I’m not sure if I should put an occasional wildflower in.  I don’t want to be a beautician. I’m not interested in extraneous marks of beauty in these works.  I want them to be raw and visceral.  I want them simple and unenhanced.  I want them to be as ordinary as a Smithson found monument.  I like the contrast and starkness and the directness of the marks.  The viewer can wear the color and baubles.

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volcano, powerful the emetic that poured forth such a mass of black vomit.”,

Julius Caesar Merrill, 1864

Despite being in complete isolation, I’m thankful to have made it onto two blogs thus far:

http://www.advancedprecocity.com/ryan/blog.html

http://romanblog2.blogspot.com/

It started with the weather.  It is in a pattern now of raining in the late afternoon. I have to consider this when I start a painting because I may not get it done on time.  When I woke up,  I saw something big was coming over the mountains.  During the day the front got closer—until it cracked around 6PM with a stellar double rainbow as a grand finale.

In the evening,

I met these two cyclists, Ryan and Dave, who are riding coast to coast and blogging about their journey @thesimplemenbikeacrossamerica.org.  I might even make it into their blog!  They started from Portland and are headed for Savannah. Finally I got a few shots of me actually painting, thanks to them.  They have to send them still, though.

So, all the paintings I’m currently working on involve pattern.  I’m incorporating an existing pattern in one painting.  The transition between what was printed and what I wanted to add was going to be the toughest part so I dealt with it first, trying to figure it out ahead of time. Beginnings are shown.

In another painting the clouds created a pattern–which I put down.  (I always paint the backgrounds first in an additive approach.)  The foreground has also become a pattern in this tailgate shot.  The problem for me is that then there is no focal point of place for your eye to rest.  I have to go into this painting and get rid of the lava pattern.  Marks at the moment are similar and there needs to be more variation.

On the big Cinder Cone Valley painting, the foreground was also too much of a pattern.  Last evening I broke it up but still need to reintroduce some light into especially the right hand side.  It was extremely gusty and I had to strap the esale and painting to a highway sign.

Repeat (Idaho Road Trip)

Got up, made my latte, walked the dog, locked myself out of the cabin, went in through the window screen and then went to the general store where I broke the ritual and ordered pancakes, eggs and sausage and sat and spoke with two women, Joy and Pam, who were about to go riding.  I saw the Purdys. Sharon was making her own grape juice in the back of the store. She had made jam the day before.

I took a walk with Buster on the ranch alongside Silver Creek.  Silver Creek is world renown in the fly fishing world.  I guess that and both hunting is why Hemmingway hung out here.  The stream is completely spring fed.  It comes out of the aquifer right on the Purdy ranch where I am staying.  Most of the stream is on the ranch.  Only a small portion is a conservancy allowing access for fly-fishing.  I guess the nutrients in the water cause a rich array of vegetation to grow, which brings better insects and bigger trout, and bigger birds, which make the trout feistier and more difficult to catch.  I’ve only been here a couple of days and seen Sand Hill Cranes, Eagles, Osprey, Hawks, and a huge Owl.

There is this weird little white dog that hangs out on the ranch and is curious about Buster.  The little dog doesn’t like people and he lives outside.  He must weight about twelve pounds.  I think he might be a Chiwawa.  He runs when I try to talk to him but he is always waiting for us to get home–to meet Buster.  I’m worried about this little dog living outside with all these birds of prey.  My brother John’s friend had such a little white dog. An eagle snatched it. The dog went yelping over the tops of pine trees in the eagle’s talons.

I’m going to continue the cinder cone painting.  I’m going to try and work on the big one and then do a full moon painting.  I want to meet the ranger named Dianne this evening, who conducts art workshops in the park.

There is no key to the cabin.  I hate to pester the owner.  I want to make a good impression as an Easterner and not appear flakey.  If they found out I regularly lock myself out I’d be embarrassed.

This morning I ran into the ranch owner, Nick Purdy.  He gave me the name of an orthopedic doctor in Ketchum who is not surgery crazy.  I’d rather go to a doctor out here any day than one back in Saint Louis because there are more athletes around and therefore better doctors.  I made an appointment to get this knee looked at next Tuesday.

I’m feeling a little lonely this morning possibly because it is the weekend and I have no plans.  I know that as soon as I get painting I’ll feel better.

I drove to the cinder cone again to paint.  It was a frustrating experience.  I hiked/limped up and down the cone three times to get stuff I forgot out of my truck.  This painting is not coming out so well.  I want it to be knarly, visceral and worked. The problem is the composition is symmetrical and that is always a killer for a painting.  Also, how can I make a giant hole interesting?  I’m trying but loosing the battle.  It is more like wrestling an alligator than painting.  The wind doesn’t help but actually it could be much much worse.  I can’t blame the weather–it is pretty good.  I’m just not making a good painting.  Maybe I should attach a basketball hoop to the picture plane. I’m going to give it one more shot tomorrow.

I went to the local hot spring at sunset with Buster on the way back to the cabin.  The tips of the grass blades growing appeared to have golden minnow skeletons on the tips.  The moon was almost full and there were tons of red dragonflies the size of hummingbirds zooming about, bumping into each other.  If they weren’t so big I’d have said it was a hatch. I couldn’t tell if they were feeding on smaller insects or attempting to mate before the frost and death.

I stopped by the store and got Gatorade and dog food.  I’m now back at the cabin looking at this annoying painting and elevating my knee.

I got a late start this morning because I walked Buster and locked myself out of the cabin.  I had to take a screen off the window and crawl through the window, which wasn’t an easy feat because my knee felt funny and wouldn’t bend.  I rolled my pants up and found my knee swollen.  I’m bummed.  It won’t bend and I am limping.  I need to stand in order to paint. I guess I’ll try to sit on the tailgate of my truck a little and maybe call that horse vet for advice.

The fortuitous thing was that last night I came home to find a present left in the cabin from the landlady.  I opened the door to find a couch.  It was as if I someone knew I was going to be sitting and elevating  my knee.

I need to go hiking today in order to get to a painting site I’ve scoped out.  I hope my knee allows me to continue.  I’ll just go slow and make lots of little trips to carry stuff instead of one heavy load.

Tonight, I plan to go to a movie in Hailey with a schoolteacher friend I’ve made.

Last year I was in the hardware store in Arco and overheard two mothers talking about the local school field trip to the historic atomic “power plant”.  One mother was explaining that her son had his pants dirty and was forced to leave them behind.  He had to ride home on the bus in his underwear.  I figured the Geiger counter reading must have registered the pants bad. I’m wondering if I should be drinking the water from this aquifer.

This morning I stretched a canvas to bring with me to Arco.  It was a big one and I had big plans to paint the numbered mountain in Arco.  However, after driving all around town for a good part of the day, I decided not to do the painting after all.  I decided it was the kind of thing that would make a better photo than a painting.  I drove all the way back to the lava field and started a work before the rain came.  I didn’t get to finish this painting.  The storm kept shooting out little clouds like bullets and the painting underwent numerous transformations.

I then drove up to Ketchum to hear some live music (even though it was jazz) and eat dinner.  I need a little bit of a social life for my mental health.

I’m at 5,600 feet in high desert. There has already been a frost. I’m worried my PVC pipe structure will not hold up to the weather. Last July on the lava flow the wind took two hefty women airborne and rolled them down the cinder cone in the gravel. Gusts were reported at 85 miles per hour. My tent collapsed nightly and finally ripped in half. The structure I built shakes. It is too hard for this middle-aged woman to camp, deal with an at-needs dog and paint with tar and oil.

At the general store in Picabo, I happened upon the owner; a pretty blonde named Sharon. I asked if she knew of places to rent and she mentioned a cowboy had just moved out of a cabin on her ranch. I wrote a check out for $400 and instantly moved in. I am overjoyed. Shelter is huge. Thanks to being out of the wind, my canvases are no longer kites. Inside the store there is an entire wall devoted to Hemmingway who hung out here.  Nearby there is a place for Buster and me to go swimming and we have two horses next door who greet us each morning and follow us down the road when we take our walk.

My address is now: Cindy Tower
General Delivery
Picabo, ID 83348

What I love about the lava flow is that at first glance it looks to be a dump left behind from industry-almost like a lead mine’s tailings.  However this flow is natural and continues to grow.  Eruptions are thousands of years apart and the older flows from 10,000 years ago, finally, are covered with sagebrush.  I’m interested in capturing the newer flows, which are still fresh, black obsidian.  I’m hoping the work will look both apocalyptic and Zen at the same time, depending on the viewer’s mindset.

I’m experimenting painting with asphalt because no brand of oil can get the black I want.  I want a black that sucks light in like a sponge.  I’m painting with knives, brushes and a trowel.  I want the marks to be crude.  I want to do something digital photographers can’t. For me, it is all about the surface.  (I have a background in sculpture after all.)

Every time I set up, photographers come to take a photograph in the exact same spot I am set up in.  It is as if they think a painter is some kind of a scenic ambassador.  I am a living scenic viewfinder.  I am humored by this and sometimes set up in the least scenic place just to test out this theory.

Late in the afternoon, painting time is crucial and the light is only good for seconds.  At this time of day, the beginning of leisure-time cocktail hour, undoubtedly, tourists come and interrupt me while I am painting.  I try and be polite.  I pretend my hearing is worse than it is.  They want to gab.  I nod and smile– sort of.  They are finished with their day, however, and want to talk.  I’d like to socialize too but this is the busiest part of my day.  It can be lonely on the road and I like to talk—but later. At this time of day I’m doing what I do.

A lot of Sunday painters want to talk.  Also, I attract quite a few bull dikes.  I know they like me and not art because they don’t even bother to walk around the easel. They make me feel like I am just a new flavor and interesting only because my rig is something other than a Harley.

Last summer, I got to wear a park uniform.  A different cross-section of humanity spoke to me. I didn’t mind being interrupted because as artist of the park, I knew it was my job.  I loved answering questions, “Can we skate board here?” “Sure!”  I got to be the resident artist of Crater’s of the Moon National Monument.  The general public thought I was a ranger.  I even wore my uniform to the grocery store where people let me cut in line.  I was very popular.  I also remember attracting men with uniform fetishes.

At times, I enhanced my uniform by wearing frilly pink silk shirts underneath and fun leggings.  This time around I have given myself my own uniform, coveralls, boots and a wide brimmed hat to keep the sun off.  This month the hat might have to go because it is too windy.

I want to keep this series simple and just paint with driveway patch and oil.

I built a PVC-pipe back to the truck for us to camp in but I’m not sure how it will do in the winds. The structure doubles as a wind screen to paint behind.