Estero San Antonio

this artwork will show at sebastopol center for the arts september 16 – october 23, 2010 with an opening reception september 16, 6 – 7:30 pm. its size: H26½” x W34½” x D2½”. priced at $750.

i wondered exactly what an “estero” is, so i climbed high above the estero just north of dillon beach on the california coast, dragging my art equipment, so i could study and paint the damned thing at my leisure and in the high winds blowing that afternoon on the coast, until late afternoon when the fog rolled in and the temperature dropped down somewhere in the vicinity of china.

what makes an estero (since you asked!) is a frail coastal barrier, like the slender band of beach to be seen on this depiction toward upper left. when the tide runs full, it floods over the barrier into the inland area meeting the flow seaward of a creek or river draining the inland hills. so you have the creation of tidal pools, and a lot of flow of brackish water. when the tide runs out again, much water remains caught in pools or in marshland.

i created this piece, in moments of inspired insanity, using both soft chalk pastels and good old rugged oil-based paints. i like the results of mixing unlikely mediums. in this case, there are drawbacks — not for the art itself, where i like the results for creating a sort of hallucinogenic realization of what the place in fact looks like; but for preservation of the art. need i tell you? pastel can just disappear off the canvas into a pile of oddly colored dust on the floor. i consulted our local high-end framer, the one trained in museum framing of genuine picassos, matisses, etc. she custom built a box frame for the piece mounting real honest-to-god museum glass in it, looks incredibly great — i should be showing a pic of IT! — cost me a fortune, and it’s good. (the $750 price is a steal.)

the show is called “mapworks: the map as art,” which seemed a natural for this piece, so i entered it. juried by kim anno, professor and chair of painting, at the california college of the arts, san francisco, ca.

go see it. or at least wish you could!

“You’re gonna miss me,” lulu and the lampshades. Awesome! Delightful!

This isn’t all of them (there are 4 more…and counting), but it’s a good sample! We’re having a BBQ here to celebrate visit from New Zealand by Matt, Lisa, Rangi, and Manu. Hooray! Adding to the zest, Ben, Kim, and Ava made it over from Tracy! We had the jumpie house, the tables with umbrellas, the kegs…. Count was 35 adults and 18 kids! Not all my descendants, mind you. Friends.

A Father's Vocation...

I always love it when one of my kids — or even someone else’s! — wishes me Happy Father’s Day. I don’t suppose any dad is holding his breath about it, or thinks less of the kids who don’t pass him the wish that year. It’s optional. Hey, I’m happy waking up to have another day!

Challenge

Lots of sappy stuff is written on Father’s Day, though mercifully not so much as on Mother’s Day! Nobody quite manages to define a dad in spite of all the forced trying. Yet it’s simple: Dads fix stuff.

Today was my day to fix the toilet seat. It was loose and wiggly. The seat is held onto the giant porcelain bowl by a 5/16th inch bolt. On the underside of the porcelain shoulder that the bolt goes through there had been a fat plastic washer and then a nut to snug the washer up against the porcelain. The washer broke and fell off. The nut could not be tightened sufficiently to hold the seat steady. Looks like a job for a dad!

The good dad prepares his equipment. I needed a new washer to replace the broken one. More than that, I had developed an ardent desire not to have to do this repair often — in fact, ever again. You see, I already had to get down on the floor on my back and creep in between the cupboard and the giant porcelain bowl even to see what was going on. It may look roomy in my not-to-scale drawing, but don’t believe it! First I got down to see the scene. Then I got up, got a needed tool for turning the nut, got back down, wormed my way again into the available crevice with both arms close to breaking off, turned the nut, discovered that it would never in the wide world get tight no matter what, and wiggled out again.

It’s what we do. We fix stuff. It’s because we love you.

Solution

So, yesterday or a few days before, I had gone to the hardware store to buy a few urgently needed supplies. Oh, you may not know about this. There is always at least one more trip back to the hardware store. In this case, i had estimated the bolt size at 5/16, let the helpful clerk show me a similar toilet connection and prove it was 1/4 inch, and so brought home the 1/4 inch gear — the wrong size. Hence the second trip. No hard feelings.

The plastic washer that used to snug against the underside of the porcelain shoulder of the bowl was broken and had to be replaced. I got a big rubber washer to do that job. But that wasn’t enough to ensure that I would never ever ever have to do this particular repair again. I also selected a lock washer to go on the bolt between the rubber washer and the nut. Are you following this?

The nut squishes the lock washer against the washer, which in turn is snugged (I love that word!) against the porcelain. The lock washer locks, meaning that the $#%%##$^@ nut won’t come loose!

Ah, but that isn’t enough for the doughty dad who, by dint of vast experience, knows full well that things which cannot happen often do happen!

Hence, the overkill. You simply must overbuild anything you build so it will stay built, and by the same token you must exercise extreme caution to assure that other stuff will stay put the way you want it. This is a dad’s credo. We live by it or we die by it.

In this case, the credo of overdoing requires not only the lock washer but also the second nut. Yes, the second nut. That’s the nut that gets tightened up against the first nut constantly reminding the first nut that it’s job is to stay tight and not to come slippy-sliding back down the thread of the bolt getting all loose and wiggly.

Then of course the good dad does the same thing on the other side of the bowl, because if one side goes bad, the other side can’t be far behind! Indeed, in this case, the fat plastic washer was already well on the way to shattering and cascading merrily down onto the floor, to be unknowingly swept out with other trash.

Were it not for the good offices of a good dad, that toilet seat would be wiggly right now! But now, oh yes, now it is as solid as a rock!

Happy Father’s Day!

Carroll and i alternate weeks cooking & shopping & cleaning up for dinners, the whole kitchen thing. Works fine: week on, i do it, and i enjoy it. week off, she does it, and i get to coast, which i like a lot too! Often, for my week, i work out a week’s menu which i post in the K, a) to remind me what i’m doing, and b) to let C know. Not this week, tho. I’m shopping, getting a bunch of stuff, then each day figuring out something for dinner.

MONDAY: baked halibut, new corn on the cob, tossed green salad. Simple, eh?

BTW, here’s how to bake halibut to perfection: Get halibut filet, ⅓ to ½ pound (½ lb is a lot) per person. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Rinse and dry the halibut, coat with olive oil, salt and pepper, pop it into a glass baking dish (pie pan etc). When oven is fully heated, bake for 20 minutes per inch of thickness of the halibut. That most often means 20 – 22 minutes, because halibut filets are usually not much over an inch in thickness before baking (they puff up a bit in the oven). if your filet were 2 inches thick (never happens), you would NOT bake it 40 minutes. The add-ons after the first inch are small and gradual.

As for the person who says, “Oh I like mine a little better done,” give ‘em the less thick half of the filet; there’s always a difference. (You can also do the whole thing at 375 instead of 350, to boost it. But do not, PLEASE, overcook it in response to that person’s fears. Halibut should be wonderfully moist and flakey, also white; at that point, it’s done right.)

So you’re wondering, does this work for all fish? Answer: most fish. Salmon wants less time in oven. It so easily gets overcooked and dry. Cut it back to, say, 18 minutes at most for an inch. It should be pink, moist, and flakey — not crumbly, for God’s sake!

TUESDAY (tonight): I got home at 5:45, so to eat by 6:30 I did a quick and yummy beef stir-fry.

First i set the table to get that out of the way, then got the rice ready to turn on. I carved off a chunk of tri-tip, maybe ½ – ⅔ pound, sliced it into pieces 1 – 2 inches long, ½ inch wide, ¼ inch thick, and set it aside.

At 6:00 I turned on heat for the rice water (once water boils and rice is added, it cooks 20 minutes, sits and breathes 5 minutes, and hangs out ready).

2 cloves garlic minced; 4 or 5 tiny yukon potatoes, ½ white onion, 10 or so green beans, ⅓ large red pepper, all of them cut up and ready to add. Heat 5 – 6 tablespoons olive oil on high. When it almost smokes, toss in the garlic, stir 15 seconds and add the other veggies. (You can hold back onions or red peppers and especially green beans for less cook time to your taste.) Stir fry enthusiastically. Add salt, pepper, ginger, a tad of ground cardamom seed for gravitas and, eventually, a thimble of sake for the steam and, oh yes, the taste. When near being cooked but not quite, remove all that and set aside.

Add oil again to the wok and, when hot, toss in the meat slices to brown, tossing frequently enough to let them know you care. Season with salt, ground cumin, that ground cardamom seed again, and cayenne (yes, cayenne: don’t be afraid!). When meat is happy, return veggies to wok, toss on a bit of tamari sauce, stir-toss for a mere instant, and you can thicken the brew with a teaspoon of corn starch and a dash of water mixed in – quickly, just a minute.

Serve immediately over rice. Goes extraordinarily well with a River Road Petit Syrah, a recent addition to that vintner’s list.

Oh yeah!

The Sandbox Oasis

Carroll’s b-day was May 1; i just didn’t get around to taking pics till today. For weeks before May 1, i badgered C. to say what she’d like for her birthday; no results. Finally a week before the event i said, “Tell me something, or i’ll get you some horrible thing that i like and you’ll wish you’d never seen!” Threats work for me; some people find crying is better.

She said she wanted a sandbox like the one she had as a little girl and described it in detail. I drew up plans, she approved. She also said, “I know it’s late in the game to have it by my birthday. Mainly, I want it before the kids arrive from New Zealand [June 21] so they can play in it with Eli.”

I got all the materials cut to size at Home Depot, jammed them into my Artmobile (old Isuzu pickup) and got them home. “OK,” I told her, “I’ve got it designed, so now I’m certain I can get it built before the kids come in June.” I glimpsed a faint flicker of disappointment cross her face before she eclipsed it with a sunny smile and, “Great!” I had to set her up to have any chance of surprising her! It worked….

Great Blue Heron

In our charming Forestville idyll there appeared out in the yard today a Great Blue Heron. He sedately walked with somewhat mincing steps over fresh cut grass, in no hurry, perhaps investigating a bird rumor of running water to be found here – which is true. There is, of course, our water feature, which we’re not calling “Falling Water” since that’s been done, though that’s just what it is.

“Look outside! Stay quiet!” quoth my bride. I did. This beautiful, graceful and sleek bird, so slender, with such a loooooooooong neck, stood at least a yard high and quite possibly more. I ogled the delicious creature for several minutes while it completed its leisurely inspections of the area, finally strolling behind the secret garden, where I caught continuing glimpses. And then it flew. Whoa! Big wingspan!

Thanks be for such glorious moments here in Eden, where I live….

and then i googled to find out just what that was! thus the pic..

All pics are of charcoal drawings on 18 x 24 inch newsprint dated May 6, 2010.

Playing House in the Old Barn

Seated Insouciant.

Waiting for Him to Look Up....

Who You Lookin' At??

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….I change mediums frequently doing life drawing. One good approach is to mix mediums on each drawing; for example: watercolors, charcoal, and pastel. Odd combos offer fun drawing and weird, unpredictable results — which i like. Watercolors reacts with surprise to pastel; charcoal is jolted awake by crossing a watercolor path.

Another good approach is to choose one medium (or two or three) and stick to it throughout the evening’s drawings, beginning with quick gestural poses one or two minutes long and staying with it through intermediate length and long poses — however long those might be (for TNDG, usually 20 minutes).

All four drawings posted here — and all the others that night — are charcoal on newsprint. After awhile, i begin to get the hang of it, the skeleto-muscular structure of my whole body — especially, but not only, my hands and eyes — gets the rhythm of the model’s body in space as well as my inner rhythm of the moment.

The model for these drawings is a new one for TNDG, and a good one: Wisteria.

Yum!

A good way to start the day! Rangi and i created a tradition of the “cereal moment,” in which we shared such a delightful bowl. Eli and I occasionally re-visit it, and it lives on….

Composition: move the spoon up. Yeah yeah, I know.