Life continues to be fun and I’m always game for trying something new.
This weekend I got to help out with the American Chestnut foundation and that opportunity came about by a stroke of luck. It happened that late one evening while scrolling around on Facebook I noticed one of the news channels I follow had shared a post from the American Chestnut foundation who were looking for volunteers to help plant a hundred and fifty chestnut trees. That sure sounded like fun to me and I’ve been wanting to get affiliated with the ACF for the longest time so I signed up and showed up where they wanted me to be which was way off in the back boonies of Bedford County. I met up with a dozen other delightful volunteers, a mix of young adults and older retirees, all cloistered together on a rocky hillside that had recently been cleared and prepped for planting. Judging by the scope of the work we needed to do and the hands available to do it I was a tad skeptical that we were going to finish this before dark but they surprised me. We had all the trees planted and caged up for their protection by mid-afternoon. Fortunately the trees were all six month old sprouts and easy to handle but I was plum tuckered out after all the digging, planting, packing and setting cages to protect the trees from hungry deer and wildlife.
That was a good day by any measure and good memories were made. I even scored a free chestnut tree that they had left over! It wasn’t an American/Chinese hybrid either but 100% American that was grown from seed from an old surviving chestnut tree resistant to the chestnut blight. I’m going to try my luck at growing my chestnut and eventually attempt to train it as a bonsai if that is even doable. American chestnut is far from ideal bonsai material given the queen-sized leaves the species grows. The best stuff to grow for bonsai are those species with small(ish) leaves and tighter growth which makes for a more convincing bonsai. The leaves on my chestnut are almost a foot long! That’s pretty darn big by bonsai standards but I’m curious to see what happens. My first priority is keeping it alive and in good health because I sure don’t want to lose it. But if the bonsai experiment doesn’t pan out I will simply plant it down below the house and let it grow as big as it wants assuming the blight doesn’t get it.
I didn’t have time to do any sketching or painting that day while I was planting chestnuts all over creation. But I have been trying to make time to paint, with mixed results. Here are some of the sights I’ve seen lately that I managed to paint up. All these paintings were done in watercolor which is my usual medium of choice and convenient to use for an artist on the go.
This is a shot of the train tracks running through Bedford and the Bridge Street bridge in the background. There’s beauty everywhere if we just look for it. And when I do I always marvel at how even the most mundane of scenes can still create some very nice art after you paint it up. You may not end up with million dollar art but the composition still makes a nice piece all the same. Things came together quite nicely here and I kept things playful and spontaneous since I have a habit of getting bored when a painting takes too long and that can really jinx a painting when you’re getting tired and your mind starts to wander. And naturally I didn’t want to take my chances with a locomotive coming thru so I hustled along on this one. And it turned out rather well in spite of that.
Here’s another street scene of Bedford that I made recently of me walking down the sidewalk along Main Street. This one is still a little rough around the edges but I like the small town vibe that this portrays. It struck me as a nice view and it came out well even though trying to render the sunlight gave me a bit of a fit. I I tried not to leave anything behind such as the lamp post and the cars driving down the street. Having a pedestrian or two on the sidewalk would’ve added a nice touch but I had the walk to myself that day.
My final painting is this kitty I noticed looking thru the window. This was during our recent Centerfest which had this little kitty all entranced with the sights and action going on that day. Hard to tell from his demeanor whether he was impressed or not. Some people are impossible to please and cats too for that matter.
It’s been quite a while since I last wrote a blog post that I was a bit worried that I might have forgotten how. For much too long I kept reminding myself that I needed to write something but couldn’t quite find the time. So today (October 10) is the day I’m finally going to sit my butt down and begin writing again. The world has gotten enough action out of me and can wait a spell until I get this task finished up and signed off. I’ve put it off long enough.
If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been I’m pleased to say that life is good and I’m still in good health, good spirits and in good standing with the world at large. That’s no small feat these days! Another major feat I managed to pull off was manhandling my work load as the last few months had gotten seriously out of hand and that’s where I am going to place much of the blame for my blogging negligence. I don’t cope well when I’m too busy. Early this year I had several book jobs tossed on me almost all at once. That’s a nice problem to have but each and every job wound up being more difficult and complicated than I first anticipated. The combined work wound up taking much longer than planned due to unforeseen complications and the quirks of the authors. The book work (much of it being favors for different writing groups I participate in and not paying work) dragged on all thru spring and for much of the summer while my other creative pursuits languished. Thank God that’s all done and everyone is happy and the books are in the process of getting published. I’ll let you know when they hit the shelves.
In addition to my art/illustration career I am also active (maybe too active) on Facebook where I spend the bulk of my Facebook life moderating a very large bonsai group called ‘Bonsai Beginners’. I’ve long been a bonsai lover and grower of tiny trees so it was only natural that I wound up in Bonsai Beginners even though I’m not exactly a beginner myself. But I can well remember the days when I was and I figured I’d schmooze with my fellow bonsai nuts and pass along tips and advice where I could. As I became better known I was eventually tapped to be the group’s moderator as the group was sorely lacking one. I have never been a moderator on Facebook before so I had no idea what I was getting into but it has been an enjoyable experience for the most part. I spend a good bit of my time answering questions, dispensing advice and maintaining some law and order in the group while keeping the spammers and troublemakers out. The group was more of a hassle and rambunctious in the earlier days but things have settled down to the point where it’s actually an enjoyable hangout now. The changes have been so noteworthy that I’m waiting to get a word of thanks from Mark Zuckerburg for doing my two bits keeping Facebook in good order but maybe it got lost in the mail or something.
As if that wasn’t enough I had been kicking around the idea of making my own Facebook bonsai group, one devoted to American natives since bonsai is so Japanese flavored. Bonsai is more popular than ever and there are more bonsai groups on Facebook than you can shake a stick at covering every bonsai niche imaginable…. but nothing devoted to growing and working with our native plant species. It’s something I have a great personal interest in as so many of my own trees are native species and I assumed I couldn’t be the only one with a hankering to grow them. After hemming and hawing for awhile I went ahead and created my Facebook group in mid-May and named it, appropriately enough, ‘American Native Bonsai’. I wasn’t sure if it would find any love with the Facebook crowd or not but things have gone surprisingly well for my fledgling group. American Native Bonsai has tallied over two thousand members just in the few months we’ve been in business and they keep coming with little to no prodding on my part.
Now that my work load has throttled back some I’ve got more time on my hands to think about my creative career. Chief on my mind is taking my art business and making it an actual business and a sustainable commercial enterprise. And the first order of business to making that happen is switching my website and blog over to www.bryanskinnell.org and making that my primary website. I’ve owned the domain for a long time mostly to ensure that no one else got it but I never quite knew what to do with it. As my art and my art business continues to evolve and develop I’ve got some ideas of what I want to do, what kind of art I want to make and how best to promote and sell it. You might have noticed that I’m publishing this blog under bryanskinnell.org now since my old blog and website on bryanskinnell.com has been deleted. Bryanskinnell.com will remain live but I will be using it for something else.
That was one long and rambling post which I’m really hoping didn’t put you to sleep. Rather than abuse you any further I’ll wrap it up with a painting I recently made just to prove that I’m still painting. The inspiration for this odd painting is a curious tale as it depicts one of those curious sights that I just so happened to have noticed recently that grabs one’s attention as if by divine appointment. It so happens that after finishing up a window cleaning job I did recently for a local greasy spoon, I was walking around the back of the restaurant on my way to my car where I caught a glimpse of green out of the corner of my eye. Turning my head I spotted this small creek rock that an anonymous artist had painted a bright alfalfa green and set on top of the air conditioning unit. It wasn’t very big. Maybe about the size of a bar of soap. It got me to wondering why someone would set a painted green rock back there when I noticed a message painted on the rock. In bright white letters the artist felt compelled to inscribe the words ‘There Is Healing’. Who painted this, and why, is anyone’s guess. I’m sure there’s a neat story behind this but I’ll never know. Thankfully I don’t need healing but this resonated with me all the same even if I couldn’t say exactly why. I suppose you can take from it what you will but so far as I’m concerned this random rock is a quaint reminder that there’s always hope and that’s something I can hang my hat on. The rock and overall composition were interesting enough to my eye that I went and took a picture of that rock and from that pic I went and made a painting of it resting right there on top of the air conditioning unit. So far as I know it’s still there.
