This One's For Dad

Sitting in my car, staring across at the Hubbs building, I recall Dad taking me to the Crosby Sporting Goods store that resided in it. Dad wanted me to take up an interest in something other than drawing on his good writing paper, so we were there looking at baseball gloves. 

I was in awe seeing the things there, handguns in glass cases, shotguns in racks on the wall. Bows and all sorts of arrows. Another glass case had flies for fly fishing lures of all colors and shapes. Mr. Kish used to sit on his porch making such flies for fishing. 

I followed Dad to the baseball gloves, staring at the bats and balls of every size. Two floors of everything a boy would want. Dad paused at the Boy Scout uniforms, then said, “Your Mother can make one for you.” We passed a scout pocket knife -I was going to become a real boy that day. No more moping around doing nothing - that's how Dad referred to my drawing. I had my paper route, my yards to mow and gardens to take care of, but Dad wanted me to have fun, not just work.  

I took a picture of the building and roughed out a drawing for a possible painting of the Hubbs building before heading to the studio. More memories came back as I blocked in a design on a fresh white canvas. I explained to Henry, “This one's for Dad.” Henry paused from gnawing on his rawhide, he was a good listener. Laying in the lines of the widows with Indian Red, I told Henry of my venture with sandlot baseball and my first meeting with the Heuertz boys. The two brothers who were so good at baseball they couldn't be on the same team together, they were just so good. Scrubbing in the red of the bricks, I told Henry about playing baseball. Curled up on his pillow, he missed the green trees I laid in as the scene was coming clearer on the canvas. With a smile, I laid out more colors on my palette and picked out just the right brushes. A sigh from Henry, his way of saying that was enough of resettling on his pillow. With painting came flashes of Dad and Crosby's appearing and fading.

This is painting for me, always visiting the past. No interest in doing paintings of buildings - except this one because it stirs up images of Dad and the gang I played ball with. Painting is about making myself smile and possibly putting a smile on another's face. Like a warm blanket, art is there to comfort, thats the way I see it.        

Clouds Never Reappear

4 AM on Sunday, heading to the studio. Getting my imagination working as I go, I watch the headlights coming down from the High Street bridge. Who would be out at 4 AM on a Sunday, I wonder? Someone heading to work or heading home from work? A lover maybe or a doctor on call. This question jump starts my imagination as I cross over the bridge slowly myself, to glimpse down at all the commuter trains parked in the train yards below waiting for a cleaning. I see the past, trains with steam locomotives bellowing out white smoke and spitting steam. Now trains wake up and move silently to the station where commuters wait with briefcases and newspapers. 

The town is quiet as I come back to the present, waiting at a redlight wondering why I don't run it. Turning green, I proceed with one eye peeled for that hidden police car I suspect waits for me. Swinging around the block past the closed casino with its bright, flashing lights I see the cleaning crew arriving at its doors. Nice to know I am not alone in town. Why that matters? I don't know, just another part of getting started. 

Up the steps and down the hall to my unlocked studio door. I'm a trusting sort of person… Switching on the studio lights I see I need to call the electrician. The lone light above my palette refuses to turn on. Putting my lunch and diet juice in the fridge, I keep my back to my easel. Only when everything is set and my brain is on full-imagination, will I take in what I have on the easel. A lone cloud settling in on a glorious sunset sits on the upper third of my present canvas. Heading home last week, that cloud with that yellow sky, caused me to return to the studio and set it to canvas. Greyish purple against that warm glowing yellow. How many people paused on their way home to take in that gift of nature?

Old friends whispered in my ear that night about places I spent as a boy, calling for that sunset scene. Chicory and tiny violets come to mind, Milkweed and Butterfly Weeds, all forgotten, came calling as I waited to sleep.  That sky and cloud firmly on the canvas, it kept me awake thinking of possibilities for that cloud. Visions of a prairie scene formed in the dark as I drifted off to sleep . 

Pale blues hold to the high sky waiting for those first stars to appear. "Mars," Jesse Vera whispers to me, pointing to the first bright star. The smell of the campfire rises from my canvas as I lift my brush of earth green to touch it, letting it drip down the white to define the horizon. Memories and old voices tell me I am on the right path to the vision in my head. Splashes of blue and purples are stepping stones to that evening sky I see, and where I wish to see it. Virgin fields of grass and native flowers are firmly planted with those blues and earth greens. Clouds never reappear, they are ever changing and being at the right place at the right time - each is a gift to those wishing to see. This sunset needed that peaceful prairie, awakening in me, that I wished to share. Sharing a gift I give myself with each painting. Like the child rushing to a mother with a prize, I paint to share.  

The light above my easel flickers and I am back sipping cocoa, ready to paint.