I Am Not A Hunter

   Mother's save stuff, the attempts of their children, the work on the refridgerator door, the drawings, first paintings and classroom assignments.  Kids see no value other than in just getting it done, the job over and on time.  My mother saved a lot.  I have my very first little fired clay sculpture I made in the second grade under the guidance of the visiting art teacher, "Mrs Albright".  She would come to our class on Thursday's and we would have a two hour session, always a different medium, paper and paints and clay strewn about the classroom.  She must have been good at what she did because I still remember her name.
   I can't imagine teaching art like that, two hours, once a week, trying to get a tightly focussed classroom in a jumble of second graders who would rather be outside playing baseball or teasing the girls with snakes.  I remember lots of butcher paper.  She had huge sheets of the stuff and we would always begin by covering our desks in an attempt to keep them unpainted.
   I think I have every Geography report I ever did all through Jr. High School, reports on different countries full of statistics and maps.  I was never very good at drawing the maps but got enough extra points on the reports themselves to make up for my lack of drawing skills.  Foreign cultures intrigued me and studying them was one of my favorite things to do.  How do other people live? and what do they think about?  Why do they do this and that while we may do that and this?
   By the time I was in High School my mother had collected several boxes of my school work, never displayed, of course.  Just saved, sort of stuffed into the back of the closet.  I think from my mother I learned this squirreling away of stuff.  It was while still in High School when I began my first attempts at poetry, writing little stories and teasing words from thought.  I have told the story of acquiring a little printing press and it was in High School that I began printing things that I wrote.  The very worst garbage looks so professional and beautiful once it is printed to perfection on really good quality paper.
   Somewhere in the back of a closet somewhere in this house I still have almost everything I have ever written and certainly everything I printed out.
   But I don't have the "Deer Hunting Story".  I remember writing it.  It is one of those vivid childhood memories.  It was this story that brought me to some kind of truth.  I could lie.
   I knew nothing about hunting, no family members hunted.  None of my friends were hunters.  Luckily my teacher, Miss Westen didn't either.  My story took place over the summer and deer hunting I came to realize is a Fall event.  October, in the autumn when it becomes cold and the leaves have turned and the deer have raised their young.  I have since learned to research my stories a little better so timing and the seasons won't get me caught up in a lie.
   Maybe we were poaching?  Catching the deer early in the season while they were still grazing in the lowlands, totally unaware of the hunters who were after them?  Could be, I do not remember all of the details.  The story was full of traditions that never were.  Maybe a bit like happy Christmases that really weren't.  I remember skining the deer with my father's knife.  I remember the story anyway, in reality there was no blood other than that I may have imagined.
   There was a big fire pit, an on going tradition of cooking the deer, the first deer of the season, in a big fire pit, hand dug with my uncles (who were never really there, remember), lined with stones and simmering in the heat like a Hawaiian pig.
   It was a great story, especially from the mind of a third grader and I wish I had it.  I wonder how it escaped my mother? Never found it's way into the box at the back of the closet?

What I do now is HERE

First Freeze!

We had our first freeze last night and just like that the garden has been put to sleep which makes me realize that I like to live in a climate that has seasons.  In Oregon we have all four and now at the end of October we are in the thick of Autumn where the leaves turn crimson, other shades of reds and oranges, Fall palette colors.  The rains have not begun yet and the leaves fall into fluffy piles at the garden edge, along the roads, everywhere.  It is deer hunting season which takes me all the way back to the third grade and Miss Westen's
writing assignment: "What did you do over summer vacation?"
   I have mentioned this in earlier blogs but I never finished the story, told you what I really wrote about or how I came upon the idea. 
   We had one gun in the house, a single shot, bolt action Walther Rifle, .22 caliber.  It was a heavy instrument and pretty safe as far as guns go.  Shoot it one time and it was always empty.  No extra bullets, no magazine, nothing in the chamber, just the one shot and always empty.  As a child I could barely carry it let alone raise it to my shoulders and take aim.  I was allowed to fire it for the first time the summer I was in the first grade although I had gone target shooting with my dad and my older brother many years before then.
I knew the procedure, this gun shooting ceremony we did every year.
   We cleaned the rife twice every year, once before we used it and then laboriously and in detail after the shooting.  We would take it all apart, not quickly and blindfolded like a military person might be able to do, but with reverence and respect, polishing each piece and placing it on a cotton cloth placed on the table.
   We always did this at the kitchen table, my dad, my brother and me, always talking and cleaning the rifle.
We shot penny's and these wounded coins would be polished and lined up on the table along with the pieces of the disassembled rifle.
   We did our hunting at a cousin's farm and that was always pretty safe too.  The Walther Rifle would be behind the back seat of the Rambler Station Wagon, our family car.  The bolt action would always be separate and in its cloth covering in the glove box and my dad was always in charge of the bullets, a box of 50 that, after I was in the first grade would be shared amongst the three of us.
   We always shot at the same place, a little knol near a falling down fence, shooting against a hill.  We would place cans on the fence posts until they just became too easy to hit and then we would shoot penny's, hooking them with a bit of wire to the post.  I got pretty good at this and by the third grade could hit a penny from as far away as I could see it, maybe a hundred feet.
   On many occasions we would go shooting just before Christmas and this became a tradition.  There was a grove of oak trees on my cousin's farm and way up high, in abundance, perched near the very top, were the wild Mistletoe!  These could have been lions for us.  We always talked of the dangers involved in encountering an angry, wounded mistletoe!  A clean kill would be a good shot at that little place where the stem was connected to the oak tree.  It was all in fun and there was never any blood.
   This was one of the occasions in my life where I sensed that what was, isn't necessarily the way you have to see it. I discovered that it was pretty easy to become Peter Pan or to become Hemingway on the greatest hunt ever. Easy to make mistletoe lions and fearful of the wounded ones.
   So I made up the whole damned thing!  I have never been hunting in my life, never killed an air breathing creature although from time to time I have been known to strangle a fish.
   My little story about "what I did last summer" was all about something I knew nothing about.  I think it was titled, "My deer hunting adventure" or something like that.  One day I will retell that story but it was all a lie.

I am often HERE

Price Wars

I had this dream last night where some hot Hollywood Starlet or it might have even been some young muscled actor was pitching "Made in USA".  Not Michael Jordon Shoes made in Thailand, not something from Martha Stewart made in a slave factory in some far off land, but  Hollywood Actors touting an American Product that we could have been proud of.  Dreams are fantasies, huh?
   Reality is the nightmare, the daylight where we confront ourselves and admit our addiction to cheap bobbles, shiny things and gadgets.  Phychologists don't do individual thearapy anymore the corporations have hired them all to induce us to buy.  Buying stuff is the key to our happiness, the reason for our existence, the sum of our value, where we find our identity.  Thank God for Walmart!
   THE Biggest Single Employer In The World!  You heard that right.  More people work for Walmart than any other corporation!  Maybe (I don't really know) more people work for Walmart than for the Government!  That is a cool thought, but a bit frightening.  I am sure they have spies but I wonder whether they have their own army?  Walmart Airforce?  I know they have shipping lines, maybe their own Navy?
I am sure they help establish National Adgendas, "policy", we will call it.  Always something to create a larger customer base and to control what we value in life.
   They know what we want.  Whatever it is we want it packaged nicely and mainly we want it cheap.
There is a movement afoot to get rid of "Government Regulations", scrap the Environmental Protection Laws,
go back to dumping the crap in the rivers and polluting the air so we can have stuff even cheaper!
Cheap is the answer because it is what we are after.  To heck with the Unions that gave us higher wages and made stuff cost more!  There is even a movement afoot to get rid of the minimum wage, bring factories back to America where we too can work for less and produce more, so we can have it cheaper.
   That is great.  I love a free country and I love cheap stuff.  Walmart is the best.  Their promise this year is not better, not quality, not valuable, certainly not American made.  It is cheaper!  If you can find it anywhere else, sold at any time, even last minute day before Christmas sales, Walmart will give you the difference.
Cash back for cheaper!  Such a deal.  Is life Grand or what?

My American Made Stuff is HERE

What Will Replace Galleries?

   If there is a need then there is a way.  Galleries are closing their doors everywhere, all the time, all over the world.  This economic crunch we are in hurts artists even as it makes used car dealers come out of the woodwork.  There are two left in my town which once supported over a dozen.
   This is not necessarily a bad thing.  Galleries became a pretty expensive place to acquire art and once discovering the money chain of a particular artist it became a difficult place for new talents to emerge.  Like many things in life it became about money and art was lost in the transaction.  Once happy with a third of the cut they raised their commissions to 50% and I have seen them charge the artist 60%.  Galleries are the business world of art.  They control the style, the color and the design of just about everything.  They control the artist.
   They are being replaced as fast as they are going out of business.  It is still the commercial world that is offering new venues to artists but it is happening with every new building that is being built, every renovation
of existing buildings and in my town, with every existing bar and restaurant, every cafe, almost all public places where people gather.   Art is far more available now than it was twenty years ago.
   There are no empty walls.  Local art has become popular but you can still find an occasional McDonald's
with store bought mass-produced art on their walls.  Even there the walls are not blank.
   It is not as difficult to break into as you might suspect but the first rule is to have no fear.  Sometimes just asking is all it takes.  Many places like the idea of revolving art, changed out by you or someone else every couple of months or so.  Always something new to look at.  Most businesses will do this for free, not charging the artist any commission at all, other's might charge a minimal fee.
   Most of what I do is steel and pretty permanent but lots of businesses need railings, dividers, curtain rods, hat racks or whatever.  Some actually have huge budgets for this and get a pretty plain generic product for their money.  Sometimes, if the job interests me, I will simply ask them what they intend to do.  Often I can do it for the same amount of money but throw a ton of art into the project.
   Wineries are a great place to showcase your art too. They have caught onto this fact that they are destinations and often will charge the artist a fee but it is mostly a booth fee and not commission based so it is still a good deal for the artist.  Unlike a local market that might offer everything from organic food to pretzels,
people come to wineries and expect to find art.

   When one door closes another always opens.  Some of these new venues offer an opportunity for the artist to be there with his art and although we may not like actually selling it ourselves, our clients like this.  It is a shared enthusiasm and contagious, people feel as though they are buying a chunk of the artist along with the art.  That is true of course, we can't eat if we can't sell our wares!

Visit me HERE

Good Enough?

I do not think you need to be particularly good to be a successful artist.  Oh, you need basic skills, sure.
How to get the paint to stick to the canvas, which colors go together and which one's clash, how to lay a decent weld, whatever rudimentary elements your art may require.
   I know successful writers, people who have made it to the top in the movie industry, very successful musicians, extremely successful guitar makers and some fine painting artists.  I am not sure how good any of them are?
   They have become who they are by definition, it is what they do.  These people I know were given nothing.  They were all childhood friends.  I know where they lived, who their parents were, went to the same schools with them, laughed and danced and got into some trouble with some of them!  They were just people, not rich at all.  Ate tomato and cheese sandwiches during lunch.
   They all have one thing in common: discipline, drive and ambition.  Especially at the beginning they all produced junk, reams of garbled poetry, mangled stories, very poor theater productions that wouldn't rate a review, paintings that weren't worth the canvas that they were on.  Nothing stopped them.  They were on a road and they were going to take it for the full ride.
   The trick to being a musician is practice.  Any art is no different.  Each and every day with no exceptions,
practice.  Writing is the same.  Five pages a day, everyday until it becomes easy and then ten.  Pretty soon you will become what you do.

My art and other stuff is HERE

Steel Frames

There is no sawdust in my shop, none is allowed.  It is a pretty nice studio/shop/office built over 20 years ago at the far end of my back yard.  I am surrounded by my garden, the little splash pool and about a million flowers.  My shop was originally built as a wood shop, a long time ago when I had planners and shapers and sanders and saws.  I once imported 10,000 board feet of exotic lumber from the Fiji Islands and had lumber and projects all over the place.  Those were inventing days also and I created lots of different stuff from this lumber.
   When I found my interests in steel my tools changed, my shop changed and the sawdust just had to go.  It is just way too much of a fire hazard with the sparks flying around all over the place.
   Now I am into painting but as long as I keep the turpentine outside it is pretty compatible with my metal art and doesn't require much space.  Artists always have to be doing something, some kind of art and painting is a lot less expensive than working with metal.  If it weren't paint it would be beads or clay or cooking.  Some kind of art, something to do.
   I am always after something different.  When I am lucky enough to make a descent painting it is wanting to be in a frame.  In the old days when I had those tools this would be easy in oak or Cherry or walnut or maybe even in my Fijian woods but now all I have is steel.  Light gauge steel tubing is not heavy.  A one inch by one inch piece weighs less than the same in oak but it won't warp or once made into a frame fall apart.
Besides, it is what I've got.
   Once again I find myself experimenting.  What would happen if I did this? or that? and then I do it just to see.  Some of my ideas are not practical at least to market them.  Maybe cool ideas but far too time consuming and the cost of production would be prohibitive.  That never stops me from making the prototype though.  I have to see what one would look like.  Some of these inventions end up in my scrape pile where they age and refine to be cut up later and used in some other idea and other's, the better ones get hung on a wall in my shop where they become inspiration for other projects.  Many times I have taken one of these, way too expensive to make again and made them the center piece to a larger project.
   Some become Christmas presents.  Or just a nice day, the sun is out and I would rather give them away than sell them for less than they are worth.  I never determine value from my prototypes.  They are one of a kind and far too time consuming.  Value to me is what would I charge to make another one?
   One of the values I get from this experience is I learn new skills, new ideas, different uses from things.  Maybe a different way to see the same stuff I see day after day.  That is worth a lot to me and it is the reason I do this.  Of course I make mistakes!  I have a pretty big scrap pile.

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 about 14" x 28"

     I am working on steel frames for the better of my canvas paintings.  From nowhere in particular I get this idea, why can't they be three dimensional?  Yesterday I made a frame and splattered weld blobs all over it for some texture and then added two butterflies to the front side.  There will be a canvas to be painted behind these butterflies.  It is not a marketable kind of thing but it is pretty cool.

I seem to have lost my ability to control these photos so I will stop this here!

More of what I do is HERE

A Storm Came Through

   I don't really sit in my mother's basement at this computer hunting for trouble spots in the world nor do I look at "hot Russian Babes".  I am in my shop where I have three fire extinguishers and a garden hose nearby.  I am surrounded by metal, a pretty big inventory for a retired guy.  It is sort of like my savings account.
   I am working on my latest idea, a "painting station" for artists, something not too big with rings for yogurt containers or cottage cheese containers.  A "cleaning station" for brushes, but something on wheels so it could be moved about and with its own palette and storage area for paint.  So far I have three "table models" and four pedestal models and two steel easels that are self-contained with these features.  I am near to being ready for the perfect "furniture quality" model, something attractive enough to be put in a living room.
   I still don't know whether this is a good idea or not, something needed or useful for an artist?  I like them.
I have already decided that if there is no market for these they will become my new trellis's in my garden next year!  That will be pretty cool, little art pedestal tables for my cucumbers to climb on!
   All of this reminds me of years ago when I wanted to invent the "perfect trellis".  Oh, there were millions of trellis's on the market and people thought I was nuts for trying to create one more in an already flooded market.  The one's that were there weren't any good, that is what they had in common.  They would not support themselves let alone a plant.  So I played at this for months until I came up with the perfect trellis!
I think over the years I must have sold a thousand of them but the first one's were failures.

 Just so you can see there is some detail to this painting.

   I am also painting!  My "landscape" has become an abstract!  Painting is a lot easier and less expensive than working with steel and there is never any waste.  Sometimes I have painted over the same canvas six times.  It will be fun if a hundred years from now an art restorer finds one of my paintings, chipping away to find stories buried under stories, paint under paint.

Painting over a painting is interesting. I can leave some background, create shadows and depth and texture becomes a part of the painting.

 about 5' x 3'
"A Storm Came Through"

This one is meant to be pleasant and red, red from a distance but detailed and mysterious upon closer inspection.  That is all.  It doesn't mean anything.
   Sometimes we hunt for meaning where there is none.  It is so hard to just accept something as it is.  We hunt for ulterior motives where there might be none at all.  We do this with people all of the time and the art world is full of it.
   This painting is screaming "nothing".  It just is, that's all.  But it is pretty red, I'll give it that.

More of my paintings can be found HERE