Austrian Landscape

Inspired by San Francisco school of abstract-impressionism, I painted this in 1991 while on a day trip to the Wachau from Vienna.

River Walk

I left my love behind, and hid my thoughts of her in the labyrinth of my mind. I walked along the river, watching the waves and whirls and waiting for the pain to wash away. And here I am again, wondering if it ever will. Willing myself to walk away again. Wondering if I will.

Flowers at Pike Place Market, Seattle

One of these bouquets is for you… or take two.

Elephants

My painting of elephants at a dusty African watering hole is based on a National Geographic photograph.

Researchers at the University of Washington tell us that elephants face the risk of extinction as soon 2020 as a result of habitat loss and poaching.

Love is something that happens

Love is something that happens
when you aren’t looking
Something you don’t find with a zoom lens
or win with a prize ring

It’s a good thing a car wasn’t coming
when you stepped off the curb
Humming or strumming
a love song you heard on a radio blurb

Because it hits you all of a sudden
You weren’t even listening
But then it occurs to you as if sage men
Gathered about and in chorus sang
These silly love songs
And bang!

I’m in love with
you
you
you

You know the tune
Yes you do

And there you are love struck
standing with your mouth open
Well buddy, good luck
Hey, here’s hoping

The Path without Form

I painted this after reading the book, The Dancing Wu Li Masters -- An overview of the new physics, by Gary Zukav.

Hiking the Horse Heaven Hills

I climbed the Horse Heaven Hills today. The elevation gain is only 1000 ft., and the climb was gradual. I’d spotted some antennas on top and wanted to investigate. I carried my camera, 2 jugs of water, some trail mix, and my cell phone (I was expecting a call from my banker reassuring me that despite the market collapse my money was safe – the call never came). It took me only 20 minutes to reach the top. I found some odd stuff up there, like the erratic in this photo that someone felt it necessary to protect from graffiti artists by erecting a triangular wire cage around the rock. Not to be denied their canvas, the artists tore the front of the wire fence out and had their way with the rock.

But really, what looks worse, the cage or the graffiti?

I’m not a geologist, but the rock is probably a glacial erratic. I know that some 15,000 years ago glacial ice blocked what is now the Clark Fork River and water level rose to some 2000 ft. When the ice dam broke, the resultant flood was catastrophic and literally moved mountains and shaped what you can see in this photo of the Columbia Basin. That’s Rabbitbrush in the foreground. Botanists call it Chrysothamnus Nauseous and it is apparently a member of the Aster or Sunflower family. I’ve read that the nauseous adjunct comes from the plant’s aroma, which smells like cloying room freshener, cooked broccoli, and formaldehyde. The hills are part of the area’s shrub-steppe, and are covered in sagebrush, bitterbrush, wheatgrass, Indian Rice Grass, and Idaho fescue, among other things. I was careful to stay on the trail (a road, really), but stepped to the side to see the crust of algae, lichens, liverworts, and mosses that cover the soil and is a critical component of native grasslands and shrub-steppe communities.

I stumbled across this small grave up there on that windswept hill. I stood there looking down at the handcrafted cross wondering...

À la recherche du temps perdu

The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us), which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die.

I am undone

I am undone
Cast upon an ocean spun
with filaments of foam
And drawing in great gasps of sea
Sinking to my watery home
Sung to by a wailing banshee

Sea nymphs knit my hair
in seaweed round and round
And form a chorus singing
as I drown
Entombed in soundless sea
The cool, dark silence
an epiphany