House on the Hill

House on the Hill

Oil on black canvas, 10x10

It takes a little while - at least for me - to start to see and appreciate some of the softer colors of the high plains. There are muted yellows, blue-greens, green-blues, and often, a tinge of reddish-pink that I only really see when I start to look for it. And in patterns throughout the landscape, a pinkish-gray of leafless bushes, low and high, that set off all the other colors. 

The land here is dotted with abandoned houses, dilapidated and empty trailers, buildings that once had roofs and windowpanes and families. I guess people just walked away from these places, these buildings that once were home. It's lovely here, but these empty places add an edge of winsome loneliness to this often thriving, often robust land.

I think I captured some of the beauty and solitude of this quiet, sere landscape in this painting.  

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Scenes from the Road

Happy Halloween! Saw this skeleton taking it easy in Indiana 

The awning of this RV is home to a flexible solar panel. 

I never knew such a thing existed - but what a great idea! 

  Above and below, some scenes from Wyoming. If you click on the photo above, you can see a happy-looking cow that's just about the same color as the tree. Watch for this scene in an upcoming cowscape!

I like the way the peak of this building echoes the peak of the mountain in the background. This scene was near Spotted Horse, Wyoming. You can see more of Spotted Horse by clicking here. 

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Dog of the Day

This guy was probably not the only one misbehaving in downtown Deadwood.

Eagle Butte

Eagle Butte

12x36

West of Gillette, Wyoming, the land begins to change. It begins to look like The West, or at least The West I have in my mind. The colors get a little muted at one end, and a little more vibrant at the other. The topography becomes a little more ragged, a little more muscular. This scene, Eagle Butte, was one of the first really Western-looking landscapes I saw. It was easy to imagine cowboys riding this range - and they probably still do.

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Bill Richards

As I was painting the piece above, Bill Richards stopped his car and came to see what I was doing.  I figure he was in his 70s or early 80s? A tall, thin man, he'd worked the Eagle Butte mine for his whole life, until coal-caused health issued forced him out. He said that during the last few years of his mining career, he'd worked 12-hour days, and it had taken its toll. Twelve operations and a heart attack, he said. 

And now he paints! He showed me a couple of his portraits, and they were fabulous, full of life and bright colors and, honestly, love. The man lit up when he talked about painting. 

His wife died eight years ago, he said, and he was packing the car that very day to drive to Oregon, to spend the winter with his girlfriend, who is also a painter. Their plan is to paint for at least a while on the California coast. 

We shook hands, he told me how much he liked my painting, how bold he thought it was, and he waved goodbye and took off, for his winter life of art and love. 

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Scenes from the Road 

This is part of the Eagle Butte mine, where Bill Richards worked for all those years. 

It's hard to see them, but if you click on the photo, you can see a small herd of antelope. 

The Gillette airport was surprisingly busy - also surprisingly decorated, with this painted horse, above. And the Gillette Walmart, below, has to be the best decorated Walmart anywhere! 

 Fences are a huge part of the Western landscape. There's an interesting book called "Barbed Wire: The Fence that Changed the West," that you could read if you'd like to know more.

Good-looking cows! 

Lots of barns out here, and some houses, too, have painted "barn quilts" on their sides. 

If you click on this photo, you can see a couple. 

This is the Blue Gables motel, where I spent a night. More on this in the next posting! 

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Dog of the Day 

It's Zeppelin, with his human, Chris. They're from California, and are in Wyoming hunting. Zeppelin ran around outside the hotel and found every bit of semi-edible stuff he could find there. Sigh. Dogs are all alike. 

It's hunting season here in Wyoming, and I went out and bought a blaze-orange vest. There are hunters here from all over the country - Pennsylvania to California - and it would truly be a bummer to be mistaken for a deer. 

Outside Deadwood

Outside Deadwood

Everything changed for me today, when it truly hit me that I don't have to do all the westward traveling first.

Yes, I stopped to paint a couple days ago, in Reliance, SD, and I felt good about it - but unsettled. My plan - which I announced to all of you, to my friends and family, and set in my own mind - was to drive west to Wisdom, Montana, my turnaround spot, and then paint on my way east. I wouldn't drive at all on the way west. I'd look, I'd study the landscape, I'd plan - but I wouldn't paint. 

That plan began to crack with the first painting. Then yesterday, I had an epiphany, and my plan broke completely. I don't have to follow my plan! I don't have to go anywhere first. I am here, I am painting, I am free. This epiphany, small as it might seem, showed me clearly how rigid and unbending I can be, how determined and inflexible. These are all traits I thought I'd left behind when I left the world of newspapers and deadlines. Turns out, they are traits that live in me. 

So I am wandering. I'm not worrying about forward progress, about getting anywhere by any particular date. I'm wandering and exploring and loving the freedom I'm feeling. And as one sponsor said to me, that freedom is already showing up in my paintings! 

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Deadwood

 

I wanted to see Deadwood, because of the legends and also the HBO series, starring Ian McShane as the filthy-mouthed and appropriately named Al Swearengen. Alas, while many of the buildings have been preserved, the town is full of casinos and shops selling trinkets. Maybe this is what Deadwood was all along, but to me, it felt like it had lost its heart. It was wearing the clothes of the legendary Deadwood, but that spirit is gone. 

I've had the same feeling about Santa Fe, Key West, Virginia Beach and Stonington, Connecticut. All these places, in my mind, have lost the kernel of what made them so beloved. 

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Wall Drug

For hundreds of miles as you drive along I-90, you see these billboards, one after another after another. The only thing that comes close - and might even beat Wall Drug - is Pedro's South of the Border in South Carolina. And so, of course, I had to go! 

If Deadwood seemed a hollow shell of its former self, I can say no such thing about Wall Drug. this place knows what it is, and takes every advantage of it! It's a place that sells T-shirts, key rings and jackalopes. It sells baubles, burgers and bubble bath. It's shop after shop of self-promoting, inexpensive junk. It's the Kim Kardashian of stores, famous for being famous. I had a good time perusing the shelves and shops. 

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Scenes from the Road

The scene above was across the street from where I made the painting at the top 

of this blog post. It was hard to decide which one to paint! 

Above and below, scenes from Wyoming. 

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Bighorns!

  

Well, they weren't kidding! I came around a curve in the road, and there was a herd of bighorn sheep grazing in the morning sun. The herd was still there when I finished my painting, and I pulled over and got some good photos. 

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Dog of the Day

 I took my photos and left the herd, rounded the curve in the road, and saw a big sheep dance down the side of a mountain. He stood there for a moment, then he clambered into the road, stopping traffic in both directions.