Wet stuff

Since I haven't been blogging that long, I thought I'd set myself a record for not blogging.

We've been traveling a fair amount lately. Well, it is "Spring Break". Our latest expedition took us to Colorado with the purpose of checking out the University of Colorado in Denver where Lizzy, our daughter, shows a faint interest in attending the Film School. I'll install images as I gradually awake and recover from the stresses and strains of these ordeals.
First, a telling glimpse of the extreme conditions of the local terrain. A frozen lake in the High Country of New Mexico:

Then, rising and dropping, and finally dropping down (talking altitude here, of course) into Pagosa Springs in Colorado. Big hot springs scene. I had to put up with sights like this at the motel:

I stay away from water. Nasty wet stuff, but my family seems to enjoy it. Others do too, so perhaps there is some kind of mysterious pleasure in wallowing in it. Note the multicolored sediments that built up over the years on the wall. The charming couple are enjoying their tall, cool drinks while their butts and other parts dissolve in that 105*F mineral mix:

In another pool, an interesting triangle:

View towards the river with still frozen mountains in the distance:

Climate Change

Middle of March, isn't it? You would think all this would ease-up a bit. But no, mid-winter blizzards carefully reconstructed for our pre-spring entertainment. For anyone who visits this blog just to check out the weather in New Mexico:

These plants look quite amazed, don't they:

A few moments later, the blazing, high altitude New Mexico sun comes peeking out. Solid changes to liquid and then rises as gas to presumably form clouds and start the whole cycle again further down the road. Earlier this morning, I saw very similar looking white clouds rising up in the air. That time (that part of the morning was still early summer, temperatures were climbing), a dust devil whipped through a male juniper pulling out a cloud of pollen, the most allergenic substance known to man. But much worse for woman:

And now its snowing again...

Meanwhile...

Meanwhile...

Leaning against the studio wall, stand all these.
This theater caper took me away from everything. I stopped painting, stopped writing, stopped digging trenches in the sandstone, and even stopped moving large rocks to more suitable locations all around the landscape.
Now I've committed myself to do a little oil painting of two friendly dogs sniffing each other pleasantly set against a scene similar to the main section of the stage set, as a present from cast and crew to the play director. This is both good and bad. Bad because it is kind of stupid to paint a couple of dogs being nice to each other, good because it will make me get my paints and gear out of hibernation, move me to the studio, and I hope, generate momentum to get me going on all my other work.

Writing, hmm.
I can hardly complain that I haven't had any time to write. A few days subbing at the high school did eat up some of my free time, but normally, with a laptop at hand, I should have been able to knock out a few hundred words...the kids are having exams, so I don't feel too guilty ignoring them. Besides, I can keep them entertained and amused, and give them insightful educational moments while going back and forth from the keyboard. It worked before.
The problem, obviously, lies somewhere else, somewhere deeper. The first short story, seven thousand odd words, I wrote in three or four days. Encouraged, I thought that I could just keep going like that, and whip out reams of the stuff endlessly. But that first story already sat somewhere inside me, and only grew as I wrote. This sucker, which I'm writing now is very demanding of the kind of attention, that I am not experienced in giving. It wriggles, writhes, and morphs completely out of my control; I have bits written which belong at various sections, which is really straining my composing skills to link-up and lay over the structure that I devised for the story.
Also, the monster is growing in size in a way that I cannot control. It wants be a novel, but I really, really don't want to write a novel at all. I want to write a short story. Short story is such a nice form. But, how do I fend of all the all the themes, sub-texts, and narrations clawing and whining for attention. I must be strong -- it must be a short story. A very long short story, but a short story nevertheless.
Writing, I am discovering, is a very different brain activity from painting. In painting, I devise a process, and then engage in the mechanical activity of going through its phases. I need to open intuitive, right hemispheric activity and I'm all set. This word thing, on the other hand, and all the words and cousins and nieces of words I can only reach in that linear quarter of the gray matter, but to connect them to what I am trying to put out requires stunning acrobatics of linking the two hemispheres together, melting my wimpy little white corpus callosum. Practice? Perseverance? No one told me this was going to be so hard; shame on you all.

Do it! Do it!

Go on, do it, do it, you can do it, go on!...

The End?

As a final note on the production of "Sylvia": I was quite amazed at the quality of the stuff that cast put out. They were really good. Oddly, I wasn't expecting that. Everyone seemed completely connected to their roles; I don't know how they do it.
This could be my last serious flailing at the theater production site this time around. I might go back to touch up a few edges, add a few branches, dab on some highlights, but otherwise, its over.Last panel, not too great, but it will have to do (Burnout produces overkill).
This is supposed to be an airport scene. It's on one of the revolving flats, the othr sides consist of the view of building out of a window, and the interior of the psychiatrist's office. People will be sitting and standing in front of it a lot of the time, so the bottom section will remain mostly unseen:

Tidy-up & do widzenia:

Now, back to painting and writing.

Technical

Time for winter to be over, and yet it persists. On my way to the theater yesterday, I had to face this chilling site in the Valle Caldera:

Anyway...back in Los Alamos, still snowing, but at least it was warm inside the theater since the cast and crew got there before I did. A few last minute adjustments:

Ready?:...

Director's table:

The sound and light booth:

And we're off. This is a "Technical" rehearsal (lights, sound, props etc.). Dress rehearsal ("Hell Sunday"), next Sunday. On the left, the husband, on the right, wife, in between them Sylvia, the dog (bitch?):

 

And goodnight: