finally, yes, August…and an August trip to town for the dump, Safeway,

recycling on S. Hendren and home

with clear skies until the afternoon’s storm.

Wednesday promised to be clear but again all too hot

until

rain and hail without fail,

wind and thunder and

worried dogs…

all done

in time for dinner out on a day that unexpectedly brought memories of my so-called career at its highest heights fifty years ago in the form of a request for an appraisal of “Rivers of Jewels, Mountains of Light”, 5×20′, as seen in and sold out of “Into Plutonian Depths, Recent Paintings”

in the fall of 1976 at the Smith Andersen Gallery in San Francisco, the same year that “Bent at Three Forks” [20x 220″] was sold from Smith Andersen Palo Alto in the spring…and both still extant whereas the brilliant “Into Plutonian Depths” [4×16′] vanished into the bankruptcies of

fossil fuel companies that serially owned it…my brilliant career.  The next day, mud on the land, was nonetheless fair and warm until about the time that Mary and Adrienne arrived

from La Veta to be trapped in their truck in the downpour they finally braved, coming in soaked

for a long enjoyable lunch as the storm moved on.  Thursday, a rare day of home aloneness,

brought an unexpected piece of cast iron from Dave and Kathy,

warm sun in the studio and some

pictures from my brother Kirk’s sacrificial-to-my-mind twelve hour trip from the cool coast

to the baking San Joaquin and back as we enjoyed the waxing moon and Saturday’s morning,

the afternoon devoted to a trip to 96 degree Walsenburg to participate in a panel

accompanying the Museum of Friends’s summer show “Rooted in Place: 20 Years of Creativity and Counterculture”, to be followed by a community potluck

…turned out we got there early enough to hear a good cow joke from Kenny Schneider

and mill about a bit before settling in under Bill Haynes’ painting “Libre” after which

Museum co-founder Maria Cocchiarelli gave a few words of introduction and turned it over to Dean Fleming [left, below] who expounded on Libre, art and life and then eventually called

on each of us in turn for stories in similar veins, more Libre-related than I, as a late [1987] arrival, expected but generally all enlightening or at least entertaining…

By four things were trending toward potluck and L and I slipped away into an at times heavy rain which intermittently obscured the highway until it moved east.

We went north and west into the Huerfano, turned off onto 620 then 625 at the cemetery to 626

and were soon home to the quiet and dogs, eh.