Poppies Crowding Vase


 Mahalia Poppies Crowding Vase     (oil on canvas, 25 X 20)

        There’s a spectacular garden on a bit of land near me, a sort of floating island that’s crisscrossed by paved roads now but was once connected to greater bodies of sagebrush, trees, and river. It is the oldest building in Carmel Valley. It was the pioneer’s Grange, it was the meeting place for cowpokes and their gals and wives and children. And Jack London slept there. And now it is deserted but for flora bunda.Poppies in Vase, 1                     The garden is spectacular in a way you’d have to do a disconnect somewhat from expectation of the Tuileries or English order. This garden has roamed and spread and died back and gone to seed and is on its own. It’s creator, Paul the rock sculptor and doctor died a few years back.  His legacy is a powerful gift for all who live to see it. I visit and trespass and transplant Paul’s brilliant work (with his son’s permission) to my own garden.  These poppies, photographed earlier on this blog, crowd with their voluptuous beauty into my glass vase, centered on my little patio and fill the air with their extraordinary perfume, their robust life, their glowing presence.

Then I painted it. 

A CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE, Snowden, NSA, June 9 2013


A Crisis of Conscience, 2013 June 9

A 29 year old who has, for a week now, been leaking US internal security material to another country’s newspaper has decided that the extraordinary liberties taken by the government of his country are more important to tackle than staying alive.

His name is Edward Snowden. He is an American. He has been living in Hawaii. Working for NSA, formerly with a number of inteligence gathering agencies. He believes the power of government has been subverted. Snowden says that he may seek assylum in Hong Kong. More than anything, Snowden says he is “most afraid that nothing will happen. No one will be willing to take the risk to fight.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance

No one imagines America’s own free press will suddenly feel that telling lies to the public consititutes anything but their free choice and privilege. But nor will this start and end with Snowden. There will be others.

Who are you. Where are you now.

Life is a Dance


The whole world singing and dancing. You will not be able to sit still, you will laugh and cry, you will get up and

>>>>>>>>>>>DANCE!!!<<<<<<<<<

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From Gunta who takes beautiful photographs of the planet.

String Quartet Plays on Tarmac in Flight Delay


IF MUSIC BE THE STUFF OF LIFE PLAY ON

Dateline: BEIJING

Dvorak’s  American” , the finale movement

A group of American musicians from The Philadelphia Orchestra played Dvorak on board a plane held on the tarmac for a 3–hour delay in Beijing. Two violinists, one cellist, one viola player.

 It was a return trip, forty years after they became the first orchestra to visit China.

Pretty exquisite stuff. Listen through to the cheering applause. Does a heart good.

FEDZILLA. IRS ‘r’ Us


FEDZILLA: Every Government Agency is the IRS 

THE GOVERNMENT PUTSCH

The internet is abuzz with brand new daily revelations about the great federal netting up                            
of your every telephone conversation, tweet,

text and breath. Everything bearing capitals for

a name is collecting.

You know, I read the stories with interest.

What the government is up to, disclosed long after the fact as usual, all this worst case scenario etc.
And I’m thinking, okay that’s a lot of data. What are they doing with it. You’d have to figure out how to store it. So library style, classify into genre. So it gets ‘profiled’ into A, B, C… Gun Owners. Home Schoolers. Families Who Camp Out. People Who Build Their Own Houses. People Who Own Trucks. People Who Like To Write Books. People Who Listen to Chinese Opera.
And Whoa!
FEDZILLA is here. I see commerce.
I see agents assigned to subdividing lists to target potential business contacts. If Google, now an active regime cohort, has been doing this in the open well wahoo is this a list gathering with style and unimaginable reach or what.
And we are talking about an exceptionally greedy government. Maybe they’re getting 4 cents back on every tent sold to campers on the terrorist list…identified by FBI seizures of private conversations…paid by mid-eastern Yurt builders. Imagine the use of medical records sold to drug manufacturers, all classified into who uses what!    Zowie.

There’s more to this than the this. If it looks like a, smells like a, acts like a, it is A Coup D’Etat. A very odd one.

Cherchez la moolah.                photo:teamlassen.com

CENTRAL COAST’S BEST GALLERY~~THE HAWKS PERCH


Garden May patio

T H E      H A W K S      P E R C H

Hawks Perch Trademark

only 6 miles in from the coast

at The FARM CENTER 

Hawks Perch Trademark

MID-VALLEY, off CARMEL VALLEY ROAD & ROBINSON CANYON ROAD

HORSE RANCH, COWBOY, VINEYARD and ART COUNTRY

ROLLIKNG STONES, TOUR, original photographRARE PHOTO!!  THE ROLLING STONES WORLD TOUR 1973, NY TIMES SQUARE BILLBOARD.  THE ALBUM COVER ‘MADE IN THE SHADE’ painted by Barbara Sparhawk    Really Beautiful Photo Prints Now Available in The Hawks Perch, in Small, Medium, Large and Superlarge Sizes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Looking Inside Carmel Valley Hawks Perch GalleryCome on in! Look! Buy! Have a great time. Small, original oil paintings of florals start at $125. Pen & Ink drawings for $25 to $150.

Inside Carmel Valley Hawsksperch

Commissioned portraits of animals start at $500. People portraits at $1500. Landscapes range from roughly $150 to $785.  Used paperback, hardcover & art books from $1. to $25. And other interesting stuff…jewelry, t-shirts, old tins.

and Ron Wohlauer Coastal Photographs

T  H  E     H  A  W  K  S     P  E  R  C  H

Inside Carmel Valley GallerySo much to see! Portraits of people and animals, florals, and lovely CARDS of Sparhawk Paintings (photographed by Nola Barnick)

Card Rack Up - Dec 2011Mahalia Poppies, Gallery Wall Carmel ValleyTHE HAWKS PERCH CV FACING BACK STUDIOBig Sur Kitchen, Rabbit Vase and PoppiesDRAGON FLY IN LOST GARDENCalla Lilies and Leaves, InteriorHeron-Otter on Wind, Night Sky, Pfeiffer Beach

Carmel Valley Gallery chair, The Hawks Perch3 years in Big Sur, now a bit north, still the best, comfy chair for respite and viewingFacing Back Window, the Hawks Perch Gallery of Carmel Valleygorgeous scenery in every direction

White Iris

New Studio Palettethe instigator

Used Books, The Hawks Perch, Carmel Valley Gallery, Sparhawksplendid old books for sale

and

Beautiful Hand-Made Oil-Painted EXPRESSIONIST SIGNS ON WOODUSED BOOKS SIGNHawks Perch Trademark, the MermaidOPEN sign, Carmel Valley gallery, The Hawks Perch, Sparhawk

In Truth This Garden is My Home sign, Sparhawk Gallery, the Hawks PerchLA VIE EN ROSE, Sparhawk sign on woodthe HAWKS PERCH, Gallery highway sign, Carmel Valley Road

Flower Sign and Cart, Big Sur Hawks Perch Gallery

Dexter Lives Here sign for local residents, Carmel Valley, the Hawks Perch

Sparhawk in BeretEl Hawko in el Beretto

COME AND WALK THROUGH, LOOK AROUND, SIT AND TALK, BUY A PAINTING, DRAWING, ORDER A SIGN, A MURAL, COMMISSION A PORTRAIT,    OR JUST TO SAY                                                                                HELLO.

HOURS ARE ROUGHLY 11 AM TO 4 PM EVERY DAY    

THERE IS NO PHONE

IF YOU’RE MAKING A SPECIAL TRIP FROM FAR AWAY, SEND AN EMAIL  sparhawk@barbarasparhawk.com Busy Fish Lady, Sparhawk Trademarkso much going on

Dawn Music of the Hindu


THE EFFECTS OF VIBRATING AIR ON ALL LIFE

   Many years ago I read a bit of Hindu thinking on DAWN and never forget the ancient philosophers addressing daybreak. It was, if memory serves (as the loaned book is long gone):

Vibration comes from many places in many forms. And it plays an enormous role in all the functioning of the planet~~its creatures and all living things.

THE BIRDSONG OF DAWN sets up vibrating air waves. These vibrations are drawn in by plants, and that song results in movement, the flow of sap and energy inside the plant. It is this which begins and produces growth.  Life would not exist without it.

My meadow and the river bank it borders is home to a thousand feathery lives. It occurs to me that the rapid air beating of the hummingbird’s wings must have a powerful effect on a flower. A rush of oxygen. Vibrating sound. Being milked of nectar. I may start experimenting, singing to plants.

There’s been a lot of study on the idea leading various places. But it remains a lovely, stimulating thought that may set some vibration going in the reader’s brain next waking at sunrise. A song is worth letting in for a co-mingle. A rose is a rose is a rose. But a garden is never simply a garden.

(Bird with diagram: futurity.org.) (blue/green bird photo credit: sodahead.com) (Bird of Paradise: hawaiipictures.com)