This is getting to be a bit long. I’ll continue it next Friday. . . same bat time, same bat channel.
Imagine you are on a road trip, just sitting there like a knitting machine, and your driving husband pulls over and says “I thought you might want a picture of this”.
Wouldn’t that be grand and thoughtful? It is.
Trail Guy and I like to visit his sister in Lake Tahoe. (Hi Laurie!) On one such trip we were passing Kirkwood, and he pulled over so I could photograph this scene. Kirkwood Meadow is outside of Lake Tahoe (south east? south west? just plain southish?) It is a ski resort, but in October it looks like this:
There were several horses in the photos I took. I chose this one and scooted him to a better place. That tiny little horse ’bout done near kilt me off. I had to go paint some nice oversized oranges to recover. Must be a California artist way of getting over the trauma. . . gave me flashbacks to Put-My-Parents-in-the-Painting.
The painting was for several reasons: to see if it is a good subject for a larger painting, because I wanted to paint it, and as a gift for a generous friend who sends me a new book to read almost every month.
It must be Friday because the California artist is talking about Mineral King again.
You can count on seeing the best variety of flowers in Mineral King in 2 places: along the Nature Trail and at the Farewell Gap/ Franklin Lake junction. The first week of July is when they are usually the most profuse. It is about 4 miles to the junction from the bridge at the end of the road, aka “The Mineral King Bridge”.
I hope it isn’t too shocking to you, my fine readers, to learn that the California artist sometimes goes out of the state. She has a penchant for the Pacific Northwest. (“Penchant” means a strong habitual liking.) She also blogs while she is away so that the bad guys on the internet can’t tell that she is gone. Tricky, eh?
While visiting these other places, she takes photos that she hopes to paint one day. She hopes to have a show called “Going Places” to show and sell these as of yet unpainted pieces of art.
And, while she is away, sometimes she gets on a weird roll and begins writing in third person.
To be continued tomorrow. . .
Fridays are about Mineral King on this California artist’s blog. Just reminding you, in case you are wondering where’s the art. . . or perhaps you only tune in on Fridays. Welcome! (and Mineral King is a HUGE source of inspiration to this California artist, so it isn’t really off topic.)
Michael, aka Trail Guy, likes to go off trail, which is the only way to get up Empire. There is a great deal of interesting history up there.
Office? What office? I thought you had a studio!
I stole that line from Lily Kreitinger, an online friend with a wonderful blog. It means that I have a guest post today on another wonderful blog (not Lily’s – yet!) Today you can find my writing at my friend Cheryl Barker’s blog. We are also online buddies.
Why are you reading and talking about all these blogs? I thought you were a California artist!
As a self-employed artist, I work in silence and solitude. Instead of feeling isolated, I listen to podcasts while I paint. They inspire and motivate me to try new things with art, life and business.
I also read other people’s blogs because they broaden my world, and give me a chance to interact with people outside of Tulare County. When I really like someone’s thoughts and writing, and if I have something to say or a question (I ALWAYS have questions!) then I comment. There is a sense of community among the regular commenters and interaction with the blogger himself or herself.
Sometimes I follow the links to those commenters’ blogs, and it is like an interwoven web. (Hmmm, could that be the internet? or perhaps the world wide web?) I think I found Cheryl through Stuff Christians Like, a very goofy and fun blog.
So who is this Cheryl Barker?
Cheryl posts about:
Faith. Family. Friends. Serving God. All of these things are important to me. Being a writer is one of the ways I live out my faith and serve the One who first loved me. My prayer is that you will be refreshed as you join me on my journey. Be blessed!
In the summer she adds some light-hearted things that she calls “Summer Photo Fun”. I’m into photos, and I love to have fun, so lucky me, she asked me to participate!
Head on over there to see what sort of buffoonery I’m engaging in today – share the link with your friends that might enjoy Cheryl’s blog, comment if you are so inclined.
Hint – the post is about wildflowers
Notice I didn’t say I love these companies. (We’re supposed to love people and use things.) In spite of holding back emotionally, these are businesses I would be in a world of hurt without, and I cheerfully pass on the links to you, my readers and friends!
Dick Blick is where I get my art supplies. (I beg you, why would any parent name their child Richard when the last name is Blick??) This company is fantastic in their inventory offerings, deals and customer service. Fantastic, I say!
Vistaprint is my new best friend. They are sooo very generous, so very tempting with all their offers of freebies. I’ve been having a blast designing products to sell and to give as promotional items.
I was despondent when Kodak announced their departure. I have tried to be brave. They have promised to send all my 90-something albums to Shutterfly. The albums have not arrived, but the tempting offers from Shutterfly have. Being a weak and gullible Regional Artist From Quaintsville, I succumbed.
(Trumpet fanfare. . .) There is a new book coming to my studio, primarily to be used for showing my work to potential customers. I have creatively and uniquely titled the book “The Drawings of Jana Botkin”. It should appear here:
Click here to view this photo book on another website. Shutterfly, to be precise. (It will cause you to leave my blog, but you can come back.) Click here to create your own Shutterfly photo book.
Alrighty then. It didn’t work out exactly as I had hoped. . . As I was saying, I am beginning to really like Shutterfly. I hope they like me back.
Remember I said that Fridays are for Mineral King? If you don’t care about this place in the Southern Sierra, in Sequoia National Park, you can skip Fridays on my blog. If you only care about Mineral King and don’t give a rodent’s hiney about my art, you can skip Monday through Thursday on my blog. Okay, now everyone knows what is what, so let’s get to Timber Gap. (And welcome to my blog, you 2 hearty hikers from NY – hope you made your plane!)
It looks like this from the Mineral King valley:
A “gap” is a low spot in a ridge of mountains, a place that is the most sensible for crossing over. Sometimes it is called a “pass”.
To get there, you must endure a very steep 1/2 mile of trail with steps (“trail checks”) sized for giraffey people. It is hot, dusty, difficult. Suck it up, no whining, put one foot in front of the other, remember to breathe (if you can), and just get it over with.
There are fine views of the valley if you can focus through your huffy-puffiness:
The trail flattens out and then you are faced with a choice.
You may recall the last time I was on this trail was back in January.
There is more climbing through the groups of trees below and to the right of Timber Gap. This is where a tram used to run, bringing ore down to the stamp mill from the mines on Empire. Here is the remains of the tram tender’s cabin near the top of that second group of trees.
Shortly after breaking out of the trees, you cross a very small stream. If you look up, you can see where the mines were. They are still there, but didn’t produce so are simply interesting historical sites if you feel like scrambling up to see them. I didn’t.
Then you are on a wide open slope that can have great flowers. Probably won’t be great this year. In fact, this year is looking a bit weird. There was a swatch of wild blue flax that usually doesn’t appear until August!
After you’ve finished skipping and singing “The Hills Are Alive”, there is more climbing to do. The top of Timber Gap is about 9600′ (or is it 9700′ or 9800′?) and you must earn it. Here is the view over to the other side.
All the landmarks I might recognize from living in Three Rivers are too far to the left to see. Just saying, in case you were curious like I am about where Moro Rock and Alta Peak are!
Mineral King is a source of much inspiration to me. That is why Fridays are devoted to the subject on a blog that is supposed to be about a California artist.
As promised, Fridays are for Mineral King.
The largest patch of snow is called “Bearskin”. It is on the side of Vandever Mt. and probably won’t make it until the snow falls in Autumn this year. Some years it does, and other years it does but binoculars are required to prove it.
There are about 5 of these in the White Chief canyon. In person, they are quite interesting (maybe it is the lack of oxygen there that makes me think so). They photograph poorly, as you can see. If Trail Guy was down in the hole, you’d get a better idea of the scale, but you can see in the photo above that he was busy with lunch.
These are boring flowers that seldom show up against the dirt and gravel. The Artspeak explanation is that they are the same value as the dirt, so there is no contrast. This particular patch was unusually bright.
This photo took forever. The flutterby was a bit too fast for my shutter-finger, and I was thankful to not be wasting film!