Diary of a Residency, Day 12, February 27, 2009

The universe decided I had had enough pleasure, and today it whapped me with strong colds winds from the northeast.  And the sun was covered with clouds — not quite hidden, but not maintaining its desert reputation as a bringer of warmth, either. I was working on a large board (18 x 36), close to the Red Barn, thank heavens. I staked down my easel and added a 15 pound rock in a bag attached to the center hook of the easel for good measure. But the board acted like a great sail — and the whole shebang was tossed by the wind.

So I found a hammer and staked it more firmly, didn’t put the board onto the easel until I was there to hold it, and I dogggedly painted. After an hour of fighting wind and cold (my hat had to be cinched to my adam’s apple) I decided I had blocked in enough of the scene to quit working outside.

This is the  blocked-in painting of the Goldwell Open Air Museum site at the head of the Rhyolite canyon. The painting was done from the Red Barn. Making this painting work will be a challenge — even without the strong headwind.

After I secured the blocked-in painting, had an orange, and recovered from the wind, I remembered I needed to take some photos. And I had time to revise Shorty Harris’s painting — the one where he gets tired of being a Tribute and wanders off with his penguin into the Bonanza mountains. I had him saying goodbye to all his friends at Goldwell, who were equally rebellious. Lego Lady (also known as Lady Venus) needed to sit down, so the couch (Sit Here) moved over next to her. And Icara was mighty tired of being tied to that pole; she needed to flex her wings. So I let her fly. The ghost figures were still having lunch, although one of them, the bike rider, looks like she’s found a spinning wheel. No matter. I still need to add color to the couch, which is tiled, and sort out the landscape a bit more.

But here’s Shorty Harris, draft 3:

That’s Shorty and penguin’s trail, in white. They had to say goodby to their great good companions before they struck off to look for “color.” They are the tiny black figures out near the mountain. (For info about what I’m talking about, check out the Goldwell site or     Art and Perception where I described some of the sculptures and showed photos of them. You’ll see why Icara needs freeing — and what the chair will have to contribute to the scene.) [The colors in this photo are dreadful but I’ve lost my Photoshop with this new computer, so I can’t correct them as well as I would like. Everything is too blue and violet, compared to the actual golds and greens. Trust me, the painting has lots of ochre and transparent red oxide.]

Along with working on Shorty, I also photographed two landscapes I had finished a while back, of the Bonanza Mountain east and west, behind the Red Barn. These are finished enough to be placed on the wall, which is a real leap away from being lined up on the table. The paintings on the floor need a lot of work. Those sitting on the tables need some work. But the ones on the walls I consider pretty well completed.

Bonanza Mountain behind the Bullfrog Jail (at the Red Barn), 12 x 16, oil on board.

The mountain has been mined, of course. It was the site of the original gold find and has lots of tailings and lots of man-made “benches” (roads across the face of the mountain) to reach the mines. The building in front is the Bullfrog Jail — the fence posts partition off the Red Barn’s  front “lawn,” xeroscaped, of course.

Bullfrog was the townsite that preceeded Rhyolite — Bullfrog lingered only a year or so as Rhyolite boomed. For a while, Rhyolite had no jail, so prisoners were taken the half mile to Bullfrog. But ultimately Rhyolite also went bust (started up in 1904 and was pretty well broken by 1910 — its 3500 inhabitants left for other mines, a few people hung on for a while, but by 1916 or so, only a couple were left.)

Bonanza Mountain, east side, from Bullfrog (at the Red Barn), 12 x 16, oil on board, 2009

This is the west side of the mountain as seen from the Red Barn. It has a different form from the eastern side, but is equally laden with mine tailings. The utility poles seen everywhere in this area sometimes are functional, but often are just leftovers from the boomtimes in the mines. The whole area is pocked with trenches, probably for taking ore samples, and places that look like houses may have set on them. Once in a while there’s something that resembles a cellar, although it could be a larger sampling area. And some holes look like they were outhouses, caved in over time. I don’t explore them too closely.

The other thing that happened today was that I had an Open House from 1 –5. The Open House was a bit spare — I didn’t get any flyers made, and there were few visitors at the ghost town. But the fun part was getting the Open sign (heavy signboard, made to withstand the wind) to the turn in the road where it would alert people that the Red Barn was open. The turn is about 3/4 of a mile from the Red Barn.  The red Honda was my only option (Jer didn’t volunteer to carry the 30 pound monster on his back).  Jer and I carried the sign to the Honda and hoisted it into the trunk. We found some wire to tie in down and he drove it to the turn in the road, lifted it out by himself, and laid it, letter side down, so I could walk down at 12:30 and lift it up and put it in place for visitors. Then when he came back at 5 PM, he picked up the sign and put it in the trunk (without my help this time). And I got to take a photo of him triumphantly appearing, sign intact. The Honda comes through again!

Betty and Fred, the caretakers for the Rhyolite Heritage site, watched this through their binoculars. They reported in to me during the Open House. Betty wants me to paint the Bottle House at Rhyolite, which sounds like a lot of fun.

So northeast winds notwithstanding, the day seemed good. I got home to a chicken cooking in the oven and my new laptop. Life is good.

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