I continue to get out and about in my Portland neighborhood, painting whatever resonates with my quirky instincts. I plant my easel on the sidewalk, set up my palette, and proceed to put color on board.
This activity invites community action: sideways glances, deliberate not-lookings, polite “may I see-s?” and full-fledged engagement in conversations.
Painting the Pink House just up from Hal’s Tavern, for example, I got the life history of a gent who had a girlfriend in Salina, Kansas who was, so he said, on his way from San Diego to Alaska to work as a cook. He was, more immediately, on his way from Hal’s Tavern to his “temporary” digs up the street, redolent of old beer and well-worn charm.
Painting the old Washington High School, about to be condo-ized, I was nearly run down by two pre-schoolers on scooters who wanted to know “Whatcha doin’?” I was also chatted up by a fellow who works in a bodyshop repainting cars, various dogs who threatened to knock down my easel, and the owner of the Pink House who took my photo — from the back, which is my best side.
When I painted in a more “scenic” location, a nature reserve along a bike path, I found myself facing and painting the restroom and the telephone poles to the east rather than the foliage and meandering path to the west. One fellow on a laid-back bike stopped to kibitz and, offering himself up as a Painter of Nature, gently suggested I might want to go to the Portland waterfront and “paint the flowering trees that are in bloom.” I continued to work on the rest room.
And on Wednesday, when the rain and hail and snow and wind finally abated a bit in Portland, I got out to Hawthorne Boulevard to get my sunny day fix. A guy came up and asked me if I liked painting. “Sure.” Was I painting the street? “Yep.” Why didn’t I find a nice city park to paint? “I like telephone poles.” Could he take my photo. “Sure.” What was my name. “Here’s my card.”
By the time he requested my name, I was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable, although it was broad daylight on a very busy street in front of an office building where I had already been talking with the workers. But he continued, “I’m from the Oregonian [our local newspaper] and live just up the street. Came home to put on a lighter weight jacket.”
“Sure,” I said, not the least bit believing him and very relieved when he finally meandered on up the street.
And then, Thursday morning, on my place at the table where Jer had put it for me to see, was the Metro section of the Oregonian:
“A day worth framing | June O. Underwood went for something beyond a scenic landscape in Wednesday’s sunshine when she brought her oil paints to bustling southeast Hawthorne Boulevard in Portland. ‘If I wanted pretty I would have gone a few blocks over into Ladds (addition).’ she said. ‘I find all the poles and lines interesting.’ Today is expected to remain sunny with highs ranging from 60 to 65 degrees, but the national Weather Service predicts clouds and cooler weather through the weekend. Weather, C8 (Benjamin Brink , Oregonian photographer)”
I think the photograph is great — the focus is just right as it captures the graffiti on the sign matching the color of the paint box and blurs out the busy background.
One of my friends said I looked as if I were “terrorizing” the neighborhood. I’ll admit to seeing people scurry past me — but I thought it was in embarrassment at seeing the painting itself.
And where have your art adventures taken you recently? It’s that time of year for me, when I get an itch to wander. The Hawthorne Boulevard painting, by the way, is quite unlike Hawthorne Boulevard. All the chatting and sunshine got in the way of looking, perhaps.
June, you are a rebel. Rest rooms and telephone poles!
Your pictures will be of historical interest. People will look at them a hundred years from now and say, “How quaint! A busy thoroughfare in Portland still sported telephone poles in 2008.
Last Sunday, I photographed wild geese hanging out as pairs at a River that flows through the campus. Surging hormones, breeding season.
Birgit —
I’m still contemplating the “surging hormones.” Luckily I’m too old to have many of them myself.
We were out exploring an urban stream yesterday. It has some wonderful instances of non-urbanity along its length. We found a place where a whole host of farm life cackled and crowed and hee=hawed and, yes, honked. And just across the way was a wildlife preserve where tweeting and twittering and kee-weeing were accompanied by more wild geese honks. It was an ecstatic cacophony, worthy of John Cage.
Will we get to see your photos of wild geese? I got a pair of ducks in one photo but they were terribly out of focus. Still, I was glad to have the moment captured.
June,
I normally don’t get much interaction when photographing, but a few days ago I was out for some horse pictures in the fine snowstorm we had and met for the first time the young woman who manages them (I had previously met only the owner). She was out to check on the overdue mares, and I learned about some of the family relationships in the group. Maybe tomorrow I’ll see a foal or two.
On my way back through Utah I tried my hand at including some asphalt, poles, wires, and other elements in a typical new West new topographic photograph, but I think I tried to include too much and ended up with failures. It gives me much more appreciation for the difficulty of organizing an urban landscape, such as you are working with here. Are you still trying to avoid “composing” the scene and just “show what’s there” in a place that appeals to you in some way? They’re actually beginning to look more composed to me than what you showed from Basin. That’s neither good nor bad, I just wonder whether you agree with that tentative observation.
Steve,
Meeting your horses’ family sounds like it could influence the photos in some way.
I find that poles, wires etc. are really hard to photograph around — they clutter and mess up the view.
On the other hand, when I’m painting, I can be both selective in what I include and where I include it. I have found that the wires can enliven scenes that otherwise might be merely “quaint” and give a kind of energy and paths into and through the painting. A substitute for the winding trail, perhaps.
I can’t tell if I’m “composing” more or not. It feels to me as if I’m still choosing the scene that resonates (the rest rooms in the middle of the trail and the parked cars) but of course, composition is also a kind of resonance.
I guess I will continue to say I’m just showing “what’s there” — but always with the caveat that it’s what’s there that zings something in me. Often that something has to do with incongruity. In Basin, it had to do with difficulty of painting trailers and false front stores and awkward buildings. Here it’s more like the incongruities of cities that grow in and around themselves, putting cottages next to shopping centers and nature trails with telephone poles and big industrial buildings as well as nature.
It makes perfect sense that what I call “resonance” would change when the scene changes. I haven’t painted a dog in Portland yet (although I’m considering it, for compositional reasons.)
I told my critique group that my mantra for the nonce was “Be Here Now.” Most of them were too young to get the reference.
I had to Wiki it myself. Nice that the last section is titled “Painted Cakes.”
June:
Can’t quite make out the design on your baseball cap. It’s place on your easel would suggest a significance beyond “home is where I hang my hat”. I would have to suppose that people glance at it while absorbed in your activities.
I bring this up as I have found, in my travels/travails, that the cap can influence attitudes. For awhile I had an official Central Intelligence Agency hat that elicited its share of “yes sirs” and “no sirs” – the eliciteers assuming, I can only guess, that I was some kind of off duty mucky muck. Similar dynamics prevailed with my USA cap. Those complaining of my presumed boosterism were told that the USA stood for whatever I could make up on the spot, like Umbrella Salesman of Armenia perhaps. I’m wearing my Goodyear Tire and Rubber hat as I type. I wear it to good effect when visiting Akron.
In your case, June, I can only guess what kibitzers would say to your hanging a cap emblazoned with Manitoba Bear Wrestler or I Eat Easels For Breakfast – you know, that kind of thing. Avoid “Be Gentle, I Cry Easily” as inaccurate and provocative.
Honest.
Jay and David,
I’m going to have to ponder on just what the right motto on the cap would be. The one on the easel is probably something like “Mo’s Seafoods” (although the Mo’s cap is beige). I used to have a black one called “General Treescapes,” but it disappeared, perhaps eaten by an environmentalist. I do have one from the National Park Service, symbol and all, but it looks even dorkier than the black one; the fit is all wrong. Maybe I’ll have to get a hand-crafted model. I have tried hats that resemble what was worn by French painters from the 1900s, but they always blow off. The ball caps stay on.
I’m open to suggestions……
June:
How about one of those little lights mounted on a headband – like prissy cavers might wear?
You could sit out on the motif at night with nary a thing to see except your canvas in front of you. Now that would prompt respectful comment, especially if you were filling the canvas with finely observed detail.
The baseball caps are best for dealing with sun in your eyes. I always have one near the camera.
I know this is an old post that I am replying to, but I just Google’d landscapes with telephone poles and found your lovely painting. I am just nerving myself up to do some paintings with telephone poles en plein air. It seems that there are no landscapes left without the poles in the ‘burbs, so I had better get used to it. I am worried that no one will want to look at them. I can appreciate their abstract value, and your painting of the bathrooms and telephone poles is lovely! Hope you get this message, since it is a 2008 image I am viewing from 2012.