I Was Here

So, like I said, we painted a fishing tournament in Anchorage.  

The small palette knife, seen to the left of my palette, between the scraper and the kitchen tool, was lost immediately after this photo.  I'm guessing I dropped it in the mud and stepped on it over and over until it was thoroughly buried.  I had a spare, so no need to search for it on my behalf.  But it got me thinking...

What else did I leave behind?  What was the footprint of our adventure?  For a laugh, here's a list of just a few of the artifacts and impressions we left in our wake:

1. At least four paintbrushes...they're easy to lose if dropped in the brush
2. Way too much paper towel crammed into plastic bags crammed into gas station trashcans
3. A dollar on the wall of the Salty Dawg
4. At least a dozen bare chicken legs along the Stewart-Cassiar Highway
5. Some ink on some highway signs
6. A painting of a bathhouse in a bathhouse
7. The impression in Jasper, Alberta, that folks from Indiana are wild and dangerous
8. A pool of linseed oil at the Lower Yellowstone Falls lookout
9. $4.73 in a Canadian gas station that took American, so long as they didn't have to give you change
10. An accidental political statement in Idaho
11. A pair of very stiff pants somewhere in the Yukon Territory
12. Five pizza pretzels to the grey fox of Dease Lake
13. Laughter and background noise on a promotional video in a simulated Holy Land
14. A pool of linseed oil at Lake Louise
15. At least a dozen bottle caps on Canadian campsite posts 
16. An engine fan belt
17. A lidless plastic container of fry sauce, upside down, on the carpet of The Viking
18. Four pairs of socks in seemingly random locations
19. A bad impression on every customs agent we interacted with
20. A bad impression on a ranger at Glacier National Park
21. A good impression on every Asian tourist we interacted with
22. An accidental smudge of cobalt violet on a silver corvette 
23. $1.25 in a gas station casino
24. Tall tales for anyone listening in a Montana KOA hot tub
25. Maps of Wyoming and Nebraska, somewhere between Wyoming and Nebraska
26. My breath, on a trail that looked much shorter from above
27. A pool of linseed oil at Makah Marina
28. An unpaid camping fee at a sketchy trailer park in Cheyenne
29. At least 100 "burst setting" photos of a nice German family and my feet
30. A toenail on a very small fir tree
31. A pocket knife in the cushion of a Mexican Restaurant in Washington
32. A fake name on everything I had to sign
33. Two rounds of high fives with a group of youngins in Wyoming
34. A painting of the Pacific Ocean in an empty cooler at Ruby Beach 
35. A sarcastic response to everyone that asked, "What're you painting?"
36. A sarcastic response to everyone that asked, "Do you do this for a living?"
37. Zero business cards

They won't be establishing a Rudolech and LeGrand National Historic Trail any time soon, but I think we left a mark on more than our canvas.  Watch out for those unicorns!

We Don't Use Real Names Here

When Larry and I arrived in Anchorage, we immediately began looking for fishing boats.  He had been talking about it for three weeks.  Something like, "Just think, in a few thousand miles, we'll be sitting by the water painting those old wooden boats for days."  I was excited that he was excited.  So much so, in fact, when we arrived in Anchorage at 10pm with the sun still high in the sky, we started our search for a painting before finding a place to sleep.  You've probably already figured it out, but we soon discovered there are no wooden boats to be found in Anchorage.  Evidently, Larry's major motivation for driving all the way to Alaska was based on an honest assumption...we didn't do our homework.  

The next day, after painting at a fly fishing tournament, we headed south to Homer.  We had been assured we'd find our old boats there.  It was just a five hour drive...a drop in the bucket at this point.  We arrived at about 7pm, got a camping spot on the spit, and found the mother lode.  Considered to be the halibut fishing capital of the world, there were enough boats on the spit to hold us over for a month.  Big boats, bigger boats, boats for hauling other boats, a bunch of those "Deadliest Catch" boats, and so on.  We painted the harbor while the sun crept closer to the horizon.  We called it quits after we lost the best light, loaded up in the van and started looking for dinner.  Of course, we'd forgotten the Alaskan sun sets around midnight in late June.  We had a drink at the Salty Dawg, ate chicken wings at some dive that never closed while the sun was up, and called it a night around 2am with plenty of light still in the sky.  I couldn't sleep and wandered down to the beach to discover at least twenty bald eagles fighting over fish at the water's edge...it was one of the most surreal moments of the trip.  

We were closer to Tokyo than we were home, so we expected to have some interesting interactions with the locals.  While painting some grounded boats the next morning, we ran into some real characters.  A skinny man named Jim greeted us pretty early on and gave us a thorough history of each wooden vessel.  Some were being used as homes now...not houses so much as lean-to fort-type structures held together with buoys and crab traps.  Several other squatters appeared randomly from the mess of tangled wood and nets...some were friendly, but most kept to themselves.  And then, about five paintings into the day, he appeared...Yak. 

I didn't learn his name right off the bat.  He greeted us at a distance from his bike.  He said something like, "Hey!  Wow!  Woah, you guys are still here.  I can't believe it."  Passersby often say things to us, but rarely with such flare and enthusiasm.  I turned to watch him roll up on Larry and I.  Larry was within earshot, but not close enough to participate in the interaction that followed.  "You want some salmon?" he screamed at me.  "Salmon?" I said.  "Yeah!  I got all kinds of salmon here."  I studied him and the bike.  I was curious.  I turned him down as kindly as I could, but he insisted.  Before I could change his mind, he had a bungee-corded bag off of his bike and open in front of me.  He reached in and pulled out a large salmon fillet, frozen in plastic.  "I come down here everyday to get my salmon for the month," he said.  I was very curious now.  "For the month?" I asked.  "Yep.  I ride down here everyday on yellow thunder and get six salmon fillets."  Yellow Thunder was the name he'd given to his bicycle.  It was a blue bicycle.  "I'm Yak," he said with his shirt pulled up over his head, revealing a ten inch belt buckle with "Yak" inscribed on it.  I shook his hand, thanked him for the salmon, and learned about his daily routine through way too much casual conversation...then it got weird.  "You want to go smoke this over there in that boat?" he asked while holding what I assumed was a marijuana cigarette.  I turned him down, again, as gracefully as possible.  I then asked him if he was referring to Jim's boat, what I assumed was the home of the "historian" we'd talked to earlier.  Yak perked up straight in a violent jerk and changed his demeanor from carefree to careful.  "We don't use real names here," he said like a ghost.  There was an awkward silence.  Then he screamed with a smile, "I call him Slim!"  I was relieved for a moment.  "We don't use real names," he said again while hopping aboard his trusty Yellow Thunder.  He looked off into the distance like a stoic statue, then back to me to bid farewell.  "I love it here," he said.  "Everyday I come and get my salmon for the month.  I just ride Yellow Thunder and breathe the fresh air and talk to people like you.  I used to live in the desert.  I lived in Arizona.  I used to kill people.  But I don't talk about that anymore."  

Yak pedaled off, silhouetted by snow covered peaks.  Larry and I left the frozen salmon to thaw in the boat graveyard.  The end of the road is a strange place.  But like Jim said, "People are strange when you're a stranger."

Siri, Where Am I?

Here I am, taking a "selfie" at Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada.  Hey, you!  Get off of my cloud.

It's Not You, It's Me

All you need is love, but what about the rest of us?

Claiming to be humble is a declaration of hypocrisy.  Everyone desperately needs to be recognized as talented or hard-working or devout or funny or smart or whatever.  We are all anxiously waiting for evidence confirming the identity we've been carving over years of learning or practicing or speaking or praying or joking or flaunting modesty or whatever.   But it seems to me, more often than not, we invest much more energy into learning how we're viewed by our friends and peers than we actually invest in the pursuits and ambitions our friends and peers are witness to.  And now, more than ever, I'm not sure it even matters.  Here it is folks...no longer should you feel compelled to find your passion or "gift".  In today's virtual world of tweeting presidents and sponsored content, it's about telling people what your "gift" is with a big # in front of it.  Passion is, evidently, a matter of advertisement.  It's not actually about how funny you are, it's about how many people watch your YouTube stand-up routine.  It's not about how smart you are, it's about how many Jeopardy questions you get right during a social gathering.  It's not about how devout you are, it's about how many people saw you at church last week.  Some may argue otherwise while in good company, but I'm afraid the news is in and it reads like this kids:  YOU CAN BE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO BE...BUT IT'LL COST YOU LESS TO JUST LEARN THE PART.

It's funny if you let it be...laugh out loud if you'd like.  We're a bunch of selfish, egocentric, how-many-likes-can-I-get, public image enthusiasts.  If only we could suck it up, admit we're self-obsessed, and hang up our cell phones for a minute, maybe we could start trying to have a few real experiences like real human beings and less like the decorated protective cases of App-Store-bought identities.  I'm as guilty as the next narcissist, and maybe I have a skewed idea of what "real experiences" are, but I'm trying to be a better egomaniac.  Let me tell you, it's humiliating...thank God.  Par for the course, I suppose, when searching for compassion and understanding in something other than our own reflection.

So this is what I say...
Go sit in the grass, tell a stranger a story, eat something weird, paint a picture, and then...keep it to yourself.  Don't tell a soul.  Don't Tweet about it.   Don't blog about it.  Leave the GoPro at home.  Just do something for yourself and the hell with the rest of us.  YOU CAN BE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO BE...as soon as you stop being anything you think the rest of us expect.  

I'm just thinking out loud...forget I said anything.  Don't you dare trust a word I say!  It's Saturday evening, the second day of autumn.  It still feels like summer, the stars are shining brightly, and I hope you're happy.  

Ruin Ruin Ruin Done

This is the start of a painting for my upcoming solo exhibition, "Fires".  

Combing Through the Comb-Overs

Never trust a man with a toupee.  He's lying to your face to protect his bloated ego and he thinks you're dumb enough to believe him. 

And if you'd like him to know you think he's a sleazeball, invite him outside to fly a kite.  

Keep It Simple Stupid

I don't read as much as I should.  Still, every so often, I'm asked to share my favorite "art books".  Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut...that's it, hands down.  My good friend Ty recommended it to me years ago and it's been a favorite ever since.  If a person lived by Ty's advice, they'd probably be the better for it.  Ty also turned me on to Wilco, Pavement, and sushi...I'm forever indebted.  Trust me, trust Ty...if your cup is half empty and you like art, you'd probably enjoy Bluebeard.  

Here's an art book for you.  Today, I found an Amazon box at my door.  Enclosed was the brand-new picture book featuring 50 Rothko "Color Field" paintings.  There are a few words by Rothko's son and curator Janet Bishop, but the bulk of the book is filled with full-page color reproductions of the well-known and often polarizing abstract works he became most recognized for.  If you don't like Rothko, or abstract work in general, I get that you don't get it...some people don't listen to Bob Dylan because of his voice, some people don't like roundabouts because they've never been stuck in traffic, and some people don't believe in global warming because it still gets cold in the winter...whatever.  The reproductions don't hold a candle to standing two feet from the real deal, but it'll do for the coffee table.  

I've been admiring the full gamut of Rothko's color fields as I work on some new abstract-ish paintings.  I know I'm doing the same thing that countless representational painters with a loose and colorful style have done before me, but it feels awfully exciting anyway.  What I mean is, Rothko's big, floating shapes of color have fully immersed themselves into my paintings via the chaos of Turner's later depictions of steam and sea spray (check out Painting Set Free if you're into the real "painter of light").  They're pretty violent looking, if I had to say so.  It's funny, I've spent years trying to draw and paint things in a way to convince the average person of some type of optical illusion...all to realize I just want to create big pictures of "nothing".  I guess Jackson Pollock had to spend years painting with a brush and an easel before he learned how to make something "a toddler could do".  And Neil Young had to shred on "Down by the River" before playing the solo on "Cinnamon Girl".  The new paintings are fun.  I'm not sure if they're any good, but I'm fairly certain they're some of the best things I've painted.  Or maybe I'm a moron. 

I'm thinking about buying a new pair of high-tops...

The Falling Man

Richard Drew

Associated Press

One Human Family

Stay safe Conchs.

Hold on, let me grab my selfie stick.

On our trip this summer, Larry and I enjoyed having fun with the tourists.  Mind you, Larry and I were tourists.  We employed an array of bait-and-switch tactics to lure sightseers away from good painting locations.  We learned pretty early on, if you pull over in Yellowstone National Park and stand next to your vehicle, you will attract the most loathsome beasts in North America....they're pictured above, closing in on Larry.  Nothing screams natural splendor like the roar of shutter noise from fifty cheap cameras attached to expensive telephoto lenses being used for the first time to capture an image of what might be a bear or a bush, 500 yards away.  Don't worry,  we made it out alive...shortly after this photo was taken, I walked to the opposite side of the road, crouched down in the grass with my binoculars, pointed at the horizon, and screamed, "Bear!"  The herd relocated and we continued painting. 

It's fun making fun, but don't forget, Larry and I were the idiots that drove to Alaska, just to spend hundreds of hours paintings pictures of things that could've been captured with an Iphone and an index finger.  Yay, art. 

It's Tuesday and the breeze is blowing.

Against the Wind

Congrats to the high bidder!  A donation of $325 has just been made to the Houston Food Bank and the painting, "Harvey", is on it's way to a new home in Austin, Texas via Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Thanks to all of you who participated and thank you for your donations to the Harvey relief effort. 

Now, I'm going to go ahead and give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume each participant's highest bid was equal to the amount they actually donated.  If we add up those bids, we just raised $3285.  How about that?

How about this...after a little research, I discovered Americans drive, on average, 29 to 37 miles a day.  A typical car here in the states gets around 21 miles per gallon, evidently.  So, with gas averaging $2.50 a gallon here in Indiana, we can assume it's pretty regular to spend $3.75 each day driving to work and back.  There are about 4.5 million licensed drivers in Indiana.  If just half of those folks were able to stay home this Labor Day, and if they decided to give their daily gas money to something like the Houston Food Bank, we could really write a check...to the tune of $8,437,500.  And if every Hoosier could donate 75 cents a day for the next year, we could take care of that $190 billion price tag they're sticking on Hurricane Harvey by next fall...that's the soda pop, candy bar, or three cigarettes you're trying to cut out of your daily routine anyway.  I know it's not possible for everyone to give and I know helping others isn't always that simple, but without wishful thinking, where would we be?  We can't clean up the mess until we open the broom closet.    

A painting is a great thing to have, but it's no necessity.  Here's to having walls we can hang frivolous things on.  Sometimes it takes a hurricane.

Walls for Paintings

"Harvey"

oil on canvas

6" x 12"

Bidding is finished.

I know many of you out there have already helped out those affected by Hurricane Harvey.  But if you'd like to do a little something for the good of us all while also nabbing a painting, check this out...

This little painting will be gifted to a high bidder.  Bids may be emailed to wyattlegrand@gmail.com.  Your bid will be confidential, but the highest bid will be updated regularly on this blog...so check back often.  At 6pm Eastern Time, Monday, September 4, bidding closes.  The high bidder will be gifted the painting above in exchange for a donation in the amount of your winning bid to the Houston Food Bank.  You can donate online by clicking here.  

The high bidder sends me a donation confirmation and I send the high bidder "Harvey"...easy.  

And if you're outbid, please remember, a donation to the Houston Food Bank or any other Harvey relief effort is money well spent.  If you can spare a few bucks on a painting, go ahead and spend that amount on food for those who are hungry.  

“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - "God damn it, you've got to be kind.”

-Kurt Vonnegut