Time for the Operation of the Machine Becomes so Obvious

Re Establishing Contact

2012-02-05T11:13:00.006-06:00

"ohhHH, The Times They Are A - Changin'"

Dogs outside my window
Cold winter day
Rain drizzes down
Hard,
From time to time.
But, still,
They frolic and play.
Cold Winter Day.

poetry by Justin Warren Graham

Hello, "cookies", in French this means, "Fucker's" with an emphasis on the "er's", and what that means, a reference to you, the reader, it addresses you! Hello, Fucker! How are you!
Memories of a Frenchman I once knew,
And,
Still do
To my friend, Benjamin Marchal;
Eah, fuckeir, how are you?
FROM: Justin in TEXAS.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Children, Friends;
Welcome back. Indeed, the splashing of cold water will shock the body and therefore the mind to places unseen by the imagination. And such things will do by the echoing of life and age. Experience.
I'm wracking up the XP now! The Golden Book of Life declares;
"He who finds a wife, has found a great thing, And obtains favor from the LORD.", (Proverbs 18:22).
And so, I say to you fuckeirs reading this now,
I am married, life has changed muy rapido,
que paso, le bambino?

Blogger's Drought

2011-12-13T07:03:00.003-06:00

Well, still no new site for transition. This is still the only place for me on web where writing like this is taking place. I think I would like to have a place to publish all the original pages for my volume's of sketch books from over the years. That is around ten and counting, writing, drawing, free mind rambling. This site is going to be extremely shy on posts this year, my how it has flown by! The last for months, since the July 30 Mongo show, have consisted of a complete life makeover which have frozen all efforts in art. The 2011 ice age. No video's to list either, except this one about some art from the last show...

Anyhow, I got a lot of good responses from this vid, and I'd like to make more, more of everything. I'm just not certain where this road is going as it concerns my art. I know where the art was heading, know exactly what the objectives there are about, subjects, compositions, asthetics. But, the life road is the one I'm fighting against, the world.... hmm, for some reason they have rarely worked together in my case, art making and the path of life. It seems like if you want to be a real artist you have to go live under a bridge and do dope all day, or go 100k into debt to the government and be an art professor, or be filthy rich with nothing in life to worry about. None of these apply to me, at least not right now... but I summarize that any could apply tomorrow. I think the greatest weight I have, is the lack of productivity in the art world does not keep up with the extreme sense of urgency that I carry in my gullet. It creeps up into the bottom of my heart all the time...

Old Static from a Disconnected Television

2011-08-30T14:08:00.003-05:00

Power On

Firing up here again. Life? Well, I often refer to the analogy of the whirlwind for good reason. It is the symbolic parody of how my life goes, and lately, the wind has swirled heavily and thrown things far into the air, but not in a terrible fashion. Sometimes, destruction, and chaos are the Almighty's way of correcting things, placing things where they should be in order that they, or them, as in, "His children", may once again be blessed.
My applications in West Texas, Big Bend region, (I always have to clearify because the Texas Panhandle is also West Texas), have been placed in the refridgerator for awhile. Redford was great, and my plans to return there are still high on the futures market of my ambitions, and I had fun in Brewster County, La Frontera (Slaughter) Ranch but it was hard to get paid for work out there. And during the last two years I have been desparate for money, not only to survive and continue making pictures, but to upgrade things needed to continue with computer communications. Those who have followed these writings know this.
Last July I hosted a successful art show in San Marcos called The Sons of Mongo with George Zupp http://www.chickendeadchicken.com/ . It was a boost in confidence and in badly needed sales and public relations. Visit George's website, he has been talking about it a little there...

Since then, I have relocated to Granger, Texas, for a new employment opportunity on a grass fed beef opporation. Yet another barn to convert into a studio.

I'm analyzing the prospects of a new blog site more worthy of paintings, a final output position. I anticipate that I will keep this one alive for writing purposes. Then there is always youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Judadiah?feature=mhee which I find great for documenting and hinting toward the under story of Who.

I've also been tinkering with this possibility: http://www.justin.tv/judadiah It's a streaming site I've been practicing with, however, I'm not happy with the playback quality nor the lack of info provided in order to upgrade... but the idea is kinda there... we will see.

hmm, this site puts me off, it doesn't apply links in the words I write. I might be through here...

Slowly Returning to the Blog

2011-07-17T23:21:00.005-05:00

New computer, ladies and gents, therefore I'm relearning everything. Mostly, video production. But, also, I've been producing a bunch of paintings for an art show coming up in San Marcos, Texas on the 30th of July, 2011. It will be a two man show with George Zupp. Also, life is still moving along, still working way out west at La Frontera Ranch, Slaughter ranches inc, in Texas. Happy to be alive, things are going well. Keep reading and subscribe to my video/youtube channel, it's my preferred choice of discussion forums, I hope to branch out into streaming at some point. See you later... click the title for more...

Clear!!!

2011-06-29T07:59:00.002-05:00

Well, I took a little vacation from this site. Finally, I acquired the resources to change computer platforms and that has consumed a lot of time. Also, I've been evaluating the progress of this blog as well as others I energize, like facebook and youtube, to determine the future directions of each and how they might one day become integrated.
I'm working on a few projects for other entities I'm involved with, such as La Frontera and the Slaughter Ranch, a Hunting outfit, and of course, A new body of paintings, with a show up and coming in San Marcos July 30th, 2011. There will be more as everything settles and computer files become converted and organized, and new video software learned, but the last three months have been focused on the brush in the paint.

Tell Stories

2011-03-31T10:43:00.005-05:00

I'm adding this post on the 31st of March, 011 to try and keep up with a weekly write in here at the Operation. The purpose really is because this has become a live diary of sorts where I talk about my problems and tell my heart to the air, talk about my life and what's happening, anyhow.
Life truly is a roller coaster ride for some, and there is no roller coaster like the one that has no worldly security. Ye-Haw! You never know which way that bull is going to buck, till he's got you on the ground giving you the gore through a kidney.
For the last several years my goals have been to acquire enough stability to keep a studio and make paintings. However, life today makes that really strenuous, there's alomost no real security to be found! Truth is, it has never existed on this earth, short of Adam's fifteen minutes in the Garden of Eden. But, you've got to keep swinging the bat. Tomorrow's the first of April and by then I'll discover weather or not this ranch deal will stick. Meantime, I'm working on some pictures that are about my last few years of experiences, a time when I lept into the void to chase after my goals and dreams, a body of work that reminds me of the art of my youth. It's a lot of fun. I'm doing my best to get some money together for a new computer, a mac! But for now it is only paintings, and I no longer feel comfortable talking about them until the entire body has ran it's course and done. That said, here's a teaser:

Some Kind of Pep Talk

2011-03-26T12:20:00.005-05:00

Well, I'm going to run along with this post while I think of a title for it, I'm not exactly sure where to begin with it. I guess it's been about eight or ten days since I've posted to the Operation, lets just say that it has not been my intent to neglect, but the "real-life" situations that I have been experiencing have been a little more than discouraging. And, I know that people of todays time do not care anything about hearing of one's hardships, or struggles, about no matter how much good they want to do or how hard they work and position themselves they just can not seem to get some traction in the world. Hell, I don't even like writing about it; but, my loyalty to persistence demands it, someone out there is listening...

For as much as I try to do right, it seems that I am rewarded with wrong, and my forward progress slides down a slope that takes me further away from my objectives. I often imagine an angel, just swooping down, picking me up and setting me directly on top of my goal. How great would that be? I'll bet that's the refreshment of a winning lottery ticket for those few who are blessed in such a way, or a family trying to have children for years and years then finally she or he is there.
When I rediscovered art at Texas State University in the year 2000, in a basic drawing class, I was in a social pit of despair. I was younger, my mid 20's, and things were comfortable enough to attend a four year college but I was far out of place socially. I didn't fit in with anyone, really, except a few rural folks that I knew who were attending the same school, from the same hometown as me, but a full load of college courses, to keep my financial aid, and 40 hrs a week working, so I could survive, left me with little time at all for them. So, more or less, I was alone. I did a lot of soul searching in this time, I had done a lot of soul searching before my descision to go to college, so when I was at my spiritual low God answered my cries for help with charcoal and graphite, and a semester later, with tubes of paint and some brushes, as were required for the course of color theory.

Things picked up from there. I knew after a year or so that what I was onto was more powerful than anything imaginable. That, in fact, I was involved in the true final frontier, that place as a boy I considered exploring on excursions into the wild countryside, on missions to find new places to go fishing, which amassed mostly to nearby rivers and distant stock tanks on my uncle's Uvalde County farm. Art had been around my whole life. I consider it one of the most consistent things in my life, less God and regular food and water, with the exception of my late teens, when after high school I swore it off, even at the request of many who urged me to continue, declaring, "All I'll ever do with art is struggle at life, and will never have any money or comfort". I remember saying it, and I was right (so far), one of the reasons why I often consider it as a curse. But, in my young adolescence, I could not foresee the nature and importance of it.

Since my studies at the University I have thought rarely about anything but art and it's massive expanse, it's possibilties, the imagination. Over the last ten years I've discovered, taken apart, and reassembled the whys and how to's of why it is that I must find a way to do this, to keep my head up, keep my hands busy, keep my feet and nose on the trail, render this into the realm of reality. At this point I am having such a terribe time at just keeping up with getting myself in the game. I have spent six of the last nine months working to upgrade my conditions, only to face a situation where the rural work I've been doing, and the man I've been doing it for refuses to treat me with any dignity and pay for my wages worked... I can't even get paid! And my last two hundred dollars will leave my bank and go to direct student loans for the time I spent there. At this time my heart is heavey, I feel oppressed, and I'm losing the will to keep up with this, even though the marrow of my bones shutters at the thought, the last reminencse of my existence on this earth says, "You are too great at this to quit, what you have to deliver will stand forever!"
My bones are right. This is my heart and my happiness at stake. This is what I was placed into the earth to accomplish. All of this said in the face of a lifetime of rural poverty, with no visible way out, except through the paint and brushes that is all that I have, that, and these words.

Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword

2011-03-07T15:17:00.011-06:00

"In this day and age, if you are any kind of a self-thinker, then you are a conspiracy theorist..." J.W.G.

I often find myself pondering the obvious while at labor with work. It is during these moments when solutions are realized and become concrete; most often, they occur while tilling in the earth or handling the pigments and soils of which my physical being is comprised. It is much like coming to the most extensive understanding of the complexity of the universe only to realize it's only scribbled notes on a flat, rigid piece of paper.
I think of art and the world of art from top to bottom, about pictures and the people who involve themselves in these matters. By comparison, in a conversation with Andy the day before yesterday, he mentioned to me some of his business competitors and how they would call you up to take you out to lunch and discuss things real friendly like, then twenty minutes after parting, they're on the phone to cut your throat and take your business away. After five o'clock rolls around, they're calling you to meet up for happy hour drinks, all so they can cut your throat at eight o'clock the next morning.

When you gear yourself up as a young man to take on the responsibility of cultivating art into a legacy and fertilize the realm of humanity you had best understand that the floor under your feet is primarily swamp, and flooded with venomous snakes and hungry crocodiles, reptiles that spew forth the same type of shallow behavior and treachery, mouths full of bacteria. Fortunately, and to the Glory of the LORD of Hosts, this is just the fight I seek. I'm looking for the ultimate place to puke God's own hellfire justice upon the most crude of areas infected by loathsome slothful debauchery. Like hydrogen peroxide on an infected wound, herbicide, pesticide, the ring out shots of warfare against the wicked leaderships. I seek to take the entire grounds of the places of all art and it's people that are not already solidified into history and drive across it with a chariot machine, a craftsman tiller, and turn it's place of soil over and upside
down. Right it, rid it of the weeds and parasites that mean to destroy the beauty and lavish life giving prosperity of the garden itself, calling the action, "ART", a movement I refer to as Negetism, or a period when the wicked constitutions of the world prosper over the good. An inversion of proper subconcious into the dominion of the abyssal.
My intent: Invite and reintroduce an establishment of art cultivation that will ultimately clash with the dominant, "wicked rules" mentality that sickens and hinders, beckons The Pale Horse.
Shoot, what am I talking about? That's me...

I've got to go get my cookies out of the oven. No irrigation gets done without some fresh cookies.

End of the First week of March, 2011.

2011-03-06T12:14:00.003-06:00

Things are slowly grinding along out here along the Rio Grande Valley and Big Bend Basin area. This last week included the execution of several ranch projects around the headquarters and beyond. The first of which involved the redirection of some water lines in order to drain the large supply tank that provides fresh water to the headquarters. It had become overrun with moss and sediment and required cleaning. In order to drain the thousands of gallons of water into a usefull place we linked it with a line that would flood the yard and water the grass. It took two full days to complete the task and then another half day of scooping and cleaning out the tank itself, which rendered a mass of great natural fertilizer for the garden area.

Friday included an all day excursion down into the bowels of the Rio Grande Valley on a quest to extend Andy's mountain lion trapping campaign. This area is an extremely harsh piece of the Texas Desert and if it were not for the Rio Grande itself, nothing would survive. The descent into Reagan Canyon is long and winding, with steep cliffs and bluffs above and below most of the way. Toward the bottom the valley flattens a little and rolls into the river. It is down here in this mountain terrain where the Texas Bighorn Sheep restoration project is going on, an effort to restore these animals into this once natural habitat and also a big reason for Andy's trapping efforts. Along the way we saw the last of the once populated wild burros, solitary, and watching us pass from a ridge. The wild burros were once hunted down, killed and disposed of by potential ranchers years ago. Now even those attempted human settlements within this harsh region lie in ruins, extinct. But not Pedro, the Last Burro, he was there, then he wasn't, like a ghost who could not be removed.
Toward the end of the day we also ran across a small group of wild cattle. They bore no brands and were not very friendly at all, bucking and kicking at the mere sight of our presence, most never seeing a human in their lifetime. It was a long and hot day, but by dark we had made it back to the truck, our mission into the canyons a successful one.
Saturday was another all day expeition into Alpine to gather supplies and groceries for the ranch. I was able to acquire some 1/4 inch mdf board to mount some paper paintings I'm working on, and a new pair of work gloves. Mesquite and the thorny brush of the region seem to destroy gloves faster than you can put them on. We also acquired several plants for the garden, the first of the season, despite the cold front that was hitting early yesterday morning. I'm looking forward to getting them into the ground in a few days and even more so the homemade hotsauce that they'll hopefully produce by summer. By the end of the day it was afternoon drinks at the White Buffalo Bar and dinner at the Famous Burro in Marathon. Then, the trail back to the headquarters, I've got to get more paintings working, clock is ticking.

Big Game on Sawtooth

2011-02-26T10:09:00.008-06:00

This week has swiftly ran by like rushing waters of a white raging river, standing still, mezmorized by the quickness and speed of time. For the most part, I've been tending to minor things on the ranch, such as preping the ground for a garden, re-outfitting (still) the pipe house, and cleaning/clearing brush and so on. It's all a slow moving process out here on a ranch, best not to get too anxcious about things because a single man really has no power to slow or speed up the river.

Yesterday, Andy and I went out on an all day ordeal, to the West End, to help the ranch's game guide and his hunter find some bighorn sheep (aoudad) on a mountain called Sawtooth. They call it that because it consists of a long flowing peak of sharp, rocky terrain that looks much like a sawing tooth of an animal, such as that of a dog. These sheep like to stay in the rocky elevation and lookout over the land, grazing on grasses, berries, yuccas, and so on. As it goes, the guide was having trouble locating anything during the first two days of the three day hunt and moral seemed to be that of a potential failed campaign.
On the third day, Andy and I headed out and met them at the Jones and set out for Sawtooth. The first couple of hours we had no luck "glassing" the backside of the mountain in search of these animals. The term "glassing" refers to using binoculars to search the mountains for animals, game and so on. Finally, Andy expressed, "This mountain cannot be hunted from the road, it's too rugged and coarse. We'll never find them from here," he said.

With that, he and I packed up a bit of gear and began ascending the mountain. Within a half mile of my hike, taking point, I stirred a herd of about 14 sheep up from their sleeping position on the edge of a knob, but quickly they were up and over, out of sight. Andy was about a quarter mile behind me and within the next hour he spotted two of the large, male sheep on a peak across from us, a very long 650 - 750 yards away, mearly specs of dust on a mountain side.
Over the course of the rest of the afternoon we watched the two animals work their way closer toward us while the guide got his hunter into a good position. Finally, in the late of the afternoon, the hunter fired a single shot at a range of about 400 yards and brought down one of the beasts. It was a good, clean, patient shot. We made our way to the animal, dressed him out, and took him off the mountain. In the end, I guess we saved this guy's hunt, and up'd the adventure greatly, as at this point we were another 1500 ft above sea level and a good mile or two from the road in hard rugged country. He enjoyed a great hunt, and so did we. At best, the experience offered up a possible way to make money with cameras and video making equipment, personal game hunting memorabilia? We shall see what the future holds, big river.

Weekend at La Junta

2011-02-22T09:47:00.009-06:00

This past weekend of February 20th, 2011, I ventured off the Slaughter Ranch here in Brewster County, Texas, over the mountains and through the parks into the basin, back to Redford and on to Presidio to meet those who were gathering to establish an organization known as La Junta Heritage Center. The La Junta group had planned to gather on the 17th - the 20th to clean up and plan out the next move for the organization's eventual establishment. The La Junta project was the vision of a late rural, cowboy artist, A. Kelly Pruitt. He had visualized a place where art and agriculture come together to preserve and teach the rural, agricultural artist heritage he was a part of, a vision I share in greatly. It was an uplifting and exciting weekend. I was delighted to meet with most of the board members andenergetic volunteers including Mr. Bishop, whom awarded the organization a 99 year lease on the 72 acres to erect the foundry. I believe in what these folks are doing and also understand from experience that there is no stronger bond in cultivating a lasting human experience, than coupling art and agriculture. Both require and instill great amounts of patience and hardwork, not to mention a deep understanding of where we all come from. I wish this organization the best and look forward to future participation. Follow the title link to the La Junta website.
Meanwhile, back in Redford, the Gallino Brother (GZupp) was packing his gear to finalize his studio stay for the second time in Big Bend. I joined him Sunday evening in Marathon to have a look at his plot of land, site of the newer, better, bigger West Texas Gallino and had a few beers with him and photographer James H. Evans at the Famous Burro. "Thanks for supper, James." I'm looking forward to all the future shenanigans we will hopefully, productively, get into. Spending time with those mad scientist creative types is sure worth a few bushels of joy and laughs. Until then, I'm back at the Slaughter for now, doing what I tend to do.

Tangled

2011-02-13T09:02:00.009-06:00

Sunday, February 13th, 2011. In two days I will have been back on this West Texas ranch, helping out, for two full weeks. Things have been busy, organizing, setting things to function properly and efficiently, finding a place for everything. I've been entertaining the idea of starting up another blog for the sole purpose of documenting the happenings and functions of this ranch; but, at this point, I would need permission AND I'm not entirely sure what kind of terms I'm being offered or how long the need for my stay out here will last. No real surety. Things just don't seem to work out here like they do in other places, it's sorely confusing and a
little tormenting.
Several objectives are in the works. Around the headquarters the effort has mostly been to organize and set a function to what have been useless buildings. This one I've been working on is set to become a pipe fitting room, or a building specifically for serving the supplies, construction, and maintenance of the ranch's water supply. This last freeze caused problems throughout the ranch, busted valves, broken floats, frozen water lines.

On the other end, it has been feeding livestock and tending to issues surrounding the game hunting. Andy and I have been setting up a water supply high in the bluffs to serve the deer and aoudad sheep that are here and I've road along to help him set a few traps to catch the mountain lion problems of local ranches. All in all there's a lot to do, this stuff takes some time. I'm hoping things will secure up for me here, under conditions that can be agreed upon and settled. I believe I could do some good for this ranch and at the same time get on with the bigger objectives of my own art making. The latter rides upon the former. I think I'm even losing friendships and family relations because my quest for seeing a vision through is so important. Alas, it is larger than I am, and must be done at all costs.
God help us all, but sometimes, most, I feel just like my Texas State alumnus here, tangled up in the traps of the world... see you soon.

What keeps you up at night?

2011-02-06T03:35:00.006-06:00

The space was low lite, dark like the first light of a morning or the absolute last light of day when everything falls to shadows of shadows, movements of dark and light. I find myself fuddling around with various glasses, cleaning, arranging a till. A man comes and askes for a beer, strangely it seems as though I know the person, a past friend maybe, a little more light now. More people begin to arrive. They sit down and begin conversation with each other. I look up from my familiarizations with an unknown bar, always keeping the hands busy. More guests arrive, and more there still are those I've not yet greeted. By this time I've realized where I am, there's enough light brought with each new guest that I understand what I'm doing. I set pace to attend to each one of them. At first it seems as though the first groups are family, deep friends, happy to just see me again. The man who was at the bar I served only one beer but he spoke as though he knew me, and he left an extra twenty dollars for my troubles.
On to the third, these I do not know. I greet, ask of needs, offer my service. At first it seems they are inquisitive to the offerings,asking certain questions regarding certain items; but soon inquiry turns into explaination, explaination into definition, meanwhile more guests begin to arrive, but this table lingers on in a dead humor sort of way. Their questions are not serious, they seem to know the menu better than I, the wife cracks smile at husband. Are they asking simply for company of conversation, perhaps they've been marooned here, lonely, left for an eternal stay long before the lights ever came on. Perhaps they ask intentionally to delay my response to those guests not yet attended, they smirk at one another. The idea of watching me squirm; they have some x-rated delight in the disruption of the single task manager. I realize they have drinks already, there is no real need here. As I turn to attend those who are without, the couple asks for more to drink.
Low light again. My eyes crack open to the electric heater in the middle of the room. It's three o'clock on a Sunday morning, February 6th, 2011. I'm in the guest bedroom on a ranch in West Texas, wondering how I got here. What events transpired to lead way out to this place? What sort of misdirection has befallen me? I have a good idea. My gut rolls in bed. I stare into that low darkness. I see every picture that has been on my mind as of late and every picture I've been attempting to render. Are these pictures off my intended task? My heart answers the question before it is even through. Somehow, there is some hard-truth similarities to the dream, albeit, a server's nightmare just had in the darkness concerning my last two years as an artist. Some spirit hovering over the deep, arcing past lives with current in subconcious slumber in order to correct the direction of a path. Switch the lights on. A swift river of realization runs through my blood and happiness in the truth of the coming reflection....

Take Your Medicine, Son.

2011-01-29T19:08:00.009-06:00

Sunday, January 30th, 2011, and I am finalizing my pack up for the excursion to the ranch. Simultaneously I am feeling much like the new book I'm reading, given to me by the foreman of the Slaughter, called "Brutal Journey", written by Paul Schneider, detailing the first crossing of North America by Narvaez and Cabeza de Vaca. Roughly the trip from Lockney, in the Texas Panhandle, to the Slaughter Ranch, southwest of Sanderson, is a shade over 400 miles, the last thirty of which are through dirt roads and rural pasture lands, cliffs, creeks, and desert mountain vistas. And much like Narvaez, my ship is in poor condition and I am overloaded, as always, with the expectation that motivation will meet precisely in time with opportunity and that art will be produced. This, however, is always an idea of hope in the mind of a broke, over invested artist much as it was the same for the conquistadors of the 1500's. I, like them, must believe in the unbelievable and insist this is God's plan for glory and success in my career, although Narvaez never returned and Cabeza de Vaca was only one of four survivors out of more than six hundred who ever made it back to Spain. That's encouragement.
Even so, I carry supplies to an area of Texas that is certainly the most rural of outposts, even Redford had a town just 15 miles away. But under the circumstances of my capabilities there are only a few choices I can make: 1.Take this job ranching and hold the potential for art making 2. Apply for master's schooling with art making coupled with treacherous financial deficit and deficiency 3. Return to the highway and trucking with no promise of art or life and little money (not too short of prison). Sometimes I'd trade the struggle for the ladder, but the conquistador inside me just won't settle for it. I'd press on into the mouth of unknown oblivion chest up, head high, looking to the Almighty to make the way before me although it likely leads me to intensified struggle and ultimately death, much like it did Narvaez. My only hope is that once the layers of time have been peeled away, my art will find it's way alive, out of the void like the record keeping of Cabeza de Vaca, and live on to tell the story.
There are a lot of similarities between the artist and the conquistador, a lot of similarities in the journey, like mice feeding on supplies below deck. Include me in your petitions to the Lord, I will need them. Thank you.

Revision and Packing Bags

2011-01-26T10:50:00.010-06:00

This body of work is that exactly. Work. Sometimes it's not good to restrain yourself in artwork but sometimes it is. For me it helps in building that overwhelming surge to do something beyond, the change that is uncomfortable but what is that supplies life to medium, the presence of art. My intent, for this body, is for the sake of my conservative origins, and because I need the discipline of completing a series of real subject in acrylic, despite my wanting to do anything else, I press on.

Artist's Texas Panhandle Studio, 2011.
It all fastens around the merger of abstract ideas and realistic subjects. The further I go, however, the more compelled I am to initiate the "Negetism", as I refer to it, or the act of destroying it. I viewed an artist interview yesterday, a very good artist in my opinion, who was speaking of the same concept. He works up these great oil pictures only to "destroy" them in a positive sort of way. A way that makes them great; like one of my favorite stories from undergrad, Honore de Balzac's "The Unknown Masterpiece".
For example, in this piece I call "The Straggler". The picture itself worked fine previously, but it lacked the asthetic to make it a mystery, or to show some hint of real carelessness. For me that makes the painting new, that comunicates the human condition. There's not much in this picture that changed, but enough to hint at the idea, enough to "help" it become a better painting.

The Straggler, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 48", 2010.

The Straggler, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 48", 2011.

I took this piece over to Cheli's Cafe in Sanderson with a few others, I had my predispositions about it but had semi-settled on letting it be; until I saw the thing outside of the studio. In different light it felt a dead, and lacking finish. It just didn't have the fire a painting should have. I wanted to change it a bit, anymore would likely destroy it. That lesson noted in this conservative acryic effort. Time to move on to the next picture or risk going "Frenhofer" in my mind forever, which therein lies the potential in every piece.

In a Few Days I'll Turn 34

2011-01-22T12:52:00.006-06:00

After my visit with Mr. Wells at The Field Lab, I made the pass through the Big Bend National Park. It's faster that way, although the speed limit, for about 70 miles of road, is only 45 mph. North of the park on Texas Highway 385 there's an entrance into a series of ranches across Brewster County toward the Rio Grande. From there it's roughly 68 miles of dirt road and secluded mountain, desert terrain until ultimately crossing the San Francisco Creek and the Slaughter Ranch. I was happy to be there once again, but was also a little apprehensive. When I last left the Slaughter it was not under the greatest circumstances, but that was mostly due to my own business error and artistic desperation. I don't want to be the sour grape in the sweet patch, but I guess I felt like that upon my last departure. It's a difficult explaination, but it seems to come upon me stronger these days, the impulse to find stability to make the greater works of art, to deliver a higher message than just myself. I don't fully understand it, or do I know how to get it done. It's tough to be a man in this civilization and remain at the mercy of the universe, to sit patiently and wait for God.

Lovingly, the family at the ranch welcomed me back as if
I'd never left. Time filters out a bit slower I suppose, or, it speeds along at a runaway rate. Things that happen are forgotten or understood to be a symptom of a detoxification of sorts; like a addict of the world going into a rural rehab, tossing, turning, convulsing in fits of violence. They informed me of all they were hoping to accomplish, and I met a couple of the family members who own the spread. They are happy and excited, understanding of the blessings it is to be stewards of such a place. There was a lot happening, hunter's were there to hunt a big horn mountain goat called Audad, and Andy has been trapping an outbreak of lions who make meals of small calves in their first year of life. All in all, it makes for a plethora of storylines and rural ranch dramas.

I spent about three days working in the barn area, cleaning and organizing some of the tools, re-aquainting myself with the area, forming a game plan with what and how I would begin the reorganization process of the areas in need. After the weekend, I packed up and left for the panhandle to check into some unexpected business. I also dropped some work at a local cafe that has some great wallspace in Sanderson. As I write this, the panhandle winds blow without stopping, and at times I grow weary of being caught in it.

Trip out to West Texas

2011-01-16T13:11:00.009-06:00

Six days since I left the panhandle to collect and cleanup things out in Redford. Got down there last Monday night, after a trip with more than one hickup and delay, but beat out the freezing cold weather that was setting in behind me on the plains.
Spent the night on the floor, covered with plenty of blankets I brought along. Tuesday was an entire day of cleaning the apartment at Enriques, packing up and repacking all the supplies in my truck. I have about a half dozen completed paintings of West Texas subject matter I brought along to display and try to sell in Sanderson, so the packing has revolved around the placement and protection of those pictures.

Everything went well in Redford. Scrubbed the floor where I'd spilt paint and repainted the walls where pictures were once critiqued and reworked. By the afternoon the girls whom had come to Redford to rent my place were settling in and making it their own, all that remained of my presence was the cardboard eagle cutout on the door and an oil painting of a cow that George and I collaborated on back in Brenham, 2008.
The installation left in the desert leading out to Checker's Hill and opening into a view of the Bofecillos still remained, mysteriously placed, inviting wonder, yet the true mystery of the installation is that it points the direction of the buried art capsules I place on two separate occasions.
They serve as the beginning of an engineered trailhead I used; assembled, installed, yet incomplete as my finances depleted before the whole vision could be delivered. The whole of the idea was to stretch them over the course of several miles, like way points on a map. It will be interesting to see how the materials I used will stand up to the test of the desert. Perhaps I will return and complete it one day. Of the three days there one included a return hike to the Bofecillos Mesa cave to retrieve my cot. Two nights on the floor was going to kill me and it was good to get out and stretch my legs. Afterwards I wondered how I was able to do a three to six mile hikes in unforgiving terrain with sixty plus pounds of gear on my back. Two days ago, with only a bottle of water, the excursion almost killed me.
On Friday I said my goodbyes and hopes for a return and headed East on 170 toward Terlingua. I had a brief, late afternoon visit with John Wells at the Field Lab. His progress is coming along fashionably and in the next year the off-the-grid site he's working on will be transformed. Next stop is the Slaughter Ranch in Brewster County, then through Sanderson to deliver paintings for show and sale. The newspaper in Floyd County wants me to do a second interview, I think this time they may actually want to give me a job writing and reporting! Either that or the guy still needs some other information. Also, a Lubbock gallery contacted me for a better look at my West Texas work, all happening right about the time I start to feel like lauching a long awaited body of work that picks up where my abstaction left off. A side of me is gaining momentum to break away from the safety of my cultural heritage and use painting as the communicative issue it was meant for. Here's to the grand revival of all ages. Wish me luck.

Digital image from "Rapturing the Candles of God", one of twelve, acrylic on paper on board, 7" x 24", 2006.

Morning Interview

2011-01-07T11:12:00.009-06:00

Last December I spent two weeks framing all the cotton module paintings I created in 2008-09 while working out of my Texas Panhandle Studio, even donating one to a benefit auction for Lockney Health and Reabilitation. I wanted to celebrate my agricultural upbringing and reconnect with the days of operating implements in agricultural fields of cotton and corn. The diesel engines of the agricultural machines have terrified, and inspired me (the title of this blog for example), for the whole of my life. Agriculture and it's distribution, the infrastructure supplying life to the global civilization of man, has an impact exceeding the heigth of the heavens or the depth of the seas. Agriculture is the true direction of the future, and this ministry is no secret to those who till the earth and know the land. Today, these men and women, the people whose crops I once irrigated, cultivated, fertilized with my own sweat are the very patrons I seek to establish an artistic dialogue, to gain support and patronage, to provide the ability to do something farther than creativly imagined in their communities and the world. Indeed, it is truley a great commission to find whatever means necessary to implement the largest vision of the greater good into reality. Art in it's nature, demands it from the artist and patron alike who embrace it; for those who do not, disolve into unknown history.
This January, after a record cotton crop in the Texas panhandle region (the largest ever), the timing seemed right to show and display the two year old works, my effort to make contact with the agricultural peoples of my origins. How better to do this than the local barber shop in Lockney, Texas. For over a year now I've been displaying paintings on a small, clean, and well lit wall space of Bobbie's Buzz Cut's. The shop provides the closest contemporary gallery type setting I've found in such a small, rural community that is still capable of maintaining the traffic and dialogue of many people; not to mention, most of my target patrons cut their hair there. My question now, will they understand the capability of their support for things such as art? Will they recognize the opportunity, art reaching out to them, of this artist? The life of my art in this area swings in the balance of their generosity and ability to realize, and patronize, the arts. And by that I mean original, not reproduction; original equals the future, reproduction equals worthlessness, that's an art history lesson and fact. Time will tell, on the bright side the show landed me an interview with the local newspaper, The Floyd County Hesperian-Beacon, at the descretion of reporter Homer Marquez, whom I met at the barber shop while distributing these 4" x 6" post cards marketing my campaign. My conversation with Mr. Marquez was well rounded and thought loftly towards the possibilities of revival in these sleepy little ag communities, whose fruits sit as the foundation of all human civilization. I look forward to reading it, (title link to paper's page) and the outcome, and exceeding possibility of cultivated good possible through the hybridized realization of art and agriculture at the highest level. Godspeed, and thank you.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-29T23:10:00.005-06:00

Exhausted. Traveled down to South Texas for Christmas time with family and friends. Met up with a dozen or so of the old Warehouse Arts crew in Austin for a night, or, the San Marcos Group, as I like to call them. A lively bunch, I always feel the potential possiblity for anything great while around so many of them.

Then it was off to me mum's for the Christmas Holiday. We hung around and ate rounds of homemade chocolate pie, buttermilk pie, fresh apple and bannana nut cake, sweet potatoes, chicken and dumplin's, ham, the works; all of it homemade from scratch of course. One of the best things about my upbringing has always been the cooking. One of my gifts was a pound of beef jerky from Dziuk's, a meat processing market located in the next town over, Castorville. That stuff is great, I coundn't stop myself, I blew through the entire pound in four days. Now my teeth and gums are aching in pain from the constant ripping and tearing, chewing and grinding. If I could have anything other than mom's great pies and cakes and chicken 'n dumplin's, I'd have a pound of beef jerky.

The other highlight was playing round after round of the domino game "chickenfoot" with family including my 93 year old grandmother. There's nothing greater than seeing an ancient old woman laugh her heart out at the cutting up of family and a simple game. It was the most fun I'd had in awhile, and a very good Christmas.

There's potential developing out in far West Texas that could really kick me into high gear for this next year. I'm feeling optimistic about it all, but not enough to go talking about it, I'll let you know. Happy New Year 2011!

P.S. Click on the title link and buy a pound of their strip beef jerky. It's good stuff!

Last Installation in Redford

2010-12-18T10:41:00.032-06:00

For my last appearance out in Redford I had devised a sequence of movie scripts to cover as a finale to the year spent there, a closing that would leave open narrations for future ideas. Having placed burial capsules within the park already, my finale was going to include some work, placing objects, sculpture, in the desert along a path leading the viewer into the mountains of the Bofecillos.

George Zupp and I made a decision to join each other in Redford back in 2007-2008. During that time we were discussing the issue of how an environmental change can affect an artist's work through a healthy natural influence. In May of 2009, the capital had been saved, and the adventure was set into action; however, my arrival in Redford was met immediately with tragedy. Losing a friend and companion to the harsh nature of West Texas, my first "marker", or sculpture, went up without my realizing it's importance. It would mark the beginning of my time there, and also serve as the center piece for an ending as well.

An environment such as Big Bend can generate a multitude of inspirations within the heart of an artist, needless to say, it flooded mine with ideas. My relationship with George was a bit distant, while at the same time loosely collaborative. Each person wound up watching the other in what felt like a Mexican standoff of artistic egos, each reluctant to place ideas on the table for fear that the other's were better, or would be stolen, however, we did try to work together in the media of video but from my perspective, the video collaboration was largely unsuccessful. In retrospect, the bigger narrative videos I had scripted were never produced, largely due to difficulties between collaborative energies, and partly due to a lack of dependable resources. On the brighter and better side, the desire to produce these videos inspired the greater of the two, an on site installation leading into the mysterious Bofecillos.

The path of the installation was originally intended to compliment George's work beginning with a pyramid of food cans, which he had been sculpting with, and ending with his being reunited with a bunny sculpture, which made several appearances throughout our time there. In the video script, he was to acquire a lost map from the Angel of Death after a West Texas shootout concerning a desert art critique gone wrong. From the first map, he would have to follow along a series of markers and installation pieces to find new maps ultimately leading him in the direction of the hidden bunny. The first point on the map was the pyramid of cans, climbing out of an arroyo near Texas Highway 170 and the old Redford Elementary school.

From that point, a series of posts, or markers, doubling as removable walking/hiking staffs, would lead deeper into the desert. Each post,a total of five, were created from recycled spam cans, metal striping, polymer resin, acrylic & wood and were topped with blue paint buckets or hoods, to protect the medallion pieces from the sun and to also make the markers more visible in the desert landscape. Their installation was key, four being set on a line leading to the top of Checker's Hill and the last positioned off the beaten path leading to an alternate hill where sits the "Golden Chair of Academia", the last resting place of the bunny.

Coupled with the video idea, this was meant to indirectly give a "choice" to George concerning which path to take. The path is not an easy one however, after the second marker the trail dives off into a series of arroyo channels and the path becomes lost, hidden there was a sculpture I rescued from the old San Marcos Warehouse arts scene and titled "portrait bust of a Lost Soul". This was a location of the second map, and encouraged keeping faith and pointed to the next direction. Also, there was a dead tree of stolen spam cans meant to incite horror or disgust in the arroyos. All in all, the participant could find their way out of the labyrinth by maintaining sight of the remaining markers.

The markers eventually follow a path leading up to the top of a hill where my dog was buried and where a blue cross now stands overlooking Kelly Pruitt's jacal, toward the old Polvo Baptist Church, and a view into the larger Bofecillos mountains and Texas' Big Bend Ranch State Park. Just beside that hill, and on the alternative route, stands another smaller hill where I placed an old elementary school chair painted gold, calling it the "Golden Alter of Academia", or "Golden Chair of Academia". It was a poke at our academic backgrounds and an indirect blow from my position that academics will never rise above the magnitude or potency of the supernatural or biblical prophecy in the minds of humanity. But still acknowledges academia's importance as a continuingly vital institution while leadership and direction maintain truth.

In the end, my vision to produce an entertaining sequence of videos revolving around this installation piece were never realized. Fortunately, the installation itself was. In the larger scope, the finale was the installation. It was the artistic effort to produce a physical journey for viewers to experience in a site specific space, a call to all, to adventure seekers to explore some of the desert's mystery in real time. An invitation to take the path of discovery, to continue on into the greater mountains, to reach the higher peaks and find the treasures hidden there, the treasure of imagination sparked by the natural world itself.

More images from the installation:

2010 Almost Gone

2010-12-10T10:24:00.003-06:00

Not much happening. Took a recent trip to Amarillo. Thirty minutes in Best Buy was enough to depress me for a day, standing in the Apple computer section, dreaming about what it would be like to own one. I'm guessing it's for the best, for the sake of this blog anyway. It would be nice to properly edit and store files. Crash and burn.
On the positive end my wood shop has been in full swing. For the last ten days I've been framing small works on paper. There's a Floyd County Christmas Bizarre happening this Saturday and with a bit of luck maybe I'll make enough to survive into the new year.

I've got a lot more to say, and to talk about concerning my progress as an artist, but I'm not feeling up to it now. I want to keep it alive and moving, keep production online and running, let the horse run full gallop forward and break into the larger vision, wield it into reality, get people's eyes on my work and continue building the voice, but; alas, my stars were not made by an easy path. I continue the struggle.

End of November

2010-11-29T19:02:00.002-06:00

Well, the Alpine night seemed to go over as a bust. I made an appearance, showed a painting and stated a case. Overall, I'm weary about all the tight West Texas cronies. Even as far up as the Texas Panhandle, it's tough jaring people out of their slowed down conservative drawl. Difficult for me to calibrate business, difficult for me to just get my name out there. It appears the internet is still my best hope. Just keep chipping away here, until I can gain enough capital to approach galleries for a show. My internet participation is going to be pretty low. Loosing ground there too, as machines are dying off left and right. I'm just going to paint for now. There are no friends in art business, very few in art at all.
Installed a desert installation out in Redford, as I pulled out from there. Gonna try and get some pictures up of that and talk about it. We'll see how long it lasts out there.

At Auction Saturday Night in Alpine Texas Artwalk

2010-11-19T11:49:00.005-06:00

Bar Three Texas Longhorn, acrylic on paper, 8.5x11", 2010.
Alpine Public Library benefit auction at the Granada in Alpine Texas, bidding ends tonight at 8 p.m.

Last Ten Days in Redford

2010-11-19T11:25:00.004-06:00

Redford Desert Constellation
At sites with contemporary, George Zupp, digital photo.
Redford Desert Constellation is a live air trailhead inspired by one year of living spent in the Chihuahuan Deserts of Texas. Just beneath Big Bend Ranch State Park in the Texas County of Presidio, Redford Desert Constellation offers five hooded markers to aid travelers as they approach the first of mountain hills entering the Bofecillos. Behold the Blue Cross of Maria de Agreda atop "Cheg Hill" or sit down and gaze your eyes toward Rio Grande y Conchos river valley agriculture at "The Golden Chair of Acedemia".
Redford Desert Constellation was created and temporarily installed this year by artist Justin Warren Graham and is located just west of late artist Kelly Pruitt's adobe jacal.

2010.

Votes Count

2010-11-05T15:22:00.001-05:00

Gallery Alpine Night, Alpine Texas Nov. 19-20, 2010.

2010-10-27T11:02:00.010-05:00

Working on some pictures for this event. Last year I had some small work around Alpine for "Artwalk", as it is called. Alpine is a West Texas town about 33 miles east of Marfa. It's a railroad/ranching community and home of Sul Ross State University. Currently, I'm painting away in the Texas Panhandle for a return presence this year. This new work has been a full return to the acrylic medium. The objective is to bind languages of acrylic into a body of work descriptive of my origins of youth. If you're traveling in that area of Texas for the Holidays, reserve Friday or Saturday night this November at the Holland Hotel for front door action and festivites.

Waitin' on a Bunch, acrylic on canvas, 36"x48", 2010.

The title link will take you to www.thehollandhoteltexas.com.

Do IT! Go vote!

2010-10-22T23:05:00.003-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/JustinWarrenGraham?feature=mhum

Click the title, go see some 'o my cows.

New work

2010-10-14T19:20:00.005-05:00

After a summer working on a ranch in Sanderson Texas, I've landed back in the City of Lockney working on paintings for this Fall in Alpine and beyond. Here's a taste of what I'm producing, this picture is a detail of a larger 36"x48" canvas completed, 2010. There are more to come!

DETAIL; Waitin' on a Bunch, acrylic on canvas, 36"x48", 2010..

Next Level Pages

2010-10-11T22:07:00.002-05:00

you know something, ???.

Anything writ in a blog is dang lucky to get there. Therefore, things shared in one of these scripts is the result of some overflow, crashing out of books, illustrations, colour, painting chairs.

A tide of digital numbers printing in mind reading with eye now.

A crumudgeon whirlwind.
Befalling a herd,
In the night of an'ev'nin'

By the poltergiest light of a cotton gin millin'.

THE END

J.W.G. 2010.

I enjoy video movies, homemade.

2010-10-04T22:41:00.003-05:00

Definitions of the Vacuum

2010-09-30T11:27:00.012-05:00

Well, not much to say really. Actually, there is more than your mind can imagine. The details of my life are like the sandy grains of a shoreline, desert, mountainline. Like a ship lost at sea with an angry stomach, this way and that, no control if I wanted to.

The abyssal is full of barking dogs that never shut up. Nevermind.

The great difficulty of our time is to discover how to maintain the past course of maps. To not completely lose all that is where we've been. Our history will always and forever define us. Our past, both physical and spiritual, is fact.
Existed as long as the universe. Consciousness aligned with matter on a plane.
Experience is our feeling, our sense of doorway. The door. The connection that binds together two rooms, both powers of the magnetic poles, positive / negative.

This begins to explain the vacuum.

Friends, and Question.
My disparage over the last three months of pay.

After the first month of ranchhand capentry work:

Title LINK takes you to:
Featured Artist, George "Chicken" Zupp and his dog Haas, Redford Texas, 2010.
If you would like to visit my youtube site, scroll down to the video bar at the bottom of the page.

Thank You

le /negete' ~ Negetism

2010-09-26T20:07:00.006-05:00

Concerning darkness, or the time period of calender day which is night.

Cotton Module Nocturn, oil on cardboard, "4x6", 2008.

09/2010.

Donate to my imac campaign

2010-07-25T21:52:00.005-05:00

I am in poverty, but before I choose a real job, I choose art and the suffering that befalls those with no support in it. It is my choice. I choose to continue art. My computer is deficient, weakening my progress in this new world, disabling my comunication to people about what truely it is that is happening here. Click the apple to go paypal and donate!

Calm after the storm

2010-07-12T18:41:00.010-05:00

digital image 000537, Terrell County, Texas 2010.
Whew! It's a rough patch going in life after things in which there is minimal security or gaurantee. One thing, keeping up with a blog while living on a skid row situation. I use that term minimaly, I'm not hooked on dope or anything, I just hit a patch of joblessness and monitary flatline, all while pursueing the act of painting. It's a feeling of no control, of extreme disappointment followed by anger and frustration when the life forcast for the pursuit of happiness seems unattainable. For me, that stuff has always come around in my time like a chronic sickness. It doesn't have anything to do with anybody else, it's just a set of obstacles placed to defeat, as they are set for everyone; however, adversity is harder for some.

My tough times always seem to bare the illusion of finacial bust, or an extreme lack of finances to accomplish goals, moreover, the lack of opportunity to find work sufficiant enough to build savings to accomplish goals. This is the social struggle of the American Dream. To come from poverty and stay in poverty. I always hear the critiques; "That white dude ain't got no worries. Shit, he got everything." Why do I use the term "white", because such discimination is real, pegged auto-rich by color.

Anyway, having nothing all the time isn't so hard once you realize that you've been given all you need, and that any extra would be overly cumbersome. I realized this through me talking and walking with God. He told me. Once I came to the notion that it would all work out better from the perspective I was given all the impatient frustration of struggle and the seemingly impossible ability to get in the game went away, for the most part, it still comes around when I wonder too far off, or impatience is allowed to build. But I figured I am in the game, at best I came be for that period of time.

This post is coming from way out in the desert ranchlands of West Texas. An old friend contacted me way back in March when these struggles began. It wasn't till three weeks ago that I discovered what exactly his contacting me ws about. He wanted to offer me a job helping out as a hand on a ranch, a ranch he had been employed as forman to rebuild, a 100,000 acre ranch that had been previously neglected. The masterful thing, and I had expressed this to my collegue, Zupp, was the question about artist patrons. Who are they? Where are they? When will they arrive and why aren't they coming? I guess it takes more of that time? Ironically, it would be that the storm of the last few months would settle away into the blue of the sky with my patrons arriving dressed in the same broken bankrupt suit that I wore also, completed wrags and sunburn skin, worn out boots and tatered jeans. They came back from town with nothing, nothing but heartache and memories of the fast paced flash city life! They came back as broke as I was, dreams that rose up in spirit and topled over, only to understand that they were always there at home, just waiting for them to come back.

For me, the opportunity has been given to help on this ranch with a little pay (security), time and place(to chase my painted vision around in a room), and the revived memory of the old times when we were all children, and we were all as rich as we needed to be with nothing at all, except the people who cared to see us achieve the things we love to do. So if you've followed this writing, and you've read along with me openly in my despair, thank you. It seems that just as the ship is surely sinking into the watery abyssal, that no more water touches the toe before the rescue ship arrives, and with better accomodations than the busted vessel sinking to the bottom of the sea.

digital image 000531, Brewster County, Texas 2010.

09/2010.

Who is this watching my passwords?

2010-05-31T22:23:00.008-05:00

digital image 000251, Floyd County, Texas 2010.

Well, the Panhandle still defeats the desert by a grande means.
Better light, for starters, but definately for the abundance of life.

September 26th, 2010 Issued Correction. by J.W.G.

"I can understand why they each are considered West Texas. Each abundant in life, each beautiful light...

Traveling

2010-05-23T15:27:00.004-05:00

Passing Sign, digital image, Dallas Texas, 2010.

Dallas Skyline from IH35N, digital image, Dallas Texas, 2010.
Randomly searching for finances the last couple of weeks. Nothing great to tell. Painted a few pale horses here and there, light poles, trees; acrylic on wood. Back and forth on Highway 90, Uvalde, Hondo, San Antonio. Always did love the capital. Think It needs to remain Texan. But I enjoy passing there. I've got to go to Sioux City, post pictures when I find availible wifi next.

Texas Capital from South Congress AVE, digital image, Austin Texas, 2010.

First Friday, San Antonio ,Texas, May 7th 2010.

2010-05-10T10:00:00.013-05:00

Questions regarding the Hypocrisy of the Portrayal of Truth in Our Time?

This past weekend I made it into San Antonio for the First Friday exhibitions at the Blue Star Contemporary Art Complex. I have a friend who was exhibiting a multimedia installation at a Blue Star location called Three Walls.

Who knows what motivations Derrick Durham (the artist) had behind building a replicated blue dumpster filled with garbage, electronic equipment and himself, ominously titled "Ghost Receptacle", but the responses ranged from the dumbfounded to the suprised. The opening exhibit offered viewers a chance to see the artist at work inside the refuse container via a peep-hole located at the front of the installation, a view into a metaphorical studio, perhaps. The term "Purity" was dressed throughout the exhibit and even offered guests the opportunity to scrap away at two charcoal drawings of the dumpster, hand drawn by the artist, with hardwire brushes, the instructions "scrub until pure" annointing them in small lettering on the wall. Occasionally, the viewers, standing within the vacinity, were startled by the ejection of crushed beer cans and even hand drawn messages of artwork by the hidden artist, dispersing them from a trap door. In the finale, the artist himself was ejected in a climax of volcanic porportions which sent garbage of all classes spilling into the gallery floor.

The intent of Mr. Durham's Ghost Receptacle appeared to be a charge of awareness in the importance of recycling, a necessity within the maintenance of purity, a noble earthly cause. For me, I took away a different notion. A notion that seemily states, regarding our times of instant want and gratification, in our quick fix it and think of it later world, which is: If the artist manifests himself as equvilant to garbage, what might that say about the viewers of the artworld, whom are ultimately, for artists, the representation of the greater good? Are they able to comprehend good art from bad art? Moreover, what does it say about the spirit of mankind who makes bad things good and good things bad?

All in all, I believe great art raises great questions. Great art, like a great question, challenges the psyche of the mass public to comprehend not only what is being said, but what exactly the future holds, a sort of tuning fork or compass, for example. Derrick Durham's exhibition of "Ghost Receptacle" at Three Walls was layden with such analogies, for those who can tolerate art long enough to interpret it.

"ART is like tobacco, take a pinch off and chew."

First weekend in May

2010-05-07T12:22:00.009-05:00

After my brief stay in Sanderson, I headed down the road to Del Rio, Texas. Every year, for 33 years consecutivly, Del Rio has hosted an event which rounds into one place a particular group of subjects I'm interested in pursueing with paint, solely for the display of courage, chaos, and exhibition of spontaneous energy. The George Paul Memorial Rodeo, a.k.a. "SuperBull", was a primary objective to hit on my pass back into civilization. If I am on a quest to redefine my West Texas heritage in paint, the subjects here are contemporary cornerstones for that description.

The thing about a man latching himself down to a 2,000lb creature, a creature untamed, with no desire to be domesticated, with no real desire for man at all, is that it is absolutely crazy. But that's exactly what it takes to break boundries into a void where men figure out just what the universe is made of; to take the ride. For each time they climb on and the gate opens they are off into the place where time doesn't exist. Where sound fades out and only the slow description of action takes over. Every detail stops, and amidst the chaos and explosion of energy peace of mind is achieved. It's an addictively gratifying sensation, coupled with accomplishment, competition, glory, danger and death. It is everything men strive for. And for me, seeing the actions, the space tearing energy, hearing the crowd respond to a successful 8 second ride, is everything the act of creating a successful picture accomplishes. It doesn't make sense, and the experience generally doesn't last for long. In the end, my experience at the Del Rio SuperBull rodeo was a good one. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of art I can produce as a result.

From the Highway

2010-05-07T10:24:00.009-05:00

Well, I'm back in Hondo again, trying not to spill coffee on my mother's carpet floor while walking from the kitchen to the computer. My grandpa Keeter would respond to such an endevor with a comment like "You ought to have the red whooped off your ass" for even attempting a move with such a full cup. I'll get it there.

It's been a week since I left out of Redford, back onto the Texas Circuit, as I like to call it, a triangle of points on the Texas map I've come to frequent over my life, Redford being the newest favorite. Anyway, I need to update my travels.

In my last blog post I wrote out some idea poetry, which is how it comes usually, without all the filler words, about some abstractions I worked on in the begining of the mellinia. I use the term mellinia because I like thinking in the thousands, and this all began on a turn for a new one thousand years. Anyway, these abstractions were ... undefinable with words for me for a long time. Only now is my primitive brain coming to grips with what was being said. Partly due to book reading and research about artists from a hundred years ago, artists and thinkers who were breaking the world into abstraction, and partly because I've sat and pondered so much time away in the captain's chair of the great machine's.
If I knew then what I know now, in my financial desparations of those times, I wouldn't have given the originals away for next to nothing. All the reason to make them bigger and better, for the final round. In short, I'm spending this highway time to write and resolve, then start it all over again, planning for a big revival with exhibitions beginning in "11. That's a good year.

Anytime I'm traversing East or West on the Texas Highway 90 trail, I stop in Sanderson and visit a friend who is always welcoming and hospitable. I met Tex Toler in 2009. He is a journalist/editor/writer/producer who has a big passion for Texas glory. He's one of those fella's who has a lot of energy for labor and hard work. Each time I see him he's working on some new project to help out existing folks, revitalizing structures exclusive to West Texas and Sanderson, or even stretching fence on local ranches. In fact, he has become so fond of the area, he has positioned himself to run for Terrell County Judge. Having seen the fruits of his labor first hand, in professional publications, adobe home restoration projects, and just plain ole hospitality, the man has my support. I think he is a youthful visionary ripe to wake the spirit of the pioneering old west in Texas. Goodluck Tex. Be sure to visit his website "TolerforTerrell", the title link should get you there.

El Polvo

2010-04-29T22:56:00.006-05:00

It was windy today in Redford. Which lives up to the spanish name it was given, "Polvo", meaning dust; getting real hot and dry, too. I had hoped to get out and work on some new landscape paintings but only got as far as drilling the brace holes in the stretchers, they help keep the picture on the field easel.

Instead, this afternoon, I took my bike and "Coyote Cheggs Reincarnate" (the new local dog whose been hanging out and following around) out to the Rio Grande levy to do some recon. I wanted to see for myself how badly the breeches were in the levy system here. See just exactly what was keeping this place from really living again. It was bad. Aside from one gapping hole
where the river penetrates into farmland completely, there was at least a mile of levy area that was shotgunned with holes. Bad shame, this place green with farms and functioning properly would be a real paradise. I'm sure there is something can be done.
This last piece was an interesting find, but Coyote Cheggs wasn't too interested.
He doesn't seem too interested in anything other than following me around. Guess he knows something I don't. Headed out of here soon, Keep up on the highway.

Back in Redford

2010-04-28T17:27:00.011-05:00

What's been going on here at the Redford outpost studio? Well, when I left in February for the Wake the Dead show I didn't recall what a mess I'd left in the studio. It was in complete disarray when I got back, a normal studio symptom, so I spent the first couple days doing some spring cleaning and reorganizing. Once that was through I needed to reaccess where I was with work. What projects I need to finish off, and what new works I want to approach. During the two months I was away, I was continuosly reflecting on the work I had made out here last year and the work I felt good about progressing.

First off are my video documented art burial performances. I got these going right away last summer as an attempt to reach the viewer through the experience of the hunt, or discovering a treasure in a rugged environment. My intent is to parallel the experience of the artist into the void of discoving art with that of a viewer literally experiencing a voided or unknown landscape to discover art. Over the last four years I developed and researched how such an endevor could be achieved properly, settling upon detailed map information, gps logged coordinates, correct and durable art containers, and lastly, a documented video of the burial itself. I'm going to do more writing on these in the future. They are a huge amount of fun and are a fulfilling experience. There is much ground to cover here in Texas as Big Bend offers two large parks to participate in, and another in Mexico. Here's one of last year's videos for now:

Moving on, I had to get some more landscape panels built. I've decided to double the picture plane and reveal more of a panoramic view of this mountainscape region. Leaping Lizard Gallery in Terlingua has been showcasing a few of the landscapes from last year. I like the challenge of painting on site, the harsh conditions can speed up the process of delivering a picture, insert a few unexpected accidents, and gives me something to use oil paints on. Not to mention, it's one of the best ways to broaden the possibilities of color.

Lastly for this post, are a couple of acrylic cattle I needed to finish off. I left one alone, and reworked the other all while building up frames for both of them. They are the product of an interior studio campaign involving acrylic languages. I'm intending on pushing them forward into paintings done for prized cattle and rodeo bulls. I got my first commission piece for Benita, The Field Lab Longhorn, courtesy of John Wells. I'm looking forward to getting that started soon. For now I've got to travel back into civilization, stopping by the George Paul Memorial Bad Company Rodeo in Del Rio. Talk to you soon.

The Field Lab

2010-04-27T10:41:00.009-05:00

Next on my trip out for the month of March and April was on the way back into Big Bend. I stopped by for a visit in Terlingua Texas to meet with a local friend by the name of John Wells. John is an interesting character with a good conservative story to tell. He moved out to Terlingua a few years back and set up for himself a lifestyle lived "off the grid". Just a few miles off Texas Highway 118, you'll find his place settled in behind Packsaddle Mountain. Experiencing John's Field Lab was something I recall out of a movie, remniscent of the magician who goes to meet Tesla in the movie title "The Prestige". In fact, John's whole existence out in the middle of the desert is supported completely by renewable energy. And, seemily, on any day of the week you can find him out there working on some mysterious invention built and designed by him to harness these resources for everyday life. He gave me a tour of his multiple projects which included fresh water re-supply and direction, or harvesting rain and creek water, solar panel and wind energy arrays for electrical supply, solar bakery and ovens, a large green house and secondary quarters, even an insulated box cooler run the old fashioned way for cold beer storage.

The primary purpose for the visit was scheduled to be a mingling with the locals out at John's place, locals being a herd of Longhorn cattle. Throughout the afternoon the herd stayed a mile or so away from the field lab, grazing and moving about like spots of color on the desert in a stop-film annimated movie. Over John's time out at The Field Lab, he has become acquainted closely with a twentytwo year old Longhorn cow he's affectionatly named Benita. The owner of Benita, a local rancher, deeded the cow over to John as a gift on his last birthday, which is where I come in. John has commissioned me to paint a portrait of his favored Field Lab side-kick, and being a Texas painter of subjects such as cattle, a true Texas longhorn is just the sort of undertaking I've been looking for.

The afternoon passed by and by, yet no longhorns made their way toward a field lab visit. It wasn't till the evening, on the way out that John coersed them near the pickups with some sweet pellet food. Longhorns came from all around, circling, moaning, calling out long hellos to their bearded friend. I nelt down near a pile of pellets just off the road and calmly studied and photographed these massive creatures, swarming around me like schools of fish near a reef in the sea, their long pointed horns spaning distances of four and five feet, eyes watching me closely for guarantee of trust. I was almost able to feed from hand the bull of the bunch, Otis, as John refers, whom was also a target of study, but wiley and elusive, as most bulls are.

After a half hour of mingling with Otis, Benitas daughter, Carmela, and the rest of the group we moved on down the road as Benita herself was still a no show. We stopped at a point in the road where we could see another group of Longhorns off in the distance. John bellowed out a few calls, "Benitaaaaa". We waited, but still nothing. About the time we were going to call off the search, Benita shown herself in the distance. Making her slow conservative path through the desert she shown the enthusiasm of a lost dog who'd once again found her loving master. Shortly she approached, smiling all the way to sweet pellet rewards, ear and head scratches. I could see the twentytwo seasons marked on the condition of her horns, in the slow graceful patience of her chew, back and forth, like an old farmer with his tobacco, watching the sun go down. I'm glad we waited around, and she decided to grace us with her presence, the personal exchange made the importance of an accurate portrayal all the more important. All in all, the Field Lab experience was a well rounded one, my full gratitude and thanks are extended to John Wells and Benita for having me out, and showing me around.

Click title for a direct link to John's Field Lab blog

Click the Title to Meet:

2010-04-24T19:25:00.013-05:00

The thing about the highway, is your always crossing paths with people at random; few stand out. About a week ago I went out with my brothers to a bar in Bandera to visit together. I had felt, earlier on the drive over from Hondo, a little down about going because there was a minor situation regarding my mother and a hospital the day before. She's ok, but I felt off about going that Friday night. I didn't drink anything for the first couple hours, feeling a recent need to break from the pressures of the norm and experience that sort of scene without the use of alcohol. It was rather enjoyable, as I was able to restrain my depth of thought and maintain conversations with everyone and actually have something viablely positive to respond with. I enjoyed it so much in fact, that I fell off the wagon and approached the bar to purchase a beer. While waiting patiently, contemplating my reason for being there, I shared brief eye contact and a smile with a young woman wearing a blue top and skirt. Her eyes were dark and I remember her smile. I thought as I collected my beer from the barkeep, Maybe I should stay sober in bars more often, it's not usual for pretty girls to smile at me there. No alcohol, equals no loss of composure.
Sitting at the long table, drinking there with my brothers and three Canadian couples to my left, I watched as various people danced throughout, this way and that, my thoughts lost into their interactions and movements, calculated, but caotic. The sound of the band and the conversations of the entire room filling into my head for a moment, absorbing space to the point of subconcious awareness, where the mind doubles itself. I had many hundreds of days like that behind the wheel of a machine. Then, out of the blue dropped this face again into my view, smiling, eye contact, she set a beer down in front of me, with a red cheek turn she walked away. "Ohhhhh", to the surprise of my six family kin sitting there with smiles and evil grins, cheering me on as if I had done something great, as if by some means I had tilted the axis of the earth. I didn't have anything to do with it, it was her, I thought. Although, to my best recollection, I don't remember a good looking stranger ever buying me a beer, nope, not ever. I was flattered.
The night continued until around 11:00 at which time my company decided it was time to move on, back to the house. This was the moment of truth, I could just leave with no response but that would've been weak and ungentlemanlike, so I moved forward to meet and speak to the young and bright, Shelley Adelle.

With my younger brother as a trusted and dependable wingman, we chatted and mingled amongnst another group of strangers for a half hour or more. Moving out to the patio I learned that Shelley had lived in New York for ten years and studied acting and dance. Also, she had become a personal instructor for yoga, but after a decade in the city she fled to the beaches of Florida to decompress. Finding no rest there, as beaches appearantly are a favorite location for yoga enthusiasts, she informed me that she was taking a month long vacation of semi-unplanned adventure to reconnect her spirit, beginning with her orgins in Texas.
As it were, that evening, she had stumbled into a Texas nomad whose aim in life was a legacy left in art. Hearing of her quest for adventure, I informed her that I was on my way back out to Redford and The Big Bend. I explained to her that my artistic quest had led me first to my orgins on the Texas prairie and then to the Chihuahuan desert region of Presidio County, establishing a series of work spaces in both places. The talked moved on and was a delight, and before the sun set on the evening of the next day we were both in the truck and headed West on Highway 90.

I learned a lot from the few days I traveled with this free spirit. Moreover, I was energized by her ability to step in from an outside perspective and give me insight on how to cope with things out of my control. Not only in dealing with letting go of hardships, but her offering of insightful approaches toward positive sustainability. All in all, she offered nothing but help. It was greatly appreciated. It's easy to get worked up over little details, but simple to let go of; generally, it's just three deep breaths away. Many in this life will hender your dreams with luggage and conversation about how "you can't", and how "it's too much work". None of that talk applied to the people of where I come from. But, they are of great abundance out in the world, especially in art. It was good to experience the spontaneous flow of time with one who is an overcomer of adverse things. I had much fun on Terlingua Porch, thanks Shelly. You are indeed great at what you do, keep it up.

Slinging Cotton Candy at the Carnival

2010-04-23T09:47:00.009-05:00

So, about a month ago, just after the show at Wake the Dead in San Marcos, I was on the look out for some work to help me continue my art pursuit. I talked to a great friend of mine whose inlaws have stock in The Mighty Thomas Carnival. They travel from south to north every year much like a wheat harvesting crew, going from town to town, county to county, zig-zagging here and there for about nine months out of each year, entertaining the quiet folks from all over. What began as a phone call to see one another and visit quickly turned into a "would you like to help us out for a bit?" You see, my friend tore his achillies heel in a basketball scrimage last year and he was getting around fairly well as a "Hop-along Cassidy". I was more than greatful, the bonus was getting to hang out with him and his family for an extended period of time, which helped me decompress from some of the let downs I'd experienced in the desert and with the art show.
First off, they flew me to Michigan to pickup a new truck they had purchased for their business. It's a stretched Freightliner conventional with a twentytwo foot box on the back, used by frieght carriers as an expedited delivery wagon, overnight type of transport vehicle. My friends intended to convert it into a stock truck to carry around supplies they need for their "Candy Land" and "Sweet Spot", which are the names of the refreshment trailers they use at the carnival. It was a good trip, especially since I was thinking about returning to the highway to refinance my art ambitions. It gave me fifteen hundred miles of contemplation and diesel engine to remember that going back out over-the-road was not a heavily favored option. I didn't mind the sound of the whinning turbo engine, that whistle of void made when frieght is in pull, but what made me crenge was the time buckled to that seat, the miles one by one, endless. Reminded me of the time I was playing too rowdy in the house as a young boy, but carried away and having fun at it, and my mother pulled me away and made me sit still at the kitchen table for five minutes. I thought those five minutes would never pass so I could get back to the action. They still linger in the backwater of my mind somewhere.

After Easter weekend in South Austin, I helped them move some things up to Burnet and they recruited me to work in their secondary "popper", which is the machine they trailer around to distribute cotton candy, candied apples, carmel apples, popcorn and fountain drinks. I watched the airshow and walked around for awhile during the Bluebonnet Festival. All in all it was more than I expected. Not to mention that their patronage and favor toward me helped ease my tensions. You've kept by boat a-float, thanks Brandon and Kat.

April 22, 2010.

2010-04-22T22:27:00.002-05:00

Tonight I sit here, in Redford, as it were I'm back again, thinking about this ride I'm on in life. My last post was left in Hondo Texas, and to tell the truth, I wasn't exactly optimistic about everything as i ran into March of this year. I guess the studio does that, after awhile, work cuts me off from the world and months go by, whilest explaining my version of it, then bang I get reminded that there's this system I'm expected to participate in. Humanity. I don't always have a positive glass to see the world through, but I do have one, in fact, I have two. Anyhow, I think where I'm going with this is a statement made towards the notion that when everything seems to be coming to complete failure, well, that's the best time for miracles to step in, turn the tides and flip the switch on for hope. I guess I like running this extreme lifestyle. It's a lot of work and responsibility setting life up for it though, and to make it as far as I have and still desire it, well, maybe thats luck or destiny or something...devine. But the point I make sitting here tonight, is, Experiencing life's empty cup is one of the greatest blessings; Because I forget about how life is when the cup's full. Which makes the filling of it back up again, greater each time.

I'm gonna fill in whats happened in the last couple of weeks or month or whatever it's been. tell about the stories I have had on the road. Interesting refills.

see you later,

Justin

Spring of 2010

2010-03-29T11:24:00.006-05:00

Hmm. Let me see... At this moment I am in Hondo, Texas, visiting family and helping them clear rocks off of newly broken ground (bother's place in Bandera), and helping my mom with her place in Hondo, (repairing a fence). When I left Redford in late February, 2010, I was on my way to San Marcos to commit a body of artwork to Wake The Dead Coffee House for a March show with George Zupp. Prior to leaving the studio in Big Bend, I was about eight hundred dollars away from being completely broke and my computer, a pc, was crashing and rendering itself completely useless toward my efforts to keep up with video logs and my youtube broadcasts. Needless to say, my frustrations were mounting. When I left I was convinced that my only option was to return to Redford and clear out, back to the highway, or some job somewhere.

It's now nearing the end of March, and I am barely hanging on to the notion that I will be able to continue making work this year. The Wake the Dead show was a fair exhibition but towards the time of the opening things went wrong. My computer crashed making my presentation go sort of lousy; George and I presented a series of videos to document our efforts in the desert. One picture sold to a new woman I had not met on the sixth during the opening. That was a relief because my failsafe out of Redford was now accomplishable. Many people were interested in the statements my work was making, even in the handling of the media but most were not serious enough to buy. It seems still I am only worth compliments on my use of line and color.

Death's only friend was a Dog, oil on paper, 14 x 17 inches, 2009.

After the Wake the Dead opening I was down and out. Mad, angry, frustrated that the core of my vision would once again remain unfinished, not even close to being realized. I struggled internally with terrible feelings, trying to figure out just exactly how to engineer a break. It seemed my only option was going to be a return to the highway. Driving a semi truck 24hrs a day, seven days a week. Back down to the mortal jail cell of Hell. I had done that already, it was destroying me physically and mentally. But it appeared there would be no other choice.

A week or so later I visited some very important friends around the Central Texas area. They are a fine couple whom recently had a baby, a girl, who is absolutely fantastic. They have a business that involves driving and offered me some employment to retrieve a tractor in Michigan. It was another positive my way. They flew me up there and I drove the 1459 miles back to Roundrock, Texas. They paid me a handsome fifty cents a mile to do so, beats the heck out of the over-the-road companies who pay about thirty cents to kill you slowly with muscle atrophey and diabietes. That was a cool drink of water to my finanial siuation. Gave me some breathing room in the ole back pocket. I t also was a good two to three days worth of reflection on the road, enough to remember that truck driving was cool for the first six months, gettig paid, seeing all the sited of the road, visually documenting the skylines of America. But after six months every road is the same, and each mile comes off the odometer like an eternity. It made me sick to think of going back, even cringe, but if I had to, to keep the vision of art alive, then that's what I'd have to do.

The wake the dead show comes down on Wednesday. I've had a few calls of interest since the opening, people want to know more about me and what my story is. They say that they are interested in the subjects I'm depicting, the dialogue, the issues raised. I'm no good at talking to them, I can never verbalize the right words with my mouth. I don't like to talk about it. I'd just rather show them.

I've got a bit of odd job work lined up moving into April. That's a good thing. I'm even considering participation in a pharmisuedical study, where you take medication and they study your body's reaction to they drug. They pay well, and in a short amount of time. My computer is fried, I need a new one, not to mention that I'm in a desperate hour, and willing to do whatever it takes to see my work through. On the bright side, this post has got me to thinking; about writing up the story of my life to now, about my perspective and the towering, unmovable post of influnce art has had on it. I'm better at talking about things this way. There is no one to interupt me in the middle of progress towards the answer with questions about when the answer will come. At this rate, however, it seems the same thing keeping me alive, will likely kill me. Sacrifice = Message = ART. Words to both live and die by.

Adue, there is more to be written.

A Prayer to my LORD, the King.

2010-03-26T11:32:00.004-05:00

Father God.
You know of the things You have laid upon my heart to accomplish.
You know the things in which You have shown me.
The tools given to use in order to teach, or to pass on Your promise.
You know the things I need in order to accomplish this.
I ask humbly today that You forgive me my weaknesses,
The things which stand in the way of Your progress in me and in turn Your progress to the world.
I cannot see the path in my head or how to achieve it.
This often knots me up and confuses me.
I am unable to understand the ways in which You bend together destiny and fate.
But understand that Your course for me exceeds my own imagination.
I ask today that you put these things together for me.
Your achievement in me is far greater than my achievement without You.
Set my feet to the path, to the direction of the accomplishment of these things in which You have shown me.
So that they may be done in Your due appointment.
Thank You for discharging me from the worry of their achievements,
For Your grand forgiveness,
For the sacrifice of Your Son, the King,
Jesus Christ the Messiah,
AMEN.

Light Pollution, and the Return of the Absinthe People.

2010-03-19T20:42:00.006-05:00

Well, I know what I don't want to be in life. Something along the lines of what the human senses might determine finally as sound or light pollution; water pollution, poisoning the content o the soil. Maybe thats what the last aquarians did, just before God wiped them off the face of the earth with a flood. Maybe water is the only thing capable of returning balance to the planet over the shortest amount of time. A washing machine will get regular clothes drenched clean in a matter of a few short minutes, more like forty five.

Adding more info the the Wake the Dead show

2010-03-17T09:36:00.003-05:00

New install at WTD, Resurrected Mothers with raptured saints and The Spear of Destiny.

notes and a pricing list

Old computer

2010-03-16T08:41:00.005-05:00

Austin Texas, March 16th, 2010.
After reviewing my interest in working art I've found some current deficiencies. Not a deficient failure in my work as paint or tool or medium is moved, but in the computers and electronics necessary to compete wholly in today's atmosphere. To continue a necessary avenue I am going to have to depend on the foundation of art in which there is no doubt, the pictures. Today, my hope is, that before returning to the studio of Redford and beyond, I will be able to raise all the money necessary from past pictures to meet this need. In short, I'm looking forward to owning my first mac. Now I just need a good picture of an apple to go here:

A New Post

2010-03-14T23:59:00.003-05:00

A meek attempt to document formalities.

Who knows?

Questions arriving in the minds of ALL. Lovely answers.
Received.
Great are the gifts of the LORD.
This I say, when it is that I find greatness of hospitality before me as I go. About the things of true importance.

That is where those are stationed.
That Handful.
AMEN.

Thoughts at Wake the Dead

2010-03-02T19:10:00.005-06:00

The diesel engines roar through the back alleys and aquaducts of my mind. I hear them calling out, echoing as they pass on the
highway, each climb through the gear thundering like the terrible lizard. Roaring. Howling. Pushing the winds together. Each wheel in their mechanism speeding forward the times, faster. Faster. Everytime, even with the quite ones, the sound of the friction of the rail or highway pierces through into the gap, releasing nothingness into the pits of my mind, into known space. Laughter, as they seep into the shadows to hide, to wait until the time. I don't care too much. They've been breaking through since long before I was ever around. And I know for rock solid that once it's over and we're all out of here they won't be where we're going. And so I smile, and I forget about them, for they are no harm to me. But nevertheless, I can hear them, ripping through sound as they pass.
I am optimistic. Clarity from the Lord. Breaks in the cloud producing possibilities, rising up at the last possible moment to save me from the loss of progress concerning the continuation. How the Lord keeps me in His hand? What quickly annoying a little critter I must be as He scoops me up each time only to watch me scurry like an ant or crawling bug to jump from salvation and back to the lowly and dark places of the ground. Beneath the trodding feet of those whom would destroy me.
Breaks in the clouds, as work begins and ends, providing the pulse of an art continuum in which I repeatedly have little faith. Forgive me for that. AMEN.

The Breaking of the Last Horse

2010-02-19T00:51:00.005-06:00

The Breaking of The Last Horse is a 30 x 34 inch oil painting on canvas. Characterizing the Angel of Death as a western cowboy, or the pioneer, the innovative American icon whose history delivered the world into the final act of the current age; He wrangles his prophecied destiny as the inequities of all mankind watch in anxcious torment, breaking seals fortold by God in His Word, fulfilling the prophecy, setting the moment just before the beginning of the tribulation upon the earth.

I revised this post one time. I don't know why. Mustve had the urgency to reduce or re-revise. Wasn't nescessary, 'Cept when your're drowning in waters so deep,
The best thing to do is breathe.
And so I diid, and will keep going.

February 2010

2010-02-15T14:41:00.005-06:00

My time in Redford is closing down. Finances are running low and therefore I must break from my productions in order to "refill the tank", so to speak. Hindsight is beginning to set in as I work to finalize a few paintings and bodies of paintings I sought to complete out here in the desert. Of course, through the pursuit of those projects, new and bigger ideas have been uncoverd. New directions. Reflections of premeditations in art, world conditions, and the influences they have placed on my work. I am comfortable with those influences, as I'm aware of how lethal they are, how controversial. I want to stir the spirit from slumber. I want art to make war in the soul. I want to produce situations that raise the human experience to their radical extremes, to heightened awareness.

In the end, here in Redford, I see that my true feelings for art and it's power lay in the extreme. In the power to say to people the words they refuse to listen to. The power to bend minds, the force of nature, the conduit of God's voice.
However, as a mortal being inflicted with multiple flaws, I could still use a lot of improvement. My work ethic has wanned a bit in the past couple of years, a poor attribute aquired from a lacking of spirit and faith in myself as an artist, a regard built up around a social upringing that says louder than anything, "you are a failure if you have no money". That is a lie, a stipulation I have tagged to my success as an artist; But also feelings of inadequacies as an artist that build each time I have to stop working in order to build up finances. Art is so much more that money. These things I will overcome.
Therefore, my next move in this chess match of art and the resources to produce work will not be a return to academia. At this point that move would be no more than an eloborate credit card giving my art some illusion of security and importance whilst plunging me far into the darkness of debt, defeating any successes in my work with a mountain of financial burden that is showing it's strangulation upon my entire nation. No, not that road, not for me. I move my pawns back to the highway. My goal now to become debt free, a small undergraduate loan being the last barrier betwixt me and financial freedom. I'm tired of being a slave to monitary machines, I'm tired of it's parasitic depletion on my art, my people, my country. I will move my work forward without restraint, as art must not be restrained. Just as my immaterial feeings of inadequacy must be extinguished, so must the material also be vanquished.
Checkmate.
image detail from the painting The Breaking of the Last Horse

More Cows

2010-01-24T13:21:00.003-06:00

Cow, acrylic on paper, 8 x 10 inches, 2010.

March 2010

2010-01-18T10:16:00.003-06:00

trying to finish up some pictures for Wake the Dead show in San Marcos, March 2010. Feeling good about the content for that establishment. A lot of framing to do for it though, and a couple of larger canvas' pieces still in the works. As for the Big Bend and West Texas, got into another gallery in Alpine (Curry Gallery). They dropped in for a studio visit and took all of my panhandle cotton modules to display. Also still working cattle paintings for the ranching folks out here. The cattle paintings are slowly leading me towards deeper issues, maybe something like the worshipping of the golden calf by the Israelites in the time of Moses. Seems about right for the timing, we'll see. Building up Madres, still. Will have about 10 of those by the time it's over out here. Money well will be dry by March, it looks like, lest I sell some pictures I'm going to have to divert back to the big rig for about 6-8 months! Argh! I can feel my body rejecting that idea already! Got to go see a friend out in Terlingua soon, Hopefully figure out how to do studio/video streaming for the next round out here. And there's a herd of longhorns there, too. Going to cap the cattle paintings with a couple of large examples for the gallery.

Silence

2010-01-15T20:24:00.002-06:00

Nothing will prove it more to them than silence. Some children, despite communication that the stove top will burn, still must burn themselves inspite freely given knowledge. Such is the state of the time. No listening; "We know it all." Therefore, no more talk of what they do not understand. Let them burn their hands.

Remnant

2009-12-31T08:29:00.005-06:00

On the morning of that first day I would come to the collection that the kingdom of my fore-fathers was no more than an old, broken bottomed, glass Coca Cola bottle lying discarded in the desert. Hecho in Mexico. Andy Warhol, you were right.

December 31, 2009. 12:40 a.m. CST

2009-12-31T00:39:00.004-06:00

The moon shines twice.
Here. Blue to it they name.
Sequence compound with sign.
Event.
To the most compound,
anno
Domini.

Only among a time.
Light. Shines twice here.
anno Domini.

And death will flee from us all.

AMeN.

Narrative Apocolypto

2009-12-16T13:51:00.002-06:00

Title link takes you to some more pictures I've been producing. This is of a line that I am continuing on to canvas.

Uvalde Leader News

2009-12-10T09:43:00.002-06:00

The link goes to the Uvalde Leader News website where they shared a write up about some of my art. The article is toned down a lot as I think much of the information I gave the reporter was not even breeching her stratosphere. I'm grateful for the hometown publicity anyhow.

Alpine Public Library

2009-11-22T11:59:00.003-06:00

This picture was donated to the silent auction in support of the new Alpine Public Library, November 2009.

Cow #20, acrylic on paper, 8in.x10in., 2009.

12inx15in.

2009-11-13T18:18:00.002-06:00

Hell Hounds of Redford, oil on paper, 2009.

When art is here too long....

2009-11-13T17:38:00.005-06:00

When work is too long in the studio of art:
No matter how much the amount of it's grace;
It begins to cry out in the realms of the artist's six senses.
Pooring on.
Moaning like laboring pains of woman,
Spearing his heart with tears like the sound of hurting dogs.
Whaling in the echoes of his mind,
Like starving whine of cat.
Haunting him.
Bitter, like demons existing only in flight.
Even when they are given no light and put away,
They hide, seeking him out in traps.
From the even of the shadow they say,
"We are too many; destroy us, and you with it."

A poem by:

JustinWarrenGraham.

Link Memory Flood Recollection

2009-11-04T19:29:00.005-06:00

Checkers was
anno Domini, a.k.a. Anomaly.

Today the Mountains are Ghosts in the Sky.

2009-10-29T10:50:00.004-05:00

Scratch That Yesterday

2009-10-29T09:41:00.002-05:00

Yesterday were winds of the Southern Gulf Coast and Pacific together.

Today
The Winds of The Texas Panhandle have reached the desert.
All the way up from the north.
Dumping cold into Mexico
Air traveling along the Rockies.
The rain clinges to the windows.
That's long way 'round saying it's cold.
Calvary has arrived in the desert.
And up North too.

Brace Up Palo Duro

Wind from The Panhandle

2009-10-28T13:45:00.002-05:00

Air is blowing through the desert today undisturbed by the cracking mountains. Incurring dust to the air worthy of a blue northern sweeping its grasp from Rocky, to plain. The color of the mountains change their details with so much soil in the air. Suddenly, I am on the planet Mars.
And then no more,
Than the moment I am finished typeing,
That the Wind is gone.

Oct 2009.

Redford Texas October of 2009.

2009-10-21T17:02:00.002-05:00

I am working on a desert precedence in which I've been inspired only by dream and subconcious 'til now. In the first books of the New Testament four men give their discription and testimony to the life of Jesus Christ, and what happened in His thirty three years. In these descriptions, each tell of a gentile, a Roman soldier, who pierced the side of the Messiah with an javelin tipped arrow and was subsequently covered by the blood at the foot of the cross. The actual spear he used, known as the Spear of Destiny, is of such an interest to me, that I am compelled to create my own versions of arrows, javlin, markers, staffs. And leave them to the desert. More to come on this, be sure to follow my video documentary; just click on the title above.

Justinwg.

P.S, There will be pictures.

More of It.

2009-10-18T11:37:00.008-05:00

Doodly, pastel ans acrylic on paper, 12"x9", 2009.

Schematics of a Dead Cow, pastel and acrylic on paper, 9"x11.5", 2009.

Friendly Competition le Virtual Vide

2009-10-17T18:00:00.006-05:00

The One From the East, pastelon paper w/acrylic seal, 12"x9", 2009.

The One From the West, pastel on paper w/ acrylic seal, 12"x9", 2009.

Nege-Tism

2009-10-16T15:22:00.006-05:00

Untitled, graphite, pastel with acrylic coat on cardboard, 5.5x6.5, 2009.
Mege - power of the matter.

Nege - a state of energy; i.e. Ne`ge`te
Tism - in the TIME OF.

There's Cannon Fire in Redford Texas.

2009-10-14T12:46:00.004-05:00

Blue Moon Desert Pyramid Black Horse Warfare, acrylic on cotton t-shirt, 2009.

It is Simple. Yet, Hard to Figure Out

2009-10-14T04:15:00.002-05:00

I think one day this particular blog will quit building, giving rise to one with pictures. negetism.blogspot.com

Stop.

2009-10-07T22:45:00.001-05:00

And everything in the studio is miscalculated. = +/-, 2009.

On e-bay now:

2009-10-05T12:00:00.005-05:00

Old Turbo, pastel on paper/acrylic seal, 11x14, unframed, 2009.

Tractor, acrylic on card stock, 6x7, 2008.

Begin

2009-10-04T21:06:00.001-05:00

To understand one must know that everything in the studio is calculated.

Also on e-bay, October 4-11th, 2009.

2009-10-04T19:49:00.005-05:00

plattersaint

Sand Hill Cranes
e-Bay Item number: 330365566827

Sand Hill Elevator
Item number: 330365585710

Clouds. Volcanos.

2009-10-03T19:41:00.008-05:00

R.S.#007, 22hx18w, pastel/acrylic on paper, 2003.

The numbering of the people

11And it came to pass on the twentieth day of the second month, in the second year, that the cloud was taken up from off the tabernacle of the testimony. 12And the children of Isreal took their journeys out of the wilderness of Si'-nai; and the cloud rested in the wilderness of Par'-an. 13And they first took their journey according to the commandment of the LORD by the hand of Moses.14In the first place went the standard of the camp of the children of Judah according to their armies: and over his host was Nah'-shon the son of Am-min'-a-dab.

Hellhounds of Redford for Show and Sale

2009-10-03T14:28:00.007-05:00

On e-Bay October 4th 2009. SOLD!

user I.D. : plattersaint

Blue Devil Dog of Redford TX, 5"x9", oil and graphite on cardboard, 2009.e-Bay Item number: 330365233826

Blue Devil Dog with Three Legs, Redford TX, 5"x9", oil and graphite on cardboard, 2009.e-Bay Item number: 330365235209

Blue Devil Dog of Redford TX, 5"x9", oil and graphite on cardboard, 2009. e-Bay Item number: 330365236472

The World use of Oil

2009-10-02T15:16:00.002-05:00

the tobacco farmers had it wrong, the Sons of Levi were struck down for burning the wrong incense before the LORD, it was displeasing to Him. Smoke. Makes me wonder about smoke of ALL kinds. "Throughout the air", Our lungs are our source for knowledge. It feeds our lungs then our brains, our hearts and Bones. OXYGEN. I think of the SEEDS of the Earth. And realize, the the tobacco men of history made factories, developed oil, wrote some history. I think of the different kinds of smoke. And I wonder still of the pleasurable smoke preferance of the LORD.

813 Revelation Broadcast:

2009-09-30T10:41:00.004-05:00

ISAIAH 42:14-16

The Blindness of the People

14"I have kept silent for a long time,
I have kept still and restrained Myself.
Now like a woman in labor I will groan,
I will both gasp and pant.
15"I will lay waste the mountains and hills
And wither all their vegetation;
I will make rivers into coastlands
And dry up the ponds.
16"I will lead the blind by a way they
do not know,
In paths they do not know I will guide
them.
I will make darkness into light before
them.
And rugged places into plains.
These are the things I will do,
And I will not leave them undone."

Moving to the country....

2009-09-29T21:12:00.005-05:00

More like, moving through the country.
Tasks of the editing.
"Can't they always be left alone?"
It is possible.
But not likely.

"American Baseball Moon", Two holes of a Man's heart, acrylic and charcoal on paper, 2001.

Things in the County of Uvalde are well, for my close proximity, anyhow. Travel plans never go as you first precieve them it seems. Great plans are cut off at whims by these instances of change. Hmmm. Makes me wonder of the day.
Anyhow.

The Time to Date

2009-09-27T13:05:00.013-05:00

The Red Decay FALL Seep is Back in the Spirit of Man.

"Needs A Picture."

Pepsi Break / The Outsider

2009-09-27T10:41:00.005-05:00

Last weekend of September, 2009. I headed back to the Panhandle this last week to get my bearings. Figure out what the next most important move for my art career is to be. I've discovered that not a person on the earth knows my history, or the history of my work, except for a very few. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so that gives me some direction.
Outside from that I traveled to south Texas, Bandera and the Old Spanish Trail, over to Uvalde to give my mom away in marriage, then Tuesday, it's back to the Panhandle to regroup for war paint in Redford. The Panhandle IS the place, though; it's where I'll make my stand. The deal down in Redford, for me, is nothing more than a willing offensive. Greatfully speaking, Redford "rules". It is a good place to be for art. My directions there over this last summer have been primarily directed toward Panhandle objectives. As it turns out, this "crew", of "chicken george and the folk art bunch", aren't really about documenting, they're more about "jacklegging off", or making fun of each other and theirselves. I respect that, it's fun. However, is that REAL folk art? Or, are they just a bunch of copycats who know nothing about the subject in which their engaging? Are they just over edjucated academics trying to nitch themselves into a genre in which they do not belong, or are they just "POP-ing" off? If so that means they are ripe for the kill, and have set themselves up to be knocked out of the way by the real deal. I know where I come from, and I know why I make art. The next three months in Redford are going to be rich. I suggest if you're reading, you watch and subscribe, to them and to me. Here is a video reflecting my acquired attitude:

OPP

2009-09-21T15:02:00.003-05:00

'The desert will remind you of why some like cold water.'

Machines Remind Me

2009-09-21T14:54:00.011-05:00

Chemical Dump, 17hx24w, oil on board, 2008.

Machanes.

Mechanisto-

That I Am Man.

chine;... Shine!

A man is a machine.

~que women` ...?

(wey ma' )
Ma'Ma'

Lady of Guadalupe River'12"x7", resivour acrylic polymer, 2009.

Bofecillos Mountains

2009-09-18T10:30:00.005-05:00

The ART Burials

For seven years I've had the idea to combine artwork and the geocaching sport to engineer some interest of "fine art" into people who are, or are not aware of art working in the new millenia. My intent is to parrallel the experience of the artist creating work with the experience of the patron by creating an adventure. One that would take them somewhere they would not normally go. An event, of family and friends, to hunt down, to find, in an environment a lost artifact. Most pictures I make come from "sets" of three or four. This idea has offered me a chance to break up the set, taking one, if not all, and mysteriously plunging them back into the void in which they came. The whereabouts known only through a set of GPS coordinates, a location number to be sold or released at a certain point it time. Real Adventures of Experience. "Real adventures, Known."

justin.

Redford Desert Landscapes along the Rio Grande

2009-09-14T12:29:00.008-05:00

Wanted to post a few landscapes I've produced in Redford. My main interest has been the agriculture aong the Rio Grande River.

Landscape with house and highway, 9" x 8", oil on board, 2009.

Hellhound Artwork

2009-09-10T16:26:00.005-05:00

For Sale on e-Bay October 4, 2009.

At some point, and that point being a retrospective vision in reverse, thinking, "Where in the Hell did all these damb wicked hounds come from?".

Since the whole tragedy with Chegg dog and the pilgrimage into the desert went down, I had, almost immediately, these visions of Hell Hounds and the dispicable nature of the harsh earth. It inspired a system release of a handfull of narritives on paper regarding Death, the devil, and of course, God. Not everyone is familiar with God's temptation in the desert, but from beyond three months having been here, it is an inviting place. Hidden, like a canyon almost. Like the Valley of Death.
There are brilliant colors against each other here at war and peace but never at rest. They come in tides washing over the seas of endless jagged hot stone filling every gap and void. Truely, the voids found are full of wonder and curiosity beckoning like sirens, "Come in to us, for we have sheltered many." Illusions, to men who boldly trek after them only to find themselves tossed about by gravel and churning sea of their own selfish desires, lost, among the vast thicket sickle spiked claw of the desert's blind grasp, cactus, sharp spine, solar fire.
Water is Spirit. When it's all gone or poisoned or worse, Hell Hounds will rise up in the hearts of men just as they did today and yesterday, but tomorrow they shall be unrestrained, and they'll stalk the desert floor of this earth like the Terrible Lizard.

Lately out in Redford

2009-09-10T13:03:00.002-05:00

Well, I've temporarily resolved a bunny issue on youtube. You see, my colleague, www.chickendeadchicken.com and I, thought it would be a great idea to reinforce the character of mine on youtube by creating a set of videos that played to the slower, seemingly more stupid slow western drawl one can only aquire in the rural west. It has been successful, I believe. We have effectivly began a cast of narative stories, fact of fiction. Here's a few of how they go....

As it turns out, Chicken George is a wicked ole bastard and he just wanted to exploit my suffering and make a fool of me..., therefore....

And at last...

you are current.

What Happens Post Cattle Paintings

2009-09-05T01:11:00.003-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBC81WcWEhE

The Cattle Studies, acrylic on paper, 2009.

2009-08-26T17:50:00.008-05:00

Currently at Kiowa Gallery in Alpine, Texas.

Latest: Site of Sale

2009-08-26T17:40:00.008-05:00

http://negetism.blogspot.com/

Title to the "Demension Negetivity"

2009-08-22T00:22:00.003-05:00

Concerning the Negative Spirit of Humanity

The Interpretation of Music
"Tonight, the bottle let me down." Music. Stop reading and hear it play. One from your day, today. "Tonight, the bottle let me down."
In discerning from the realms an understanding of the music in time, the equation is tested, means by spirit, of addition, to the lyrics if added. Musica, in itself, is on it's ownstanding, however, it is the addition of verbal communication which begins the span of human opinion. The melody of all things Man are, in themselves, great works of orchestra: the guitar, electricity, the operation of the machine (the engine).
Therefore, in the instances of music, the patterns are swayed to positive or negative by the simple word of lyric. An experiance positive/negative.

It's August

2009-08-06T21:50:00.002-05:00

Where does time go? One would think that coming out to the desert would slow things down a bit from the hustle and bustle of the central American life, but in fact, I believe it has sped the clock hands further. So then there is work. There is the battle between one's self and the things that prevent one from fully expressing one's self. The maze, the labrinth. Most of my reporting goes to youtube, where I'm leaving traces of my existence here and there. But many who know me know that. Awww. Random thoughts of rambling throughout the mind. Preoccupation of just how and what paths would best fit doing things the best way. I wonder if Michealangelo ever had days where he worked extremely hard but only chipped away a small amount? I wonder if there were days when he chipped away at all? Or days when he raged and threw hammers and distressed? I'm certain of it. And now I feel just a little bit better.

Before and After Cooking with Chicken George

2009-07-19T02:06:00.000-05:00

Well, ladies and gentlemen, things out here in Redford have been going well; if it doesn't bother too many gramatical wizards using "well" at the beginning and ending of a sentence. You'll probably tell me I should have used parenthesis on that last part aswell, but, no matter, as my eldest brother always says, in his hardest strike at sarcasm, "Care".
Once the heat barrier is adequatly adapted to, and the body and mind overcome the lack of sleep incurred by this ruthless environment, ideas and aspirations of the mind begin to function with more clarity and focus. The realization that this sort of condition, this time to art alone is exactly what I've been working towards yet unable to grasp again for at least the last three years. When one finds the perfect drug of life, the human mind and the action, the belief is that the "high", the action, can be sustained without interuption. This is the concept of some utopian ideologies. However, the universe is flawed, and I with it; therefore, a sustained homeostatic relationship with my art or anything of this earth for that matter, is hereby unattainable. What a great weight this understanding removes from my shoulders! And a lesson in the growth of art, in living, in the human experience. That nothing on or of this earth should dominate our existence.
The Actual Blog Entry

Our apartment studios here in Redford have individual butane canisters which set about 20 yards away from each apartment. I think that all the hot water heaters run off electricity but the stove top ovens are gas powered, which always makes for a better oven, in my opinion. The fifteenth of July marked my one month aniversary of coming out to the desert and since that time I have been able to keep my kitchen relatively clean and free of ant infestations. However, in the last couple of days, my neighbor to the south has run out of natural gas in his canister (Chicken George) and has come over to cook on my stove every once in awhile. It seems tonight, he has brought his legion of ants with him. They are like his soldier ants. A mighty chicken king with many slaves who follow wherever he goes to simply clean up after him. Trouble is, he left them over in my kitchen, and they are after whet ever secret ingredients he uses in his recipes. No worries. I find it a bit comical.
As for my other doings, heres the latest video about the natural spirit of the desert and the great pains it delivers upon the art makers who choose to fall into her snare. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlcdnm4hR34

All day long I drink iced tea

2009-07-12T23:11:00.000-05:00

Well, well, well. How does an animal survive in the desert? To tell the truth, I don't know. But I can tell you, if tea is taxed like tobacco, I will go to war; because all day long I drink iced tea, it's the only way I survive in the desert. HahA.
By now, I'm beginning to wonder about this place and it's long term effects. I've noticed that there have been transitions from the "civilized" man into the one who "speaks as a voice in the wildness." What are they? Let's see, oh what could they be? Well, for starters, it never cools off. That's right. What would you do if you no longer had the sweet luxury of HVAC technowledgy? HVAC, thats Central Heating and Air Conditioning for those of you who think sheetrock walls are made of solid stone. Yes. In fact the body and the mind transition under extreme conditions and the soul begins to reinterpret the universe, it begins to understand with just a bit more clarity the bond between the human spirit and nature. Maybe everyone could use a little more time out in it, away from the bustle of invented comfort. Perhaps we all need a realignment, like the rennassiance. But I feel something far bigger than such an event welling in the horizon of my bones. Rejoice! For the best is yet to be!

Like a comet crosses the sky, the days slip by and by. Last week was the Fourth of July U.S.A. Independence Day celebration. I found myself hangin' with Chicken George out in Marathon, Texas. A funfilled day it was. Started with a bbq lunch and on to an afternoon sitting as chili cookoff judges. Later, there was a small roadside artshow, a short time at a famous hotel bar, then on to the rolls our trio played as wedding crashers. Free beer and shrimp. That's where I scored these firework photos, posing as a wedding photographer. After the family made Chicken George and his "devil with a red dress on", we had to move on to the final event, a dance out in the absolute middle of nowhere. Now you don't get much more fortunate than that. I had a great time. Hope everyone out there remembers theirs, and for good reason. Live free, or Die. Adios y via con Dios.

BOOM!!

Last Weekend in June

2009-07-01T22:02:00.000-05:00

Reunion de Familia

The last weekend in June is celebrated by my family as the Graham Family Reunion, my father's name. It is one of the four times, over the course of each summer, in which family members all get together for a reunion. Each one is of a different name, for example, there is the Graham, the Calloway, the Hayes, and the Carr, and each is held in a different location in Texas. It's been awhile since I was able to make it to the Graham reunion; But, with the development of digital recording devices, cameras, video cams, computer software and so on, I thought it a good time to try and document the stories of youth from the last of a generation that was my Grandfathers; Only now, I wish I had begun fifteen years ago.
Since most of them are already gone there are only a few left to get diamonds of information from such as my Great Aunt Neoma, pictured here, who spoke to me, on the record, about where her parents (my grandfathers parents)and their grandparents came from. As it turns out, my great great grandfather was in the Indian Wars of the late 1800's when men were settling the prairie. In a battle he was wounded and lost is horse but found refuge in a hollowed tree log. Later, a young Cherokee Indian woman found him, took pity on him, and nursed him back to health. They were later married.
Moreover, she told me storie from the 1930's, 40's, and 50's about how her and her husband developed a cement foundry, and were responsible for the establishment of many water wells, cement grain elevators, many Wal-Mart foundations, and later the foundations for the wind energy windmills. Who could have known that documenting the elders was so enlightening? I recomend it. Their stories are made of determination and will, and the knowledge is powerful.

In the end, the panhandle trip to visit family bore great fruit, not to mention the rain that region has received. It has really boosted my father's garden into overdrive, and I was able to reap some of the fresh reward. Thanks, dad. In the meantime, it's back out to Redford, and the pursuit of The Great Commission.

Second Outing in the Desert

2009-06-23T21:20:00.000-05:00

Well, today was just full of great suprises. I've come accustomed to painting near my truck. In the panhandle, It's flat enough most everywhere that you can just pull right up and paint off the tailgate. But not out here. On my first run out I was able to do a little off roading to get a great perspective on a landscape. I've been drawn into the valley of the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande) and the farming that is done there. It seems to be the likely transition from the agriculture of the plains. Today, I investigated a position off a small ridge and once again thought I'd just drive on out, and so I did. One problem, picked up a thorn or two in not one but two different tires. Not good, I tried to jockey my truck for a turn around but made the mistake of leading the nose end a little ways off the downgrade. That caused gravity to take hold of the motor and when I tried to reverse out it dug the back tires into the soft gravel dirt of the desert. Whoops. Maybe the heat'd cooked my squash. At this point not only am I not getting any painting done, but I'm stuck with two tires going flat. These are the type of hitches I'm used to seeing with plain air painting, it's kind of like if The Duke Boys decided to start painting. I once had to walk back to the house from five miles out on a position I set up on in the panhandle for the same reason. Someone borrowed my jack. What good is a spare without a jack? What good is a spare with two tires going flat? Anyhow, there was only one way out of there, and that was a short desent off the side of that small revine and onto a dirt road below. The last bit of the trail was about a four foot drop at a nearly vertcal grade. Thank Jesus He was pushing and I had enough speed to get the front bumper out of the ground, not get high centered, and make it onto the road surface. It wasn't too bad. I made it into Presidio and had to replace one tire (cut sidewall) and fixed the flat on the other. I need to sell some paintings and get some real tires. Still made it out there before dark and got my picture made. I should have a t.v. crew following me around. If they make shows about the Ice Road Truckers they ought to find interest in the shenanigans I get myself into. Whew! This sure is fun!