Older material from California trip, starting with image from Palmdale/Lancaster area towards I-5 and Valencia area generally, then onto 126 through Santa Paula/Fillmore to the coast. There was a forest fire behind the coastal range, up near Santa Maria or Santa Ynez I think. The smoke reddened the setting sun and hazy sky. The second row is of an aquaduct/channel for water, presumably to serve irrigation of the numerous nearby orange groves. Closing with nocturnes of a garden on drip irrigation system.

A branching riff from one afternoon at the Pony Pasture.

I forgot to mention about the previous fire-water posts. Although the pairings all suggest devastation, violence, etc.. and look somewhat apocalyptic, the pairs actually reflect more healthy stewardship of ranch land. In response to the drought, which is serious, mesquite and cedars were cleared into numerous brush piles to be burned. The cedars, which grow quickly and invasively consume a lot of what little water there is and I believe are a non-native species (the mesquite I think are native). Apparently this allows for the prairie grasses to cover the soil instead and promotes groundwater recharge, more volume and better flow into and through the limestone below the topsoil. Since learning of this, I wanted to see the pairings between the two related activities, the drought and conservation, water and, curiously, fire. A bit of a creator-destroyer mythology that got my attention. Of course it was acknowledged that the smoke from the fires wasn't the greenest solution, but given the conditions was an interesting lesson on several interconnected topics between water conservation, soil, geology, native and non-native species, and....fire. The area had just received some rain prior to and during our visit, and the washes were running well with water.  It was pretty beautiful since the area dramatically reflected the impact of the drought otherwise.

Here's a couple of other over&unders. I'm probably getting a little repetitive here, but so it goes. For filing purposes I have to title all these things, some pretty free associative or goofy, others bland and descriptive, and this top one, with the hands, I titled on a whim, "dusk knot" which I now think should be a band name. Obviously, I like the play of lines between the knot and the horizon, large hand and small land, and a very faint yellow-violet complementary action, well almost violet.

More TexasXmas over&unders. These are simple fire and water pairings grouped under the working title of "hemispheres" 1, 2, 3, etc. for lack of a better idea.

Jim, the new work has prompted return visits, very nice, and with each visit I'm reminded that these all beg close looking, probably at the real deals, especially the photo-paint pieces which are especially elusive conceptually and technically (very Dutch). The threshold pieces are intricate marriages of your twin loves for contemporary landscape and Bellini's Renaissance and beg the same close scrutiny since the spaces seem finely tuned, even if they are unfinished. Beautiful light all around, and the four seasons pieces slow everything down for that consideration of light to soak in. I like the threshold idea applied to the photo-paint pieces as well that are not just spatial thresholds, but also media thresholds as well, both conceptually rich. Keep that freak flag flying. On clear days I can see it from Virginia.

I've thrown in some triptych Texas-Xmas stuff. Some better than others, or just different. I'm working on some more over&unders, many with a fire-water split. That later, this for now...

Additional Projects

These are some new landscapes that I am working on that are part of a suite of the four seasons. The top piece (summer) is on Mt. Cadillac in Acadia National Park (done). The next piece (autumn) is a view near Brunswick,ME on a Foggy Oct morning (almost done). The third piece (spring) is a marsh near Rowley, MA (unfinished). The suite will finish out with a winter view of the autumn location.

The bottom vertical pieces are additional works dealing with the idea of thresholds, but in this case they are oil paintings (both unfinished) that are painted over archival photographic prints on a stretched canvas. I am curious about the relationship between painting and photography, and how they both impact our ability to visualize the environment.


Sorry for the somewhat droll description of things guys, I started by cutting and pasting from the other loose ends blog  (http://jamesmullenpaintings.blogspot.com/) that I am sending a curator towards about possible inclusion in a landscape show at a small school in NH this spring.I guess that I am reluctant to direct anyone to this site at this point, because I really appreciate that this is our own space where I can let my freak flag fly without worrying about self-editing. But if you guys feel differently, I am happy to talk, since all things change (y'know, like rivers. Do you like how I brought that all back?)  I am really excited by some of the possibilities for this stuff, but just need to find a way to get more time to work on it. Maybe I need to find a way to utilize the iPad more since it is so portable. I know, bitch, moan, bitch, moan...

Recent Projects

My current studio work investigates ideas about thresholds where we interface with nature. Some are literal thresholds, and others are more indirectly explored, like images that exists as paintings or photos in the work. The two larger pieces are 60" x 40" oil on canvas. The smaller two studies are oil on acrylic sheet, 18" x 14".

One last flurry of over&unders.

Here's some side-by-sides from Texas Xmas. I'm still sorting through these things.  Not all of the images I have are this gothic or grey or foreboding (I was truly very happy to be out there seeing and shooting the things I saw, really beautiful things -could be the Norwegian coming through), these just happen to be ones shot on the grey days that I was there. I have others with sun, really. The flat light was wonderful actually for clarifying color or planes/space in many cases. The drought there, and beyond, is serious however. Top two are of a stock tank, the lower one of a seasonal creek that had ran due to recent, welcomed rain.  The colors and texture I can't even touch on here, really stunning the water's cool, pale aqua coloring to the limestone creek bed.

Those "ambro-pours" of yours Mike are a great addition.

These are ambrotypes of sheet

film shot through a light box. The traces are from dripping fixer, a solvent, onto the silver emulsion and coaxing the fixer in various directions to eat the silver, leaving the film clear in certain places and to varying degrees. I am flailing around for ways to get closer to the action of wet and chemical forces, akin to the river and the wet plate process...