Diary of a Residency, Day 11, February 26, 2009

I am typing this on my new laptop, which is beautiful and ofttimes baffling. I’ve never used the  Microsoft Vista before and this is a 64 bit Vista Premium, wrenched out of Amazon with only two separate and carefully keyed in orders,  two emails (one of which reassured Amazon that I thought the problem had been solved; I said “yes” with my fingers crossed), and two fraught phone calls from ladies with soft voices and strong accents. That was after we fought with Visa and Toshiba and and found a work-around. Ah the joys of modern conveniences.

At any rate, after a day or two of getting less baffled and having my very own computer all to myself, my spelling may improve and the carpeting in the Goldwell House will be saved from the pacing around, waiting for the other one to finish working. When I said “he” was pacing, he said, “She…”. It would take a forensic expert to sort out the pacing and heavy sighing, so buying another laptop and getting it sent to Beatty (they wanted to bill us in Beatty and send the laptop to Portland but I convinced them that wouldn’t work very well) seemed easier. In a day or two, I’ll know that this Toshiba Vista has made my life, or at least my spelling, easier.

Because the laptop arrived today, I managed only one painting of downtown Beatty. It’s better than the first downtown piece but only sort of. This one can be saved, however. The last has been turned to the wall, to be scraped down and started over.

I began the day by seeking out, in the usual fashion, what I would paint. This gave me a good one-mile walk around Beatty, and I found about 10 sites, just on a quick tour. There are various places downtown, including the Rebel Gas Station and Mini Mart, which will make me deal with wheeled vehicles. There’s the Phoenix Motel, half remodeled and about to change its name to the Atomic Inn.  There’s the Lost River Trading Company, which is actually the grocery store. There’s another go at the Exchange Club/Lou’s Hardware. There’s the geodesic dome library, which is utterly delightful, as libraries always should be (Andrew Carnagie would have been proud….) There’s an old house that’s being restored by the museum, and the museum itself, which was a church, and the Bank of America building that is in a cottage all its own (that’s the kind of banking establishment that one likes to see). I might have to attempt the Beatty Club (I think that’s what it’s called) which is opposite the Exchange Club/Lou’s Hardware and on its way to becoming Outsider Art. On the other corner is Ann’s Antique store, run by Ann Marchand who is also the local realtor, across from the cottage that is the Bank of America. This makes a good set of subjects to combine into the corner of Main and Main, which is actually Main and Second, where Main takes a jog diagonally through town to follow the main highway. Oh, and there’s the RV Space Station, where we did our laundry.

And that was all I saw, except for today’s painting, on my 3/4 hour tour of downtown Beatty this morning.

And so we have come to the crux of the matter: the painting. My painting spot is not marked by any obo — none would have lasted more than ten minutes, even if I could have found the rocks to mark it. The auto traffic in the area would have taken it out. The painting spot was right across from the Rebel gas station, the busiest place in town. So I had lots of distractions.

I must have talked to 15 people, including a bicyclist and his partner from southern California, who spoke of taking months to paint a picture from a photograph. I visited with Virginia Goodson, who praised the two local artists that I’m starting to feel a bit jealous of:-). Candy, from Argentina, who is a ski bum in Tahoe, and was touring the  region with 7 friends chatted me up in fine English. I regretted my own inabilities to speak to her in Spanish, but she forgave me. And her friends yelled “Goodby June” as they rolled away in their van. A fellow in an old beater wanted to know if I had seen Fred (I hadn’t, at least that I knew of) and an old gentleman told me a bit of Beatty history, as well as forecasting the (doomed) installation of a second “Latino family” casino. There were the usual curious children as well as tourists from Virginia who took my picture, a woman looking for the owner of a lost chihuahua, and numerous others who waved as they turned into the gas station.

All that is to say — this painting was done under serious distractive circumstances — ahem —

The Sourdough and Affiliates, oil on board 12 x 16″ 2009 (1st draft; final version below)

The building on the left has its sign yet to be painted “Sourdough Saloon.” It has good pizza, a busy bar (at least on the Friday night we were there), a cook who moonlights as a carpenter or contractor (or perhaps visa-versa — this, like Basin Montana, seems to be a town where everyone has at least two jobs).

I don’t think I had a single art thought while painting this except those attendant upon meeting the challenges — the colors of the buildings, the shadows (not too strong). The last things I stuck in, the light pole and the two flags, as well as the unlabeled sign in the Sourdough window, as usual, need fixing. Somehow all my green paint (as well as my easel) got left at the Red Barn yesterday, so some colors can be tweaked. And the rocks in the foreground are pathetic, but I like painting rocks and they are very forgiving. So I might be able to save this effort.

Tomorrow is an Open House at the Red Barn, although I didn’t get flyers done (Vista doesn’t allow for printing on the old HP) so I suspect a couple of tourists and Fred and Betty will be the only ones to show up. I want to do another long, big “straight” vista (the painted kind) up toward rhyolite; my funny story museum piece is really a separate endeavor. So that’s what I’m hoping to work on tomorrow, as well as chatting people up. When I’m painting and others get curious, they chat me up. When I’m doing an open house, I do the chatting up.

Reported on my new shiny laptop, from Beatty Nevada.

Next

The Sourdough Saloon, 12 x 16″, oil on masonite, 2009 [final version]

[ed. note: the differences in coloration between the paintings presented on the original blog and the final versions done on an upright PC can be attributed to the problems of seeing color properly on a laptop computer.]