Letters from an Artist

September, 2001

I got a chance to try Director yesterday at work. Director is the Queen of the Macromedia line, priced around a thousand dollars. When I was in college, there were a group of students sitting next to me who were studying Director and it sounded difficult. To my surprise, I found it a painless learning curve. I spent most of the day yesterday in Director trying to create an animated intro that would run as well as Flash, but as a Java applet. We currently have a customer who insists his intro not run in Flash. We've built one using timed layers and animated gifs, but the JavaScript is a convoluted nightmare. Director felt almost identical to Flash and I was able to build the action on the timeline very quickly. Exporting it as Java was disappointing. The animations were blocky. They looked like little Christmas lights blinking on as the images faded in and out. With the help of my boss we got things to work but not at an acceptable quality level.
    I have my new interface design for this web site close to completion. I am in the slicing and testing stages. It's been a long time coming. It took a vacation to get me relaxed enough to think creatively. I will implement it in stages. First, I plan to dump the Flash entirely. After the new interface is in place on all the pages, I will start on the Flash version. I've seen too many web sites where the Flash intro is killer, but the real html content beyond sucks. I don't want my site to be one of those.
     All the buildings around the office have paper flags pasted in all the windows. Many have a 40 foot row of the flag posters running the width of the building. Sue was considering pasting one in the car. I also feel somewhat patriotic. It's true that we need to pull together as a nation to gather the resolve for the long struggle we face against terrorism. She was a little shocked when I reminded her that her son is of the age to get sucked into a war, if it comes to that.

The news is still full of the terrorist bombing in NYC. Life goes on as normal here in Middle America. I returned from my painting trip to the ocean on Thursday, spent the night with the family and left in the morning for a two day trip to Leavenworth with my climbing partner M. I took M on a guided tour of Castle Rock, 5 miles East of town toward Steven's Pass. It was fun climbing the old dog routes. It was M's first experience with a high multi-pitch route. On our second day I tried a 5.8 and fell off several times. It was unusual for me to fall, especially on traditionally placed gear. If the truth be known, I was floundering, like a fish out of water. Still, I got past it, and didn't hang on any more gear. The people on Castle were very friendly. It is usually a more experienced crowd of climbers once one gets away from the sport areas. Sunday I took it easy, waxing the car and working on my new interface. It was interesting talking to M about his take on the tragedy. He is an airline captain, flying turboprop jets out of Portland.
     I've not had the nerve yet to look at the 6 paintings I did on vacation. Lisa wants to see them, but I told her she would have to wait. Right now, I feel pretty good about the work I did down there. I know the last 3 were more than likely excellent. However, I would rather remember them as wonderful experiences than confront the cold hard truth of how rusty I was when I painted them. The tourists liked them, and that is usually a good sign.

The clerk at Verizon had reassured me that the laptop to cellphone modem would work normally and allow me to surf the net, just at an extremely slow speed - 14.4k. What he didn't mention was that for the set up to work on the Oregon coast, not only did I have to have a digital connection, but the digital connection had to have data capability in the cell tower. My phone would dial, but interrupt the call with a "no data service" message. I am back in town today, parked under the Tacoma Narrows bridge giving the sixty dollar serial cable one last try. To my surprise, it works just fine. This entry is uploaded by wireless. I finished one last painting at Cape Kiwanda yesterday before driving up the coast to Astoria. This morning I drove up to Tacoma and met Sue for lunch. Absence doth make the heart grow fonder! I am feeling pretty good about my trip down the coast. I did around 7 paintings, at least 3 of which are good. The weather was superb after 3 years of bad luck with coastal weather. The ocean has a way of awakening the sleeping artist within. For the last two days I've been painting at near the professional level, and could easily have spent the rest of the week down there. Now that my painting motor is running, perhaps I can get out every weekend until the rains come.

That is awesome!...words I rarely hear. I must be warming up to have the tourists complementing my painting. For an hour yesterday, and from noon to four today I painted next to a main sidewalk leading to the Cape Meares lighthouse. I had expected the tourist distraction factor to be high and to combat it I'd wore my Walkman for most of the time I painted. It worked. They appeared to get the idea that I was not there merely to get attention and was allowed to be what I am, an artist at work. Wearing the walkman was like wearing a sign - leave me alone, it's my job. After the afternoon clouds rolled in, I sat down to organize and clean my box of pastels sticks. For that I turned my back on the easel, and sat on the grass, letting them have their way with my easel. As usual, most of them glance at it and walk on by. But for a few, my work finds a place in their heart, they are very kind in their complements and all I can say is thanks.
     The walk up to the car was much easier today. I carry my laptop when I paint, not that I will need it, I simply don't want to worry about a car prowl costing me my computer. But it makes for a very heavy art pack. I drove down to a little county park where the rate is ten dollars versus the nineteen dollar rate at the state park. Driving across the bridge to the island campground, I saw a magnificent water scene out across the inlet. Quickly finding a spot, I grabbed my pack and easel, walked down to the water and set up again. It was five thirty, I had about an hour. I blew through that painting like a laser guided hurricane. No hesitation, precise drawing and an astoundingly accurate color sense. The term dialed in comes to mind. What I am trying to say here is this painting may be my best of the trip so far.
   I could get used to living like this. It's lonely, but the work I am getting down is excellent. Plus, I am having fun! On a side note, I've noticed sitting here in my car that this laptop gives out just about as much light as my candle lantern. The candle lantern lights for around 8 hours and costs 14 dollars. The laptop goes 6 hours, with both batteries and costs a couple hundred times as much. I wonder what the other tourists in this campground think of the guy sitting in the car, staring at the laptop. They probably wonder why I can't leave my work at home and take a real vacation. I'd like to think I am simply concerned about my new vocation. Web design is an odd mix of number crunching and balls out creativity. I love it for that, but the creativity part has been waiting for my skills to catch up. I think I'm getting there finally. I love my new interface.

This reminds me of that old movie with Sandra Bullock whose title I have forgotten. She is a crack computer guru on vacation at an exotic island. She is reclining on her lounge chair, those long gorgeous legs stretched out in front of her. As she listens to the surf pound the shore, she works on her laptop. She looks up, and sees another computer junkie working on a laptop nearby, one of them makes a comment about how they must really be hard core to have brought there work with them.
     I'm not on the beach, although I could be, it's a block away. I am sitting at my picnic table at site C-22 at Cape Lookout campground on the Oregon coast. It's Monday evening on the third day of my 9 day vacation. Saturday I didn't even get out of town until 2 in the afternoon. Yesterday and today I've done two seascape paintings a day. Yesterday I did my first watercolor painting in several years from the old washed out trail at Ecola state park. That was in the morning. In the afternoon I hiked down to the top of the cliff and got pretty far on a small pastel of the same view. This morning I drove from Newhalem Bay campground down to Cape Meares light where I found a secluded painting spot by climbing over the fence and hiking down the cliff to a small flat spot. I tackled a full size sheet this time, and may have pulled it off. My only problem was the sun. It was a midday painting and I was looking due South down the coast toward some rocks several miles off. The sun rotated through it's zenith as I painted, casting it's brilliant reflection over the water in a moving pattern that was extremely hard to capture. I need to remember not to paint looking directly into the sun. I would have moved on to a different location, but the weather was too perfect.
     Around 3 I walked down to the lighthouse and started another painting of the light, up close. I was feeling very confident, and quickly had the light roughed in before I felt a mild case of the dizzies coming on. One of my warning signs for the ear is hearing the ocean roaring. Well, guess what? The ocean roars all the time at the ocean. I hated to leave the painting undone, but it was almost five anyway, and the way my ear was acting, it was best to get to a safe haven fast. The dizzies had pretty much left by the time I hiked up to the car. I will go back in the morning to finish the piece. Morning light will give me a much better angle, and the basic shape is all roughed in with charcoal. It's good enough that the tourists were already asking me to pose with it, so I have high hopes for a decent painting. It's amazing how full time painting improves my drawing ability.
      I'm not sure how hard core I am, it's just that I wanted to be able to redesign my website, and the dark empty evenings of my lonely vacation looked like a good opportunity.

Went to a memorial service for the thousands lost in the terrorist attack at lunch today. It was held in the park 2 blocks from our office. As we walked up 9th street toward the park, the sidewalks streamed with office workers converging from all directions, the crowd in a decidedly somber mood. In theater square, a small amphitheater above the transit station, a stage had been set up with a sound system and TV cameras. I walked up the sidewalk past the bagpipes and color guard toward the front and stood amongst the quiet crowd, wondering what our civic leaders had in store for us. Someone, possibly the mayor, read a short speech, speaking awkwardly about the terrible events on the East coast. Next a minister spoke, with much more feeling, about the devastation we've witnessed in the media, the fears we all have about the future, and the pain we feel now for the greater body of mankind.
      Ever since the cold war ended and the Berlin Wall came down, I've begun to believe that the world was basically at peace. Smaller battles still raged around the world of course, but the threat of nuclear holocaust seemed insignificant. Living here in middle America I puzzled over the fighting in Israel and Ireland, but didn't loose any sleep. The hatred they have developed over the centuries is beyond my understanding, and I certainly didn't think it would ever impact our country with more than the odd car bomb. People in the news speculated about a stolen Nuke from the decaying Russian army landing in the hands of terrorists, but it seemed like a remote possibility.
      It was a sunny but breezy day in the park, and a large flag, perhaps 30 feet wide, had been stretched between two ladder company trucks up above the crowd. During the speeches and the singing, many of us turned our tear streaked faces upward toward the flag with a reawakened feeling of patriotism. Not since before the Vietnam war have I looked at the flag with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. We have something special in this country and it looks like we may have to defend it again, as brave men have done many times before. I do wish there was a way to do it without violence, but I am afraid that the terrorists have gone too far. From what I have been able to learn thus far, they don't want anything from us. We have nothing they need. They only wish to destroy us.
       During a long instrumental solo by a harpist, I saw many eyes turn again toward the flag. Looking up, I saw the wind had caused the huge flag to become grossly twisted over upon itself. To my surprise, I saw a helmetless fire fighter, a woman, climbing toward the top of the extended ladder. When she reached the end of the ladder, she stretched down through the rungs toward the flag, and ever so slowly pulled it toward her, unraveling the tangled fabric high above the crowd. Finally the wind began to help her, and as the flag streamed out free again, a cheer rose from the crowd. After the moment of silence at twelve thirty, people seemed reluctant to leave. The bagpipes played another haunting hymn, and I looked around at the people of my town, wishing there were a way to reach out to the total strangers all around me.
     I have the next week off and plan to do a lot of painting, there may be some changes on this web site. I've learned enough about interface design during the last two weeks to come up with a concept to replace this year old design. I've also made some big strides forward in my understanding of the accurate display of sliced up interfaces across all browsers and operating platforms.

Woke up this morning to hear from Sue that the World Trade Towers had been attacked again. I'd had a rough night, waking up early in the morning to high pitched ringing in my bad ear and some mild dizziness. I don't think any of us living in middle America can understand terrorism. I've read many books on the Irish and Palestine "problems" without retaining any clear sense of who was right and who was wrong. There are well meaning, noble people on all sides of both problems. The Irish problem in particular goes back hundreds of years. I believe the Middle East problem goes back even further. In reading books, and observing the news reports about Israel and the Palestinians, I have begun to lean toward the siding with the Palestinians, simply because of the arrogance of the Jewish settlers. Again, I can't pick a right or wrong side in either conflict. Both the Irish and the Middle East peoples harbor hatreds going back generations, if not centuries. Their problems cannot be solved by rich men meeting at Camp David for lattes.

Balanced precariously on the small log spanning the muddy creek, I held my spinning forehead in my hands, pressing tightly on my temples. My bike, 30 feet downstream lay abandoned where I had dropped it as I struggled up the creek bed. It was partially hidden by some small trees and bushes where the creek emerged from the forest covering the steep bluff. I hoped fervently that a curious runner wouldn't see it and climb up to investigate. I had no easy answers for why I was hiding from public view. Having a disease that makes one seasick on dry land is difficult to explain. Barfing, or feeling like barfing, is a solitary activity. I'd warned my boss that my lunch hour could get stretched out a little. By the time I'd realized the dizzies were coming on in earnest, it was 11:30 and walking was challenging. I wheeled my bicycle out of the office into the sunshine, leaning heavily on my trusty old ten speed as I tottered down to the bicycle path running along the bay. Lunchtime joggers and office workers were visible along the sidewalk, and I wanted none of them. I decided the quickest route to privacy amongst the forgiving forest was pedaling.
      The sidewalk, normally a mindless ride, felt like a balance beam. The oncoming cars rushing by at 50 miles an hour on the road 2 feet away were far too close. As I wobbled along dodging joggers, I glanced sideways into the trees, looking for one of the many trails made by homeless people where I could hide. Each time I turned my head sideways to look, my bike wobbled dangerously. At one point I rode off into the muddy verge and landed on my knees. Finally I got off and walked, using the bike as a cane. On reaching a spot where no joggers were in sight, I found the muddy trail leading up a small creek. Too shaky to carry the bike, I tried to push it uphill through the bushes, falling several times and eventually abandoning it. I crawled the rest of the way uphill to the only spot where I could sit down, a small fallen tree across the creek. And there I sat for an hour, moving as little as possible while the world spun lazily around me.
     They say there are no atheists in foxholes. I've not been in a foxhole, but I have come face to face with a broken body, and it was mine. I'm not a religious man, but I prayed. I prayed to God, to the higher power, whoever, whatever or wherever it was. I made no promises, but wondered if I was meant to be crippled. I asked to be released from the suffering but I received no answer, nor did I expect to. Cars roared by on the highway, the sound reverberating against the bank and pounding on my overly sensitive ears. Trains rumbled by, shaking the ground under my feet. I attempted to look up at the vertical bank of muddy earth 60 feet above, wondering if I would be the hapless victim of a landslide. Any movement of my head brought on an intense spinning sensation. It felt as if my head was inside a huge ball of silly putty. As I looked around me at the muddy trees and bushes, the silly putty resisted, pulling at my sense of space and time with an eerie tenacity. My vision would pass beyond an object, but the object was still being processed in my head. New things were before my eyes, but the old ones were still there. After an hour on the log I'd still not lost my breakfast and decided it wasn't going to get any worse. I walked back to work, and by mid afternoon felt much better.
     The next afternoon I went for a bike ride at lunch, feeling like a million dollars. The contrast in extremes was delicious. I pedaled up and down the hills of old town, giving my old heart every opportunity to explode. Sink or swim, I'd had my fill of screwed up organs. It looks like a sunny weekend, perhaps I can paint.

9-3-01

I hiked out to my favorite painting spot at the Nisqually delta yesterday. The weather forecast was typical for a Labor Day weekend, 20 percent chance of rain. It was sunny on the drive down and the walk out, but as soon as I arrived at the duck blind the skies clouded up and the light went flat. I sat on the bank of the river for a while, watching the wind riffle through the tall marsh grass. There is something about the way the patterns move through the tall grass that charms me. It's a simple thing, the tall stems of grass bending gently in turn as the small gusts move over the land. I'd arrived at low tide, partly because I'd gotten up late, and partly because I like to have my underdrawing finished before the slack time at high tide when most of the color work goes in. Out on the mudflats, a great blue heron came sailing in for a landing. He seemed to be as concerned with gravity as a helium balloon, floating gently over the mud until he saw a good place to set down. I watched fascinated as he tilted his wings from parallel to the ground, to vertical. His flight stopped abruptly and he stepped onto the mud as easily as you or I step down off a curb.
     I met Sue, Lisa and my dad on the trail as I neared the car. Dad and I have been hiking the Delta for 30 years. We've seen a lot of changes near the trail head, the latest being a huge visitor center completed just this summer, but the dike trails have stayed the same. One can wander along for 5 miles, rivers or Puget Sound on your left,with miles of diked farm and marshlands on your right. It was diked by enterprising farmers back around the turn of the century. When the farmers wanted to sell in the late sixties the government stepped in and created an oasis of peace for the birds and the people who enjoy them.
    I've recently scanned in some new paintings from this summer, as well as a couple older ones that have never been on this site before. The two older ones, are representative of how I used to paint ten years ago. I like to think I am always getting better, but it's surprising how strong some of my early pieces were. Up until 2 years ago, all my spare time away from work was involved with art. I was able to leave my job at the door when I walked out of work, and spent my spare time working on still lifes in the evenings or painting landscapes on the weekends. The entire time I was at work though, I was hating life, stressing over how I was going to get out of the swing shift trap. I do like my new career, but the technology can be challenging. I wanted to get into a field where I could use my creative side. What I didn't know was that to be creative in commercial art, one has to first master the tools. It's a long, ongoing process. Fortunately it's fun, although a different kind of fun than traditional painting. Instead of watching the wind blow through a field of marsh grass, I'm staring at my laptop. I shouldn't complain though, at least it's a day shift job with a future. And I get weekends off.

9-1-01

My wife walked in the door, kissed me and said, "I forgot, this is our 22nd anniversary". I had also forgotten, and but for the rain might gone been climbing with M. Instead I am lounging around here, updating this web site, tinkering with interface design and paying bills. If the weather dries out I might go painting tomorrow or Monday somewhere pretty. I get a magazine called the Pastel Journal. It's a very nicely put together magazine full of tips on making a living at art. I find it almost painful to read about all the things I am doing wrong. At the top of the list is the need to produce a lot of quality paintings. Pulling on me from the opposite direction is my family and their need for immediate cash. Directly related to the cash problem is my new career in high tech with it's requirements of constant study to improve my skills in commercial art of the digital variety. This job isn't like printing, where I was able to leave the printing press at work. But, I suppose backing off on my landscape painting career for a while is a small price to pay for working day shift. My soul was turning to dust during those long years of swing shift.
    This is my latest pencil drawing of the statue I draw on my lunch hour. I captured the tension in his stance better this time. You can read about my experiences drawing him out in a public park here.

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