October 23
You know it is going to happen
because it always happens,
you just forget.
Every time I have a residency - about two weeks in - I cross over on the other side. I quit behaving like myself. (You probably have had the same experience on extended travel.)
All my blah blah about not being able to relate to these rolling hills. I love how nature just sits and waits until you are ready to accept a hug.
This morning, I found myself with sketchbook in hand, just standing - in the middle of the farm road - really listening to a Highland cow chew grass. It was so satisfying. It was so much more than the sound of pulling grass It had the breath of a beast.
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Looking at “line” in the the landscape, I have always felt that sketching - or painting for that matter - is like bowling. The first game, man, you deserve a boiling shirt with your name emblazoned on the back. And then, gutter ball, gutter ball, gutter ball.
My little sketches below are busy, busy, busy.
Years ago - at a Stuart Shils workshop - he said paint sound, not noise. I wrote it on a piece of paper and stuck it on my wall in my studio. It’s still there and I am still a chatterbox.
One of the joys of sketching outside is meeting people. You learn so much about the local flavor of folks. I marvel at how strangers reveal themselves - such honesty in heartfelt conversations. This lovely woman was out walking her “healing” horse. She talked about how her dad was going to buy her a pony but he died when she was nine, It didn’t happen. At forty, she finally got her horse and now has a farm down the road with several horses. Her girls are growing up on the back of a horse.
PS Those daisies have moved towards the sun today. I remain convinced they were sending me a message