Starlite Drive-In

One night at Starlite Drive-In, 6½ x 9" watercolor

I suppose there’s a price on everything. I suppose. This is one of my few paintings I’d hate to let go of. I can never again return to the Starlite Drive-In where I painted this en plein air. Days before a class reunion in 2006, one of my old high school chums was willing to drive me up to Durham so I could paint this historic drive-in movie. Picture two old classmates, both approaching sixty, doing such a thing. The person who owned the drive-in was Bob Groves, a man we met that night, a man who was passionate about running a drive-in theatre. Mr. Groves died suddenly the year after I did this painting. Failing attempts by the community to save the landmark, the place is now history. Read more about the Starlite and the man who kept it going long enough for me to paint it by visiting the blog, ENDANGERED DURHAM.

Portrait dominated living room

Room with Jason’s Portrait, 9x7" watercolor

Connie was pregnant with Jason at my wedding to Jerry Behr in 1976. Jerry’s gone now and so is Connie, but Stan and Connie’s Jason lives on in Arizona. Jason’s beautiful portrait lives in his dad’s living room in La Jolla, CA. It’s one of the most impressive portraits I’ve ever seen by a non-famous artist. Painted life-size on a canvas seven feet tall, it has the presence of a John Singer Sargeant. Certainly this watercolor, painted from a balcony overlooking the living room, does not do the portrait justice.

Will paint for shelter

The East Bedroom, 7x9" watercolor

In Minneapolis I lived a $17 cab fare from the airport. Now I live about seventy miles from the airport, not easy when one is traveling solo. For several years I parked my car in a Park & Ride, then caught a shuttle to the gates. I found that it was easier to first drive to the curb, check my bags, then go to the Park & Ride, thus eliminating a struggle with heavy bags on the shuttle. Thank God for friends Debbie and Kent who allow me to leave my car at their place in Raleigh and who provide me with a ride to and from the airport. Normally my flights out of Raleigh number no more than one a year. This year, I’ve already flown to California twice.

When Debbie and Kent leave me alone in their house I like to take advantage of that time by painting their rooms. I should say, doing watercolors of their rooms. The East Bedroom will become the third painting I’ve gifted to them for their gracious hospitality and airport limo service. Maybe I should put a bumper sticker on my car that reads “Have brush, will travel.”

California interior

My friend Chris’s, 6x9" watercolor

There is only one bed in my life that I can say I fell in love with at first sight. I saw it in a shop in Edina, Minnesota. It was a wood bed, antiqued with light yellow paint, was oversize, and more than I could afford. I’ll be dang if my friend Chris didn’t buy another version of the same bed. Same company, same oversize kind of bed that you know would, upon sleeping on it, turn any of your dreams into a fairytale. The next time I visit her, I am going to paint that room which became my guest room when I was a guest at her house last month. So because of time constraints, I had a choice, paint her bedroom or paint her living room.
Here you see the lovely living area of her house which overlooks a lagoon in Corte Madera, CA. Note the wave calligraphy in the upper right. Chris’s house, like so many places I stay, is filled with wonderful art and collectibles. It’s a treat to snoop around her house, filled with artful objects that so noticeably and immediately say Chris.
p.s. Chris asked me to add, “Many of the charming collectibles come from you, gifts over the 30+ years of our friendship!” 

Southwestern influence

My Cousin Arlene’s, 6½x9" watercolor

Just got back from California. I slept in four different beds on this trip. First one, in the home of my cousin who lives in Lincoln, CA, just north of Sacramento. Here is her living room. She obviously loves the Southwest. I love painting people’s interiors. Each one is like a fingerprint, so individual, you can tell much about a person by the space they occupy. Guess I’m in trouble here. Always busy painting, my place is usually a mess. Maybe that’s another reason I like to be in / paint other people’s spaces. I think they, in turn, like the bread and butter gift that one of these watercolors then becomes.

Rx for short plein air days

Silent Night, 12x12" oil on panel

Robert en plein air

Me en plein air

Studio mate Robert Rigsby and I had a two-painting day on Sunday. A downtown street in the a.m. (click to view), then downtown Center Street after dark. It was magical. Both of us had lights to wear on our heads. Neither of us had ever donned them. Fear of looking like crazed artists, I guess. Together, we looked like miners in search of a painting. “Strength in numbers” they say. Robert and I provided plenty of laughs for each other. The lights and dazzle of downtown Goldsboro provided plenty of inspiration for both of us.

I hope all of you had a Magical Christmas and that the magic will continue for you through the New Year.

A place called “home”

 Christmas in my hometown, 9x12" oil on panel

Ask someone who grew up in the military where he was born, and chances are that place differs from his hometown. Charles City, Iowa holds little significance to me other than, according to my birth certificate, its being the place where I was born. Goldsboro, North Carolina, on the other hand, holds great significance to me. It’s where I went to junior and senior high school, where I first fell in love, started a dreadful 30+ year habit of smoking cigarettes, reigned in 1967-68 as (heaven forbid) “Miss Goldsboro”, but most importantly, where my parents decided to retire, thus becoming “home” for my parents, my brother and me. Here’s a painting that includes the new Paramount Theatre, rebuilt after the old one was destroyed by fire in the wee morning hours of 2005.