Hula Ville

Getting rid of old books is an job I never enjoy. I've read most of my collection of books. Most of those more than once, but there comes a point where shelf space runs out.

Encyclopedia of Civil Aircraft is hogging a big piece of shelf space, it's on probation along with Hubris. Once was enough for that one. Wolverines are Eating My Leg by Tim Cahill, that should stay for another read. One of the books that won't ever go to House of Hope is Legendary Poems of the Valley and Others We Tallied, 1987 Edition by Miles Mahan.

I mentioned my mural painting days for Olive Garden Restaurants in an earlier post. There were 15 years of travel and too many experiences to detail in a couple of blog postings. But here is a memory that sticks out as I scanned my bookshelf.

Miles Mahan was a poet and an artist. When I met him in 1990 he was 94. He lived alone in a trailer on 2 1/2 acres of joshua trees along Route 66/I-15 in California's high desert north of the San Bernardino Mountains . I had finished a mural job for Olive Garden in Victorville and was driving back to Los Angeles for a red eye flight to Orlando. On the right of I-15 was a strange looking collection of bottles hung on dowels, primitive hand written signs and a giant hula girl waving to traffic. A sign said, Welcome to Hula Ville.

I got out of the car and wandered into what looked like an entrance but was just a dirt path under the overhanging branches. There was scrap wood everwhere nailed to the Joshua trees and staked in the ground. Poems. I thought I might be intruding in someone's personal garden when Miles stepped out of the shade. He was dressed like my imagined vision of a desert rat. Scruffy beard, suspenders, I noticed he could use a shower. He told me he had lived there in that spot in the desert since 1955. He said every day he picked up the trash that people threw out their car windows, and soon he noticed bottles were an endless commodity. He decided to make sculptures to go with his poems painted on scrap wood. Travelers began to take notice and stop.

He had a notepad in his hand and said he was composing a poem to read for some folks later that day. He read me what he had.

On a mound bottles ya see,

bringing joy to all of thee.

Once they held a tasty wine,

now in th' sun empties shine."

"Who are you reading it for?"

"I'm going to be on the Johnny Carson show," he said. "They are sending a limo out a little later."

I wasn't sure how to reply to that. I sputtered something like "uh, that's great".

I sat on a metal chair outside the trailer facing Miles as he put together a few more verses and read them out loud.

You could tell he took joy from word play. We talked for awhile, him wanting to know about painting wall murals.

I could tell a bath was in order before the "limosine" arrived.

"I'll watch for you tonight," I said as I got up to leave.

Someone once said no man is happy without at least one delusion. OK, I thought, he seemed happy and otherwise normal. I wished him luck.

That evening at LAX I stopped at the newstand on the way to the gate. The LA Times TV section, Friday August 17, 11:30 pm: Nightline- Ted Koppel is anchor; Arsenio Hall - Steve Martin, Rick Moranis; The Tonight Show - Patrick Swayze, bottle collector Miles Mahan.

"Son of a ..."

I called home. Susan recorded it on the VCR. Miles wasn't talkin' trash.

See what I mean?

Painting commissions can be fun or torture. Depends. As the artist, are you comfortable designing your imagery based on the directions the client gives you? You may find your work is restricted by size, colors and subject matter. You might be asked to bring the client's vision to life rather than your own.

Commissions are a necessary facet of most artists' career. But they are seldom easy. A painting executed with no restrictions is often difficult but one with a checklist of elements or requirements is even harder. I have two commissions underway currently and I am generating ideas to give both clients choices. Time will tell how successful I am sharing the vision.

Shown is one of several preliminary color sketches for a landscape commission.

Untitled, oil on board, 9 1/2" x 9"

The big update

Between yesterday and this morning I sent out a large number of e-mails introducing the new blog as well as announcing my website updates. Thanks to everyone who responded. Your compliments are generous and I'm grateful so many of you would take time to express them - even the acclaim that came rolled up in a computer virus. If you know who your are, you may want to get that checked.

I usually delay the updates too long. It's work that demands 5 or 6 steps to reach the goal of sending images and information to my web person. My natural disposition provides the energy and organizational skills for 4 to 5. So I save up those energies for the time when all will be available at once. I never know when they will sufficiently accumulate. I also use this process for other (most) chores and assignments. This applies in particular to the process of shipping art.

Voices

Today I reframed a painting that I have had around awhile. Well, I haven't had it so much as it's been had in various places. Cincinnati, Knoxville, Kansas City. It has either hung in galleries or been in an outdoor show somewhere unsold for the past year or so.

If you could be the painting for a moment you would see your situation to be uncomfortably similar to being a puppy at the pound. You're scouting for that special couple to pick you out of the herd, bond with you as they get their face licked before wisking you off to your new home. Maybe the gallery owner wouldn't use that metaphor but you see what I'm saying.

As a painter you create work from experiences or places that speak to you for one reason or another, but you can't know if a viewer will hear what you heard. Sometimes a painting you have doubts about will get snatched up immediately. On the other hand you might think you just reached a great new plateau in artistic accomplishment only to find no one noticed. I guess that's the nature of tastes and preference.

Anyway, this painting, Dawn After the Rain is one of my favorites, partially because it represents one of my favorite places in the world. It is painted from photos I took along the Natchez Trace Parkway, a 440 mile stretch of blacktop from Natchez MS to Nashville TN. Maintained by the National Park Service, it's a ribbon of unspoiled beauty. If you drive it on a summer evening with the windows down, or better yet, the top down, you'll get glimpses of fireflies and whiffs of cut hay. And if you're old like me, you'll remember what taking a ride used to mean. I've painted many places along the Parkway and know there are many more waiting to speak as I pass by.

Pictured above, Dawn After the Rain, 12x16, oil on canvas, available $850.

Busman's holiday

Over the years I have developed a small niche for painting automobile art. It's something I relish and it stems from an early love of cars and racing. Growing up in Central Florida between Sebring and Daytona Beach, I guess it was meant to be. At age 13

I saw my first 12-Hours of Sebring. There were Ferraris and Lancias from Italy battling Porsche teams from France and Germany. I was hooked. The whole experience was exotic. There were unidentifiable accents, and funny European cars with names I couldn't say. They lapped around a 5 mile circuit composed of interconnected airbase runways and roads, through all weather and into the night. How cool. I drew and painted racing cars from that day.

Automobile art is a small niche, and while other pursuits took me away from it, there are accomplished painters who specialize in it cultivating collectors around the world. Fortunately, I receive commissions to give me the occasional fix of painting metal and glass. Its good therapy after rendering my 1,000th tree. We all need a holiday.

Above is a rendering in oil on board for a client commisssion. It is a Porsche 904 and a Corvette Grand Sport from 1965. If it is approved it will be painted at a size roughly 3 times larger.

Paint hypnosis

Today is another catch up day. I worked on a couple of ideas for commissions and spent part of the day on business calls and

e-mails. I know most of us artists have trouble making ourselves do the work involved with creating and maintaining business. Most of us would rather paint.

When I walk into the studio in the morning, before I put down the car keys or put lunch in the refrigerator, I find myself sitting in front of the easel putting paint on the canvas. A half hour later I find the keys still gripped in my left hand.

Here is a small painting that I'm finished with. I call it

Paying Respect, 10"x10" $575.

Art auctions

Today it's time to do the work I avoided during the week. A couple of commission projects need preliminary sketches. An artist bio for a benefit auction. Why is it so hard to get my head around those things sometimes.

I got word this morning my painting donation to the Chatham Acadamy in Savannah sold at full price last night. They held their annual benefit auction for the school at the Marriott Riverfront. This is a school with family connections so I give without reservation and hope for some good results for the school.

The words benefit auction tend to be loaded terms for artists. As many non-profits use art auctions for fund raising, we're often asked to contribute a piece. It's nice to have your work shown off at these events but a lot of people don't know that artists get no tax deductions for their contributions. I either give because I have a strong attachment to the cause, as in the case of the Chatham Acadamy, or because the organization offers a split of the winning bid. Giving away a unique framed painting is a big sacrifice if done with any frequency. Splitting the proceeds gives the artist a chance to make something while givng the charity a net gain as well.

The painting on the easel above is finished. I'm calling it Morning Mist, 24"x24", available $2,100.