Tag: playa lake bed

  • The Plank Paintings: Playa, September 2013 — January 2014

    The “Plank Paintings”, more formally known as Summer Lake from Winter Ridge, has long been finished. I wrote about it earlier, under the rubric of The Project from Hell. I finished the last coats a bit more than a year ago, and I recorded much of the process along the way. Then life intervened and…

  • The Project from Hell

    The project from hell is the one that has at least 27 more steps to it than initially envisioned, and each step consists of 1 step forward followed fairly quickly by 1.9999 (or sometimes 4.999999) back. So, take 20 miles of a dry lake bed, Summer Lake, seen in September from a relatively inaccessible spot…

  • Playa: September 23 & 24, the last days

    Monday, Sept 23, last days…. A busy day in the compound. The full set of fall residents is to arrive next Sunday, so lots of staff members are here, working to make sure the cabins are ready and the Compound immaculate. I’m unaccustomed, even after this short period, to having so many people around (at…

  • Playa: September 19 & 20, 2013

    Thursday Sept 19 As I walked back from the Commons last night, I saw the moon rising in the east over the playa. It was not a huge moon like one sometimes sees but it illuminated the entire lake bed. More stunningly, it was golden, so bright that I didn’t need a flashlight. I was…

  • Playa, September 17, 2013

    Sept 17, Tuesday I had an exciting morning. Went out with Rachel at 6:30 A.M. — this meant getting up at 5:30 because I’m a nervous nelly –  and I needed to heat up a cup of coffee so I could pretend to be human. We walked up to the bone yard, where Pepper looked…

  • Playa: September 15 & 16, 2013

    Sunday morning, Sept. 15 I am outside on the Commons deck, where the lawn and ponds and playa are quite beautiful and the laptop is almost readable in the sun. It’s only 11 AM but I’ve already worked on a large painting on-site up by cabin 1. Cabin 1 from the front. The back looks…

  • Playa September 14, 2013

    (This residency recollection was interrupted by a 50th wedding anniversary orgy of photographs, which I shall post on Flicker as soon as I get a bit caught up here. My apologies to my faithful fans who have been waiting for the next installment.) Saturday, September 14: Yesterday I climbed up the hill across the road.…

  • Playa: September 13, 2013

    Friday, Sept 13, 2 013 The big excitement of the day, aside from the fact that I got two more paintings started and the one from yesterday was almost dry today, is that I saw, and then tasted, my first dust storm. Apparently dust storms on the playa are a common occurrence during the dry…