The Brady House

"LA Story" (the Brady House)  oil on canvas  48"w x 36"h

This has been hanging from my rafters for a while. I don't even remember when exactly it was finished but it germinated after my trip to LA last summer in a fruitless effort to talk to galleries.

Hovel

This is not actually a hovel as you can probably tell but rather a root cellar on the property at Playa (where I had my 4 week residency). This is the first painting I did there. I wasn't quite ready to deal with all of the open space, so I surrounded the structure with my more familiar trees. While it was just a root cellar I thought it seemed sort of an inviting metaphor for my retreat. I wanted to isolate and bury myself in my work. I later learned an amusing anecdote. The original owner of the property built the root cellar and used it to cook the first meth in Oregon. Go figure.

"Hovel"  oil on canvas  34" x 50"

Two more oil paintings

"En Route"  49"w x 36"h  oil on canvas

"Witness"  36"w x 50"h  oil on canvas

Two more pieces stretched and photographed thanks to my sister-in-lay Beth who kept the kids all day last Friday. Thanks Beth! Both of these were done at Playa.

"En Route" is kind of a portrait of route 31 which runs right by the residency program. I used to walk out there most nights and wait for cars to go by. Everything would be silent... then in the distance you hear a slight hum. A new light begins to flood the hillside and suddenly the car roars past. In no time the red glow of the tail lights was fades into the night and the silence returns. When they fly past at 70mph it felt a little like seeing into the future from some distant past.

"Witness" is simply a document of one of the thousands of dead trees left over from a fire that raged across Winter Ridge in 2002. They were eerily beautiful.

Roof

36"w x 49"h  oil on canvas

One more stretched and photographed. Getting there slowly but surely. I have to have them all done for the show in May so it WILL get done.

Getting them stretched and seeing them in their final form is bringing back the experiences of being at Playa, conceiving and executing the paintings. It was an amazing time.

"Constellation"

I managed to get one of the paintings from my residency at Playa framed yesterday. Hopefully I'll get more done this week.

oil on canvas  33" x 60"  2012

Rock Pallette

 

While I was at Playa I would constantly stoop down to pick up pebbles from the gravel drive. Although the drive looks gray at first glance the individual rocks were of extraordinary variety. I gradually laid them out on the boardwalk in front of my cabin (ala Andrew Goldsworthy - although my little pet rock project is not worthy of that association). I'll also post it on my Flickr page so you can view it larger and scroll back and forth.
-hmmm. That didn't work either. I'll figure it out later.

Some Photographs

Here's a few photographs from my stay at the Playa Summer Lake residency program

Looking down at the north end of Summer Lake basin

Abert Rim

Summer Lake Hot Springs (the spring feeds a pool in the old barn)

Remnants of a fire on Winter Ridge

More dead trees

My cabin at Playa (on right)

Cattle drive on route 31 with Playa commons building in background