Sketchbook of My Worried Country ~ Sparhawk Cartoons

Sparhawk, Sketchbook of My Worried Country, No.1 ©2013

 

Sparhawk, Sketchbook of My Worried Country, No.1 Copyright 2013
http://www.thehawksperch.wordpress.com

HEY!  My new Smart Kitty Pan is sending my pee pee analysis to the D.O.J. !

Full Exclusive Copyright by Barbara D Sparhawk of: My Worried Country©, Sketchbook of My Worried Country©, words and images above,©2013. This one cartoon picture and words on this page may be used as is, on other sites, without specific permission from the artist, but only with full attribution. Thank you. Thank you very much.

The Cat Who Loved Flowers

Oil on Canvas, maybe 36 X 24 inches

The Cat Who Loved Flowers

Thomas Jefferson II Sparhawk is herein posed for his long overdue portrait, and I painted him to reflect his constancy of love for plants.

I do try to infuse the subject with the surrounds. I started myself thinking about that with pen and ink drawings of landscapes when the nature of environment became apparent to me, and that all things within range are thoughtful toward and aware of each other.

When in the garden on cooler days said cat gravitates toward sun-warmed tile. On adventuresome days he sits Sphinx posture in front of the lawn’s gopher holes, patience of saint. Well, actually, of a feline.

But first out he will walk through groves of lily, iris, nasturtium, lavender and geranium so that the blossoms brush him cheek to tail. I have watched him, head tilted back, rub his considerable whiskers alongside plants and slowly, deeply inhale their richness.

Quite some cat. Thomas is a very large, and very agile tree-climber 20lbs plus which I say to brag. We’re both pleased with the enormity he has acquired staying fit and beautiful.

And loving the garden.

There Is No Indifference Here

There Is No Indifference Here

oil on linen, 22 X 28

Awhile back, five months or so, a good friend discovered a skin cancer on her that was subsequently dealt with and healed. In the interim, I was afraid of losing her in my life. We’d known each other for about ten years through ups and downs, and as I said, she was my friend.

She’d long wanted me to paint a portrait of her but I hadn’t yet. Within a day of hearing the health threat, I started painting. It was a combo of doing something for someone I cared about, and worry of never seeing her again. It’s where I turn, to painting.

I wrote to her that the portrait was in progress, she was pleased, couldn’t wait to see it. I got updates on her progress and the good news of safe passage.

Around May, she arrived unexpectedly (lives out of state now) with her dopey husband, who tore through my gallery and studio like Grant through Richmond. The husband led the deprecations of my work in general, and most specifically the unfinished portrait of his wife, and then she joined in with him, both ignoring my effort, time, expense, and sure not the caring demonstrated.

I’m not used to that. People WANT me to paint them. My work is generally admired, people are surprised by their emotional connections, and tend to like what I do. And I’m sure as hell not used to it with friends. By the time the painful visit ended, I was gifted with homemade preserves, warned to be careful with the costly jars and make sure I gave them back.

Within five minutes of their departure I had tossed the frigging preserves in the dumpster, stormed back to my studio, wiped off the portrait and started to cover it with what’s turned into a rather nice floral.

And all the while thinking, what the hell just happened to me, what was that, what the hell happened with THEM.

And then, of course, I saw it for all it was. Indifference.

Likely it’s my least favorite human commerce. It’s a powerful weapon and most cruel, and I don’t put up with it much or often. I’ve kicked people out of my gallery if they display it and make strong efforts to defend against it, directed at me or at the work I do. It’s unkind. It’s their loss.

About a week later I started the painting above, THERE IS NO INDIFFERENCE HERE, in reaction. I’d thought about my own life, and the pleasures of simple things, the table laden with food I love, and a lovely napping cat, ocean breezes and starry nights and blooming plants, sand covered and sunburnt from my ocean. I can watch a blade of grass for hours on end. The way the sun and shadow change it, the wind talk, its smells and its relationships to what’s around it. I don’t need conventional complexities to be happy or society’s standards of abundance to be happy, and I know I’m not alone.

So I painted that. Simple pleasures, taking it all in, and no indifference toward the feast of life. Oh! What a life I lead.

 

The Artist’s Table

The Artist’s Table (detail, oil on linen)

Dinner table by the ocean, filled with remnants of a meal and happy cat, doesn’t get much better than that.

I’m still working on the whole, and will post the finished painting soon. Nice mood here, collection of things that please me.

The Art of Looking

Big Sur River Meets Pacific

The unexpected turns, the variations on a theme as you round a corner, done on purpose done indeed in order to change direction. Oh, life. Such abundance.

Last night near sundown I went to the state park that borders our beach, the place where the Big Sur River headlongs into the the Pacific. The river winds and turns gracefully, edged with reeds, logs, flowering bushes, the things of a river. Then the very air changes to some internally registered thrill, some dangerous anticipation. The flow alters. The banks widen. The air is doing unexpected current sweeps. There is titillating goosebumping excitement.

And from the increasingly dark overhangs and ruggedly twisted undergrowth is a diminishing chord as if a symphony has slowly limited itself to the single plaintiff mystery of one long note on one small string of one single instrument until silence is reached, a fuller silence than almost the body can bear. You plunge forward on the narrow dry path that changes color in quickening tempo until BAM! The ocean! You are thrown at it as mercilessly and with as much excitement as the fresh water feels.

Oh my God! scream the river blue green blues turning somersaults…I’m tasting salt, WOW! The unlimited surface of Earth and…I’M ON THE MOTHERSHIP!

Observation is about the single most important skill to nurture. It helps with everything from painting pictures to writing words to remembering faces. I’ve been taught and learnt my own tricks for picking up speed in that department.

One is this, worth trying. Describe. Describe what is around you, far and near. Keep at perfecting it until you find the right words, the ones that match the experience, the color, the form, shape, bulk, sense of it. I learned that from two excellent reporters. One, Edward R. Murrow’s war reports from London. The other, NY’s venerable genius Gabe Pressman who knows a lot about wordsmithery. It works. It is as simple as Murrow’s writing, as direct as:  I am on a rooftop in London. Bombs are bursting around me. Gabe’s advice: The sidewalk is split, goes from gray to black. The curb I approach has 3 shoots of grass, one dandelion sprouts from concrete. Dark blue Chevy in front of pink marble facade…

Another is to get all your receptors going full steam. Force if you must, connect, think about all the parts you have to call into service for Sight, Smell, Touch. All the vanguards of the body. Get them vibrating into the atmosphere like feelers on a millipede, like muzzle whiskers on a cat, like a capable human drinking in the abundant resources to fill you up with information. Knowledge. Instinct. Impulse. All that good stuff.

Take notes. Mental and written. Make a drawing. It all connects to the experience of the planet we’re lucky to be living on. Free. Enriching. Life. Music of the spheres. We have it in us to not miss out on a single thing.