fbpx

Nothing lasts forever

Wildfire is threatening an area I know and love. Itā€™s a reminder that nothing lasts forever, even the trees and hills.

Hermit’s Peak from El Porvenir, Carol L. Douglas, oil on archival canvasboard, available.

Iā€™ve spent an inordinate amount of time recently watching the wildfire at Hermitā€™s Peak in New Mexico. ā€œMuch of the fireā€™s growth is in thick, heavy timber and steep, rugged terrain,ā€ writes officialdom. That is, if anything, an understatement. Iā€™ve painted in El Porvenir with my buddy Jane Chapin. The area is desolate.

As sad as the current fire destruction is, itā€™s where the fire is heading that concerns me. Itā€™s been burning slowly toward the villages of Upper and Lower Colonias and county road B44A. The Pecos River basin is just a few miles from the fireā€™s edge.

Upper Reaches of the Pecos River, Carol L. Douglas, oil on archival canvasboard, available.

This is where my Gateway to the Pecos Wilderness workshop is centered, and Iā€™ve come to know and love this tiny slice of Creation. Itā€™s deeply wooded, high, fresh and mountainous.

Of course, Iā€™m worried about Jane, who is in the evacuation ā€˜setā€™ zone. However, Janeā€™s the person who extracted us all from Patagonia after lockdown. Thereā€™s nobody Iā€™d rather be in a crisis with.

Old farmhouse in Pecos, NM, Carol L. Douglas, oil on archival canvasboard, available. This is one of the historic structures in the evacuation ‘set’ area.

The fire started as a prescribed burn lit on a windy April day. Itā€™s now burned out of control for five weeks and shows no sign of imminent containment.

The terrain is extremely inaccessible. ā€œIt has more roads on the east side of the ridge but the Pecos Wilderness side is forest roads. Theyā€™re often a challenge even for a 4-wheel-drive truck,ā€ Jane told me. ā€œThey are steep, full of big rocks, tight switchbacks and big drop-offs, and thereā€™s no turning around.ā€ 

Dry Wash, Carol L. Douglas, oil on archival canvasboard, available.

It was the area beyond Lower Colonias where Jane and I scratched the tar out of her truck trying to back away from a steep drop. Thereā€™s no need to go off-roading for adventure; the roads themselves are terrifying.

ā€œWe now have over 1900 firefighters on this fire, most of whom are unfamiliar with the area and are sleeping on the ground in tents in fire camps,ā€ Jane said. Thatā€™s hard work, complicated by the natural fauna of the area: bears, bobcats and mountain lions will be on the move, along with whatever horses, dogs and cattle may be caught within the fire line. Lest you think thatā€™s an exaggerated risk, a soldier was killed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, AK on Tuesday by a grizzly sow protecting her cubs. Where civilization and nature collide, stressed animals sometimes behave erratically.

Snow at Higher Elevations (downdraft), Carol L. Douglas, oil on archival canvasboard, available.

This week, weā€™re reading about mansions burning in Southern California, but those people have the resources to rebuild. In contrast, San Miguel County, NM, is poor. A quarter of the population live below the poverty line. That makes them voiceless in modern society. Theyā€™re unlikely to be able to challenge the Forest Service about the wisdom of ā€˜controlledā€™ burns, and this is the second time in seven years where a prescribed burn has gotten loose in this area.

Log barns, Carol L. Douglas, oil on archival canvasboard, available. This historic farmyard is in the evacuation ‘set’ area.

But thatā€™s all politics. What saddens me, deeply, is the potential destruction of a place I love. As Jane said, it seems somehow wrong to pray that the wind shifts and takes the fire to the east. If her home is saved, someone elseā€™s will be destroyed. Instead, I pray for rain.

Nothing lasts forever, even the seemingly immortal forests and hills. That makes it even more imperative to get out and look at themā€”and paint them if you willā€”while you can.

Sea & Sky Workshop, (almost) finished

My students worked through some crazy weather, and turned out some great paintings this week. 

Last night we looked at paintings using positive critiquing and analyzing the formal qualities of design
This is just a small sample of the work done this week. A caution: the color in these photos isn’t great, because they were taken after dark. But I hope you like them as much as I do. I’ve been constantly surprised and delighted by wonderful, lyrical, unexpected paintings. The week has just flown past and I’m sorry to see it end, even though we’re all pretty darn tired.
Watercolor painting by John Magoun
Oil painting by Patty Mabie
Watercolor painting by Rebecca Bense
Oil painting by Lori Capron Galan
Watercolor painting by Cynthia Burmeister
Acrylic painting by Rhea Zweifler
Watercolor painting by Jane Agee
Oil painting by Jennifer Johnson
Acrylic painting by Jennifer Little
Watercolor painting by Lisa Magoun
Oil painting by Mary Whitney
Oil painting by Robin Miller


The car cures itself

Summer for a professional plein air painter can involve as much driving as painting.

Cape Blomiden makes its own cloud, by Carol L. Douglas, was painted during a rainstorm in the first annual Parrsboro International Plein Air Festival.
One of my students missed last weekendā€™s workshop due to a painful flareup of plantar fasciitis. Another student, himself a doctor, told me about taking the disease into his own hands. He simply stretched the offending tissue until it audibly tore. “The relief was instantaneous,” he told me as I stared at him aghast.
My little Prius has done something similar. It has, over the last year, developed a loud scream at high speeds. Turning up the radio was useless. I had the tires rotated to see if that helped. No luck. A front wheel bearing was replaced in March; I replaced its mate two weeks ago. The right rear brake locked up while my car was in Logan Airport long-term parking in April. That wasnā€™t the root of the noise either. Meanwhile, every month Iā€™ve been spending more money on this car than the payment on a Ford F-150.

I appreciate AAA’s tow service, but I’ve seen too much of it recently.
But even the money hasn’t been the real problem. “Itā€™s no longer reliable,” I lamented to my husband. Next week I drive alone to Parrsboro, NS, where Iā€™m painting in the second annual Parrsboro International Plein Air Festival. There are some lonely stretches up that way, and I donā€™t like the idea of getting stranded. Iā€™ve started car shopping, but I donā€™t have the time to do proper research.
Meanwhile, Iā€™ve had a busy spring. On the night of my daughterā€™s wedding rehearsal, I stopped for a light at a busy intersection. I woke up seconds later to find that Iā€™d rolled right into the line of oncoming cars.
I have more than a million miles of accident-free driving under my belt and Iā€™d like to keep it that way.  Yesterday when I found myself blinking away sleep on the New York State Thruway, I did something I never do: I relinquished the wheel to my co-pilot. Thus, it was he, not me, who was driving when a tire burst on the interstate.
Two Islands in the Rain, Carol L. Douglas, also from Parrsboro International Plein Air Festival
In the end, this turned out to be the Prius healing itself. A few hours later, we were back on the road. The sound thatā€™s been plaguing me for months was gone. It was a defective tire after all.
We rolled into Rockport around the time that the fishermen are up rubbing the sleep from their eyes and checking the weather. The thermostat in my car read 43Ā° F. and it was foggy and pouring.
I have a short tight week here in Maine. I leave to teach watercolor on the schooner American Eagle on Sunday evening. After we dock, I leave directly for Parrsboro, NS.
Teaching watercolor aboard American Eagle mercifully involves no driving. The dock is just minutes from my home.
Iā€™ll be missing the opening reception for the latter, but Poppy Balser kindly stopped by on her way to Paint Annapolisto collect my boards for me. Sheā€™ll get them stamped so I donā€™t have to spend half of my first day there trying to find someone to stamp them for me. Iā€™ll just have to find Poppy.
And the eco-warrior is back on the road, all healed.
This is nothing unusual; itā€™s the life of many of my friends each summer. We sort events into boxes. Sometimes we can stop at home, swap the boxes, and do our laundry. But often we stack our calendars up in the back of our vehicles: frames and supports for the different events share trunk space. If weā€™re crossing the border, we take a deep breath as we approach Customs. Weā€™re not breaking the law, but a search of our cars will result in an awful mishmash of our supplies.