Tales from the field #26

For various reasons I do a lot of trips to the east end of the Coachella Valley.  Shows in Indian Wells, Indio, La Quinta and the studio I work with in La Quinta.  I take Highway 86 north until just past county line and then turn off and go through the fields.  The route is a pleasant drive in the country through fields of various crops and citrus and palm groves.

The drive home is equally pleasant, but one highlight for me is the concept that from that area, directions to my house include the instruction ‘Turn right at the tinsel bicycle’.

It has gathered more tinsel over the years. I don’t know why it’s there. Art or memorial?  No clue.

Work in progress.

A Work in Progress. It doesn’t have a name yet!

This time of year is usually a lull time for the art world, but not so in this studio. I’ve got two commissions in progress.  Here’s the second one – the request was for the colors of ‘Coffee Bean Morning’ and the triangles of ‘Three Ancient Sentinels’.  I’m waiting for the customers to let me know if they’re happy with what I have so far before I glue it down.  Eventually it will have the same foreground as Coffee Bean Morning also.

In other news I heard the other day that my Desert Wreath brought $150 for the Boys and Girls Club of Cathedral City.

Desert Sky Wreath

“Desert Sky Wreath”.

While cutting branches from my mesquite the other week, I was thinking about how I had forgotten to go to Michael’s and bought items from which to construct a wreath for the Boys and Girls club wreath fundraiser. I wanted to make something locally inspired, and with another couple of ideas-in-the-idea-stage in mind came up with a mesquite wood wreath sporting 12 mini sky paintings in dome-shaped skies.  I created the ‘cups’ with a plaster-cloth product formed around a locally found sandstone concretion that is pear-shaped.  Each sky is from a different month – or thereabouts, some of the winter mornings could be anytime in the winter, and some of the summer skies are painted from memory rather than from a photograph

Yes, I know, it’s not your average wreath, but then I aspire to not be the average artist.  Sometimes it’s not what you can paint, it’s what you can conceive of.

Happy Thanksgiving.