The Journals
October 2
No sublime storms with horizontal lightning, so angel tympanis and devil trombones, only rain and drizzle, and a
blinding white sheet of low-hanging clouds, and cold and wet. The rain caught me at the easel again today. There was some
trouble getting the paint to leave the brush, but the cold dousing forced me into bold decisions. As I stood in the middle
of the field a group of school children came down along the path…One of them, a little girl of no more than 9 years looked
at me and exclaimed with an exasperated tone, "Take a picture! God!" I always thought kids were supposed to be imaginative.
Tomorrow we head west to the Grand Tetons. I need a shower badly, though it is nice not to be bothered by curious onlookers
as I look so nasty. I've resolved to bear the itchy burden of growing a beard, its cold and I'm alone and such things require
beards. Until today I have employed a system of filling a thermos with hot water the night before, which, if carefully stowed,
remains hot until the next morning. Each morning I wash and shave very briskly, before donning several layers for warmth. The
thrills of newness are wearing off fast. I find myself yearning for conveniences like running water and a place to keep the
heat from my fire in. A few nights ago I put a bunch of river rocks in the fire, fished them out with a stick and put them
into paint can lined with a honey comb of aluminum foil. I then put the can at the foot of my sleeping bag in hopes that I
would wake in the morning in bourgeois warmth. It didn't work.
October 4
I write these lines by the candle light from a candle John Gallaso's Aunt gave me after he killed himself a number of years
ago. The candle is aptly shaped and textured like a river rock, and doesn't throw off much light, but I've decided that the
time has come to burn it, and to think of him. He was a good friend. For a time he let me see how distant we all are from one
another. I am grateful for our time together.
My current way of life runs parallel to how most people vacation, only I'm not out here to unwind. Instead I'm out here to
work. My fires are small and utilitarian, my evenings early. I am learning to appreciate the humblest things, finding I need
less and less of the stuff I brought in the van "just in case". All around me are retirees in their gargantuan RVs, firing up
generators so that they can watch Television. It seems a strange practice to me. I've decided to designate Sundays as my day
of reflection. I will have a shot of bourbon in my coffee and a small cigar at the end of the day. I will allow myself an
early return from the field and a good dinner, and I will spend some real time looking at the work I've done thus far. This
should keep the morale up, and keep me from feeling like a drudge.
Sat for a while looking out high above Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park, planning tomorrows work. The sky reflects
in the still water in amazing tints of pthalocyanine. If there are doors of consciousness they would be exactly that color
and luminosity. Rilke writes, in 1912, in a letter from Trieste. "I am looking out into the empty sea-space, directly into
the universe, you might say."
October 7
Paid a visit to the Wilcox Gallery in Jackson Hole, a small shop/showroom for the painter Jim Wilcox. Evidently he is famous,
though I've never heard of him. He is an amazing painter, though I don't know as I was blown away by anything. There is a
particular sameness of approach to landscape painting out this way. Paintings tend to be well drawn, but there is sort of a
flatness, a lack of diaphanous qualities and atmosphere, that keeps me at bay. Wilcox recommends to his students "Carlson's
Guide to Landscape Painting" which favors color masses over atmosphere. As interesting as this approach to landscape is, I
can't help but compare it to the Hudson River School, with all its varied viscosity and paint handling. Bierstadt, Church,
Gifford, and Moran all had so much atmosphere and space. Today many contemporary landscapists favor large, flat swaths of
decorative color, which doesn't really speak to me. Give me a curtain of light over a curtain of paint any day.
Much of the painting day I was haunted by a deep loneliness. I continually blew from thoughts of one romantic relationship to
another, comparing, defining patterns, worrying. I was caught in a kind of neurotic whirl-pool, and all the while I tried to
paint my way out of it. Strange how constantly returning to a steady practice like painting tends to bring all of this stuff
up and out of the depths. A contemplative practice has a quality which amplifies and annihilates the ego simultaneously.
In one way I am strengthening my identity as "artist". At the same time, the "me" which I identify as "artist" is being
constantly challenged, humbled, and destroyed by the process. On those particularly obsessive days, when my mind is full of
noise, I think that some part of me is actually being born. My old self is afraid. The neurotic whirlpools are traps that I put
in my own path, and I always know the best places, the most painful, the most sticky. You would think that knowing this would
be enough to steer clear, but I haven't made it there yet.
October 9
First night in Yellowstone. Camped at Lewis Lake, in the southern part of the park. The moon is full and brighter than I've ever seen, I could almost write these lines by it. Spent the day wandering around thermal basins, shaking my head in disbelief. Water boils out of the ground, rust-colored sponges of bacteria mingle with oxides of copper and iron. Calcium Carbonate forms terraces and piles up in frozen froth. Ripples in pools turn to stone. Geothermal energy draws a diagram of itself. Ochre golds and luminous whites, water at 200 degrees and straight Prussian blue.
October 10
Roughest day yet. The highest temperature was 35° C and that was around 3:30 in the afternoon. Last night and all morning it snowed. Woke up very tired, couldn't move from the sleeping bag until 8:00. Lay in the bag a while thinking that a thick frost had settled on my windows. Jury-rigged a tarp between the two rear doors of the van, and cooked a hearty breakfast of oats and coffee. The snow stopped and the sun came out. I broke camp and headed down to some pine-barrens to do some sketching. I set up on a steep hillside sitting on an old pine stump. The air was cold as I started to paint, and I had to continually warm my hands on a portable hand warmer. A bad wind picked up, piercing and sharp, with little shards of ice in it, and it commenced to snow. Not the fluffy stuff either, but a hard granular stuff. I stubbornly kept painting, but the snow was giving me no quarter. Finally, all feeling gone from my fingertips and my knees damp and aching, I decided to pack it in. I threw all of my gear into my pack and hiked down the slope towards the van. Along the way I stepped on a fallen pine which happened to be frozen and slippery. I went down head first from the weight of my pack, breaking dead branches all around. My head landed in a soft depression where a tree had once stood and my pack kept me there, nearly planted myself. After a bit of struggle and a large measure of profanity I managed to right myself and staggered down the slope to the van and a cup of hot coffee. Spent the rest of the day wandering around. The snow had dusted everything and made it silvery. I took a bunch of photographs, couldn't bring myself to paint a stroke more. I dined by a smoky, temperamental campfire made from wood that was too damp. My metal plate froze to my pants as I ate.
October 11
I had a breakthrough while painting today, spurred on by the wonderful ochres, violets, and reds of the Canyon. I worked more simply than usual, and with a deliberate plan. Upon returning to my campsite well after dark, I found that someone had stolen all of my dry firewood. The night was filled with frigid drizzle and I couldn't get a fire started from anything I could gather. In the one park I have been where campers are actually encouraged to take deadfall and burn it I get my firewood stolen. A half hour of gathering wood in daylight would have netted the same amount of wood stolen, but it wasn't daylight, and it was wet everywhere. I contented myself with a pallid dinner of cold sausages and went to bed grumbling.
October 12
Painted at Solitary Geyser today. I am particularly fond of the run-off from these Geysers. As the geyser gushes, it forms terraces, on these terraces bacterial mats of many different colors form. Further down, a thick, seaweed like algae ripples in the currents in a slow, serpentine flicker. Where the hot, mineral-rich water encounters the usual plant life of pines and shrubs it drowns all. Sinter is what they call the solution of silica in water, which creeps up through the roots like capillary frost. The bottom halves of the trees are bone-white, and powdery throughout, while the top halves are dark and withered and bare, dead purples and lively browns. Mist floats in myriad tints, I feel old, ancient, and I have never been any other way.
October 13
... amazing how quickly the cycle begins again. In 1988 wildfires destroyed vast sections of this forest. I was thirteen
at the time, a quiet child who's voice was breaking. I remember seeing pictures of firefighters dwarfed by vast orange flames tall as skyscrapers. Today, thousands
of lithe young pines sway with inevitable serenity. Reforested by wildlife, the young, reach heavenward surrounded by the
bones of their ancestors.
Met up with a park ranger this morning, told him the whole soggy, sordid tale of my stolen firewood. He consoled me by letting
me know where I might "find" an axe for splitting some wood, said he couldn't lend me one proper "on account of the liability".
I spent the afternoon making firewood. It turned out to be a nice bit of exercise, relaxing even, compared to the intense mental
activity of painting in the elements.
Coming soon:
A friend lost, a friend gained, and the return of the big lonely.