels. More planning, more early sketches would have helped, and having some sort of plan when applying color would have been swell. 

On the other hand, some days, you just need to color like a cranky eight year old.  So here I am, tacking my masterpiece up on my virtual 'fridge.  We here in the land of Artful Mistakes believe in letting it all hang out.