From Ancient Rootstock, 16x20 oil on panel

 

The practice of grafting new varieties of apples to older rootstock is a longstanding practice. Newly desirable varieties are spliced into older plants and will will become one with the rootstock within 2 weeks. The trunk and roots of older trees that have proved their ability to effectively extract water and minerals from the soil and resist pests, diseases and drought nourish and protect branches bearing a new variety of fruit. Isn’t that just the best analogy for a good family you’ve ever heard? 

 Hope and Endurance, 24x18 oil on panel

I associate the uniquely sculptural prickly pear with the dry and rugged hills and deserts I have spent my whole life exploring. What we used to simply called cactus rises majestically above the low grasses and scrub with paddle growing out of paddle haphazardly, as if a toddler popped together the disks.  

In late spring the plant produces its flowers of yellow, red or purple. The juxtaposition of the delicate brilliant flower and its generous fruit with the leathery and often spined paddles is remarkable and no doubt why the plant is seen as a symbol of hope and endurance.

 Red Gum, 24x36 oil on canvas

Like me the Red Gum, a variety of eucalyptus, prefers temperate coastal conditions and does well with salt spray. It’s dense glossy leaves, dark above with a pale underside offer deep and welcome shade. It flowers several times a year in spectacular fashion, putting out large sprays of fluffy red, pink and yellow flowers in sprawling clusters that float on a field of rich green leaves. The urn shaped seed pods are beautifully and move from green to purple to brown as they remain on the tree. 

Springtime Natal Plum, 10x20 oil on canvas

In the area I grew up it was important to learn to identify this plant early in life. Natal plum was a popular accent plant in the yards where we played hide and seek at dusk diving into bushes with abandon. Beneath the glossy green leaves of the Natal Plum are some wicked thorns that you needed to encounter only once to leave a lasting impression. It took me years and a much more civilized interaction with gardens to forgive the plant for its barbs and notice the beautiful fruit and the star shaped flowers that smell as sweet as the orange groves that once defined our region of Southern California. 

 

Covid 19 Series

As the pandemic took hold of the world I began recording the visuals that it brought that were new to me and to many others. Stuck at home this was to be a way for me and my family to  remember the extraordinary time we were living through. I relied on photographs from the newspapers that I routinely read, so most all of the paintings in the series began as a photojournalists' capture. Because of this I have not shown this series publicly.

The first painting in the series appears at the bottom of the blog and works forward in time ending with the painting below. 

 The Beginning of the End

16x12 oil on panel

To address the misery that Covid-19 inflicted on individuals and economies, labs around the world swung into gear. Formerly the fastest development of a vaccine had taken 4 years and the average timeline stretched between 10 and 15 years. In the spring of 2020, as quarantine orders were issued by one country after another around the world the hope of having a vaccine anytime soon seemed ridiculous. 

Operation Warp Speed was announced in mid-May by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The federal government offered hefty funding, built infrastructure needed for the effort and guaranteed the manufacture of any successful vaccine developed. HHS, in effect, purchased serum prior to knowing it’s degree of success. This funding allowed pharmaceutical companies to run preclinical and phase I, II and III clinical trials and develop manufacturing capability all at the same time rather in the formerly mandated sequence.

HHS’s bold move was a game changer. Multiple vaccinations were developed with head-spinning speed. The federal government cut red tape and expedited processes with no deviation in the required research, investigation or review board approvals. Building on epidemiological research that had been conducted for years, the first fully tested immunization was approved for emergency use in December of 2020. Three vaccines had been created in a record-crushing 9 months. 

As the manufacture and distribution of the inoculations kicked into gear, Americans began to emerge from a year like no other. “I’m Fully Vaccinated” stickers were worn with wonder and relief. Masks came off and family and friends fell into one another’s arms. Businesses and schools cautiously reopened and a new era began to take shape.

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This is the last painting in my Covid series. Recording the images I never would have imagined I’d see helped me get through the long, lonely year. My former subjects lost all color in light of the global drama playing out, and I decided to look straight at the historic event and record the visuals with a brush and oil paint in order to create a historical document. 

Looking at the arresting vision of a huge and utterly empty urban intersection, the otherworldly vision of a workman disinfecting city streets at night, the dark vision of a medical team enshrouded in PPE intubating a patient and 18 wheeled morgues chock full of body bags helped me understand what was happening outside the walls of my house. The mournful vision of an empty diner, a closed playground and a grandmother placing her palms against a window told me about how many layers of pain and suffering people were enduring. The sweet drive of women all across the country to sit at long-forgotten sewing machines and create stacks of masks at their kitchen tables, and the mysterious fever to bake bread gave me reason to smile. Still inexplicable - the hoarding of toilet paper!

I hope you enjoyed the series and that it perhaps helped you reflect on the unusual times we lived through. With the vaccine setting life back on a more familiar path, I find myself, like so many others, eager to focus on something else. I look forward to again focusing on the beauty of nature and people and finding the moments and visions that connect us to the magic and majesty of life. 

Stay tuned - I’ll share as I explore!

Touchless

 

Touchless

16x12 oil on panel 

Physical distancing was mandated by governments around the world in order to protect people from both contracting and sharing the Covid-19 virus. This public health strategy was key in stemming the spread of the deadly disease. However, the isolation created by the stay at home orders took a toll mentally and emotionally on many. 

Elders proved to be at greater risk of getting very sick, requiring hospitalization and possibly losing their life to the virus. Consequently they were encouraged to be especially cautious. No group suffered more chronic loneliness. Many seniors living alone or in care facilities were confined to their rooms or apartments for approximately a year. 

Electronic methods of working, socializing and ordering goods, which became a lifeline for younger people, were closed to many of the elderly. Unfamiliar with or resistant to technology, seniors remained isolated from friends, neighbors and family. Social isolation frequently leads to depression and other mental health issues which are linked to worsening memory loss and higher mortality rates in older individuals.

The forms that love was expressed were wrenching to witness, but so sweet. Birthdays were celebrated by parades of cars with honking horns and banners, face-to-face visits were conducted through closed windows and hugs could only happen through sheets of plastic. We are social animals and connection is fundamental, which was proven by the countless innovative methods that loving friends and family devised to bridge the gap and express their love to one another.

Be the Change

Be the Change

12x16 oil on panel

Covid 19 series

In the twenty two days after May 25, the day that George Floyd was killed, there were 868 recorded protests in 326 counties attended by some 757,000 people. In the midst of a pandemic, large protests about racism and police brutality were attended by people of all ethnic backgrounds and skin colors. The use of excessive force by the police was the catalyst, but the growing understanding that black and brown people were suffering far more due to the virus had thrown light on the systemic racism in our country. 

The burden of essential work falls unevenly among racial and ethnic groups. In New York City people of color comprise three quarters of the city’s essential workers. Latino and black communities suffered higher percentages of hospitalizations and deaths due to Covid.

Essential workers are unable to telecommute, consequently didn’t have the luxury of distancing. Every day they pulled on masks and ventured out to cook, clean, deliver food, carry mail, drive buses, stock shelves, patrol the streets and tend to the ill. Essential workers were unable to afford to take time off or told by their bosses that they were not allowed time off. Many workers have no paid sick leave and fewer than 10% can take 2 weeks off, the recommended Covid 19 quarantine period. Many paid with their lives. 

The stark inequities in treatment by the police and the the disproportionate loss within certain types of workers in the economy fueled a wide recognition that we all have to be the change. We need to read the books that point the way, institute changes in your own life and be receptive to thinking and living in new ways.