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REPEATING PAST MISTAKES
I revived this painting from 1976. I pulled it out of the drawer where it’s been laying for almost 40yrs. I always liked the piece and thought I would come back to it sometime and flesh out the issues it raised. It had some elements of that cool detachment that was popular in some abstract…
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Unter Eichen
Under Oaks is a series That came about from living in an oak forest here in Topanga. Our property is host to at least 80 imposing Coast Live Oaks (and they host us). The Chumash, I heard, called them “los dedos del diablo.” After living here awhile you begin to understand why Quercus agrifolia are…
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Brian McNeece on Leonidas
Leonidas, June 9, 2012 I don’t have an emotional response when I first see it. Like some people, because of the many pencil lines left from the drafting stage, I tend to think that it’s not finished. The painting is a profile view of the whole dog cut with pencil lines in very complex geometric…
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Leonidas, King of Dogs
Leonidas: Named after the great king of the Spartans elected to defend Greece from the combined armies of Xerxes at Thermopylae in 481BCE. For you, inhabitants of wide-wayed Sparta, Either your great and glorious city must be wasted by Persian men, Or if not that, then the bound of Lacedaemon must mourn a dead king,…
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Braver than me
After just a couple of inches of rain over two days stuff is already starting to sprout. I admire their optimism but with the Santa Anas blowing it’s hard to believe they will survive. This time of year is normally what we call false spring (of course winter is when everything grows), we get a…
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It’s Official NWS says “El Nino coming”
Last fall we had a huge fall of acorns. Now (end of summer another, light so far, fall of acorns that started about 4 weeks ago (middle of summer). I called Max to gloat that this confirmed my theory about a coming El Nino event this winter. Now NWS has jumped on my bandwagon http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html (non peer…
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I say mild El Nino 09-10
In some places the oak seedlings are so thick that it looks like six inch high ground cover. The quercus agrifolia last winter dropped a pretty big crop of acorns. Not as many as they dropped in winter 03-04 that preceded the 04-05 El Nino but still quite a lot. Since I believe the Quercus…
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exempt from public haunt
And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. – William Shakespeare This time of economic turbulence and cultural apathy mirrors what Shakespeare presented as a duality between the realities of urban life and the romanticized vision of the Forest…
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Red Cliffs
Red Cliffs came about from noticing that landscape features: rock outcroppings, buttes, mountains and even grand trees are often named for whatever figures they evoke. In the red rock areas of the Four Corners states every landscape feature has a name: ships, cathedrals, lions, elephants, sleeping indians, maidens and takes on the status of great…