This will be my second to last post here, I’m pretty close to launching a brand new website and the blog and all things will be rolled into one website. Next post will be to let any of you who actually read this stuff know what the deal will be. If you are a subscriber you’ll just have to resubscribe from my website. Since I will be able to post new work to the new site more easily, the blog will become something else. Maybe more about the life of an artist, or things that I’ve experienced. For example….
I first met Emily in the spring of 2005 in a big mixed use marina called Moss Landing during the Carmel Arts Festival. She was a good lookin thing, nice lines, kinda middle aged and for the life of me I could not tell you what kind of boat she is. I don’t know boats, but I know I like painting them. I stumbled on this little scene and right away knew that it was going to work, it was already set up. Many times I will look for way too long until I get the “ping”, just sort of a visceral response that says “paint this”. In the process of working on this one, a guy came up and was looking over my shoulder, he pointed to the green and yellow and white boat and said, “I just bought her”. He proceeded to tell me he knew nothing about boats but decided to buy this one anyway and sail it from Hawaii and he went on to say that he nearly died in a big storm on the sail over. Dumbass.
Fast forward a year and I’m back at the same spot. And, there she is. Up “on the hard”, I’m not making that up, that’s what they call it. Emily sat patiently as I started this one but halfway through the marine layer blew off and the sun came out and I had to come back the next morning. No biggie, she wasn’t going anywhere. I show up bright and early and somehow somebody levitated a big old Lays Potato Chip box truck right in front of the boat. No clue how they got it there. Fortunately I had the drawing in so I moved from one side of the truck to the other to get all the colors and values. It worked out okay.
One more year later, I’m right back in the same place hoping to find my girl. I figured surely she would have moved on by now but after a little looking around, I found Miss Emily in the same place I had found her originally. I talked to the owner again as I painted and he explained that he had burned all his money working on this boat for three years and was sort of done with the whole thing and hoping to sell Emily to some other unknowing schmuck. I think the moral here is… don’t buy a boat. Or never get involved with a girl named Emily sporting a green top and a yellow waistband and a white dress.
Yepper, that kind of “woman” will drain your bank account faster than a typhoon.