First Saturday Three Rivers

A bunch of years ago some people in Three Rivers decided to try something new – First Saturday. Anyone who wanted to participate could do something special on that day, and the combined efforts of the participants would bring visitors to town.

Artists opened their studios. Artists came from other places and found businesses to show their work. Artists gathered at the Arts Center to show their work.

I did this a few times but not often. Lots of other things were happening on those first Saturdays kept me out of it, and there were other reasons, most of them boring.

Nikki, weaver extraordinaire, has participated almost continually and urged me to join. So, I will tomorrow, at her urging, along with a few others. Being available to the buying public is an important element of the business of art. (Duh.)

It might rain. It rained the last time I participated, and even as the “featured artist” with the appropriate theme of Wildflowers, attendance was very very low. (Friends stepped in for me so I could attend my uncle’s memorial service that very day, but the visitors didn’t know that would be the case.) I’ll be there this year, rain or no rain – no uncles left.

The way it works is that you go to the Three Rivers History Museum and get a map. Then you visit the places that sound interesting to you.

Maybe I’ll see you on Saturday. The hours are 11-5. 

(Only this little studio will be open, not the painting workshop.)

Friday Fun

Trail Guy went to Mineral King last week. This is how it looks at this time of year.

Farewell Gap with the Crowley Cabin from the bridge at the end of the Mineral King Road. November is bleak and colorless, waiting for snow.

That hardly qualifies as “Friday Fun”. What does? How about Pippin in the leaves!

Look hard. Might need to enlarge the photo to see Pippin, camouflaged in the leaves. Very very camouflaged.
Can you see him now?
Pippin!
Pippin didn’t want to share with Tucker.

See you tomorrow at the Three Rivers Memorial Building for the annual Holiday Bazaar, 9-4!

Indoor Mural, Day One

It is possible that painting inside a little chapel at St. Anthony’s Retreat is the most pleasant mural painting experience I’ve ever had.

  • It is 1.3 miles from home.
  • The room where I paint is quiet.
  • The lighting and the temperature are steady (it is indoors!)
  • Occasionally someone stops by to see how it is going and to offer a helpful suggestion or compliment.
  • THEY PROVIDE LUNCH!! (always very good food).
  • The quiet makes it possible to listen to a wonderful 3-book series on Audible by my good friend Shannon VanBergen, called the “Glock Grannies“. I read the books, but it is so much fun to hear them read to me by a professional.

This is a scene cobbled together from several photos of Three Rivers as it shines in the spring. Look at how much I got done in one focused day of painting!

The faint little sketch and some of the photos are taped up, and the tallest ladder is in position on a drop cloth.
Sky, spaces for clouds, and the shapes of the hills. 2 ladders side-by-side is a helpful method.
Clouds. The light is rather low in the room, so I couldn’t tell if I was covering the wall very well.
Gabriel brought some high-powered lights and suddenly I could see that the sky had been too dark, and the clouds needed more work.
Those lights produce a lot of heat, so next time I will bring my clamp-lights. Because the wall surface has glossy paint and the mural paints are mostly transparent, I started putting an undercoating down before adding detail.
I use the blank wall beneath to clean off my brushes between colors; this helps give a sense of what will go where and puts that first coat of paint on the wall.
I got a phone call and needed to write down a number. (No, don’t call the number, please!) I started the tree, and worked a bit more on the clouds.
The end of the day.

When I paint murals, there is a lot of noise in my head. Listening to Shannon’s books occupied the part of my brain that keeps yammering at me that I have no idea what I am doing, and that this is too hard for me. So, on this day of painting, the noisy and negative part of my inner dialogue didn’t have a chance. I just listened and painted, and it was lovely.

Spring Walk in Three Rivers

About a week ago on a chilly afternoon with brilliant sunshine and puffy white clouds, Trail Guy and I went for a walk. Nothing much to say – just enjoy spring in Three Rivers with me.

Trail Half-Day

Yesterday I promised to show you the hike my walking buddy T and I took one morning instead of our usual ground-pounding fast walk. (This qualifies as a hike because we carried food and water.) We drove about 10 minutes into Sequoia National Park, a little ways past the entrance station in order to walk to Shepherd Saddle.

This was our view when we started around 8:30. Sure felt casual compared to our normal meeting time of 6:00.
We were expecting rain and wanted to test our new parkas, but Sycamore Creek was the only water we saw besides some puddles and a few water troughs for the stock.
Now here is a peculiar sight. Have you ever seen a horse with a perm?
The clouds obstructed most views of the mountains except for a tiny piece poking out.
The manzanita were almost the only flowers we saw.
The clouds were beautiful looking down the canyon.
And here we are, at the gate on Shepherd’s Saddle. We are on National Park land; the other side is a mystery as to ownership.
T gave me a tangerine, and it was so pretty I photographed it before peeling it. We left the emergency M&Ms unopened – please be impressed.
Going home was much quicker. Duh. It was all downhill.
Sycamore Creek already?
We wondered if it had more water flowing on the way back down, but didn’t pursue the question.

Okay, Central California artist, get to your easel and start painting.

Memorial service for The Cowboy
Bert Raymond Weldon, May 21, 1956 — January 8, 2019
CELEBRATION OF LIFE AND RECEPTION Friday, March 15, 2019, 11:00 a.m. CrossCity Christian Church, 2777 E. Nees Avenue, Fresno, California 93720

Early Spring in Three Rivers

February is my favorite month around here. It is the beginning of spring, with apologies to my readers in less temperate climates, who might be a little less enthusiastic about this month. Sometimes I take a break in the middle of the day to enjoy Three Rivers during this exciting weather period.

Upstream view of the middle fork of the Kaweah River from the Dinely Bridge.
Downstream view of same.
Before retirement, Trail Guy wore green pants with a gray shirt. Now, he wears the opposite.
A regular peculiar sight on the Dinely Bridge.
Primary colors in my yard, and some bright sunshine in the middle of a rainy day.
Back in the studio, listening to pouring rain on my metal roof.
The flowering quince outside the kitchen window attracts birds. More accurately, it is the bird feeder that attracts them.
Here is a different kind of bird. I am more interested in flower names than bird names.

Every year I ask this unanswerable question: Why can’t February have 31 days instead of August?

The Lake as a Metaphor

Prepare yourself for a long essay today. I hope you can recover from this major bloviation by tomorrow when I post about early spring in Three Rivers. Yes, I still work . . . you can see more paintings in progress next week. But February is my favorite month, so for now I am choosing to show you the beauty of Three Rivers instead of paintings in progress.

While at Kaweah Lake recently with Trail Guy, it occurred to me that our lake can serve as a metaphor for life in Tulare County. Think about these comparisons.

Tulare County is in the Central Valley, California’s “flyover country”, meaning the part people just blow through or over to get where they really want to go, like San Francisco, Napa Valley, Los Angeles, Death Valley, or Yosemite (“Oh dear, must we first go to Fresno? horrors!”). 

While puttering around on the lake bottom (more around the edges, because it has been filling up lately), I thought of all the people flying past on the highway above, probably unaware of what the lake below has to offer. Isn’t a lake for sailing? This one, not so much. How about water skiing? Sure, in the earlier half of summer, not in February. Looks empty, meh, keep driving. 

Someone’s beloved home was once here.

 

Here was the stone fireplace; over there must have been the bathroom. A small living space with large views in a great location.

Tulare County is poor and uneducated, with bad air, fat people, high welfare, diabetes and teen pregnancies. Not too appealing, eh?

Kaweah Lake’s drained floor is kind of cruddy. We pick up aluminum cans and shake out the mud and gross stuff before squashing them. We slip and slide on the slimy mud that is coating the old road. We pick cockleburs out of our shoelaces and the shaggy edges of my unhemmed jeans. There is a lot of trash and broken things. It is a cheap place to visit for recreation compared to Sequoia—$4-5 per car instead of $30-35 for Sequoia. (Can’t remember exactly, so I am guessing at the actual numbers.)

Tulare County has been my home for almost 60 years (minus a few misguided years in college), and I work hard to find the good things here, particularly as an artist, looking for beautiful ways to represent my turf.

The lake bottom has treasures, whether it is aluminum cans for my friend’s Hawaii fund, Indian grinding holes, or an occasional blue marble or oyster shell (mysterious finds, indeed). Don’t forget, it also has beautiful views, lots of birds, and a few wildflowers too.

Tulare County’s main industry is agriculture. We feed the world, producing more food than any other place in the country (except Fresno County, because we trade off with them to be king). 

Kaweah Lake was built as water storage for agriculture (but flood control was its primary purpose).

What is this thing??
Disc Golf Association? A frisbee golf course!
Sometimes there are surprising peeks at beautiful views.

Tulare County has Sequoia National Park, a major recreational destination.

Kaweah Lake is a countywide draw for those who love to recreate on water.

Where in your life are you overlooking beauty, history, treasures, and recreational opportunities right under your nose, because it seems meh, boring, cruddy, and beneath you?

Field Trip

Trail Guy and I took another field trip. If I call it that, then it sounds as if I am working. I am always working if I hand out a business card or take a photo that might be worth painting.

View upcanyon from Slick Rock area at Kaweah Lake.
Alta Peak is the highest one; Moro Rock is the granite monolith just above the green hills on the left; the spots in the sky are my signature photo look.
Mustard is usually the first wildflower in the foothills, blooming in early February like clockwork (if we’ve had rain).
Walking in the lake bottom means getting cockleburrs in ones shoelaces.
With the recent rains, the lake is filling up, so we walked up to the Horse Creek Bridge, since our normal route is underwater now.
The pillars are huge up close and would be fun to paint, maybe like the trunks of redwood trees. I wonder how mural paint holds up underwater. . .
On the other side of the bridge is the abutment of a small old bridge. No dates visible, and only a vague idea of its purpose (besides the obvious one of crossing Horse Creek).
Looking back at the bridge. I’ve never seen it from this side before.
What a peculiar sight and strange find –an oyster shell! Were the squirrels planning on using it as a trap door? Did if fall from someone’s boat?

‘splorin’

Three Rivers is a very spread out community with the Middle Fork, South Fork, North Fork and East Forks of the Kaweah River flowing down long canyons. (Yes, I know this is four rivers; I don’t think the town namers were paying full attention).

Trail Guy and I went exploring; we wanted to find a road and see if it connected to another road. (Vague enough for you? Gotta protect privacy. . .) We found the road, but our key didn’t fit the locks, so we kept driving up South Fork. There is a campground that is part of Sequoia National Park at the end, and we hadn’t been there in many years.

The road is terrible. Truly terrible. Rough, rutted, rocky. Unmaintained.

This isn’t the rocky rutted part; it was too messed up to pull over, get out and photograph in those places.
There’s a view of Homer’s Nose that makes it look deceptively accessible.

In the campground is the trail to Garfield Grove, Giant Sequoias 2.9 miles away. And a footbridge, across which is the trail to Ladybug and to Clough’s Cave (with a gate across the opening).

The footbridge was icy. Trail Guy crawled underneath to see if it was the same one he helped build back when the Earth was young.
Brrr, I’m heading to the sunshine.
Good thing I went walking this morning already, because I only want to sit on the tailgate and contemplate things in the sunsine.

We ran into someone we knew from Three Rivers, just home from a yearlong assignment in Macedonia. As we were catching up with him, some people came off the trail, overheard us, and came over to say that one of them got home from Macedonia yesterday. What?? This sort of thing just gobsmacks me. Ever been gobsmacked? It is sort of fun.