Cardwell Hill Vineyard Thank You

Today I painted a thank you card for a favor done by Don and Nancy of Cardwell Vineyard. In this folded format I could tell the story of their vineyard - their Chateau home, Mary's Peak, and their winery.

Owyhee Flight

This painting is sold.

The First Day and a Half of our White Water Trip

This is not for sale.
June 11th we had some sunshine on the Owyhee and 80 degree weather before the wind blew. The morning of June 12th we went for a walk towards the sandstone caves. We could not agree on the geologic history of the area. Was it all volcanic or was it a mixture of uplift from prehistoric seas? In the afternoon as we continued down river, we saw dramatic weather changes.

Folded Watercolor Paper is my Journal

This is not for sale.


On the Owyhee River there are many hot springs which are much appreciated when the weather is less than fair.

Painting Journal of a White Water Drift Trip

We just got back from a five day white water rafting trip camping five nights on the river down the Owyhee Canyon. We were 13 adventurers in seven rubber boats and an inflatable kayak. Though we were expecting fair weather, nature had other plans and we did encounter difficulties like in the times of Homer. There was some unpredicted stormy weather. We had no contact with the outside world and did not know there was a tornado and hail in Burns, the closest town.
Tuesday June 13th I saw some very threatening clouds like the clouds in twisters. I did not see a funnel cloud. I saw the rain coming so I went to the boat and pulled out and put on my rain gear. I was the first to put it on and on top of my cheap rain coat I put on my life jacket with a red whistle. Then I returned to the other rafters who were finishing there lunch as the first big drops of rain fell. And we all laughed at me, I was prepared for everything. Then they started putting on their rain gear too. That night we saw lightening and heard thunder close by. In my coffeee cup, I found an inch of rain that fell in an hour. Our 20 years old tent with pin size holes everywhere leaked so much we could have been in a stream bed. The floor had as much as 3/4 inch of water. We sopped it up over and over again with a towel and a polar fleece hat. We held the saturated towel and hat outside the tent door and ringed them out by hand. We could not keep our things dry. We just couldn't save anything at all so I rolled up the drier sleeping bag and put it in our dry bag. Then we tried to arrange our bed so we could sleep best we could when the rain stopped. Since all was wet I put on all my rain gear and was about to go to sleep when we heard this loud crack like a lightening strike followed by the sound of rocks slidding towards us. Then there was another crack and more rocks sliding. I curled up in a ball holding my head with my arms. I wondered if we were in the path of these rocks or anyone in our camp had been hit. I was frightened and shaking. After it was quiet for awhile, Don and I got up and went outside wondering if the rocks fell right next to our tent. Our trip leader came over and we tried to look about the canyon with our flash lights but could not see anything new. He went on to the other camp sites to see his children and the rest of the group. His children ages 17 and 22 had been up and saw the sparks created each time the falling rocks hit the rock wall of the cliff across the river from us. His children were calm saying it was only another rock fall. The next morning we all talked about it. Actually it is safer outside than driving a car and there is just a very smalll chance that a rock will fall where you are according to Dr. Robert Cooley, psychologist. That was not the end of our troubles. At the take out one of the cars had two flat tires. Somehow we managed to put a spare on one and use some tire fix spray in the other. We had a 30 mile drive over a primitive road forging streams six times until we reached the highway. The people were great and I enjoyed the trip despite the difficulties.

Terrifying Reverberating Cracking, Sliding and Banging of Small Bolders

This 20" x 16"acrylic painting on cradled masonite hard board is for sale. $700
Camping in a Owyhee River Canyon 2:00 AM, June 14 the splitting away of even small rocks from the canyon cliff made me shake with fear because it sounded as though the rocks were huge and headed for me. I did not know when the land slide would stop. Surely this was big enough to change the course of the river. Later I heard some of my camping companions say they saw the sparks as the rocks hit the cliff wall. They had seen and heard falling rocks before. This is a painting of visualizing from hearing the noise.

Flight of Two Swallows

This painting is for sale for $300 and looks different as the lighting changes because of the interference acrylic paints. It is on an 18" square cradled masonite board.
Birds, fish and fire are symbolic of freedom and life. Playfulness is a part of life too. The metalic and interference colors are playful and that is reason enough for me to forget my old attitude that kept me thinking that standard paints are enough for a good painter.

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.

I remember Mama

sold
This is a continuation in reaction to our earlier collaboration. I get into a happy joyous and intuitive mind space with my mother though she is not physically here. She has been dead for about two and a half years. During the last few years of her life we painted small paintings some taking only 5 minutes or less as she was so advanced in dementia that she needed assistance in every life function task. She had such a wonderful spirit that she could express joy and emotions and complex thoughts even when so limited. She could still be my leader as her recollection of artistic acheivements would surface as we worked together and communicated and bonded. Girl on Blue Horse, 20" x 16"

Borrowing not Plagiarizing

This painting has taken on new meaning in 2008 when I started seeing hidden dragons in my picutes. It is one of the paintifngs in my february 2008 exhibit, "Dragons Boogie Woogie" at the Keizer art Association's Enid Joy Mount gallery in Keizer, Oregon.
Giving some thought to my entry way to the dinning room and the grouping of paintings around this portal, I want it to make my heart feel closer to nature. And I want more, an invitation for me to look and keep on looking. I have tried some dark forest compositions with wood peckers but just now I want something lighter more of an abstraction as Matisse did. I love the blue birds nesting in our yard and the way they flutter as they fly. I borrow from Matisse and his blue nude series. I could keep playing and changing my configuration of paintings everytime I come back from a painting adventure and pass through this doorway.

Golden Acorns from My Grandchildren

This painting is not for sale.
When two of my grand daughters painted on this picture with me, one wanted to take acorns home with her. "Me too" I thought. A reason that I love to paint is so I can take a treasure from nature home with me. We keep cherished memories.(Click on the picture for a larger image)

Sky Light Paintings

In 2008 I finally removed these paintings from our sky light and I cut them up to sell in the conventional manner. They are matted and covered with a transparent envelope and sold in my my bin at exhibits. Some I may later post on the blog. I am looking at making another wrap around mural because it was so much a joy for so long. The acrylic colors and interference paint held up well in the intense light.

My home is my studio and my grouping of paintings is a work in progress. These paintings are intended as sketches for what I might make for my skylight. Might make? My original intention was to do studies for wrapped canvases but I like the paper and the look of not being finished. Unfinished is in keeping with my idea of painting infinity which keeps on going and is never complete. I question whether permance and archival is relevant for me as an artist living an art process. As I got up on a ladder hanging this work I decided it is an installation.
These paintings using interference and metalic acrylics and watercolor crayons on Canson watercolor paper are thumb tacked to the walls of my livingroom sky light. The painting is inspired by the Island in the Sky and my artist friend Diane Hoff-Rome who paints with pastel and interference acrylics. The hanging of these paintings in a sky light is influenced by Matisse's studio in Nice, France. Also I am influenced by Doris Duke's estate on Diamond Head in Hawaii. Doris like Matisse made her home a work of art in process. Like Matisse I tape a crayon to a long stick and I continue to make changes on my installation.

Painting at Dead Horse Point

In Canyon Lands National Park, I found an ideal inspiration. Maybe I took enough notes to be inspired to make a four sided painting to hang above my head in my livingroom sky light. It will be as though I was looking out at endless vistas bringing the expanse of the outdoors into my cozy livingroom. If all goes well by next month I will have a preliminary trial picture in my skylight. I will see how the lighting makes color reflect and how the color will make my livingroom glow in warm desert color. If the preliminaries live up to my hopes, I will make canvases to fit my sky light.

My Angel

I made this doll for Christmas decoration but I do not like to put her in a box for the other eleven months so now she catches light from the kitchen sky light.

Catching Rays Indoors

I paint where the light from outdoors is best like the dining room. I even bring my paints into the living room entry to work on all the paintings at once. I wanted to see how they worked into the architecture. The darkness of the corner is deminished by using iridescent and metalic paints. I am enjoying painting with acrylic and oils comparing how the light rays work the richness of the colors. I want to enjoy the textures and beauty of the outdoors inside my home.

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.

My Dragons Express Opposites

This painting is not for sale.
There is the desire to keep a gag on my camel headed dragon and hide my paintings and art treasures. Being public can hurt. There is however a much greater desire to spit out the gag and be a genie sharing the pearl of my creativity.
The whimsy of these dragons were inspired by the smiling camels at Doris Duke's Shangri La. More about my paintings inspired by the museum are in earlier postings.