Surround yourself with friends who really understand you

I don't know if you remember but way back when I was in my forties I had an accident while on the widow maker. An update is in order but first get a look at the card I received yesterday. It seems someone had the wrong birthday party on their GPS when they showed up. The retirement community is just down the road. I really don't know why they stuck around and left it (the card) but it sure would've been funny for someone who is getting up there in age. Here I will mention though that there were a number of attendees who are also eying the half-century mark. I won't name names (last names) but Elsa, Scott, Kurt and a good-sized pile of our contemporaries are about to join the fun. And now that I have passed through the time portal I must tell you that life over here is full of wonder and indescribable joys. Yes, the grass really is greener on this side of the fence and I plan to gallop like a young colt o'er the verdant hills and vales spread out before me with nary a care in the world and a Mona Lisa smile stuck to my face for many years to come.
The leg is almost in a position to do the galloping and but for a bit of swelling everything is healing up nicely. The painting pictured here is titled "The Fire Within" ...made on my birthday. No slacking here.

Year Of Jubilee

Three of the four kids are in college. They left the house today early am with my unheeded but loaded words trailing behind like so much fragrant leaded-gas exhaust fumes from my dad's '62 Rambler. (boy did that stuff smell good) "Just remember, I've already forgotten more than you'll ever know". It seems they don't really get the big picture sometimes and the older I get the more I'm aware that this picture show doesn't last forever. Lucky for me this will be the best 50th birthday I've ever had. The kids will gather around a big ol' table along with friends and family from far and wide and we will all pay homage to the amazing grace of God that keeps and protects us for so long. My uncle Bob put it pretty well once when he sang, "...By this time I'd-a thought that I would be sleepin' in a pine box for all eternity". Well, here I am on the eve of the jubilee year celebration. Carmen got me a new guitar (Epiphone es-335) and we're fixin' to roast-up a few goats and chickens and have us a regular shindig. There should be lots of festivating and general merrymaking and as the evening winds down, like all good Hobbits, we will pull out our Churchwardens and silently contemplate the morrow. Stay tuned for new paintngs to come from my well-seasoned half century-old hand.

Orange Blossom 24x30, Jaques Marsh 24x18

Just before i spit out a big mouthful of red oil paint I woke up. I'm glad i did 'cause I was about to slobber all over my pillow. It's just that the dream was so vivid. I guess I've been wondering what cad. red tastes like. Well, now I know or at least I think I do. (If you're interested, it tastes like frosting off a cup cake...till you realize it's oil paint, then you need to cough it up) Last night my junior high buddy Randy and i were climbing a snow covered hill. We kept pulling each other down as we clambered to get to the top. It was a grand and hilarious old time playing king-of-the-hill 'till Carmen started jabbing me in the ribs thinking she was rescuing me from a terrible nightmare. It seems my dream laughs come through as whimpers of fright and sounds of sobbing.
So you see, waking or sleeping, the tortured artist's soul finds no reprieve from the bouts of conscience and pangs of guilt, anxiety and self loathing we are constantly bombarded with. This is my burden and I gladly bear it for you.

Blue Moon II, Asuwer

Two new paintings to keep the subscription current.

Skylark 18x24 Man With Book

The picture above kind of reminds me of the time I was caught grave robbing in central America. I was forced to return a skull and some amulets carved from black coral and jade. It was probably for the better and since no one really ever asks why I don't have an ancient human skull encrusted with rubies and diamonds in my collection of artifacts I guess it's not missed...that much.
The evening was warm and the salt air diffused all light, casting an amber haze and foggy halo to every silhouette. I lay there with a great book in my hand letting my eyes adjust to the fragrant verses before me. Wonderful Names of Our Wonderful Lord was the title. A trio of fat-bellied spiders hung suspiciously in the corner above the bed and they cast huge shadows on the rough plastered red brick wall. Carmen was afraid. I laughed. They moved with clumsy, mechanical motions. Before the light went out this picture was taken. I dreamed that a Black Widow spider bit my finger and it glowed like burning coal, then turned black and fell off. So you see, the sources for painting inspiration are endless. All you have to do is risk life and limb and travel to the ends of the earth and eat piles of questionable food and learn several foreign languages and loose your health and get dengue fever and malaria and hepatitis. And then...buy a set of oil paints!

Los Mocosos, Petra, Jessica, Susanna, Adriel

This video contains the song of the meadowlark described in the blog post below. You can hear it clearly all throughout this short and silly comedy which contains another song in the foreground. It is not worth translating. (just look up "moco" in Spanish if you really have to know) But if you'd like to know what the meadowlarks are saying just write me at LosHawkins@yahoo and I will transcribe it for you. Carmen and i were near the coast at her folks sleepy little farming/fishing town called Los Buidbores. It's about 450 miles south of the border (from Az.) in Sonora state Mexico. Banditos were all around us, as you can see, and of course I was able to fend them off with my sword and cane as any gentlemen would.

Wine River 20x15

We made another raid into enemy territory and returned unscathed and none the worse for it, I think. It would be incorrect to say the song of the meadowlark was the great highlight of our journey but the bucolic birds were out in full force giving full throat to their magical song. One morning I was enjoying the metallic and echoed notes while sleepily lazing on the veranda in our family hacienda. My melodic and melancholy muse was suddenly cracked asunder by a blaring loudspeaker announcing some sort of propaganda as an old, rusty truck of questionable make and vintage rumbled its way down the salt/dirt track between wheat fields to our little pueblo, Los Buidbores. I scarcely paid but a half-cocked ear to what the clamorous ruckus was about. Giant megaphones tied to the top of the cab let everyone within a 5 mile radius know what we never knew we were missing and that we could get it here and now "Servicio al Domicilio" as we say in ol' Mejico. I was prescient, however, of the fact that my morning meditation and mood, as powerfully alluring and dreamy and compelling as it was, could now never be recovered. I gave myself then to listening (at 10 million decibels did I have a choice?) to the offer proffered over the loudest loudspeakers I've ever heard. And almost suddenly and without warning I was translated from one charmed hypnosis to another. Wait! What's this? A "magical potion made from shark's liver that will heal broken bones and relieve aching joints". They had me now. Am I so susceptible to the allures of modern sorcery and fish parts that I just give in to the first batch of snake oil I see? I guess the answer is yes. I bought a 3 dollar jar of the magical cream and chatted it up with the salesman for a good 5 minutes while my wife stood there grinning and chuckling at my gullibility. As we walked away from the little mobile pharmacy the loudspeaker declared..."You see that couple walking there? ...just now they were cured of a terrible cold and cough". A cough, what was he talking about? I've got a bunch of screws and a steel rod waiting to burst out of my leg at every step!

I hope to upload a video soon. In the background you can hear the meadowlark song. It's a bit different than the western meadowlark we're all used to. Maybe two notes shorter. It could be a Lilian's Meadowlark. Anyway, I will try to channel their watery, golden-flute song into my next few paintings.