Sun Soaked Hills and Then the Fog Comes Rolling In.

Last week I was intrigued by an impressionist painting I saw in my extensive collection of random images on my computer. “Wait a minute,” I said, before quickly backing up  to take a better look. I stopped, captivated by a painting of a bright wide sandy beach with two women under their beach umbrella. In the distance, and at the top of the painting, was a deep grey sky with the silhouette of darker grey trees against the horizon.

I lingered here fascinated. Out of nowhere, an artist from another century had captured a situation that I am very familiar with. Most summers in West Marin vacillate  between fog bound or sun bound.  The sky and bright yellow hills of the summer months bounce madly between  contrasts that are played out any time, sometimes several times daily, as the fog and the sun play between blinding brightness and replicating the dark evening grays of oncoming night. 

Over the many years I have lived here I have seen hundreds of variations of these two colors. Sometimes the fog is almost black as it hides the sky and other times it is iridescent as slices of sunlight pierce through and transform  yellow ochre fields into white gold. 

At these times I am exultant that I paint with oil paint. I am conscious that with oils I can move through tones and colors that, if not reflect, at least hint, at the fast and vast shades of colors with which the natural world resonates. Oil paint, for me, releases the perfume of deep sensuousness so that painting becomes a real life event. Even if the final result is a simple shape or form, something remains, as if a  beautiful woman passed, leaving a movement of air or whiff of perfume. The practice of painting is so rich and deep, that like poetry, it cannot be taken lightly or quickly, but is soul material that goes through metamorphosis slowly.

My small painting of the fog and hills captures for me a spark plug experience from the mind to the heart to the hand. These simple elements of hill and sky, yellow and black have become part of my life force language for so long, and now, I have the means to recognize them and  honor them in oil paint.