Two Months

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Spent some time out of the US to feel what the rest of the world is feeling right now.

 Every time I do the bait and switch, very few take the bait.  That's ok.  All of this is like throwing messages in bottles into the ocean.  It's all out of my control after that.

 

Here Comes a Time

 There is a wilderness that I am going to for a couple months to build some trails in.  I won't be posting anything until I come back out.

So Adios for a bit.

There are always photos from the past that are either similar to others I've posted or the post is getting too overloaded with visuals and I wrap things up.

Just to get them out of the blog folder so I can delete them.

Across the street Barry owns this building a few blocks away

Father and son making music together

Awaiting transport to Death Valley

Water drops

A bad Horsey engraving on the Vandercook

Gate shadows on engraving block

Sidewalk rose

Some end of season courtyard garden veggie harvests

Tone Tones needed a cane cuz of a bad hip. Sycamore and Leather.

Virginia brother along with the kids, spouses.

Looking through a drum skin to Franks pedal board on the floor.

And...wet strainer with shadow

Call/Response

 I'll tell you one thing, I write much better in my mind at night then when I put it on paper.

I had my first show as a water colorist at the Emigrant Gallery Oct 30 and 31st.  I didn't have a single visitor.  Not only it was my first show as a water colorist but at the same time a retrospective of my complete seven day career as one.

I showed early career, as a mid career artist and one in late career.  Not one visitor could find the show a few miles off into the desert of Death Valley.  You'd have to first find the faint trail and then when you hit the big arroyo, go straight across rather than going to the left.  Also, since there are no walls out there, I had to hang the pieces on the ground.  Hard to see that unless you saw my backpack on one of the rocks to help find it.

 I can see why, because this year there was not one person that left the campground to walk into the surrounding land.  They came to Death Valley but would not venture out into it.

Sean El Jewell was going to be my one and only visitor to the show.  I didn't have any white wine or cubes of cheese to serve like at other more established shows but I thought about it.  Sean's motorcycle broke down on him 40 miles away and had to turn back to Arizona.

For the seven days I painted in Major Chords and Minor Chords.  Always the Major Chord was on the left side of the page, always thought and planned out somewhat before.  The Minor Chord on the right was always in response to the Major.  Unplanned, executed without thought.  

Call/Response.  

Balancing one off the other, allowing the Major to feel dominate by size and strength.  The Minor complimented through a strength in acceptance of itself as more quiet and introspective.

And it was here, in the desert in Death Valley that I co-founded along with my partner M. Mushroom the art movement known as Neo Paleolithic Modern.

My -en plein air- brush cleaning towel.  They were also the pants I wore as well.

Just now hung selected pieces in the 3003 Bathroom Gallery.   Second show

 

 

 

 

Curator came and hung the synopsis later.

Bonus Pic

 

 Morning Light

This is the Story about This.

 

Seems a lot of my best stories begin in a bar.

Tony and I went to Bar Shiru to listen Lyz Luke play a vinyl only evening of her choosing.

I knew her from being a music producer here in West Oakland where she  would gather bay area musicians to interpret a single track from an iconic older record.  Each group/person got one song to do and then she would record them doing their track in order of the original. I have maybe a half dozen CD's she's done.     Undercover Presents

Bar Shiru is a listening bar, a monumental record collection along with a very worthy H-Fi system.  You can talk in there and still hear the music exquisitely.

Sitting at her table I met Aakash.  His story is he got together with some other like minded people and as a group, they started gathering/acquiring old electronic analogue music instruments, restoring if needed and then used as a community resource in venues around town.

Keys to the City.   Absolutely love the name.

Cool as hell I thought.

This story is getting too long so I'm cutting it off here.  I said I would make some organ benches for him.  And that's the story about this.

I turned the apron of the bench into sheet music of sorts, a little bit. Maybe a bit too much?

I'd say 85% of the making of the bench was spent on the f-holey looking member.

I could have cut it out of one piece of wood on the bandsaw but thought I wanted the grain lines matching the curve somewhat.  So I did bent laminations.

Probably didn't need to use steam as the layers were pretty thin but rather than risk failure I did a pre-bend on them heated and wet.

The jig.

The steamer.

The pre-bend in progress.

The resulting groups.

The glue up.

Ok so here's an egg crate shot of the cross members.

 How I held the curving member so I could WoodRat the joint in them.

Various stages of joint fitting.

Used the WoodRat as a crude lathe to make the bottom part of the leg round.

Aprons held with dowels.  80 of them.

Gluing of the aprons and then those onto the legs.

Leather top.  That's analogue.

To reverse design something, the corners are mirroring the f-hole members.

Last night we had a "one for ages" jam and tried to inject some first music into the bench before it leaves.

I hope you follow the links at the top.  Those are why you go to a bar to find a story there.