Hurricane season and the "Outdoor Studio".

It has been a little haphazard to keep a steady schedule in the studio lately. This is hurricane season, and with such comes unsteady weather, rain (huge bugs after it rains), wind, shuffling around putting away most of the outside furniture, and a lot of time spent tracking the storms.

So, I have been spending time prepping some new boards for encaustic, writing and taking photographs.

The neighbors are vegetarians.

A few months ago two sheep and two goats arrived next door to us. Their job assignment was to cut back the desert brush across the way. They work almost 24/7. So far they have done a darn good job, as we can see almost clear through to the dune.

Freedom (Libertad).

Walking out the front door of our house, I was suddenly confronted with a group of horses, unattended, just in the wild. I was surprised... and so were they, when our dog ran out barking at them. The lead horse gave the signal “let’s get out of here” and they took off in a beautiful and majestic gallop. Since I saw them stopped at a neighboring field, I ran quickly for my camera to get a couple pics.

Left and right brain.

I found these three mesh screens washed out at the beach. They have the usual square shape pattern. I wondered if they were broken up lobster traps. Who knows?

I took them to the studio and played with them a bit. I separated them as they were nested inside each other. Repetition and entrapment came to mind. I loved the idea that they were white. So I went with it and without much planning rearranged them in a separate fashion. Then painted the background with "multilayered" whites, grays and yellows.

Then I brought another element that I have been focused on lately, "the left and right brain" and its differences. While we try to make sound decisions by analyzing situations that come to us, we end up many times following our gut feeling. Yes, that thing called "intuition".

The meaning of "unencumbered".

We drove through the fresh green desert towards Sierra de la Laguna. Our destination, the house and studio of a local potter named "Marcos" and his sister "Margarita". His place is simple and unencumbered. Decisions are made on the basis of what the day brings. If it rains, it's simple there is no firing. His pots are as beautiful and simple as his surroundings. And, although on this particular day there were no pots available to view or purchase, the visit was rich and the coffee delicious.

Rainy season.

While in the tropics we become sensitized to several things: First, late summer being hurricane season bringing flash floods as good company. Second, after the first and second rains an army of flying termites arrives on mass. They are attracted to light
and immediately lose their wings, leaving thousands of crawling little creatures hurrying to get into every piece of wood in your house. Their wings stay as if glued to our screen doors and form very interesting abstract shapes worth photographing.

A gift from the land.

The ground were we built our house has proven to be very fertile. Granted that it used to be a chile field. One day, while the house was being built we stopped to bring watermelon to the workers. apparently a few seeds landed here and there.

Low and behold, one morning while looking out into the horizon I spotted a green semi- striped object in our yard. I went to get the binoculars, always afraid that anything striped around here turning out to be a snake. But to my surprise I found this beautiful "volunteer watermelon". It was quite a gift for the day. I photographed it, then brought it inside and proceeded to have a wonderful red and juicy breakfast.