Painting Baby Geese

You can't help but feel happy painting baby geese,




Saturday morning I got up, made coffee, fed the cats, and started painting. I don't have to paint for long, but starting my day painting always starts a good day. I saw a few of my friends on Saturday morning, they all said I look lighter. I'm not any thinner, despite three weeks of the Tibetan Rites, so they must be sensing my lighter attitude.

I did not mean for momma goose to come out so rendered, but I am always amazed at how much I do not really see something until I paint it, geese have an awful lot of distinctive feathers. In the two baby geese studies I got to paint one of my favorite subjects, water, and practice painting my nemesis, grass.

Idaho is pretty fired up about Obama's two million dollar nutrition plate. Not about the two million, which is outrageous, but it discriminates against the potato. In support of Idaho I bought a bag of Idaho potatoes and today I made potato salad. I left out the eggs and the onions and added some home grown cucumber. I will not be able to eat another store bought cucumber, my home grown one has taste and no bitterness, must be what cucumbers are supposed to taste like.

Cruiser's identity crisis continues and now he is laying at my feet whenever I go outside. Last night there was a terrible cat fight across the street and I am glad both of my cats were indoors.

When I moved in to this house there was a set of blinds laying on the kitchen counter. I figured the landlord took them down and replaced them, but did not get to throwing them away, so I stuck them in the garage. The master bedroom blinds have broken slats about half way down, so I can't close them all the way, which is a problem when it is 100 degrees and the sun is beating through the south-facing window all day. So today I went to check the leftover blinds stored in the garage to see if they were any better and the right size. They were the right size and pretty new with no broken slats. I washed them off and replaced the one with the broken slats. That only took me a year to figure out.

Squeaky Wheel and Studies

Bob's Bikes, which is near my work, was having a free safety check for a few days, so I roade over first thing yesterday morning. I figured they would be packed for the 4th of July weekend. I take it back, my work is two miles from my house, so I road two miles to Bob's with my squeaky front wheel. I beat the crowd by getting there when they opened at 10 am. My bike is perfectly safe, but had a front wheel running on one bearing. It should have about nine. They made an exception, since they usually don't do repair work on Saturdays, and fixed my front tire for $16. My ride back was much better.

Yesterday I finished two studies,



I tend to be whimpy with my darks, maybe I am cheap about using too much pigment, so I worked on getting some good darks and some contrast.

I mowed the lawn and had to reset the sprinkler timer and water, which made a pool of mud in the cat's tunnel. That did not deter them for a minute and both were covered with mud when I made them come in last night. Tia is home, that is slowing them down a bit.

This morning I got ready to camp and baked some apple bread to take with,



Off to camp, happy 4th of July and get well soon to Lani.

Commission

There was a break in the rain long enough to go for a walk this afternoon, although it was blustery. I walked across the street and intended to walk around the graveyard. At one end of the graveyard is a park, so I walked across thorough the park, and then there was no sidewalk along the street, so I had to walk back through the graveyard. When walking in Boise near any grass, be sure to watch where you are walking, geese poop is everywhere. I honked at a bunch of geese as I walked, but they just looked at me like I was a dope.

Dave sent me a letter, which I received yesterday right before the reject email from the ClickBank HR manager. They decided to hire someone internally. Today I received another reject email from ClickBank that was more of a form letter and not from the HR manager, so at least I made an impression and my efforts earned me a personal email. I was at a loss, so I just started to write Dave back.

I finished the commission over the weekend. Last week I really enjoyed it and then I put in the background and started to agonize. I swear that I spend half of my time on any portrait on the last 5% of the painting. I usually paint in the background sooner, but I wanted to finish the outside edge of the hair first. This was a tough one and by Friday night I was in such doubt and agony that I had to call Mom. I took a picture and sent it to her on Saturday and she helped get me out of my misery. Mom has lots of experience as a painting adviser, and she is my market. It is not my favorite, but it is done, and I think the kid looks terrific.



Yesterday I started anther painting and I finished it today. I am not sure what the next income-generating move is and when I don't know I just paint, and after agonizing over the last portrait, I just wanted to paint something lose and different and not blue.

Some guy went missing off of Hwy 20 on March 2, which made some of my friends think of me and my intense feeling telling me to turn around during my drive to Ketchum. I was driving East on Hwy 20 towards Fairfield, and the missing guy was last seen leaving Carey going West on Hwy 20 towards Fairfield, although we were three weeks apart. They've found no evidence of the guy, no guy, no car.

It is difficult for me to comprehend the devastation in Japan, it just doesn't seem real to me, but the struggles of the people there make my problems seem trivial. I need to correct/add to my previous post, it is the Earth's figure axis that moved,

The Earth's figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis in space, which it spins around once every day at a speed of about 1,000 mph (1,604 kph). The figure axis is the axis around which the Earth's mass is balanced and the north-south axis by about 33 feet (10 meters).

"This shift in the position of the figure axis will cause the Earth to wobble a bit differently as it rotates, but will not cause a shift of the Earth's axis in space - only external forces like the gravitational attraction of the sun, moon, and planets can do that," Gross said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/13/scitech/main20042590.shtml

I'm not sure that the idea of the earth wobbling differently really makes me feel any better. I guess this would be a good time for some enlightenment and the next topic is appropriate.

The next topic is Suffering, with a saying of Paramahansa Yogananda from Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda,

Man has falsely identified himself with the pseudo-soul or ego. When he transfers his sense of identity to his true being, the immortal Soul, he discovers that all pain is unreal. He no longer can even imagine the state of suffering.

This means letting go of all of your attachments and all of your self-importance, all of those things outside yourself. Once you are your true being only, you will not feel suffering. I don't know, maybe this isn't such a good topic. Many Japanese have just had all of their attachments ripped from them, and I am sure they are truly suffering and I do not think this passage will help much. From the pictures I've seen, the Japanese do not appear to need any advice from me or Wisdom of the Ages. They seem to be a serene bunch, no hysterics, no looting, no crowding in line, and some of them are carrying someone else on their back.

The We Art Women show accepted two out of the three paintings that I entered for their benefit show on April 14. I went ahead and entered even though I was not sure where I would be on April 14th, part of my acting as if everything is just going to work out.

Orange Leaves and Dad's Snow

Garrick identified the orange bird, it is an Oriole,


Spit is not very nice to her boyfriends,


I keep putting Mr. Boyfriend on the windowsill and Spit keeps dragging him out so she can chew on him some more. I put him away in a drawer. I would throw him away, but he has been good for so much unpredictable fun that who knows what else he might have in store.

Here is the commission study,


I think I will pretend the sweatshirt is white and do nice blue shadows rather than making the shirt blue. And here is the latest Fall leaves,


I met with another employment agency Tuesday morning and I still have their tests to do at home. I spent the rest of the day fixing my resume, boy that takes a long time, and I emailed it to the guy who gave the resume workshop for his review. Once I hear back from him I am going to every site that I posted my resume on and pasting in a new one. I went ahead and did this on the Idaho state job site and then saw that one of the lists I am on is expired. I tried to reapply and it said that I already have an active score. I called the state and they say to send an email. Wonder if I will ever hear back from them.

The employment agency I went to on Tuesday also has a technical jobs office and they gave me the number. I do not think of myself as technical, but the rep at the agency did, so I gave them a call today. Then I sent them my new resume and I should have an appointment with them soon. The rep at the technical office said they have a deal in the works to place jobs with the State. Go figure.

I received an email job list from Boise Idaho Jobs today and there was a job listed for a company that the girl I met at the resume workshop suggested. So, I went ahead and applied for that job using my new resume and much more brief and targeted cover letter. When I talked to the rep at the technical employment agency, she asked where else I had applied and I told her about applying for this job and she said how great they were. That company sounds worth an assertive follow-up, as soon as I figure out what that means.

Dad got snow in Templeton, California,




It would look like here, if it wasn't so green.

Late this afternoon, I made chocolate truffles. I figure if Mark Zuckerberg shows up, I better know how to make them. Don't worry, I'm not going to eat them all, I'm taking them to my Artist's Way friends tomorrow.

Star House and Yellow Leaves

I cannot get a glass of water without having to share with Cruiser,


Cruiser has his own water, but mine seems to be better. This is now an evening ritual, Cruiser comes running as soon as I run the water, I have my water, then he has his out of my glass.

When I went out to the Eagle gallery, I took some pictures, but it's looking pretty bleak,


When I buy a house in Idaho, I am going to buy a house that is a color. The landscape is so brown and grey here in the Winter that it seems depressing to drive up to a white house, like this one, in Winter. A red brick house with white trim and a few blue spruce in front sounds good right now.

Then I went over to Star. Eagle is just northwest of Boise and Star is just west of Eagle. Star has mostly big properties, is less pretentious, and older. I went and looked at a house I saw on Realtor.com that I thought was close to my dream house,


It is too big, 4,000 square feet and 3 stories, but it is on 5 acres with a running stream. My dream house is an old restored farmhouse on at least 2 acres with a running stream. This house faces Northeast and that 3rd floor looks like it would make a great studio.

Here is a great example of the job opportunity spam I get because of CareerBuilder:

"This entity seizes an opportunity to suggest Ghost Shopper post at the Creative Minds INC. With your resume being found at CareerBuilder, the personal branch of given enterprise went the extra mile to look into the personal history report you placed at the job connection web-resource and went to be contented. This organization harbors a hope that your accomplishments will find application to the general benefit of the whole entity.

Essential requirements to be employed:

1. Age qualification: older than 27
2. Accession to Internet
3. 3-5 hours of Spare time daily to exercise your specific responsibilities
4. Non-conviction certificate

Appointment odds:
On its own, this appointment makes a wonderful medium of itself of obtaining profit for regulars while taking to to the enterprise. If keen on reveling stuff cared for most of all by you and push fortune in this business, being a Mystery Consumer is a real challenge for you. As an example, you can have a nice meal in eatery you like or purchase belongings in hypermarkets contributing to entity."

Whoever this is needs a better translator. Would anyone really interpret this as a real job?

Here are the yellow leaves,


I intended this to be more abstract and less busy. Oh, well.

It has been much colder, which makes me lazier and the grey landscape is getting to me. Idaho has no Winter flowers. In So Cal at least the camellias would be blooming. The paperwhites I had indoors finished, so now I go out and check the progress of those crocus bulbs every day and dream of Spring. The Idaho Botanical Garden has a class on February 15 called "What's Blooming Right Now" and I think I will go. Something out here must be blooming, maybe I just need them to point it out. They also have a class on painting botanicals this month and I think I will go to that one, too.

The Idaho Arts Commission posted an administrative job opening and I am going to work on my letter of interest today. Then I am going to print it out and go there and try to hand it to a person that will talk to me.

The Master's show is back at the Autry,

http://theautry.org/masters-of-the-american-west-2011/masters-2011-overview
There are only 8 women out of 75 artists and 3 of the women are sculptors. This seems like a poor showing for women painters and being part of this show is another one of my dreams.

Glenn's Ferry and Self-Acceptance

Here's a better shot of the ponies,


And this is Glenn's Ferry,


Looking at this picture it's hard to imagine Glenn's Ferry is now flooded and half under water, although that is a nice sized river. I had big trouble with the blue of the river. I have 7 tubes of different blue watercolors and still could not quite get the right one. Now I'm working on another landscape, which is going super fast.

The next enlightenment topic is Soul Love, with two poems by William Butler Yeats,

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

For Anne Gregory

'NEVER shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'

'But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.'

'I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'

Yeats appears to have written more above love transcendent of physical beauty than he lived it. I don't want to cut in to Kathleen's business, but enlightened people love the person inside, not the color of their hair, and that goes for loving yourself, too, even though that grey is really starting to shine through.

It is a bit of a stretch, but when discussing this topic the author author brings up Mazlow's idea of self-actualization. Mazlow believed that self-actualization was a mans' highest need. Maslow also identified some of the key characteristics of self-actualized people:

Self-Acceptance and Democratic World View
Self-actualized people tend to accept themselves and others as they are. They tend to lack inhibition and are able to enjoy themselves and their lives free of guilt. Other people are treated the same regardless of background, current status or other socio-economic and cultural factors.

Realistic
Another major characteristic of self-actualized people is a sense of realism. Rather than being fearful of things that are different or unknown, the self-actualized individual is able to view things logically and rationally.

Problem-Centered
Self-actualized individuals are often motivated by a strong sense of personal ethics and responsibility. They enjoy solving real-world problems and are often concerned with helping other people improve their own lives.

Peak Experiences
Self-actualization is also characterized by having frequent peak experiences. What exactly is a peak experience? According to Maslow, these "Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstasy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences."

Autonomy
The self-actualized individual does not conform to other people's ideas of happiness or contentment. This original perspective allows the individual to live in the moment and appreciate the beauty of each experience.

Solitude and Privacy
Self-actualized individuals value their privacy and enjoy solitude. While they also love the company of others, taking time to themselves is essential for personal discovery and cultivating individual potential.

Philosophical Sense of Humor
Self-actualized individuals generally have a thoughtful sense of humor. They are able to enjoy the humor in situations and laugh at themselves, but they do not ridicule or make fun at the expense of another person's feelings.

Spontaneity
Another characteristic of self-actualized people is a tendency to be open, unconventional and spontaneous. While these people are able to follow generally accepted social expectations, they do not feel confined by these norms in their thoughts or behaviors.

(From Characteristics of Self-Actualized People, Common Traits of Self-Actualized Individuals By Kendra Cherry, About.com Guide)

I suppose self-actualized people are more able to see past an exterior to the beauty within, due to self-acceptance, since if you are judging another's exterior it is probably because you are judging your own. I never thought of myself as a self-actualized person. When I read this list years ago it made me cry, because it seemed so unachievable to me. Now it does not seem so far away and I seem to be in the middle of a peak experience. If I don't get an income soon, though, I am going to have to move down Maslow's hierarchy of needs to things more basic.

Horses and Zion

Here's a better shot of the Eagle horses,


And the study of The Narrows in Zion National Park,


I received my postcards to give out for last Friday's First Friday in Eagle, oops, a bit late. The printer was supposedly delayed due to the weather. It does also have Eagle's Country Christmas on it, which is December 11. I think I will go if it is not snowing.

It rained all day yesterday and this morning we had fog. The weatherman says even if it is 50 degrees every day, it will take weeks to melt all the snow we got. The rain is making a good dent, but I am still parking in front and avoiding the slushy mess that is now the alley.

Today I just went into town to the post office to mail Christmas gifts and to buy some gift certificates for two friends here. One gift certificate is for The Chocolate Bar downtown, which is one of those stores you cannot walk by without going in and when you do it smells almost as good as fresh cut Christmas trees. I did not buy anything for myself, I am having enough trouble with the super sized bag of cashew and M&M trail mix that I bought at Cost Co. "Great deal" appears to be as bad as "low calorie" in encouraging a lack of restraint.

My Christmas tree is now up, I put it up yesterday. The only living tree I could find was a stone pine and it didn't have any smell, so I got a 3 foot $15 cut tree. I did not saw an inch off the bottom, since it was pretty fresh, but it is not soaking up much water so maybe it wasn't that fresh. I put it on a table in the front window, since I have that great picture window in front, but this means it is right over the heater vent. I hope the thing lasts until Christmas. One advantage of the table over the heating vent is that it is deflecting the heat into the room in the direction of the couch and making the whole room warmer.

Spit has won the battle over the computer keyboard, more tomorrow. She is not as persistent as Cruiser, but her little claws are like razors.

Horses and Geese

It was a clear sunny day yesterday and warm enough in the afternoon for that temperature warning light in my car to go off (over 37 degrees). The sun was out, the roads were mostly clear, and everyone's bad driving habits were out. It was as if everyone was tired of being so careful and decided to let loose for a day while they had the chance. I forgot to take advantage of the sunlight to photograph my latest work until it was too late, so I will photograph this again, but this is horses in Eagle,


Geese have been honking overhead all the time for the last two weeks. These must be a different kind from a different place than the ones that flew overhead throughout September. They took advantage of the sunshine yesterday and stopped for breakfast,



This is the edge of a huge parking lot on the edge of downtown, which was full of hundreds of geese.

I shoveled a space big enough for my car, so I can park in front of my house and avoid the alley for a while, and met some neighbors on a walk that live down the street. People are so friendly here. This couple was from Alaska, so they knew all about snow, but they thought Boise doesn't know how to handle snow, unlike Alaska. Kurt came out to watch me shovel, he's the kind of guy who would lend me a shovel, but he will not help me shovel. He has not found a job. He is a construction worker/truck driver and his last interview was for what was supposed to be a delivery driver and it turned out it was a door to door cold sales job selling meat. He said the longest term employee there was there a week. He seemed to want me to say it was OK for him not to take the job and I told him it seemed like the kind of job that would end up costing him money.

BSU lost to Nevada last week and blew a chance for the Rose Bowl, but won their last game with the WAC conference this week and the WAC championship. They are expected to play in the Maaco Bowl in Las Vegas on December 22, who ever heard of the Maaco Bowl? TCU is expected to play Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. TCU? In the Rose Bowl? It seems the dominant college teams have changed while I wasn't paying attention for the last 20 years. Today we find out if BSU's quarterback Kellen Moore will be a Heisman Trophy finalist, which will be a first for BSU.

I need a haircut already, my bangs are way too long, and I am missing Kathleen. My next haircut is scheduled for Friday. The last cut was pretty good, but it does not seem to have held up as long as Kathleen's usually do. There is the added problem here of hat hair. Once you put on that hat, your hair is ruined, flattened out on top and maybe a ring around your head where the edge of the hat was. Hats are especially bad for bangs, they either get mushed down into your face, or messed up and pointing every which way. This is a quality problem, but I am vain enough to appreciate no-hat days, like yesterday.

Even More Snow

This is the cowboys that I finished last week,


And the next one,


Mary Kay tells me these are Hawthorn berries. Since it has been so cold and gloomy, all I could think about when I painted the orange berries was Bob Ross saying, think happy trees!

It snowed two inches last night and the news today was all about the weather. I called and canceled meeting Laney for coffee and she understood. She had been on the interstate this morning and it was nasty. I went for a walk to take some pictures and get out of the house. People cleared their sidewalks and cars wore tracks in the snow, but the cleared sidewalks and the tire tracks iced over and it was easier to walk in the snow. I figure I won't bother clearing my walkway to the front door.


This guy has the wrong car, too,








I did clear a bit of the back patio so the cats could walk around. They did go out for a bit, but they want me to leave the back door open in case they need a quick escape, and it is just too cold for that. The sun was out all afternoon, which was really nice, even though it was still cold.

Note the November average low for Boise is 32.4° and the average high is 47.5°.
Today the high was 24° and the low predicted to be 3°. Boise had a late Spring and an unseasonably warm October and I think everyone, including me, was expecting a late Winter, not a super cold early one.

The next enlightenment topic is Kindness. The author's selection is a poem by Stephen Crane called "Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War is Kind." This is a cynical poem about war and, as far as I am concerned, off topic. I prefer the Aldous Huxley quote noted by the author in the text. On his deathbed Huxley was asked for his advice to mankind and he answered, "All we need to do is be a little kinder to each other." As we all struggle with the difficulties and emotions and disappointments of the holidays, remember to be kind. This includes the harassed grocery checker, the sister-in-law that sends you out for sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving morning because yams are not good enough, and that grandmother on the road that is driving too slow. This does not include North Korea. War has nothing to do with kindness or unkindness.

Balance

This is the 2nd study from last week. I decided not to finish it and treat it like a real study. If I was going to spend the time to finish it, I wanted it to be time on a larger piece.



This is the larger piece of Hazel, work in progress.



This is a large piece and the face is larger than life size. I have not worked this large in a long time and am re-learning how to work this big. Blending and exact detail do not matter so much when working this large, and I had to almost finish the hair in order to finish the blue wash, so it looks weird with large flat wash, blank hands, and almost finished hair. Next is working up the face, since if I screw that up the painting is not worth finishing.

Off to LA today to take Mom out for her birthday, add stuff to storage, and see some friends and am looking forward to a break from animal duty and painting all day. Tomorrow I will have been at my Dad's 4 weeks and it sure does not feel like it. Everyone should take a 4 week vacation. I received the deposit refund from my apartment and went through the apartment paperwork and threw most of it away. I found the rent amounts they provided if I wanted to renew my lease and to stay there another 2 months to get ready to move to Boise would have cost me $1905 per month! (Renewing my lease for a year would have cost me $1700 a month.) So, I am not only on a free vacation, but I saved $3810.

I sent the signed order confirmation to the mover and now I am committed.

Next enlightenment topic is Grief is a Blessing, with a poem by Jalaluddin Rumi,

I saw grief drinking a cup
of sorrow and called out,
"It tastes sweet, does it not?"
"You've caught me," grief answered,
"and you've ruined my business.
How can I sell sorrow,
when you know it's a blessing.?"

Rumi was a Persian mystical poet and so far I am not liking the middle easterners. When I know that there is some blessing in grief, I disrupt the relationship between grief and sorrow, and can rise above anguish and guilt? Does this help?

I like the next one better and it is most appropriate to me and my adventure, topic is Balance with a piece by Leonardo Da Vinci,

Every now and then go away,
have a little relaxation,
for when you come back
to your work your judgment will be surer;
since to remain constantly at work
will cause you to lose power
of judgement...

Go some distance away
because then the work appears smaller
and more of it
can be taken in at a glance,
and a lack of harmony
or proportion
is more readily seen.

This works when looking at your life or a large painting. My life lacked harmony and proportion, today I am stepping back and having a little relaxation.

Animal Management

Dad was gone for the second day Thursday and I thought I would get a lot done. Instead it was a day of animal management and frustration. Dog out, dog in, feed dog, dog out, dog in, cats out, dog is barking in the house, go investigate, probably the coyote we saw this morning going back, better go back to the cats, cats in, dog out again for the day. Then I wrote on my blog and started laundry and filled the bathtub so I could stretch some watercolor paper and the water was brown. Looked like dirt. Guest bath toilet water was brown, too. Well problem? I'll leave it for Dad. Tried the oversize sink in the studio and that water was clean, put the paper in that, try to paint, but Cruiser is whining, whining, whining. Finally put the dog in and went out for coffee. Met some nice women and felt better.



Finished 2 more studies Friday and was glad to have Dad back home. Finished a drawing for a larger painting and transferred it to paper today, but will start the painting tomorrow. Today I'm feeling PMS. Tomorrow is a full moon. The mover sent a revised quote, minus the queen bed and plus some tools, and including my move pick up date, August 17/18. I guess they need a 2 day range and will let me know which day closer to the move date. I have some paperwork to sign and send back and this is making me feel committed and doubtful. I went out for coffee and started thinking about the beginning of a children's book, The Adventures of Cruiser and Spit, that would be modeled after this blog and started to cry. It must be PMS. Went home and gave the dog an overdue bath.

The next enlightenment topic is the Now, with a poem by Omar Khayyam,

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

This did not speak to me, the past is done, you can't change it. I liked what Darcy sent me better,

The real art of living is beginning where you are. Martin Vanbee

Then Prayer, with a prayer by St. Francis of Assisi,

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood, as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal light.

The above text is from the book, Internet versions are different, omitting O Divine Master and changing light to life. (Which is right? I am annoyed by this.) This is obviously a good topic for me today and I am not going to expand on St. Francis, but I think he would have appreciated my work with animals this week and clean, almost dry, no longer itchy Sophie laying on the couch with a blanket, so she doesn't get a chill.

Dad

Finished 2 more studies and on to 2 more today. Dad has been monopolizing the computer and the phone, but is gone for 2 days playing golf and I am trying to take advantage of it.



When Dave and I were here a few months ago to help Dad get the ranch ready to sell, we were amazed at how Dad worked like a machine. We were exhausted by 3 pm and Dad was on his 5th hour of non-stop weed whacking around the edge of the houses with a gas powered weed whacker. Dad is 72, and is finally starting to look his age, although when we go to dinner I still feel like telling people I am the daughter, not the date, but he works on his ranch like a teenager. Last week he got a warning that his email box was full and spent two days deleting emails, watching golf, and taking naps, so I guess he does know how to relax, too.

Dad is captain of his golf team and President of the Moro Bay Golf Club. He was talking to me about golf, which is like talking to me about astrophysics, and mid-sentence said you are probably not interested, and I said I was glad he was keeping busy. Busy! he said, I keep really busy taking care of this ranch! I said I thought he was up here isolated on his ranch spending too much time arguing with his socialist neighbors and getting loopy and I was glad to see that was not true.




(I took these at the golf club when Dad was practicing, then I walked off to take some more of some birds I heard over the ridge, until I thought I heard someone on the green say, "if you are going to walk across the fairway, you can at least be quick about it!" I forgot I was not in a park, damn! I was so embarrassed I ran off the fairway and back to the clubhouse and sat there until Dad was done.)

When I called on my road trip and told Dad I was stopping by on my way home, he said when I was there I could explain what this is all about! I imagine he thought I was turning into a right wing extremist and headed for living in the woods of Idaho with too many guns and he would soon see me on the news with my home surrounded by the FBI. Dad is pretty realistic and I was glad to share with him my reasoning and receive some support. Dad has never had a job that he hated and could not quit in his life, so there is some of my experience that he cannot understand, but he did talk about someone he knew that did something similar and was very successful (went to cooking school and became a successful chef with her own restaurant at 50.) Dad has also been pretty successful as an artist, with one job transitioning into another with rare breaks, but today he has a studio of paintings that did not sell.

Dad says I once told him that I found it difficult to find something I wanted to paint, which seems hard to believe now. Maybe today it is just the act of painting that matters, rather than some important subject, which leads me to the next enlightenment topic, enlightenment. This topic includes a Zen proverb,

Before enlightenment
chopping wood
carrying water.

After enlightenment
chopping wood
carrying water.

I find Zen useful and true, but difficult to grasp for more than a moment. (My favorite of my Zen books is Nothing Special: Living Zen, which is a collection of dharma talks led by Charlotte Joko Beck, which seems to make Zen more accessible to the westerner.) Enlightenment cannot be attained, it is a realization. Once you reach this realization, the world has not changed, you just see it with new eyes. Enlightenment is a change in attitude, about chopping wood, carrying water, or painting.

Raccoon?

This is my temporary home, Dad's studio. Cruiser has taken up sleeping on the drafting chair and Spit on the bed. If Sophie is around, Spit sleeps under the covers, and sometimes Cruiser, too, two lumps under the quilt. I've been leaving the outside light on for Spit (and so I can see lurking animals), it attracts bugs and Spit spends the whole night looking out the window at them and whatever else she can see that I can't. We listened to a loud animal fight through the window above the bed the other night, I could not identify the animals (the outside light is on the opposite side of the building and all I could see was darkness) except one animal sounded like a large screeching bird. It sounded right outside the window, but considering how empty it is out here, it could have been far away. The next day we could not find any evidence of a fight, except a bloody paw print in front of the feral cat's food bowl that looked like a raccoon print. Dad was worried about the feral cat, until he emerged from the garage at his usual time that evening without a scratch on him. Now we have a raccoon, in addition to the coyote and the bobcat.


I finished this study of Hazel and it was one of those paintings that starts to look good and I was excited about right away. Today I'm starting a larger painting of Mark and Hazel, next is a larger painting of this one.

The next Wisdom of the Ages topic is from Jesus and fits my painting, Being Childlike,

Except ye be converted and become as little children,
ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

There is a purity and joy in children that we loose as adults. When I paint that in children, I get some of it back in myself.

I explained one of my ideas for creating a market for my paintings of children and Dad asked me why the painting would be better than a photograph. Dad knows perfectly well why it's better and is playing part Devil's Advocate and part telling me this is something I need to be able to articulate, but really, how do you articulate this? The painting has an emotional quality that the photo does not, and I do not know why, although here I have to give deference to my brother John, the photographer, who can take a photo with the same qualities as a painting, but he is a professional.

Dad is making Sunday breakfast, more later.

Painting

Well, as soon as I mentioned it, it decided to be July. It's hot here and the mosquitoes are out. I now have mosquito bites mixed with the spider bites and am covered with tea tree oil. Mosquitoes did not used to like me, but they do now. I got up and did my hair this morning and plucked my eyebrows so Dad could take my picture, but am feeling grateful for Kathleen and my low maintenance haircut. My hair looks great even when I first wake up in the morning and without a blow dry and is a perfect county girl haircut, although I draw the line with eyebrows, even country girls should have two, and no fuzzy legs.

So much for my schedule, the only things on schedule so far are meal times, wake up and go to sleep and nap time, and the cats' supervised strolls. Cats are scheduled to go to the vet for shots Monday, which I should have taken care of before I left LA, since it is now a 20 minute cat car ride each way and I am not looking forward to it.

We have not seen another snake, but I have taken to carrying a stick with me on my cat strolls. I also checked for spiders I should know and learned about the Brown Recluse, which I was happy to see does not live in Idaho or much of California, but you just can't get away from the Black Widow, they are everywhere.







Finished the above 3 studies when I returned from my road trip and the last 2 here. I thought I would try landscapes, something small and fast, and broaden my market. I do not care for the orchids much, funny I've carried around this reference to paint for years and now I don't like it. I'm hoping that I am not going to be happy with 1 out of every 2 paintings, but studies are supposed to be to work things out before starting a larger painting, and also for finding out if it is worth a larger painting, so I should not be preoccupied with the study as an end product. I like the landscapes, but the most recent one is the best one. I'm not sure if that is environment or practice.

Today's topic from Wisdom of the Ages is Triumph, with "The Six Mistakes of Man" by Cicero. Sounds pretty much like accepting the things you cannot change, including your neighbor, and not that interesting. Cicero's enlightenment earned him the chance to be executed and his head and hands displayed at the Forum, so I'm skipping Cicero.