Blizzard in the Studio

The painting above is called Switchback and it no longer exists. A big blizzard came to the mountain and this is now the  current state of the same canvas. It is currently called Drift:

In Progress,  the color is not true in this photo.  I like the photo below of  the blizzard of 1888 and the fallen cables on Wall Street.

New York as the Milky Way

“ The electric telegraph is the miracle of modern times. . . a man may generate a spark at London which with one fiery leap, will return back under his hand and disappear, but in that moment of time it will have encompassed the planet on which we are whirling through space into eternity. That spark will be a human thought! “

The Times, London October 1856

Heres a Detail of New York as The Milky Way

I’ve been reading about the dawn of the telegraph and electricity and how these inventions were received with skepticism and intrigue by people when they were first introduced. The general public opinion of the origin’s and meaning of electricity and how it would affect their relationship to nature and each other are all accurate in my opinion. People feared that their lives would accelerate and the cycles of nature, including our own as individuals, would scramble . New York was the first city to light up the night and one of the first to send and receive constant messages around the globe, so I painted it.

The continued outreach from New York of signals, satellite’s and lights into the night sky seems to me to be a reflection of the milky way.

Heres another quote written during the dawn of electricity:

“It has been the medium of all communication between mind and matter, brain and muscle, brain and brain; and in the phenomena of mesmerism and of pseudo-spiritualism, there is at least some reason to believe that, along air-lines and for indefinite distances, thoughts and words are sent with as unerring fidelity as marks their transmission on the artificial lightning-path. By the connection now established between distant cities and opposite hemispheres, we have but arrested, for a special subdivision of one among its many departments of service, a force which throbs from zone to zone, leaps from sky to earth, darts from earth to ocean, courses in the sap of the growing tree, runs along the nervous tissue of the living man, and can be commanded for the speaking wires simply because it is and works everywhere”.

North American Review 1858

John Muir

“John Muir’s Memory of Shipwrecked Apples” before the apples. I was reading some of his writings from his boyhood in Scotland ...

“The highest part of our playground back of the school commanded a view of the sea, and we loved to watch the passing ships and, judging by their rigging, make guesses as to the ports they had sailed from, those to which they were bound, what they were loaded with, their tonnage, etc. In stormy weather they were all smothered in clouds and spray, and showers of salt scud torn from the tops of the waves came flying over the playground wall. In those tremendous storms many a brave ship foundered or was tossed and smashed on the rocky shore. When a wreck occurred within a mile or two of town, we often managed by running fast to reach it and pick up some of the spoils. In particular I remember visiting the battered fragments of an unfortunate brig or schooner that had been loaded with apples, and finding fine unpitiful sport in rushing into the spent waves and picking up the red-cheeked fruit from the frothy seething foam”.

Boyhood in Scotland by John Muir p.21 The Wilderness World of John Muir

here are the apples so far:

Crusade

Heres a shot of the me and the painting “Crusade”. Much like the crusades it seems to be going on and on...