November, comin' right up!

 Time's a'flyin'. As I always say, "Time is money and money is time and we ain't got all day."

One of my many bosses at Williams Island Club in North Miami Beach, Florida used to proclaim while stomping his diminutive frame through the about-to-open restaurant, straightening place settings, "It's only a job of work. Get it done!" I was the Club Manager and it never sounded as good in my nondescript Nashville accent as it did in his high-pitched South African one. 

So, I say to me own self this chilly October's end Friday morning, "Get it done."

I performed a proof-of-concept camping road-trip back starting Oct. 17, driving to Montgomery, Texas, that little lake town with its twin city of Conroe, to visit my dear older brother. On the way I stopped outside of Charlotte, TN to have a brief visit with childhood friend John Depriest, after fortuitiously passing his remote house and turning around at the first opportunity to do so. After driving halfway through Arkansas, I camped at Iron Mountain Campground at DeGray Lake, arriving there after 7 hours driving, around dusk, setting up my Oasis tent, sleeping in Casper, my new Kia Soul, on an air mattress in the back, awakening cold and on a deflated air mattress around midnight, blowing it up with the electric pump and pulling it into the tent, turning on a borrowed (thank you, Rocky!) ceramic heater, and awakening snug and warm in my sleeping bag to 36 degree pre-dawn. I broke camp in the dark and headed out to the nearby interstate Cracker Barrel for a big breakfast, only to discover it closed due to an overnight power outage. Around Texarkana, TX the interstate route became obsolete and I hit 300 or so miles of state highways, enjoying the fall colors and everything else about the drive. 

You can thumb through my pics at https://photos.app.goo.gl/E8B3LFXNQWtxJmFeA . It was a good trip in a number of ways, not the least of which was the chance to be with my brother, the other last man standing from our nuclear family, and visiting with old friends along the way. I really enjoyed the drive down to Texas City with Ed and our unproductive but relaxing fishing at "the longest fishing pier in the world," the Texas City Dike.

Fishing at the Texas City Dike

On the way back,  I stopped and had dinner and a spare bed at the home of childhood friend Ross Bandy and his lovely wife Donna. They are retiring together in 2023 and I was able to pass on now-expert advice about this new leg of life, for what it is worth. It's all about scheduliberation, you know. 
Now that I'm back home, I attended my painting class with Master Charles Brindley yesterday and did some more work on my current acrylics project, working from stills from friend Brian Siskind's award winning film, "On the Inside." Here's the film, and you can read more about it at tnstateprisonfilm.com. Thanks to Brian for his permission to screen-grab and paint. 

And here are some snaps of my first OTI painting in progress, on reclaimed 2x12 lumber:

At the very end of class, Charles gave me suggestions for how to approach the bars and I'll be spending the day today on bars, as opposed to in bars, or behind bars, to create the bases for varying washes that will retain the depth of the darkness within the cells and still convey the abandonment of the structure. This'll be fun.

More bars

More bars. I thought about taping for clean lines but the process for building up the negative spaces and tidying up their relationships with the bars is intriguingly meditative. There is much more to do before completion, including fixing that bottom left shadow of open door and thinking about whether the texture for the central open door is what I want.

Spring Break 2009, on the hunt for Superman and Mister Catfish!

My boy and I booked it up Interstate 24 from home today to arrive in Paducah, Kentucky in order to be within striking distance of both the Super Museum in Metropolis, Illinois and the fishing opportunities at Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake. We've had a great time so far and just being together in novel places is a hoot. The slideshow up top should get longer over the next couple days. Just watch. BTW, we didn't find Mr. C. at all, but the last day of our trip, pulling back off the highway into the Moors marina, we walked out the spit to fish off the sunken rusty barge and pulled in 11 fish--stripers, largemouth, and a couple lake trout. Weeeeeee.