An Entreaty to Stretch
HAVING ANOTHER PERSON along on a painting trip changes everything. For starters, that person - if she knows me well enough, and Carol Baney does (she is a veteran of a few painting trips), and if she is tough enough, she will push me. And Carol Baney does.
In the Painted Desert a couple years ago, I was excited to paint - but I felt that I had failed. I didn't like the paintings I made, and I didn't like the experience of making them. The mountains and rocks themselves, their shapes, the gradations of color, the paleness of the palette and the strange textures of everything around me left me feeling completely incapable. It was frustrating, disappointing - and gave me a little PTSD.
As we approach the Badlands, I feel scared and unhappy. These rocks, this landscape, is like an even paler version of the Painted Desert.
I begin looking for landscapes that aren't typical of the Badlands. Single-colored rocks, protrusions without ridges or strange broken-off bits, colors I can ignore. I tell Carol, who is driving, that I want to paint a non-Badlands landscape, and maybe call it a day at that.
She tells me that I need to stretch, that my Painted Desert paintings were good, that I am too hard on myself, and I shouldn't waste this opportunity. Growl, grumble, me. She points out to me that I had, only moments earlier, jumped out of the car to paint bisons on site, and that if I am brave enough to do that, I am brave enough to paint the Badlands.
I grit my teeth and growl a little Roy Kent growl, but I succumb.
We pull off at a site where people are climbing, where we can be the final car in a string of parked cars, and so I can suffer and fail with maybe no one watching. Also, there is shade, and that's already important on this hot morning.
Carol wanders off, I jump in and to my amazement, I make a painting that works, that feels like the moonlike landscape we are seeing, and that I like.
I've stretched, and it pleases me so much that I make one more before we leave the park. Lesson learned... at least for now.
AS WE DRIVE UP to the entrance to Badlands National Park on Thursday morning, we see cars pulled over, which, we have learned, means animals.
In this case, it's bison, and they are fairly close to the road, eating grass and flowers. Another is rolling on his back in the dust. They are fantastic animals, massive, incredibly powerful, their heads set strangely low, their hindquarters strong and muscled but somehow dainty.
We watch, awed - and pull over. I decide I have to try painting them, and I get up, open the back of the car, grab a small canvas and begin. Then, to my amazement, one makes his way across the road to the big stone Badlands National Park sign, and begins scratching himself on it!
We watch as another and then another comes to the sign and scratches, then walks away toward better fields, fewer visitors. One is startled and jumps and leaps and kicks before walking off, and it does bring me back to recognizing that though they walk slowly, and eat placidly, they are strong and fast - and wild, wild animals.
Click here for the second video
And while we are at it, I think I failed to upload the link to the sunflower field video, so please click here to see it - our first view of the Best Sunflower Field Yet!
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