Apologies for the shadow I threw across the painting when I took the picture.
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Cabins Part Deux
Monday, May 12, 2014
First attempt at painting
I decided that before I went back to drawing I wanted to play with painting a little to see if I could do that too. Unfortunately, the painting was ruined by an accident. I am rebuilding it from a slightly different perspective and using a different technique.
Monday, July 29, 2013
A Side of Turkey
It's been a while since I did any fiction writing, but a few of the people at The Refuge have been talking about it and I decided to start up again. Having been out of the mix for a while I struggled to find an idea that I felt was worthwhile. Fortunately, an article online was helpful and suggested just spending a lot of time asking, "What if?" It was late at night and there was a bright flash outside that lit the house through multiple windows. It only took me a couple moments to realize that it was a lightning bolt from a passing storm. I asked myself, but what if it wasn't...
No, he hadn’t been dreaming. It was something else, but what? He wished his wife would stop snoring and junior wasn’t jammed in between them like a radiant heater stuck on high. Maybe that was it. Maybe the kid had kicked him. Great, kicked awake at, good grief, three-forty-eight in the morning with a presentation to make tomorrow for the Wilkinson account.
Taking a deep breath he closed his eyes again. Maybe he’d still be able to squeeze in a couple more hours before the wife’s hair dryer blasted him awake. And then he could see the inside of his eyelids. It was one of those moments where a person isn't quite sure what they are seeing, but know they had seen it before. Suddenly the red world of flesh and capillaries disappeared. He felt the bed shudder a bit beneath him.
Wide awake now his eyes snapped open again. What was that?! Stepping to the window he peered out into the darkness, except it was not dark. The sky was brilliantly lit with greens, whites and blues. Thousands upon thousands of streaks racing all in the same direction. Or rather out of the same direction - a bright light hanging low over the horizon and flying out of it the streamers of light. Suddenly one of them flashed like lightning and disappeared. There was a dull rumble that he could feel more than hear.
He stared at the spectacle for a while and thought about waking his wife, but realized if he did then junior would wake up too and then they would never get him back to bed. The meteors, and how could they be anything but meteors, were not decreasing in any way, in fact they seemed to be ever so slightly increasing. He decided he might as well give up on sleep and go watch the show. Maybe even see if there was anything on the television about it.
“...completely unlike anything we have ever seen before. This is nothing like the Leonid or Perseid showers in November and August! This is absolutely massive...,” the scientist turned cable television personality nearly shouted. The guy was not one of those real scientists, he just knew about as much as some high school teacher and got himself a spot on the evening news a few years ago talking about methane explosions or something. Now he was suddenly an expert on meteor showers.
“So, what you’re saying is this is a once in a lifetime event?” asked the woman who was far too chipper for this early in the morning. Must be on Cocaine, he thought.
“No! I’m saying this is unprecedented!” the fake scientist was getting shrill, “That bright dot is a comet and we’re looking right up it’s tail...,” he kept droning on about the moon and approach angles and slingshots and a bunch of other stuff.
Outside the light show was brighter than before. In fact that big light in the sky that he now knew to be a comet was much bigger. The thunder was growing louder too. It seemed that the comet had moved higher above the horizon. As he watched it he realized that it was growing, and quite fast too.
The slower meteors, if they could be called slow, were now more obvious to him as they flashed and exploded. The comet was filling half the sky and the rumble was turning into a low roar.
“....near Oklahoma...” he barely heard the t.v. nerd say. Well, maybe I’ll get interviewed in the morning. Couldn’t hurt to have old man Wilkinson see me on television when’s he’s eating his egg whites and...
At that very moment the comet grew insanely huge and the man felt something like hot rain searing his skin while a pungent scent attacked his nose. Standing in his backyard in his boxers while staring into the light his last thoughts, the thoughts of the first man ever to physically touch a comet, were of turkey bacon and a blue-green screaming demon.
A Side of Turkey
He opened his eyes and sat staring into the dark wondering why exactly he was awake. He lay motionless listening. The box fan in the window hummed on the low setting but there were no odd noises. Maybe it was a dream. He had always been the sort to have bad dreams. There was the one with the giant wolf and then there was the other with the screaming demon head. He shivered a bit at the thought of that one. Why the demon was a pale blue-green he never could figure out, but it scared the hell out of him.No, he hadn’t been dreaming. It was something else, but what? He wished his wife would stop snoring and junior wasn’t jammed in between them like a radiant heater stuck on high. Maybe that was it. Maybe the kid had kicked him. Great, kicked awake at, good grief, three-forty-eight in the morning with a presentation to make tomorrow for the Wilkinson account.
Taking a deep breath he closed his eyes again. Maybe he’d still be able to squeeze in a couple more hours before the wife’s hair dryer blasted him awake. And then he could see the inside of his eyelids. It was one of those moments where a person isn't quite sure what they are seeing, but know they had seen it before. Suddenly the red world of flesh and capillaries disappeared. He felt the bed shudder a bit beneath him.
Wide awake now his eyes snapped open again. What was that?! Stepping to the window he peered out into the darkness, except it was not dark. The sky was brilliantly lit with greens, whites and blues. Thousands upon thousands of streaks racing all in the same direction. Or rather out of the same direction - a bright light hanging low over the horizon and flying out of it the streamers of light. Suddenly one of them flashed like lightning and disappeared. There was a dull rumble that he could feel more than hear.
He stared at the spectacle for a while and thought about waking his wife, but realized if he did then junior would wake up too and then they would never get him back to bed. The meteors, and how could they be anything but meteors, were not decreasing in any way, in fact they seemed to be ever so slightly increasing. He decided he might as well give up on sleep and go watch the show. Maybe even see if there was anything on the television about it.
“...completely unlike anything we have ever seen before. This is nothing like the Leonid or Perseid showers in November and August! This is absolutely massive...,” the scientist turned cable television personality nearly shouted. The guy was not one of those real scientists, he just knew about as much as some high school teacher and got himself a spot on the evening news a few years ago talking about methane explosions or something. Now he was suddenly an expert on meteor showers.
“So, what you’re saying is this is a once in a lifetime event?” asked the woman who was far too chipper for this early in the morning. Must be on Cocaine, he thought.
“No! I’m saying this is unprecedented!” the fake scientist was getting shrill, “That bright dot is a comet and we’re looking right up it’s tail...,” he kept droning on about the moon and approach angles and slingshots and a bunch of other stuff.
Outside the light show was brighter than before. In fact that big light in the sky that he now knew to be a comet was much bigger. The thunder was growing louder too. It seemed that the comet had moved higher above the horizon. As he watched it he realized that it was growing, and quite fast too.
The slower meteors, if they could be called slow, were now more obvious to him as they flashed and exploded. The comet was filling half the sky and the rumble was turning into a low roar.
“....near Oklahoma...” he barely heard the t.v. nerd say. Well, maybe I’ll get interviewed in the morning. Couldn’t hurt to have old man Wilkinson see me on television when’s he’s eating his egg whites and...
At that very moment the comet grew insanely huge and the man felt something like hot rain searing his skin while a pungent scent attacked his nose. Standing in his backyard in his boxers while staring into the light his last thoughts, the thoughts of the first man ever to physically touch a comet, were of turkey bacon and a blue-green screaming demon.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
By tomorrow...
Yesterday I crashed and burned. Bad. It all just came apart at once. I left work and went for a drive. Eventually I ended up down by the Snake River. It was a place that I had visited numerous times throughout the years and I occasionally find myself drawn there when things get tough.
I stood there for a while gazing into the water and watching the massive trout rising below to sip insects from the surface. The sound of falling water was in the background and the pungent scent of old river water filled my head.
Nearby is an old power station. There used to be two of them that competed to provide power to the nearby town. They sat on opposite sides of the river and occasionally the operators would take pot shots at each other with .22 rimfire rifles leaving bullet scars on their stone walls. Now the area is overshadowed by a huge dam with massive turbines the likes of which those old boys never could have imagined.
Today I took the day off and then took another drive. I went in a different direction and ended up on back roads I had never seen before. A sign warned "rough road" which seemed to be a signal to the roads department to just let the potholes be. I dodged around them swinging wide from one side of the road to another.
Occasionally out here you take a turn and find an old homestead. I can't help but think about the people who built them, their desire to make a good life for themselves, and then they left it all behind. Sometimes it's obvious that the old house was the original homesteader and there's another place built right next door in the 1920's or so and then another next to that built even later. This one though sat all alone in a valley.
Clearly they had put some time into it. That was a nice place back in the day and it's held up pretty well. Someone put a lot of extra work into making those gables and extra windows. But they left, so I did too.
Eventually I found myself on a long lonely road that crosses the northern edge of the Snake River plain. I had intended to go another way, but this was good enough. Eventually I saw a sign for Atomic City and hit the brakes.
It's an odd place. It quite literally sits out in the middle of nowhere. Nearby is the Idaho National Laboratory where nuclear power was first investigated by the U.S. government. It was there that the nation's first nuclear reactors were designed and built. It was there too that the first nuclear submarine was designed and tested in a huge tank some 600 miles from the ocean by Admiral Rickover. It's also the area where the first ever fatal nuclear accident occurred. That was on the Army's watch, Rickover never would have let it happen.
Atomic "City" was the first town in the world lit by nuclear power as a test by the finest engineering minds in the nation. There's almost nothing there now despite its brush with history. A race track was built for some strange reason. There's a fire station to deal with range fires and it seems that there are a couple decent houses for the folks that man it. The rest is dilapidated, empty, eternally for sale.
Things are looking a little up though. The 2010 census showed that population had increased over the last decade. The number of families in town had increased 30% to 9 and overall population had risen 16% to 29 souls. Still, it's clear they have a way to go to get back to the heydays of 1950 when 250 people lived their lives here.
To get to Atomic City you take the turn at the old Quonset hut that's been turned into a bar. It's easy to find, someone made an attempt to make it look Irish by painting a couple shamrocks on plywood. There's a paved road into town, but all the others are still dirt just as they were back in 1950 when its name was changed from Midway to the more ambitious label it still bears today.
The only thing ambitious in town today was a large turkey vulture eating dinner on the road. Some rabbit had hopped it's last.
There was at one time the Twin Buttes Bar named after the two buttes that rise to the North. I suppose that in a place like Atomic City all you could do was get well lubricated and try to avoid the burning summer heat or hide from the biting winter winds. I can't imagine how depressing it would have been to walk into that place for a cold one and then step back outside and realize that things hadn't improved.
Mysteriously a couple cars and an ancient RV are now parked in the gravel that serves as a parking lot. Where the two Fireside Pizza signs came from I couldn't guess. As with all old towns some things just kind of show up, stay, rust, and soon nobody thinks about them anymore. A few decades later they're still there.
Apparently your car could get well lubricated too...
By the time I snapped this picture someone in a fire district truck was keeping an eye on me. I guess I looked kind of suspicious. After all, who comes to visit Atomic City today?
I turned back onto the road and frightened off the giant bird again on my way back to the old highway. In my mirror I could see the vulture return happily to its meal. By tomorrow there will be nothing left.
I stood there for a while gazing into the water and watching the massive trout rising below to sip insects from the surface. The sound of falling water was in the background and the pungent scent of old river water filled my head.
Nearby is an old power station. There used to be two of them that competed to provide power to the nearby town. They sat on opposite sides of the river and occasionally the operators would take pot shots at each other with .22 rimfire rifles leaving bullet scars on their stone walls. Now the area is overshadowed by a huge dam with massive turbines the likes of which those old boys never could have imagined.
Today I took the day off and then took another drive. I went in a different direction and ended up on back roads I had never seen before. A sign warned "rough road" which seemed to be a signal to the roads department to just let the potholes be. I dodged around them swinging wide from one side of the road to another.
Occasionally out here you take a turn and find an old homestead. I can't help but think about the people who built them, their desire to make a good life for themselves, and then they left it all behind. Sometimes it's obvious that the old house was the original homesteader and there's another place built right next door in the 1920's or so and then another next to that built even later. This one though sat all alone in a valley.
Clearly they had put some time into it. That was a nice place back in the day and it's held up pretty well. Someone put a lot of extra work into making those gables and extra windows. But they left, so I did too.
Eventually I found myself on a long lonely road that crosses the northern edge of the Snake River plain. I had intended to go another way, but this was good enough. Eventually I saw a sign for Atomic City and hit the brakes.
It's an odd place. It quite literally sits out in the middle of nowhere. Nearby is the Idaho National Laboratory where nuclear power was first investigated by the U.S. government. It was there that the nation's first nuclear reactors were designed and built. It was there too that the first nuclear submarine was designed and tested in a huge tank some 600 miles from the ocean by Admiral Rickover. It's also the area where the first ever fatal nuclear accident occurred. That was on the Army's watch, Rickover never would have let it happen.
Atomic "City" was the first town in the world lit by nuclear power as a test by the finest engineering minds in the nation. There's almost nothing there now despite its brush with history. A race track was built for some strange reason. There's a fire station to deal with range fires and it seems that there are a couple decent houses for the folks that man it. The rest is dilapidated, empty, eternally for sale.
Things are looking a little up though. The 2010 census showed that population had increased over the last decade. The number of families in town had increased 30% to 9 and overall population had risen 16% to 29 souls. Still, it's clear they have a way to go to get back to the heydays of 1950 when 250 people lived their lives here.
To get to Atomic City you take the turn at the old Quonset hut that's been turned into a bar. It's easy to find, someone made an attempt to make it look Irish by painting a couple shamrocks on plywood. There's a paved road into town, but all the others are still dirt just as they were back in 1950 when its name was changed from Midway to the more ambitious label it still bears today.
The only thing ambitious in town today was a large turkey vulture eating dinner on the road. Some rabbit had hopped it's last.
There was at one time the Twin Buttes Bar named after the two buttes that rise to the North. I suppose that in a place like Atomic City all you could do was get well lubricated and try to avoid the burning summer heat or hide from the biting winter winds. I can't imagine how depressing it would have been to walk into that place for a cold one and then step back outside and realize that things hadn't improved.
Mysteriously a couple cars and an ancient RV are now parked in the gravel that serves as a parking lot. Where the two Fireside Pizza signs came from I couldn't guess. As with all old towns some things just kind of show up, stay, rust, and soon nobody thinks about them anymore. A few decades later they're still there.
Apparently your car could get well lubricated too...
By the time I snapped this picture someone in a fire district truck was keeping an eye on me. I guess I looked kind of suspicious. After all, who comes to visit Atomic City today?
I turned back onto the road and frightened off the giant bird again on my way back to the old highway. In my mirror I could see the vulture return happily to its meal. By tomorrow there will be nothing left.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Art
For an INTP art is extremely important. It helps us to explore emotions, be creative, and fully engage in a single task that blocks out everything else. For me photography plays a big role in my art. Here's a sample in no particular order.
Please don't steal my images. Just enjoy them. :-)
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