Catching Dreams

I haven’t posted in while, spring always raises the hair on the back of my neck. I get that slight metallic taste in narrow recesses of my throat and I wonder how much longer I should stay in a place. It is always an odd moment in the year, as I watch another school term pass for my daughter and wonder aloud – how does one plan for spontaneity? Are a series of actions required to define a vision? Does adhering to a specific philosophy still enable random motion? Is a quest still important beyond the moment in which is lived? Do ideas have merit because they are lived or because they are successful?

During my first year of college, one of my good friends was a fellow skinny pre-architecture kid named Donnie, but we called him Slim. The housing administration of our college sifted through their grand wisdom and chose his random twelfth-floor-dorm assignment by some manner as obtuse as tossing a pepperoni onto a pizza. I have no other explanation for why they placed him with a talented yet juvenile baseball catcher, named Eddie Fitzpatrick, for a roommate.

Now Eddie was born the same year as I and raised in southern California. If I recall correctly, he arrived at our fair Mississippi River shore via a baseball scholarship. Something about his love for the game ingrained in young Eddie the desire to constantly swing items whilst walking across campus or even to the cafeteria for meals. He alternated the objects from day to day and was rarely seen without one or the other. These items included first and most obviously a bat and second, though, more surprising – a hammer. This wasn’t just any hammer, however, this was a fine wooden-handled job that had his full name neatly engraved near the base.

He liked the women and for the most part… the women seemed to enjoy his company as well. Slim and I assumed that the hammer must have been a gift from one of his lady friends and he kept it as a memento to remind everyone that his virility was worthy of rewards (and more obviously a good swing as well). The majority of the guys on our floor, however, were thoroughly unimpressed. I hate to nail-down one defining feature that may have turned his neighbors against him, but I dare say it was the endless supply of penis jokes with accompanying visual aides. At one time or another, every door on the twelfth floor was randomly knocked-on in the early morning hours and the occupants awakened by Eddie asking if they dropped their keys. The confused and still half-asleep unwitting participant would look to Eddie’s hands held close to his waist and holding something that most definitely did not resemble a set of keys. Then and only then as one was trying to remember how to cast the door shut would a glance at the floor to the sight of Eddie’s pants around his ankles trigger the internal recognition of a sick joke.

After a number of these repeated occurrences a group of residents took it upon themselves to penny Eddie into his room during the early morning hours. Now to penny one into a room the door must open inward (it also helps if the frame is metal and the door is solid) in order for a couple dozen pennies to be wedged between the frame and door rendering the inhabitant unable to open the door and thus trapped to consider their own brand of idiocy that led to such a revolt. Unfortunately the plan did not have the desired response due to the fact that Slim had an early class and Eddie was sleeping it off in the nearby girls’ dorms. To make it up to Slim, I stole the great hammer of Eddie and gave it to him as a reward. He in turn broke the head from the tool and placed it on Eddie’s pillow; then returned the handle to me to avoid incrimination.

The following semester both Eddie and Slim transferred to new schools. Slim spent the next year at a community college a hundred miles west and Eddie took a baseball scholarship at a hard-line fundamentalist Christian college in mid-eastern Tennessee. Every time I have moved over the past ten years, I have run across Eddie’s headless hammer handle. Recently, I thought of him again, while going through boxes and finally decided to dig-up a bit of information on our fair baseball star.

I learned that Eddie was number 33 in the 1997 college draft. He was picked-up by Pittsburgh in May and released by the Phillies roughly ten months later. From 1998 onward he has strung-together a career of minor-league ball teams, retiring twice to pursue assistant coaching gigs at small unheard-of Christian colleges (I can only assume his sense of humor has cleaned-up). It is this last part of the story that I find the most interesting. He never gave-up on baseball. I mean come on Eddie; you didn’t even make it beyond your first season in the majors. Why didn’t you just quit? Then I hear everyone in my own life asking similar questions. I swear to Christ if one more person asks me if I still paint – my next masterpiece will be engraved on the hood of their car.

I told a relative, the other day, that my family and I were considering a permanent move back to Montana. We’ve been thinking it is maybe time to stop and smell the glaciers for a dozen or so years. The response to my revelation was – “what would you do?” Well, pretty much what I’ve always done – make art. I could care less about much outside that realm. I guess Eddie and I have that in common. We live in the moment of our actions. I have a feeling that if we met today, I’d like him a lot more than I did back in college. I respect someone that doesn’t stop living his or her dream for the sake of insufficient financial success. These past couple years, when some one asks me what I do for a living – I simply respond, “I do what I do, the money eventually follows”. – North

Harbor Lights

Poulsbo Beach Under a Seattle Sky

Travel Concerns

I had some extra time and my recent dealings with airlines had been less than pleasant – so I booked Amtrak for the trip west to Seattle, two weeks ago. Always looking for an adventure I rode coach traveling west, but returned First Class via Sleeper Car for the eastern leg of the trip. There were certainly the usual array of colorful characters on the western-bound coach car; such as the gentleman that drank one Budweiser after another from the moment we left St. Louis at 6:35AM until we arrived in Milwaukee that evening. My disdain slowly turned to awe as I watched the man drain cans, seemingly, without interruption. Forget the alcohol content, how can one person consume that much liquid? (and the snack car was selling them for $4 each!) - North

Beachfront on the Kitsap Peninsula

car to train
train to train
train to car
car to ferry
ferry to car
and back again

Essex from the Dining Car

Passing Train: Glacier National Park

Passing Train: Sweetgrass Hills

Written Ten Days Ago

3:05 AM - outside Fargo, I am sick of the southern floods. More than a few traces of snow smatter the fields and cars as we enter town. Wandering tracks that look like Andy Goldsworthy was imitated – by God or maybe Moses have broken the frozen top-layer of snow. My body cries for sleep. My mind is resistant. I’ve waited too long, pretending to be North, to rest now.

A few hours backwards - in Milwaukee, the passenger manifest changed starkly from black to white. The matter-of-fact division was unnerving. As we enter the Dakotas, I’ve been a train traveler for twenty-one hours. The trip from St. Louis to Chicago was hellish. I’ll relive it in reverse next week. Is there an opposite to hell?

I’m listening to Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová through a single headphone. I leave one ear reserved for the sounds of my wife and daughter breathing as they sleep despite the rush of rain now sheeting the train. Thunder slaps the sky above the coach car; the lingering winter clap does not stir them to recovery in this lost northern spring. Moments require soundtracks; I was raised to be entertained. Bob Dylan carried me across Illinois and then again we conquered the face of Minnesota (his lost homeland), together. With the flat wet Minnesota terrain behind me I encounter only more unregistered tundra on the rails of North Dakota. My Montana is in the distance, though Washington is the final destination – I now rely on the melodies of an Irish and Czech duo to get me there. I can’t ignore the fact that I am an immigrant myself - in this adopted northern country; relying on the voices of fellow-foreigners in one-half of my head.

We’ve pulled away from the last remaining lights… a remembrance of civilization outside Fargo. The entire world has gone dark – except the single reading light above my head. While the other passengers sleep, I can only find dreams with open eyes. - North

Spring Over the Ridge

Flash floods continue to remind us that Spring is both lovely and hateful. - North

Dry Land

The levees are breaking, the poorest sections of town are flooding; they plan on opening the dam to finish off what nature started and hopefully save the best of the rest. We've heard it all before - but this time it is Poplar Bluff. Only twenty miles and a childhood away. - North

Clay Pots

The roads are idled by the flash of rain and mud. Fields swell as the Mississippi nears its crest. The creeks and streams are gone; simply replaced - as an opportunist overcoming a past lover.

I meander the drips from nirvana… that sudden distribution, like spills from a great ocean over my slight neighboring deltas. The water rapids against my feet. Leaving nothing but air for safety.

If buried here… by water and mire and silt and extravagance. The parts and shards will wash under the soil, abandoned amongst the repentant. - North

Who Owns a Credo?

"It is so much easier to live placidly and complacently. Of course, to live placidly and complacently is not to live at all...." - Jack London

More Mayes and Immersion Travel

My old friend, Gaelon, refers to Under the Tuscan Sun as his fudge book. Its richness and beauty best consumed in small morsels. He doles it out to his acquaintances in much the same way… offering them passages from Frances Mayes’ book here or there for comfort and consumption.

I have read and reread this travel tome that doesn’t really involve much travel… I dare say it falls under the label of Immersion Travel. I’m reading it again, for the imagery of spring in the midst of our own strange winter. I’m reading it for the endless paragraphs describing crisp-smelling cuisine that is at once both a thousand years old and as original as if it were freshly picked from the neighboring hills and groves that very morning; for the universal truths intended for an Italian love affair but resonating across rivers, streams, endless ponds of water and an ocean of pavement and trees; until it even reaches west and south into the depths of my current swollen flooded bottomlands along the great muddy river:

"This isn’t real; we’ve wandered into a Fellini film," I say.
Ed shakes his head. "Fellini is a documentary filmmaker – I’ve lost my belief in his genius. There are Fellini scenes everywhere." – Frances Mayes

Recognizing genius in the lives of others is effortless; however, admitting to it is often complicated by the decisions we’ve made in our own lives. - North

Lingering thoughts northwest of Libby

Always the Yaak - despite your clear cuts and wind swept cancer from downriver.

Yaak... Still my favorite place. - North

We haven't located us yet.

Yesterday, I watched the film "Darjeeling Limited" a movie about life and death without actually being about life and death. I believe it is Wes Anderson's best work, yet. For those that have already seen it, you'll recognize the above quote. - North


"Above and Below the Winter Fields"

The Graying of the South

Amongst Trees and Saplings

… and I said, “GO! GO! GO!” because I no longer trusted my answers to their questions. - North

Representational Abstraction

“Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.” – Nietzsche

Repetition of symbols and manipulation of the “known” landscape from irregular viewpoints has been a staple of my style for the past seven or so years. Over time the work has become more abstracted in its treatment of the composition, though more technically precise in that same handling of representative subjects. For my own creative motivations, originally this art movement served as a catalyst for exposing national differences via Immersion Travel, now however; I believe the effort has transposed itself into a visual interpretation of unique-yet-similar perspectives in this country’s rough-hewn organization of lost-and-found communities.

Maybe I’m intrigued by the reactions of an already tapped-out society that may soon be faced with the next great economic depression. Will we suddenly find ourselves scraping together nickels and dimes, like the fictional Waltons of West Virginia, with nothing but bad seventies haircuts and our own sense of community to hold us together? Perhaps, I’m yet another victim of self-indulgent nostalgia. Yet, I can’t help but look back and find a studio with a cheap woodstove more romantic than one with an expensive air conditioner. – North

Clouded Judgment

“Two Ways Home, Same Direction” – North

Beyond the Hills, Where Snow and Stars Are Born

Lunar Eclipse

"Second Sunset"

How place as a muse can be a bitch... for better or worse.

The new work from the past few weeks falls under my own self-described category of digital sketches. The title or label is somewhat misleading because I do not digitally manipulate any of the works… all I really do is scan them in and crop the rough edges; leaving the moles and scars for examination and a touch of contemplative reality. The works are small mixed-media pieces that are both collages and paintings… not unlike my traditional large-scale pieces from the past two years. I consider them digital, though, because they only survive online. I create them rather quickly, then post’em and forget’em.

These works came about at a time when I was considering what would happen if one of the numerous winter storms actually touched down on the roof of my studio. Now, this has not yet happened, but a few close calls have really got my mojo roaring and I’ve been thinking about the possibilities of a new wave of symbiotic archiving/creating from the standpoint of a traditional painter in an ever-increasing digital environment.

The subject of the work thus far is still along similar lines as before: Immersion Travel… staying in one place for a period of time (anywhere from a few months to a few years) and documenting the effect it has on both the society as well as the artist. The most interesting irony of the work, for me though, has been the evolution of a more abstract style in my art as I attempt to further demystify the motivations and philosophies of each place. These small sketches have allowed me to drop the last of my inhibitions and rethink my theories on the roles of artists and more specifically, painters. I suddenly have a better understanding of Picasso when he successfully walked away from Cubism. - North

Cravings

“Southerners have a gene, as yet undetected in the DNA spirals, that causes them to believe that place is fate. Where you are is who you are. The further inside you the place moves, the more your identity is intertwined with it. Never casual, the choice of place is the choice of something you crave.” – Frances Mayes


"Comfort"

Philosophy of Place

"Here"


"There"

I know the differences are negligible... but I can't help but want it. – North

Water Hazards: Mississippi Deltas

Skidding Over Icy Ruins

You ask why I’ve settled in these emerald mountains,

and so I smile, mind at ease of itself, and say nothing.

Peach blossoms drift streamwater away deep in mystery:

it’s another heaven and earth, nowhere among people.

Li Po (written between 701-742 A.D.)

Terra Incognita – that sounds like the best option for the future. A place where time is no longer futility and movement is the antonym of struggle. - North

Holiday Weather Over the Holiday Home

On Monday, the Ozark Mountains surrounding my family’s southwest Missouri cottage metamorphosed from early spring to a harsh mid-winter theater. Within minutes, the land and sky suddenly became an ice lens projecting only perfection... with the valleys quickly and unrepentantly buried as shiny as death. – North

Storm Fears

These days, there is a real sense of panic at the mere thought of a coming storm across the southern Midwest. It is a foreign hysteria when I compare it to the radical nonchalance, which I encountered and emulated while a youth in this same region of the South. Tornadoes occurred at a more frequent than usual rate in the Bible belt, while I was gone for a few years, and it wasn’t nice; though I must acknowledge the irony that it was more than slightly biblical in its destructive force.

Now when the weatherman menaces of an approaching storm with high-wind potential… rumors of tornado touchdowns fly; parents collect students early from schools and people hide in bathtubs. Now that’s not to say that the fear is unfounded. Actually, quite the opposite and one only needs to watch recent news reports to understand; but for a man obsessed with land and sky and observing the change of seasons in a society’s heart – I have a different response to the attack brought about by heat and chill clashing. Tuesday evening as our small section of the world turned on its ear and people lost their lives to the slight south and east of my studio; I stood at the open door and scanned the skies in wonder. – North

Storm: Fears of Dislocation

More Maps from the Storm

Maps from Tuesday night's winter tornado and thunderstorm. These past five images I’ve posted, as well as quite a few in upcoming posts, are simply sketches. Each cross-country move seems to motivate a new since of direction in my work. Most recently I have found myself drawn to small-understated works that are minimalist in scale and application of line but somehow seem larger than life in color and complexity of composition. For now they are not intended to grow into larger oils or even jump beyond the bounds of the internet. - North


"Under the River"



"Over the Storm"