Attempting Competency in Life

A friend of mine, Linda Price Sneddon, and I used to go landscape painting at 6 o'clock in the morning. At day break there are colors that in their very transience seem desirable. Natures first green, as it were. I am not much of a painter but love that rush. Standing before liquid possibility, a strength of texture that defies one human life cycle... I have only my own bad eyesight and tentative emotions to blame for a lukewarm palate, and cold coffee. Early morning landscape painting is the provence of the naive of profession (me), or the truly good (like Linda.)

(Here I would list my many attempts at competency. But I would rather get back to the landscapes. Which are, I think, necessary to the survival of human kind. When people stop looking... Its worse than trying to sell a collectable item without its cardboard box. Maybe a cardboard box can be replaced. Nature's first green can't be. We'd be boxless plastics floating the surface and clogging drains.)

There's a boatload of landscapes I'd like to reel in... like personal bookmarks in time. One is, my brother falling off a wall at a historic site. I don't remember much but yellow ocher and a nice blue sky. Or retrieving our planted irises from where the rains replanted them one block away. (orange, brown, slate blue and subdued green.) One of my favorites was the "Bridge." A fellow I knew said let's go to the "Bridge." I thought he meant some bar I'm like sure. He directed me as I was driving (my motorcycle... I never intended to be a cliche... really) and we arrived at a bridge. It was closed. Over one of that city's waterways we walked out on that darkness and he pulled up a trapdoor and down we climbed. Before us was the darkness of the illicit the undeveloped and the lights of a city not asleep or dreaming.

Night paintings are tough. I love them.

The origins of this post go on forever. The inspiration though was posted by Raven and it is this video: