Orange Moon Rise

The watercolor on paper, "Orange Moon Rise" (12" x 9") was begun at Arizona Alamo State Park. It is a watercolor on paper 12" x 9". One evening the moon, very large and orange, was rising as the sun was setting. This painting is mostly memory remembering the uneven detail of the orange glowing moon and the deep blue of the sky. I couldn't capture it in a photograph and required layer upon layer of paint.

"Pebbles Bathed in Moon Light" is watercolor on 120 pound Arches 20" x 16". Both paintings are for sale $100 each plus postage.

Diptych Modular, painting outside the box

I started thinking of how many possible arangements could be made from this diptych if I turned it four ways interchanging all squares plus leaving the back painting open. I think it must be a calculous mathematical problem and I do not have a quick exact answer. But it must be hundreds of thousands. Today I painted the inner layer of the white modualr and also some of the concave sides of the boxes. It now occurs to me that this could be a mini artist's body of works. A slot could be made in one side of each cradled box and more paintings could be inserted. I could invite people to participate in this modular. I could teach people to paint and arrange colors without them ever having to wet a brush. It would be real paint and not like the light in acomputer monitor.

I am thrilled with finding a special meaning. The femine spirit as I began this a week ago was looking through the window with wet eyes. It was hard to tell if she was on the inside or the outside. I do not want to paint exclusion. So here I paint my femine spirit becoming. I am painting outside of my box.

In 2003 I made this cut-out after Matisse's cut-out dragon in His "The Thousand and One Nights". This is a dragon trying to expand beyond his confinement. I was painting my mother's spirit in her last days in the nursing home. I showed her Matisse's cut-outs and made some similar ones to hang above her bed where she could see them. The Diptych Modular is partly finished and will have a similar feeling and symbolism.

Most Developed Rose Dragon

"The Peak-a-boo Dragon" has the most volumes and linear detail of the nine 12" square by 1 3/4" deep boxes. It is the most like the roses I am observing. As for the dragons emerging from this series, I have not decided how hidden I will keep them. More importantly I observe and interpret. As the roses age in our garden the petals become pointy dragon heads. Their pointed shape is formed because the heaviest vein is dead center and that remains hydrated while the side veins become more prominent as the the cells around them shrivel. Then the rounded full cloud dragons were ready to nurture more roses are as round and full as I made them. There is much to do to finish this series. The arrangement of them on the wall is important. I am trying to show relationships between each one with the others so I am hanging them and then moving as well as painting on them.

Break Through Excitement

I appreciate Martha Marshall saying that she liked my new series all ready. I have painted on them a little today. The first strokes on the paintings have a great freshness and a directness I love too. I might pull more dragon forms or leave them hidden. I do like looking at them as part of the architecture. The blocks work as raised tiles might. Here they are casually arranged and I look forward to playing with their placement as well as developing them in relation to each other.

River Tree Fantasy

This painting has undergone many transformations and as of February 2008 it is not finished.

"Fantasy Dragon Tree" is a work in progress done with acrylics on location. Canvas is 24" x 36"
Near Chinook Bend on the Siletz River, Oregon there is a tree that refuses to give into gravity although it fell almost all the way into the river. The trunk suggests to me a proud animal.

Aerial Tumblers

For sale $700
Little mists turned to showers. Swallows flew close to the flowing water but never crashing. Up and down then they veered away from us as we floated down the South Santiam. I drew them in pencil and was eager to paint them the next day. But you know I think next time I am going to go back to working directly on location because I like the directness. To keep the spontanaity I had to fight for it : I checked the flutter of their wings with the swallows flying in our back yard.

Great grandfather David Widler of Constantinople, Jaffa, Singapore and Shanghai

This painting is not for sale
The painting is about everybody who has immigrants in their ancestry. I have been commenting on what goes through me as I paint. Comments in this blog go back to December when a most unexpected notice was given it. My posting was picked up by Google and listed next to other references to my great grand father. Then a long lost cousin's son saw it and called me. I found a whole branch of my family. And I learned that they have developed the family dreams portrayed in the painting like singing, watercolor painting, writing books. But not in Israel at the old home place. In Tel Aviv a high rise apartment building is being built next to where the family lived. Recently there was an accident and the arm of the crane broke, fell and demolished the old house. Israel like everywhere is stretched to the limit as our populations increase and increase. New events make me want to add more people and the laborers to the painting.

Making Progress

I see my work differently without the traditional frame. My paintings are more like decorative tiles placed to frame the life passing through my home.

Navaho Rug Design and I Painting Light

This 12" oil painting is in the beginning stages and remains unfinished even in february 2008.

The Way I Paint

After one of John Clare's poems



From the first light of dawn until dusk

The fog hides the landscape

Except for a few moments

As the light pierces through

Revealing layers of flat back drops like a stage.

I see the rocks and life damp and dripping.

The colors are at their greatest brilliance.

I take in movement and gesture in an instant.

Just for a moment! The next moment the fog rises from them covering the land
once again.

I begin to paint with the intensity of the moment while the after image
compliments passion.

Spanish Window Coral Reef

This painting took several years to develop and finally took on a warmwhite and ice blue color combination. It was exhibited at LaSelles Stewart Center in June 2007 and later at Sam's Station in Corvallis, Oregon in January 2008.
I was stretching trying to compare Spanish glass windows with looking down into coral reefs seeing the depths of the Pacific Ocean and getting a glimpse of tropical fish as they swam out and then back into hiding.

As in Early Civilizations Farming, Creative Arts and Community are One

These are not for sale.














I have been painting over and over this one since September. In the process I realized that I wanted to paint the idealistic pioneering agriculture in late 19th century Palestine where my family was. I realized that the same spirit was in the produce stand in Kirnville, Oregon as well as many other places in the world at various periods of history. I really don't know which came first. Was it community, creative arts, or farming? Most likely all three occured at the same time. And possibly my forebearers believed we would all enjoy life more if we cultivated these three all together.