When the Leaves Fall

My Summer was a good one.  May was beautiful and unseasonably warm.  I got my garden in early and then June came, colder than normal with too much rain.  The July weather was more like June normally is and the garden got off to a slow start.
   July was when I woke up. My cancer was officially "gone" and after a three year hiatus I decided to participate in a Summer Art Show so I was pretty busy making steel creations for that event.  It was pretty successful and meeting new clients with new commissions kept me busy for the rest of July, all of August and September and until about a week ago.  The Eugene area went 118 days without rain, a "World Record" for this area and I finally got some pretty nice tomatoes!
   Now the rains have started, almost a full month late, late October becomes the weather of late September.  It is colder too and all of the green turns to Earth tones, the deep orange, amber and yellow of Fall, an ever changing pallet with the seasons.
   Traditionally this is my slow season for metal work.  I am busy with new construction and major house renovations, the creation of gardens or open areas that need a focal point.   That work slows down this time of year.  It is dark in the morning and dark in the early evening.
   I read more this time of year, during the Winter months and until I can plant saved seeds in my greenhouse in the early Spring.  I hunt for books.  I am a hunter of books and I have bagged a few good ones in my time.  Yes, I read cheap dime novels which cost me a buck at a local thrift store and I love them.  I can on kicks though or tangents and for a while will read a bunch of books on particular subjects.  Last year it was Art History, my attempt at understanding the transitional art world and this year it seems to be American History, an attempt in discovering why we are where we are!
   I paint in the winter.  Retirement is different from working all of the time.  Money doesn't come in like it used to, obligations are smaller and there are more hours in the day.  I made my shop smaller and created a "studio", 10' x 20' next to my office.  Clean and heated, like a mini-gallery.
   I feel like that guy on television, "I am not a painter but I stayed in a Holiday Inn last night"!  I know nothing and am comfortable with my lack of knowledge. I made some lucky garage sales finds: a bucket of paint brushes, over 200 of them for $40. Two giant rolls of canvas, one 5' x 200' and the other 3' x 100' for less than $100.  and a bucket full of tubes of paint for $20.
   I made steel easels, selling most of them but keeping three for myself and I made steel painting stations that I keep near the easels.  I frame my own canvas with steel.  I can't have wood in my metal shop!
   So all of the "stuff" is outside my office door and calls me:  "come and play with me"!  Sometimes I do.

Blog Topics

As you might know I am really almost never without something to say.  My problem is to limit and focus. In the world of things there is much to talk about, a bit to reminisce, and so many things that I wish to explore.

The only time in my life when I knew everything I was only seventeen.  Now as I get older, with each passing day, I am discovering that I know less and less.

   There are several reasons that I blog.  I can.  That is one for sure.  I am alive and well and strong.  Two years ago I was about as close to death as one can get and still be able to creep back from the edge.  So, blogging is in celebration of life, living.  Screaming into the fire with the notion that I am not ready yet!

   Blogging is a journal for me.  I can look back to see what was consuming me in the past.  I can hunt for inconsistencies, attempt at discovering a pattern and examine my garden from year to year.  I can look back and discover the eggs of ideas that could have been incubated. 

   I like teaching and clearly attempt that from time to time and it is not all about politics.  I have written extensively on tomatoes, on my steel creations and offered a detailed description of my stone posts, enough to allow for easy copying if anyone should want to.  Clearly I like discussion and comments and disagreements always lead to a better understanding.  I don't know any truths whatsoever!  Except maybe it is nicer to appreciate a night sky than to attempt to understand it.

    You can meet people from all over the world in the blogging universe and a few will become your friends.

Some, I could end up at their front door one day and they would feed me and that is a wonderful feeling.

People from all over the world have the same concerns, the same pains and frustrations, similar interests and aspirations.  The Beatles had it right:  We Are One!

   I get ideas right out of the newspapers and always want to know, as Paul Harvey used to say, "The Rest of the Story"?  I am pretty convinced we are not told "the Truth" about anything.  Some is by design, the truth would destroy profit and in other cases we just don't know the truth and mostly don't care to find out.  We are a lazy lot and wish not to investigate any consequences.   I am a "list maker", have been all of my life.  School teaching demanded it, the lesson plans, goals and methods to achieve them, contingencies when things went astray and the necessity for alternative plans.  The construction industry was the very same except when things went wrong I lost money.  That is the source of my "conservative side".  Any mistake I ever made cost me money and sometimes a lot of it.   It costs the employer about $20 dollars an hour to pay an employee $12 dollars per hour.  I had sometimes nine employees, $180 dollars per hour. A mistake would cost me $3 dollars per minute until I solved it.  You learn fast.

   Some of you reading this blog may think that I am a flaming liberal and I am not.  Oh, socially I may be but fiscally I am about as conservative as you can get.  I am not in favor of a Government that gives everything away.  I think that rewards laziness and I hate lazy people.  I think we should all pay taxes equally, what ever that might be.  If every dime of the working man is taxed for Social Security, then I think every dime for everyone should be also.  I am not after the money of the 1% but I want them to pay the same taxes as I have all of my life.  The same.  Equal.  I want "Capital Gains" to be taxed as wages.  Some may say oh they won't invest and risk their money if that were to be the case!  That is garbage.  Everyone, even you and I almost always invest any surplus money that we may have.  That is what a bank account does.

   I Blog because I don't write letters and I seldom use the telephone.  I don't have a cell phone but if I did 100 minutes would last me over a year for sure.  I am about the worst there is on the telephone, quickly get tongue tied and run out of things to say.  Me?  Yes, for sure, I am no good on a telephone.   There are some people I care about though and keep in contact with them through this blog.  If you want to know what I am doing, how my garden is doing, the weather in Oregon or what I am thinking, this is the place to find out.

     The blog world is interesting and slightly mysterious.  The cyber world is way beyond me.  Somebody or something is always listening, noting key words and phrases, hunting for something.  I get advertisements on my screen that theoretically are geared toward me.  I don't know why.  I couldn't afford a "Hot Russian Babe" and my wife would laugh at me!  I go to the grocery store, the hardware store and the local steel scrap yard and that is about all of the shopping that I do.  Sometimes I buy sanding disks or ornamental iron on line and I use my Amazon credits from my credit card to do Christmas shopping.  That is about it for on line shopping.  I have never set foot in a Target Store or Best Buy or Sam's Club or most of the big box stores.  I have been caught in the local Walmart, "China Incorporated" from time to time and always sneak out, guilty as hell.

    I get "hits" from Russia, sometimes over a hundred in a week and it always leaves me curious.  Why?

Did I say something interesting and why would they never leave a comment?  In any given year I have more visitors from Russia than here and they have never left a comment.  Maybe they are not allowed to?  Maybe Hot Russian Babes in search and quickly moving on to more desirable waters?  One of the mysteries of life.

I have had hits from Arab countries and would love to have them stop by for a chat!  Are they really after Democracy or do they want flat screen televisions?  And us?  What do we want?  If we can get 50% to turn up in an election we consider that pretty good!  Newspapers used to be "The Fifth Estate" telling us the truth in a deceiving world and that has all changed with the times.  We don't seek any truth anymore.  Sound bites.

   My world revolves around my little one third acre near the downtown of my little city.  I have control here.

I can turn the water on or off and almost control the weather.  I have my garden, my tomatoes and flowers, the shop and my little studio.  One day I can bang steel together, grind and make fire and on another I can dig and work in the dirt, putting my hands deep into the Earth.  On some occasions I may paint, work in my quiet studio and apply color to canvas just for the hell of it.  Because I can.

   I am always thinking of the next project, inventing something or improving on what I did.  I always get up early and still make lesson plans, list of this or that, what things I may need, how to acquire them, what to do.

The difference now is that I am retired and I know these lists have no importance and I can toss them at a whim.  Like going to Seattle on the spur of the moment to help a friend.  That was simply great.

   Now you know.

The Easel

I am always trying to reinvent the wheel. I wanted an easel with everything close by so I have been reinventing. There is no market for these, I looked them up on Ebay and easels are pretty much a dime a dozen, but really they are not that good.  Unless you get a big H frame studio easel they are flimsy and well, have that made in China quality to them.  Not too inspiring for an artist who hates imports.
   This easel has a lot of attachments, one for paper towels, another for a pallet, little rings for cup holders and brushes, both vertical and horizontal while drying and even a little scabbard that will hold three pallet knives! What am I missing?

   It is my first foldable easel and the mast slips into place so it is in two pieces but it has the strength of steel, not its light weight aluminum counter part.  It is adjustable and will hold a canvas as small as 20" and as big as five feet! I have put a six foot wide canvas on it and it has no wobble at all.

   It is not always a good thing when an artist likes his work.  I kept fiddling with it and adding details and then I liked it so much I spent $75 to have it professionally powder coated.  It is a clear coat, letting you see the steel but giving it a feeling as soft as silk to the touch.

The little rosette with the brass acorn nut moves up and down and is designed to capture the top of the canvas.  It is threaded and will tighten down  to a quarter of an inch or open up to a full 2".

   I added a half dome of copper at the top of the mast for the artists signature!  Clear coat over copper has become almost a trade mark of my work.

My Studio has become like a car lot showroom of easels, from Volkswagons to BMW's. Maybe one day I will learn to paint!