A Date With Art

I had a date with Art tonight. I went to hear live music at Opa on South Lamar. Faces appeared as mythic creatures, nymphs and jokers...dogs were lions, men were magicians and women were belly dancers. Spiders spun webs of wonder and enchantment under a mighty twin-trunked oak that lassoed the stars and swayed to the rising music dancing over our heads.

I found at least one model to add to my series. It's a good night in Austin.

You Are the Music

"Inner Light" 30x24" oil on canvas

Regularly sells for $2000, the above painting is now on special for only $1250 plus tax, plus S+H will be COD or arranged to be picked up later. SHOWING at Hyde Park Bar & Grill in West Gate, March 6 - April 25.

I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water. ~Ray Charles

As it's almost time for SXSW here in Austin, Texas and it's time to go out and enjoy the city known for being the "Live Music Capital of the World".

The creative forces of music, art, dance and theatre exist inside us as the ebb and flow of our very life forces. Music has been described as wild sound civilized, an ocean, a sculpture, moonlight, religion, a material necessity, the short-hand of emotion, the soul's language, spiritual power, the speech of angels, a refuge, an escape, revelation, and as the food of love.

Whatever music is to you, we as human beings seem to crave it almost as much as food and water. Music is our solace in despair and our glad sound in celebration. Below I've shared some of my favorite things various folks have said about what music is to them. Enjoy...and I hope to see you out there enjoying the live music!
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Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. ~Lao Tzu

For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness. ~Reba McEntire

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. ~Ludwig van Beethoven

I've said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed. ~ B.B. King

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. ~Plato

You can't stay the same. If you're a musician and a singer, you have to change, that's the way it works. ~Van Morrison

If music be the food of love, play on. ~William Shakespeare

There's nothing like music to relieve the soul and uplift it. ~Mickey Hart

Who hears music feels his solitude peopled at once. ~Robert Browning

Without music, life would be a mistake. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

You are the music while the music lasts. ~ T.S. eliot

Coming Home to Myself

I left the Grand Canon and had no idea how to navigate back to Texas northwest through Albuquerque. As my cell phone had no service and some folks would call me directionally challenged, I stopped at a Walmart to get a satellite NAV system for the car. I named her "Beulla" since I was traveling through small farming communities.

With my tank full of unleaded and my cup full of leaded, I'm on a java high trying to make it home to Austin by Sunday night, in time to teach pastels at Laguna Gloria Monday morning.


Saturday I traveled until about midnight and crashed in Ft. Sumner, tired from my long trip. Trying hard not to stop and take photos, my resistance eventually wore thin and Sunday I began taking photos from the side of the road.

This was a grimy experience. Wearing 3 inch flip flops, I went slipping and sliding, and sunk deep in the slick, red mud to shoot this cotton field! Glad I had baby wipes, paper towels and spare shoes!


Crazy tree...red grass in the background making me miss Sedona already.

You know you're back in Texas because the bugs are bigger when they hit your windshield, always right in the darn center, and the juice spreads a thick opaque film all over when you try to wash it off!


Here's what happened to Holly! She has her own drive-in just this side of Texas from New Mexico!


My alter ego...I used to paint under the name of Holly. Now we know why I don't anymore!


Multi-eco fields: Saw lots of these big wind turbines in fields with oil pumps and cotton.

Lacking major drive-throughs and wanting to avoid the DQ's, I had fun stopping at country convenience stores for gas, beef jerky and coffee--and chatting with the local proprietors. Picked up some peppered beef jerky by "Old Trapper" naturally smoked since 1969. That's my dog's name, so I had to have it! Yumm.


Signs and more signs: In New Mexico I passed a town sign called "Progress" and a bill board that read, "Follow Me. --God". This is a sign in Zephyr, Texas.


Zephyr Baptist Church, historical building.

Either I've had too much coffee or I'm just getting too close to home...I've discovered a propensity for a thick Texas drawl and bad language the closer I get to Austin!


Lots of spirit in Zephyr...this town deserves a field trip back for painting and photo opps. I saved the location in Beulla's memory.


A popular sentiment across the land...not just in Zephyr.


Zephyr homestead

Side note: Passing through Lubbock, with 4 hours and 45 minutes till I get to Austin, I spotted a sign that read, Texas Men's Human Resource Center. Hmm. Are we not too sure that Texas men are in fact human so we have to have a research center to find out? I thought so, too. I've always said Texas men are from another planet! Tee hee!


Somewhere along the road through a maze of back roads and country towns. I have no idea how Beulla got me home, but she did...and fast!

Mental note to self: Texas is like a bad husband who just doesn't want you to travel or do anything new, but stay at home barefoot and cook for him. But you just have to do what you want to anyway! Lord, I gotta get outta here! (Do you hear the Texas twang?!)


"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." --Nelson Mandela

Well, Nelson, that just says it all! There's no place like home...and I can't wait to leave again! I think my new home is the open road...stay tuned to find out!

A Quick Plein Air Study

Roadside Dappling
10" x 8" (25.4cm x 20.4cm)
Oil on Sanded Board

Limited prints available