We begin with play. As children, all we want to do is play. It
is a verb, a noun, a way of life for some. It is meditation, it
is escape, it is universal. Play is something we should do
every day.



I take time to play. There is no goal in mind, only the act of not thinking about a goal. If these wanderings and doodles eventually become something more concrete and permanent, good; if not, even better. The act of not being attached to a final form influences the process of more goal-oriented work.



"When we do not trouble ourselves with whether or not something is a work of art, if we just act in each moment with composure and mindfulness, each minute of our lives is a work of art. Even when we are not painting or writing, we are still creating. We are pregnant with beauty, joy, and peace . . . sometimes it is better not to talk about art . . ."
—Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step


Venice memory, 2.08.


Venice sketchbook, 2.03.


Bull Valley Gorge in the Escalante N.M., 4.07.


Parowan Gap, Utah; ink, watercolor, digital collage, 4.07.

"This is what wilderness is to me: being alone and knowing no one is within miles, and that although others may have passed here there is minimal, or no, trace of their passage. That the materialistic agenda of everyday life does not pertain here. That here I set my own priorities based upon the immediate neccessities of survival. That my time is totally mine to use, to expend and extend as I see fit..."
— Ann Zwinger, Wind in the Rock


Sketchbook page — overlooking Bull Valley Gorge in the Escalante N.M., 4.07.


From "A Letter to Deb Clow" by Terry Tempest Williams, 2005

There's a bit of time now, here on the first official day of Spring Break. There's a bit of time to catch up on design and art works that were started months ago, time to move around the house and look out the windows and watch the two feet of snow melting in the sun, time to go through the flat files, looking for nothing in particular — time to "fart around," as Kurt Vonnegut says.

On a whim I pull out the pastels and do some memory sketches, then scan and adjust them digitally, then print them out and add pastel, then scan, modify and publish. There's some time to play, with no parameters and no audience. Just form and color and memory coming together on the sketchpad and monitor. I turn up the volume on Beth Orton's new CD, "Comfort of Strangers," and pull out a few books of pastels and paintings by Wolf Kahn and relish the color and texture of his compositions, his landscapes that are both representational and abstract with the same strokes.

Spring break is a rejuvenation. A break from routine. A regrouping. Paula and I snowshoed in the mountains at 10,000 ft. yesterday. I felt wonderfully alive and present in the cold wind and deep powdery snow beneath the shifting gray skies. It's Paula new favorite winter sport, she says.

Now my hands are colored with pastel dust. I am a dirty artist, when I pretend to be one. Presently, the studio window frames a blue-blue sky, and the snow on the slanted roof of the woodshed outside glares a brilliant unnatural white against the blue. I study the angles of the framed composition for a long moment, perhaps too long, but it doesn't matter because there's a little bit of time now.—3.06


Click to stop/start compositions.

Above, images from a July 4th hike through the high mountain "Spring" landscape, randomly selected and scaled. Launch Alpine Pond Trail Gallery.


Working in the greenhouse on a collage, 7.06.







"The present is a freely given canvas," says Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.