No desert painting today. I stayed in Beatty, fooled around at the House this morning, and painted in town this afternoon. I haven’t any photos of the paintings, but I must report that it was something like 70 degrees and (what else) sunny, today. Even the wind cooperated (which means the sun and wind allowed the masonite board to be sideways, not front on, to the wind, which was blowing as if I were painting in a desert!).
I painted the Chamber of Commerce Building (right beside the Rebel gas station, which must be the busiest place in town). It’s my usual choice of wacky, but includes Beatty Mountain, allowing me to show the other side of my painting personality:
The Beatty Chamber of Commerce Building, November, 2009
I know it will disappoint those of you who love the unintelligible,but I left out the orange post in the middle. And I crammed a whole lot of Beatty Mountain, much more grandly presented into the painting. (That’s how it looks to the eye, rather than to the camera) And also, alas, I had to include the car, but left out the tin bin behind the building. When Things Settle Down, I will work up the painting and present it for your edification.
I also painted the Phoenix Inn (to be renamed the “Atomic Inn”) for which we have a nostalgic and storied fondness. For one thing, the proprietor gives a discount to Goldwell artists (I think David, a board member, sweet talked him into it). He (the proprietor) also bought one of my paintings last February, and who can help but love a patron. And then, there’s the wondrous design of the buildings themselves; I like those triangular, open concrete widgets:
The Phoenix (Atomic) Inn, Beatty, Nevada, November 2009
I was there not more than an hour ago, finishing my painting, and while I painted, the sun did its western thing, and below is the scene I frantically tried to capture as the sun was going down. There’s about ten minutes of light like this — Jer and I often catch it just as we return from the barn.The mountain lights up unbelievably. I think I could do a Cezanne-like obsession with Beatty Mountain:
Reporting from the Goldwell House in Beatty, Nevada, the night before Thanksgiving, when the air was balmy and the whole town seemed to be out and about.
Oh, and just a note: there will be no journal entry tomorrow. We are “hosting” our hosts, Suzanne and Charles and Sammie Hackett-Morgan, who are the movers and shakers (and, I think, originators) of the Goldwell Open Air Art Museum. And when I say hosting, I put it in “quotes” because they are bringing the food, the entertainment and themselves. And they’ve also enlisted Suzy and Riley McCoy to come along. The McCoys volunteer at the Museum’s Building, out near where I paint. They too are bringing goodies. So “hosting” in this case is definitely figure of speech. We are being hosted, down to a good bottle of wine and stories of New Orleans. The Goldwell folks are a classy lot.
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