The Trip That Almost Wasn't-Part Three

Yes.  We are still on the first day of our trip.

We are just leaving Yarnell and are amazed by all the lush green hillsides and pastures.

 

But,of course, there are clouds in the distance.



Many clouds.

 

I think that's a completely different place than just outside Yarnell, but I have so many photos of distant rain clouds that it doesn't much matter.  At any given time, the road ahead of us looks pretty much like that!

 

 

However. Hubby has assured me that wherever we go, whatever we do, when we need for the rain to stop, it will.  He's certain of that.  And guess what?  He was right!

 

 

When we wanted to get out and take pictures of the beautiful scenes we could...with nary a raindrop fallin' on our heads!

 

 

The road twisted and turned as we made our way toward Prescott.

 

We reached the edge of town, in the beautiful pine forest, just about time to stop for the evening.  I spotted a darling little motel with a beautiful water feature in their garden.  I was tired and thought I'd take a picture of the little garden the next morning before we left.  As I was getting out of the car, I dropped my camera and broke it.

 

I cannot write here the things I said out loud, loudly, and certainly not the things I thought.

 

Sigh.

 

Day Two

 

After a not so great night's rest at that darling little motel (There must have been an elephant family in the room above us.), we headed out for some breakfast and waited for Best Buy to open so I could get a new camera.  NOT. IN.  THE.  BUDGET!!!

 

I took a photo, with my brand new camera, from the parking lot of Best Buy.  You betcha!  Raining buckets!  And in the process of learning my new photo program, I apparently deleted the photo 'cause it's nowhere to be found on my computer!

 

Sigh again.

 

Onward.

 

 

Elk on top of a building in Prescott, Arizona

We like him!

 

We loved Prescott.  It's such a picturesque old town filled with Victorian houses and a lovely town square and courthouse.  We hope to go back.

 

As Hubby predicted, the sun came out just in time to enjoy this .

 

 

 

But soon we were back to this view from our car.



 

 

Yep.  It's raining again.

 

We are climbing another mountain range on our way to:

 

 

Jerome, Arizona

 

Jerome is an old mining town which has become a complete tourist trap,  of sorts.  But it's still charming and delightful.  I wrote about it on another blog after a very special trip with my Grandson, several years ago.

 

You can read about it here:

http://skayspeak.blogspot.com/2009/11/jerome-arizona.html

 



 

 

This is the main street through Jerome.  Narrow-just a tad!

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Uh-Oh! 

 

A local law enforcement person was having a word with the driver of this semi.  I am reasonably certain it will cost him a  pretty penny to have mistakenly or stupidly taken this NOT truck route!

 

 

It doesn't take long to drive through Jerome and down the hill toward another adventure.  On the way, we saw this.

 

 

Rock formations began to get quite colorful as we came down the mountain. 

 

 

 

 

 

There's a reason for that.

 

Next stop:

 

SEDONA!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



The Trip That Almost Wasn't-Day One, St. Joseph's Shrine

 

 

This is the first thing we saw when we arrived at The Shrine of St. Joseph in Yarnell, Arizona.

 

If you know me at all, you know I am not a religious person.  But this place touches my heart in the sweetest way and I was very concerned about it during the time of the wildfire.

 

 

To read about the shrine, go to:

http://www.stjoseph-shrine.org/

 

 

 

 

These steps...and many more which are as steep but lots rougher...are the reason my calf muscles have been screaming at me for several days now.  But it was worth it.

 

 

 

 

You can see just how close the fire came.  That bush is dead looking because of the fire which came right up to the statuary.  

 

 

 

 

 

So close....all those trees are dead from the fire....

 

 

 

 

Looking down on one of the buildings at the shrine which was destroyed.  Just beyond this point is a little canyon chock full of houses.  I counted only three burned buildings.  They were fortunate not to have the entire area lost.

 

 

 

 

I zoomed way in to get this photo of the little Yarnell church nestled in amongst all the green after all the rain we've had in Arizona. 

 

 

I am so grateful this little town was saved. 

 

 I am so grateful to all the firefighters who worked so hard to protect it.

 

I am so grateful to The Granite Mountain Hotshots who died so that this little town, the people in it, their homes, their businesses and this special small place could survive.

 

May they rest in eternal peace!

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

The Trip That Almost Wasn't-Part One

 

For months, we had been looking forward to a vacation.  We haven’t had a real one in years and it was way past time for some R & R!

September weather in Arizona is always spectacular especially in the higher elevations where it is getting cooler. We were sick of the summer heat down here in Tucson.

I had heard of a place in the mountains where there were comfy little cabins situated right on a lake.  My plan was to roll out of bed in the morning and walk out the door and do some plein aire painting…all day…for several days. My husband’s plan was to roll out of bed in the morning and walk out the door and fish….all day…for several days.

That was the plan.

“Life is what happens while you are making other plans.”

I don’t know who first said that but it’s absolutely true.

Our ‘spectacular’ Arizona turned spectacular, all right.  It was spectacularly rainy…all day…all night and all over the state.  We checked the long term forecasts daily…it never improved.  Where we had planned to go, the temperatures were looking decidedly cold.  Cold and wet.  Not appealing.  Not at all!

We decided we probably should just stay home.  And then, we decided we should just go anyway but maybe someplace with temperatures at least a tad warmer than our lakeside destination. 

I thought I was simply dying to spend my days in one spot painting.  My husband thought he wanted to fish and fish and fish.  The UNIVERSE stepped in, took over and gave us exactly what we needed instead of what we thought we wanted.

I am grateful!

We laughed as we left Tucson because this is what the weather looked like.  I had already taken a gazillion photos with my little Canon camera before we got 10 miles away from our house.

 

Don’t my mountains look beautiful all dressed in their white gossamer gowns?

We were determined to make the best of things and headed in a northward direction which took us through parts of the Phoenix area which looked like this.

 

I about went into panic mode wondering if we’d be killed in a massive interstate pile up before we even got a good start on our vacation.

But we made it through a rain like Phoenix hasn’t probably seen in decades, thanks to my husband’s great driving skills.  A long time, cross country truck driver has some awesome skills for such conditions!

I realize that those of you who live where it actually rains are thinking I'm a tad nuts getting so excited about such rain.  Remember, I am a desert rat who lives in a place which gets very little rain every year. 

Absolutely every direction we looked, there were menacing clouds.  Absolutely nothing looked inviting. 

 

Also, all those clouds created a special sort of beauty that we are not used to seeing around here.  And it was cool-blessedly, deliciously cool!

I will not give a mile-by-mile account of the trip, I promise, but I ask you to accept that every mile of it was something different and somehow, the exact right thing for two people who were weary of the same old-same old.

Before we left the house, I had felt a desire to head toward the Yarnell area.  That is the place where those 19 Hot Shot firefighters died last summer.  There is a little place there, The Shrine of St. Joseph, and I wanted to see if it had escaped the ravages of the fire.  And also, there was something else drawing me that way…toward Yarnell and on to Prescott….where those heroes were from.

I need to back track a little.  After a McDonald’s breakfast, we had to go back home to get something important which had been forgotten…MY DOGGONE CAMERA!!!!  The clouds were so pretty I wanted to take their picture but when I reached for my camera, it wasn’t there!  After a quick look inside the house…no camera….I found it in the car, right where I’d put it but not where I’d ‘thought’ I’d put it.

I only mention this because it turned out the timing was truly everything on this trip…especially this first day….

I knew, when I laid eyes on this roadside attraction, that all would be well...no, wonderful....on our trip.

 

 

If you know me and my history, you KNOW what this frog meant to me!

It was truly a good thing to have that special 'froggie' blessing 'cause this is what we were driving into.

 

 I think this is what they call 'visibility zero.'

 

 

 

 

 

I should have been terrified.  But I wasn't.  I felt as if I were being embraced by that big, soft cloud and I almost felt like I could have jumped right off that ledge and fallen into Heaven's own big, white, down comforter!  Of course, the reality is that I would have had a fall of many hundreds of feet because just beyond those grasses and wild flowers, it is STRAIGHT down! 

 

We had to literally creep around all the hairpin curves on that long, winding road over that mountain top but as I said, timing is everything and when we got off the mountain, down in the valley, we were in the clear and very near Yarnell.

 

And we saw this:

 

 

I yelled ‘Stop’ to my dear hubby who immediately found a safe place to pull off the highway.

We learned that a Hot Shot crew from Tennessee were being shown the area where The Nineteen had perished.

 I learned that ‘no, it would not be inappropriate for me to give the Prescott Fire House my painting ‘Going Home’ and yes, they would find a place for it, no doubt.

 

I asked the Prescott fireman if I could hug him. We hugged.  I cried. 

I could have come right back home after that and been perfectly satisfied.

I am so very grateful for that experience given us by a loving Universe.  The Frog.  The Heavenly Mountaintop Cloud.  The Firefighters.

 

And we have just begun.

To be continued tomorrow.

On Talent

A few times lately, I’ve been told how talented I am.  It is meant-and I’ve taken it-as a compliment.

It does, however, indicate that it is because of some innate ‘talent’ that I can paint a decent painting-sometimes.

Here’s what bothers me about that.

If you can’t paint a decent painting, does that mean you don’t have a talent for painting? 

I think many people truly believe that their first bad attempts mean they don’t. So they give up. 

You should have seen my first paintings.  On second thought, no, you really shouldn’t have!

I like what Stephen King has to say about it.

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

I don’t really think I’m all that gifted with a talent for painting.  I believe that if I were, after all the years of painting I would be really top-notch-and I am not.  I am merely adequate and sometimes not even that.  Occasionally, all things come together and I create a pretty darn good painting, but that happens only rarely.

What I do think is that I’ve been determined…perhaps even stubborn.  I’ve been dedicated to learning all that I can learn about it before my time is up.  I’ve been committed to my desire!

My whole reason for writing this is to encourage anyone who has a desire to paint… or sculpt…or sing...or bake….or write….or raise chickens…to give themselves the opportunity to push through the bad beginnings, the mistakes and the failures.

Don’t assume that you have no talent.  Please.  You are robbing yourself-and maybe the world-if you do that!

However, also don’t assume that if you do have ‘talent’, it is enough to make you good at what you do.  There is no substitute for the hours of practice and hard work necessary to achieve a degree of expertise….or even adequacy.

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
Calvin Coolidge

If you have a talent, use it in every which way possible. Don't hoard it. Don't dole it out like a miser. Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke. (Brendan Francis Behan)

We're all filled with naturally recurring patterns that make us unique – they're called talents. And our charge is to bloody well use them. (Marcus Buckingham)

Don't be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that; it was not of your doing. What you do with your talent is what matters. (Pablo Casals)

 

Now.....go  paint… or sculpt…or sing...or bake….or write….or raise chickens…or take photos....or make balloon animals....or quilts.....or a garden...Go wherever 'desire' leads you!

ONE LITTLE CORNER

 

I live most of my life, quite happily, in one small corner of the world ….just a few square feet of space right in front of my easel.

It works for me!

I found another little corner this morning which also worked for me.  One of the photos, sent to me by my traveling hubby wasn't terribly interesting but something drew me to the tiny right hand, upper corner of the larger picture.  I cropped it and knew I’d found the inspiration for today’s ‘before breakfast’ painting.

So, when you are looking through your reference photos, don’t forget to peek into the corners, so to speak.  Remember that you can take bits and pieces of a picture for your use. You don’t have to use the whole thing.

 

Here’s the big picture including the rear view mirror on his big rig.  Lots of his photos have that particular feature. 

 

 

 

Here’s the little bit I cropped out from waaaay up in the right hand corner.

 

 

 

Here’s the resulting painting with some artistic license taken.

 

It is, after all, my world and I can create it however I see fit.

INSPIRATION

"The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case." -Chuck Close

 

I read this quote the other day and I do believe Mr. Close hit the nail squarely on the head

 

I guess if you have no need or desire to learn to be a better painter, you can wait for inspiration to hit but if you want to be a good painter you paint!  You paint when you’re excited about a new idea.  You paint when you haven’t a clue what you want to paint.  You paint when you are feeling full of piss and vinegar and you paint when you feel like crap!

A couple of days ago, I woke up after a really lousy night’s sleep and the very thought of standing at the easel with a paintbrush in my hand was, in a word, unappealing.  Still, I looked through all my photos…and my facebook friends’ photos, too…. in a vain search for ‘inspiration.’ 

It never showed up.

So, like I do every other morning, I opened my paint box, put a new canvas on my easel and picked up a brush.  Using the leftover paint on my palette, I began. 

It wasn’t complicated.

I put paint on the brush and put that paint on the canvas.  I smeared it around some.  Next, I picked up another leftover color and repeated the process.

This is the result.

 

CACTUS CANYON

16 x 20

It is one of my favorite paintings I’ve done lately….begun with no inspiration and no real desire to even paint. 

I have learned to trust the process.  I have learned that I will make a good painting or a bad one but in either case, I will have learned something.  I will have grown in skill.

And that is inspiring.

 

My paintings are available at:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SKayArt

 

STACKING UP

My studio is getting filled up with paintings...LOTS of paintings!   Most are actually finished.  Many still need work and are just waiting for me to either get in the mood to go back to them or to attain a certain skill that I didn't have when I began them.

I have GOT to do something with them or we'll have to build on a storage room to hold them all.

So, I opened an Etsy shop, which you can find  here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SKayArt?ref=search_shop_redirect

You'll find desert landscapes, mountain landscapes and prarie landscapes.
You'll find still lifes and florals.
You'll find rivers and ponds and seascapes.
You'll find paintings of country homes and city streets.

If you don't find them now, they'll be there eventually.  Like I said, I have LOTS of paintings stacked up and waiting to be photographed and put on-line.

I think my paintings are priced very reasonably and I hope lots of them can find a new home.

Here's one that you won't find there.  It's my favorite place to eat my favorite fast food in Tucson, Arizona.  If you've never had a Mexican Hot Dog, you have no idea what you are missing...and these, made by Noe, are the best!

 



I gave this to Noe in appreciation for the many delectible hot dogs I've enjoyed at his fine establishment. 

If you're in Tucson, you can find him on the NW corner of 6th Ave. and 22nd St....right across from Santa Cruz Cathedral.

If you check out my Etsy shop...and you like what you see...please share the link with your friends.  I'd appreciate it so very much.  So would my hubby, as he has NO desire to build another room just to house this ever-growing stack of paintings!