Thanks and Giving

It is that time of the year. Yes fall/autumn has come to south Georgia. Not as glorious as the fall in Ohio or other places, but still beautiful. Everything has turned to gold...or on my artist palette some of my favorites; brunt umber, yellow ocher, brunt sienna, touch of alizarin crimson and then everything turns to gold. The sun sets early but I love what it does to that touch of gold.

The farmers here in south Georgia have just harvested cotton, not the abundant corn rows of Ohio, but both beautiful each in its own way. Harvesting of course brings one around to thoughts of the first Thanksgiving with pilgrims and Indians. The ideal of being thankful for what the past year has produced. Once one starts wandering down that road with memories of past Thanksgivings; people and places, families and friends, big and small gatherings... resulting in more thankfulness.

Some of us are lucky enough to have traditional Thanksgivings but most of the people I know do not fit into the stereotypes. How creative we all are! I have come to the conclusion that it is all about the turkey, and I don't mean whether it is good or bad, but just that there is one!

I fondly remember when I was in 4th grade and my two spinster aunts would arrive from Nashville, TN on Wednesday night on the Hummingbird Express at Union Terminal in Cincinnati, OH. (Yes grannie kids the terminal had trains before it became that wonderful museum you have now.) Sorry no moonshine like in the Waltons for us, but there were rum balls and wine wrapped fruit cakes. And then the cooking would begin. My mother would vacate her kitchen and let the Nashville side of the family take over. We watched the parade on TV and Miracle on 34th Street while sneaking olives and pimento stuffed celery from the table in great anticipation of the turkey feast being prepared.

While I was talking to Maddie my grannie-daughter on the phone last night we got around to discussing turkey. She was excited because her 2nd grade class was having a Thanksgiving Feast on Tuesday. Of course they had been studying about the history but the highlight for Maddie is the dressing. "I just love dressing! " Uncannily, as is often the case with Maddie, she reminded me of my mother, Grandma Helen. I can remember her saying the same thing, even finishing the comment with..."Just plain celery, onion...it's even better than the turkey!" Maddie will be gathering with her mother Aileen's family in Cleveland. I am sure it will be wonderful...a very large family that seems to have it very well put together and enjoy gathering.

Thoughts of Aileen bring me to the first Thanksgiving we shared. She and Jamie were still in the dating stages, though Jamie had confided in me that this was "the one." I had assembled quite a crew in my little dining room extending the table with 2 card tables! My brother and his wife, Margaret, then husband Tom and his mother, aunt and brother, Scott in from college, my mother, and Jamie and Aileen. It was marvelous and so much fun. I enjoyed watching everyone interact...we were all impressed with Aileen who had baked a pumpkin pie for the occasion. I have been impressed with her ever since.

This Thanksgiving I will be helping Scott at his Double O Ranch in Live Oak, FL "do" Thanksgiving. Which means a 17 pound turkey with "plain" stuffing and all the trimmings. I hope his Ashley and my Jon are ready for this! Scott and I have done this several times. I enjoy sharing his day with us reminiscing about the past and dreaming about the future. The Double O is fun with all of his animals and of course we bring our 3 dogs too...we still gather a good crew with we 4 people 9 dogs, 3 cats, 4 horses, 1 turtle. It will be a grand time.

I have spent Thanksgiving so poor that if it hadn't been a food bank turkey there would have been none, and I have worked at food drives, and had turkey at Bob Evans, and at our Moose Lodge. I can't remember one that was bad, or one that we didn't have a prayer and blessings and the participants didn't give to each other. Thanks and giving is what it is all about.

Happy Thanksgiving color your world with gold.

Hope and Promises

Our first glimpse of the Gulf was a sign. I mean what better sign of hope and promise could you get besides a rainbow? But to me even a better sign were the birds and the sail boat which told me that people and wildlife were still enjoying the Gulf.

The second look was not as promising. You could see oil blobs or balls amongst the shells. As the tide ebbed out you can see the blobs left in the sand.


Another good sign were the volunteers working the beach. Basic clean up picking the blobs from the sand and putting them in buckets to remove. Walking on the beach has new meaning for these volunteers. And yes new meaning for any of us who have enjoyed the beaches of the Gulf and those who have earned their living from the waters and beaches of the Gulf. The original fears of gloom and doom as oil kept gushing into the waters has subsided due to the fact that it has been capped off.

I think the lessons learned should bring new promises for we the keepers of our environment. The all mighty dollar can no longer be our goal it needs to be the goal of a better world for those who follow our paths. Businesses that endanger the world, as we know it, need to have plans or a safety net. We need a plan for disposal of a new factories wastes before they are allowed to build. Before they drill a new oil well their needs to be a safety plan for the workers involved and the environment. Big business needs to be restricted and monitored. The banks proved that and now the oil companies have too.


Yes we enjoyed the Gulf and with God's help we will all for a long long time

Wild Wild West Still Lives!

Okay this is Tombstone, AZ. What most of us think of when we say wild west. The streets are pretty quiet except for the scheduled staged gun fights. But this all is pretty tame compared to what is happening in Arizona right now.

I don't usually get political in my writings. Aside from the fact that a lot of the wildness is due to political driven actions, I shall not attempt to take sides. I will not venture to predict what should be the right outcome but just try to give you the facts. After all I am just visiting and my opinions do not hold the pain or the passions of the locals.

The most unsettling to me, an old hippie, is the ever presence of guns. During our stay the courts upheld their state gun laws. No restrictions, no need for a permit to carry, openly carried in holsters and purses. Now I understand the need to bear arms due to the wide range of wildlife wandering in their backyards; such as rattle snakes, coyotes, javelinas, rabbits the size of kangaroos and spiders the size of small cats! Of course you don't shoot everything that moves.

I also became aware that a part of the reason to "carry" was also because of the desert and the people who might be there. I know it is a hard concept to grasp unless you live with it every day. Just as I cannot grasp being afraid every day...as foreign as the concept of terrorism. Well here is another hard to grasp concept, the problem with the border is not entirely an immigration problem but also a drug related problem.

We have not won the war on drugs that we have engaged in over the past decades and our immigration laws are not working. We desperately need to revise both our immigration and our drug laws. I do not believe that a very volatile situation will be made better by more law enforcement officers, or by more guns, and more anger. I have no solutions, though I do feel legalizing marijuana would stop some of the traffic and that more user friendly paths to citizenship would ease the problem somewhat. I have a plan just ask me!

I am also inclined to wonder why now? No one complained about the illegals when they were employing them as gardeners and maids. Or if you were a big business employing them cheaply. But now that we need a scapegoat during this recession it becomes a larger than life issue? Senators who supposedly have been working on this for years now want to blame a new administration? Why wasn't it taken care of when Mr Texas, a border state, was president?

What I am saying is that the west can still be very wild.

Shades of Yellow, Blue and Green

These photos were taken in the evening at the start of sunset at the cementery in Tombstone, AZ.

Local color is made up by the terrain, the foliage and the sky color. Colors were originally made from the ground and the foliage of the area. That is the nature part. There is color added by the inhabitants of the area also. The adobe buildings of the Southwest are needless to say very different from the colonial style buildings in Williamsburg, VA. Sounds simple enough doesn't it? Oh and don't forget the lighting affects the color. Sunset is very different than high noon in the desert, or any other location for that matter.

The land reflects light and color differently than do clouds and sky.

Cacti pictured here are very different from the trees in Ohio or the palms in Florida. Even though they bloom their blooms are different than the flowers I have painted before. The plant life is more like geometrical shapes than leaves. A new and different kind of challenge for this artist.

The flowers below are called fairy dusters, and are not like any flowers I have seen! What unusual and challenging are you encountering today? Notice the light and color and enjoy the beauty around you.

The Spirits Within

Well as promised the rest of the story.....

When I got back from our day trip to Tumacacori I was downloading my camera discs and enjoying sorting out what I wanted to paint. When doing the tourist thing it is easy to immerse yourself in the history and the feel of a place. It is also an element that involves local color and helps the viewer to place and feel the painting. The colors range in this case, and are very southwest, from whites through the earth tones all the way to umber and black. I am scanning through my photos carefully noting the colors making the rafters, bricks and plaster and mentally arranging the colors on my palette. All of the photos are pretty sharp and clear...except for one. One I can't even remember taking....

This is the photo. What do you see?let me know! But I think it is the spirit of this very old mission!

Exploring the Local History

Tumacacori held some surprises for the explorers. Of course I have even more that I want to paint now. But the adobe block buildings with exposed rafters and cracked plaster was spellbinding. As one wanders through the ruins one slips back into the past...

The heat requires that we travel out early. Tumacacori is a National Park that contains one of the oldest Spanish Missions. Of course there was a museum and bookstore. One good for history and the other for water! We learned of Father Kino and other Jesuits, and later Franciscan Missionaries.

I plan to return since the mission is located so close to Tubac where we are staying. I want to paint plein air here, but it is already too late and very hot. Besides I can review all of my photos and decide what to actually paint on location.

My next entry will be the surprise I found when I reviewed my photos. You won't believe it....

( To learn more about the history and the park visit nps.gov and on the map pick Arizona, go to the southern border and click on Tumacacori.)

OR::::http://www.nps.gov/tuma/historyculture/tumacacori.htm