Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Everglades: as far south in Florida as you can get without being in the Keys.
I had a hard time reducing three days in the Everglades to one post, so I was glad to see the comments that asked for a few more pictures. Here’s some of the ones that didn’t make the cut for the first post.
Taylor Slough, from the Anhinga Trail boardwalk
On The Road – frosty – Everglades National Park, Part TwoPost + Comments (9)
Hello everyone. My name is Richard Fox, and I’d like to introduce my work to you all. I am a painter who loves to go out and record the world as dictated by my own idiosyncratic manner and style. I paint what I call ‘realistic abstractions’ meaning I show clearly what the object or location is, but filtered with colors and lines based on my personal feeling towards the motif. In a sense you can know me based on what I share with you, ideally without explanation. My work reflects my innate impatience and my patience, my desire to get the thing just right but without any fuss. If I can put it all in a phrase I would say I have an obsession of colorfully capturing moments in time.
I tend to be very intuitive in my thinking and let the brush rather than my brain do the editing. Watercolor as a medium demands you feel in your innermost self when to put down the brush, otherwise the effect is labored and usually mud-like! Watercolor was my first love and I did the majority of my work in that medium for about 20 years. But after I turned 40 I wanted to complement them with oils to give a fuller statement of my journey; at 61 I have a body of work in both mediums that allows others to see what I saw in my life. One of my big dreams is to have someone take a whole bunch of watercolors—say 40 or so—and show them all at once in a big exhibit. Oils too, but perhaps separately.
On a personal note, I don’t have much by way of exposure and frankly that’s not good. A painting only lives when it gets people to see them!
Please feel free to peruse my website to see more of my paintings.
“Chardonnay Grapes Vista,” Oil on canvas. I moved to my adopted state of California from Brooklyn, New York in 2016. I now live about 20 minutes from Napa, and as a motif the sight of the grapes on the vine enchants me to no end. My work is so different than my New York days, the land and the sea become more prevalent, and the light is just like I imagine heaven would be. (!)
Richard Fox – Painting in Living Color and Liking It!Post + Comments (92)
On the Road will be all frosty next week. The Everglades, Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, and finishing up with the Grand Staircase. As for today, I will be sad when we get to Cats 4 of 4. I love these cat photos!
Continuing in the third chapter of my four-part cat series, I’m featuring our two remaining indoor cats, Oz and Spike. We also have two outdoor kitties who are semi-feral and difficult to photograph, but who faithfully control the rodent population in collaboration with our seasonal fox and her family as well as the odd snake, the occasional owl, and any other random predators that manage to participate.
Oz grooming himself.
On The Road – Steve from Mendocino – We Have Cats 3 of 4Post + Comments (24)
Having worked at home even pre-pandemic, and being a homebody in general, I’ve spent many hours looking out my windows, watching Maine’s changeable weather, the days and seasons passing, and the endless play of light and shadow.
This long contemplation of one intimately familiar landscape makes me think that if I went to sleep, like Rip Van Winkle, and woke up at some random hour on some random day, I would be able to tell you the time of year and the time of day to within a very small margin, from the foliage, the state of the fields, the length of the shadows, and the quality of the light.
It’s probably not true, and anyhow, the seasons are so clearly differentiated in Maine, it’s not much of a test. But that meditation in turn made me think about the sun’s path, and one day I realized (astronomers feel free to correct me) that the sun passes through any given point in the sky only twice a year – once on its way up to the summer solstice and again on its way down. Hence the shadows are different every single minute of every single day, even if the change from one day to the next is imperceptible. Never mind that living things constantly grow and change, so each maple tree’s shadow will reach a little further next year.
This is the background of my habit of taking lots of pictures of what seem to be the same scenes, over and over. You can never step into the same river twice….
Almost sunset, looking north
The park is an old ranch with interesting rock formations west of the San Fernando Valley and south of Simi Valley. At its western boundary is the Santa Susana Field Laboratory where they tested rocket engines(south section) and nuclear research(north section). One of the main reasons for visiting the park were the views of the lab, the park does have some vistas towards the north part of the lab, but the southern part of the lab, where the rocket tests were conducted, were blocked by a ridge.
I ended up getting lost getting to the park and ended up driving over Box Canyon and past the remains of Spahn Ranch where the Manson Family hung out while murdering folk(it’s across from a church now), and had to double back before I arrived at the parking lot. It’s a short hike up the hill to the ranch and the loop trail that passes by most of the rock formations and some really nice views of Simi Valley as well as the interior of the northern portion of the lab. After leaving Sage Ranch, I headed down to Chatsworth to the office of the successor company of Rocketdyne where they have one of the F-1(first stage of the Saturn-V) rocket engines out in front.
Farm equipment from the old ranch days.
On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – Sage Ranch ParkPost + Comments (12)
In 2017, I took a small ship (50 passengers) cruise of the Greek Isles. One thing that really impressed me were the ferries that sailed between the islands and the main land. They were fast and efficient, and HUGE. I honestly don’t remember which of the several islands we visited I was on when I took these pics. The most interesting ferry I ever saw was a little hand operated one on the Rio Grande in Texas. There was a border patrol kiosk with a very bored agent on the US side. I can find lots of my other pics of the river from that trip but not one of that little ferry!?!
Happy Monday! We are apparently moving from summer to fall this week with Albatrossity and BillinGlendale. We learn from Elma what Wisconsin and Greece have in common, and then we round out the week with barns and cats, courtesy of JanieM and Steve from Mendocino, respectively.
Week 8 of our Summer in Flyover Country series brings us a taste of fall, and the next installment will confirm that trend. Summer is over. Have a glass of hot mulled cider!
Many of our summer resident birds are still here, but getting restless. The Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbus) pair shown here may be already in Central or South America by the time you read this. In recent years the practice of feeding grape (and other) jelly has introduced this species to a whole new fan club of backyard birders. They might benefit from a trip away from the backyard to see these guys, and to introduce themselves to the many other colorful species that rarely are seen in the backyard.
On The Road – Albatrossity – Summer in Flyover Country – week 8Post + Comments (16)