We managed a tiny last bit of rain but
by week’s end when a former student of Linda’s visited from France
and we were making the rounds [as best we could – a pack of unknown dogs at Bill and Mu’s
precluded visiting with our unruly Inkies] the smoke was back. Dean was, however, in
residence with his latest and loosest paintings ever yet…
and tales.
Outside, however,
it was as if the mountains had never existed although a couple of
great dinners with engaging conversations extending back to CCA, forward unto the pleasures and difficulties of being un-French in a provincial French town and much else did.
Sunday
we walked down the meadow visiting the guest cabin, installations
such as the Cautionary Sculpture [wood would even here rot, given decades],
“Daphne”,
“Casa Mesa”,
the house from the south and
“Oculus” among sunflowers’ exuberance
until Simin continued her tour of Family and the West, driving on to Santa Fe while we
crossed the valley to Mary and Adrienne’s La Veta garden for an afternoon poetry reading
by Mary’s lawyer sister from Puerto Rico followed by an early dinner with the three of them, the two of us and one other at Alys’ across the street which made for most enjoyable events before
groping our way home to dogs in the haze,
the invisibility of mountains compensated for by a very imbibable wine left behind by
our friend.
Monday and beyond the obscura continuosa remained but for good luck
there was this guy
or this one, the Friend Awaiting.
So Athens is surrounded by a ring of fire and California’s Dixie has exceeded half a million acres…and still counting. Fun times, these end times.
Guess we’ll go to Pueblo…
Nice to see the wooden sculptures in a somewhat superannuated state. Picaresque in a good way. By the way, I am looking for new paintings animated by the colorful particulate sky.
Hazeollaplooza
I just gifted one of your fabulous long narrow horizon paintings to Alexis mother of Sofia and Annabelle for their new home in Santa Fe NM. Good news that.
Paul
Yes, without the smoke, it has been one of the most beautiful summers ever. Now, it will remain in memory as another sadness of end times in OUR end time. Don’t know about you two, but there were strikingly fewer birds here at the beginning of the summer, and now there are practically none, except the lovely stalwart hummingbirds. Are the birds dead?
I like these paintings best of anything Dean has done in several years.
Why DO those dogs have such bushy tails?? Could they be part feather duster?
The better to sweep things off low tables, m’dear…
Feather duster or dust MOP.
Cote d’Rhone….yummmmm one of my favs…
…and a particularly good one at that. How she managed to find one out along the Western Slope is a mystery and a miracle.
We’ve been pretty lucky here – air-wise – this is the first day that the pollution level has gone over 50. BTW, I don’t think I’ve seen a picture of your place from the outside, it looks great. Much bigger than I thought.