Exhalation

The music for this one was Anna Thorvaldsdottir "In the Light of Air." 

3x5, Zig, Sharpie, & Pencil

Ancient Voices

I've gotten a little behind on my daily doodles lately, so last night I put on some George Crumb ("Ancient Voices of Children," and "Music for a Summer Evening") and came up with this...
No, I have no idea what it means.

3x5, Zig & Sharpie
***SOLD***

Mt. Messiaen

Yesterday, I drove down highway 143 in search of Mt. Messiaen. Somewhere between Brian Head Ski Resort and the town of Parowan is a cluster of sandstone cliffs that were named for the French composer after he completed “Des Canyons Aux Etoiles,” a work composed for America’s bicentennial and inspired by the sights and sounds of Cedar Breaks, Zion, and Bryce Canyon. 

Google gave me a basic map, and my Utah Recreational Road Atlas showed a trail in the vicinity. I knew there’d be a plaque, and had seen a few pictures of the area online, so though I expected to have to keep my eyes peeled for a quick turn off, I thought it’d be reasonably marked and noticeable.

This was not the case.

Fortunately, the sandstone formation itself is fairly recognizable from the road, but I almost drove past the small unmarked trail that winds up from the highway to the base of the ledges. Once on the trail, I wandered up around and through the towering pillars and ridges I thought for sure must be Mt. Messiaen, but I needed to find the plaque that could confirm my guess.

Though I discovered lots of strange and lovely patterns in the sandstone...

...and a few creatures willing to pose for photos...

...the plaque eluded me entirely.

I called Rob for directions and he read off some information that had been posted online by a previous visitor. The plaque was supposedly on the southeast side of a small boulder hiding in a grove of trees about 40 yards up the trail. I searched and searched—went WAY past 40 yards just in case the previous visitor’s measurements had been off. I wandered around shelves of sculpted sandstone through dense knots of trees…maybe it had become overgrown since its installment 30-some-odd years ago…maybe it had been stolen, or vandalized beyond recognition. I drove up the road a few miles to see if I’d taken the wrong trail, but came back again after it was clear the first trail was the most likely option.

I kept searching for over 2 hours.

And then wandered back to my car resigned to the fact that I’d just have to keep using someone else’s plaque photo in my presentations.

But then, of course, there it was. Hiding a little ways off the trail was a flat-ish slab about the size of an average gravestone surrounded by grass and brush—very unassuming. I only noticed it because the way it was propped up seemed a little more than what nature would've managed.

MOUNT MESSIAEN

TO HONOR OLIVIER MESSIAN, INTERNATIONALLY 

KNOWN FRENCH COMPOSER. WHOSE GREAT 

SYMPHONY, “FROM THE CANYON TO THE STARS” 

WAS INSPIRED BY HIS VISIT TO THE CANYONS 

OF SOUTHERN UTAH IN THE YEAR 1973. 

PAROWAN CULTURAL COMMITTEE. 

AUGUST 5, 1978

Today it seems so unlikely, but simply awesome, that an arts committee in a small out-of-the-way rural town would, of its own volition, choose to honor the work of a modern “classical” composer in such a tangible way. For the average listener Des Canyons is a challenging piece to appreciate. When I talk about it in my programs here, I include a lot of setup—a lot of explanation and illustration—in order to prime people’s ears for the startling harmonies and non-traditional rhythms that Messiaen used to portray the red rocks, bird songs, and vast star-scapes he experienced in southern Utah. But with the right set-up (particularly in my rim walk, where I have more time to go into detail), I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the positive reactions people have to the piece.

These experiences remind me of when I was taking my first serious music theory courses and was introduced to difficult modern pieces by George Crumb, Elliot Carter, and others. If I’d heard them on my own—out-of-the-blue with no set up—there’s no question I’d have wrinkled my nose in disgust and scoffed, “Who could ever call this noisy crap MUSIC?!” But I was fortunate to have some truly wonderful theory teachers who invited me into the music—put it into context, helped me learn what to listen for, and allowed me to have a first experience with modern music that was as magical as the first time I heard Rachmaninoff’s 2nd piano concerto, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, or Debussy’s La Mer.

Standing there at the base of Mt. Messiaen I was suddenly grateful the plaque had been so hard to find. As I’d wandered the area I’d been able to enjoy the sculpted rock with its fantastical shapes and swirls of color. I recognized bird songs that Messiaen had used in Des Canyons—white-throated swifts nesting high up in the sandstone eaves, a clark’s nutcracker ratcheting away in the distance, and the warbling trills of the hermit thrush echoing through the trees. I don’t know if Messiaen was ever able to visit this spot, but I think he would’ve liked it.

Details

Friday June 13

The skies are darker at Bryce Canyon and the full moon is brighter. In this high elevation, the thin dry desert air is conducive to sunburn and moon blindness. Last night while showing people the nearly full moon through my telescope (using a polarizing filter at its darkest setting), I looked back along the line and perhaps 80% of them had their hands or a hat held up to the side of their face to block the moonlight. As each stepped up to the eyepiece, I did my best to cast a shadow over their faces as they observed.

Though the full moon is the bane of every deep sky observer, I quite enjoyed showing it off. The prominent ray crater Tycho appeared in full bloom—its striking splatters reaching far across the surface, bisecting dark Maria and bright Highlands alike. People's eyes were very naturally drawn to Aristarchus—a brilliant white crater sharply contrasted against the Ocean of Storms—and Grimaldi—a deep gray crater set apart from the larger seas by a swath of highlands. More astute observers enjoyed the shadowy terrain approaching the moon's southernmost edge—the only place that betrayed any sense of depth and topography.

Tonight I'll be leaving the telescope at home to shadow Geoff's full moon hike. One of the most popular programs here at Bryce, these limited Ranger led excursions fill up less than an hour after the visitor center opens in the morning. I'm excited to go wandering below the rim to see how the hoodoos are transformed in the silvery moonlight. Some kind of magic is inevitable!

Saturday June 14

Met up with an old friend for breakfast yesterday morning. Chris (a violist in the Utah Symphony as well as an artist), and I had exchanged a series of art postcards years ago. It was nice to catch up and discuss a few of our recent adventures.

In the afternoon, I quietly barricaded myself in my room, put on some music, and DREW for the first time since I've been here. To a soundtrack of Terry Riley (“A Rainbow in Curved Air,” and “Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band”), John Adams (“The Wound Dresser,” Christian Zeal and Activity,” “Five Songs by Charles Ives,” and “Eros Piano”), and Sibelius (Symphony #5 and #7), I drew an imagined recollection of an old crescent moon just before sunrise above the varnished cliffs at Calf Creek. It felt FANTASTIC to draw again. I think I've been needing a creative outlet. Though it's just a sketch—done using ball point pen and a touch of pencil—I may decide to do a more polished version when I get home.

The full moon hike was every bit worth the hype. I was assigned to be the Caboose to Geoff's group of 30—bringing up the rear and making sure no one got left behind. On full moon hike nights, a couple telescopes are also set up on the rim so people can view the moon and other bright objects up close when they come back out of the amphitheater. Radar and I grabbed a couple armloads and helped Richard get all his equipment up the hill. It's hard to imagine a more stunning observing platform.

At the beginning of the hike Geoff led the crowd up to a nice spot on the rim near Sunrise Point, gave some safety information, and introduced the focus of his talk—the “superpowers” of Bryce Canyon's nighttime plants and animals. And yes, plants DO have super powers. The Bronze Evening Primrose produces a flower that blooms on only one night. In order to ensure pollination, it virtually glows in ultraviolet and lures in giant moths with a pungent odor. Bats pursue insects (including the giant moth's) using sophisticated sonar. Glow worms—females of a particular species of beetle—light up the back segments of their bodies to help attract mates. Rattlesnakes see in infrared. Great horned owls crush their prey with hundreds of pounds of force in their powerful clutches. And the list goes on. A fascinating topic. I wish I'd been taking notes to help remember more of the specifics.

But before he got in to all of that. Geoff finished his introduction with a dramatic proclamation. “Ladies and Gentlemen...on behalf of the National Park Service...I give you...the Full Moon!” At that moment a bead of crimson broke the horizon over the distant landscape. Oohs and ahhs broke out among the guests as people scrambled for their cameras and the best vantage from which to capture the rapidly rising disc. A windy day had stirred up a lot of dust, and this “Strawberry Moon” was very dark ruddy orange. A spectacular sight above the painted geometries of the high desert.

We continued along the rim for a while and then headed down below on the Fairyland Loop trail toward Tower Bridge, stopping periodically to take note of a particular organism's “superpower” and enjoy Geoff's engaging storytelling. The sky got darker and darker, and the trail along with it. The moon was now behind a ridge and I found myself struggling a bit to place each step securely.

It was right around this time that Geoff started talking about Mountain Lions. They hunt by staking out a heavily used game trail, climbing high up on a nearby ridge, and then pouncing as deer amble by. But they won't go for the first deer in the group. They'll instead wait till a slower one...maybe sick or injured...comes by in the very back of the line, and then go straight for the neck. You can imagine how that made me feel as the designated caboose! When it's made a kill, a lion will drag the carcass high up into a tree. Then for several days it'll eat, guarding it's stash from other scavengers who may try to score an easy meal. A few years ago some visitors went to the rim early in the morning and were horrified to discover a deer hanging high above them in the branches of a tree. They immediately complained saying it was a most cruel and tasteless practical joke. But it was no joke. A crew of wildlife specialists and law enforcement officers armed to the hilt were immediately sent to the scene. A lion kill so near to the park's most heavily trafficked area posed a serious threat to public safety. The deer was removed to a more remote location. A near tragedy averted.

We continued down the trail and finally into the moonlight. Stars were coming out now, and the hoodoos appeared as immense black silhouettes against the bluish night sky. As we approached the “Hoodoo Graveyard,” moonlight struck the great white limestone walls like a spotlight, casting sharp cool shadows, and encouraging the imagination to conjure up a whole host fantastical creatures. Geoff told us of nights he's travelled out to this spot with starlight alone to guide his path—the grand arch of the Milky Way sweeping overhead—bright enough to cast shadows of its own. Even in the full moon light, the sky was full of stars fainter than I'd have guessed. Is that the Milky Way? Or am I just imagining it. Nah...this time it's imagination...I think.

Sunday June 15

Thanks to Dad, Carol, Mal, Ryan, Cid, Zoey, Todd, Yumi, Aaron, Ardis, Joel, Crystal, Robyn, and all the kids for visiting me at Bryce Canyon (and buying me ice cream:) It was great to see you all...even for just a few minutes. 

AND HAPPY FATHER'S DAY DAD!

Tuesday June 17

So much has happened. Too many details to be thorough. Some of the specifics meld into what has become a sort of routine—though in a place like this I hate to use such a word. It's the kind of routine where discovery is the norm. Where I increasingly admire the skill of those with whom I work, and from whom I hope I am learning a trick or two. Where the same places visited day after day never lack for enchantment. A wild Iris on the walk into work distracts my eye so that I almost fail to notice a mother and two baby pronghorns grazing in the morning shadows beneath the pines. I freeze to watch. She stamps her feet and eyes me with a resolve I pray won't lead to a defensive charge. Mother and babies: a lovely...nervous kind of sight I don't know whether to relish or cautiously avoid.

The work comes with its own set of challenges. I make mistakes. Deal with awkwardness and tension here and there. Remind myself (with mixed success) not to complain about trivialities. Take deep breaths. Call Rob for a kind word and a loving ear. Forgive myself for things I could've done better...and then try to do them better next time. Remember to let things come as they may. Take a break now and then.

Yesterday I visited “Spooky” and “Peekaboo,” two slot canyons in the Grand Staircase with Don, one of the Interpretive Rangers here. We stopped in at the Escalante Visitor Center—interesting being on the other side of the desk after weeks of playing informal tour guide—to check on road conditions, hiking maps, and trail information. The Ranger said getting up to Peekaboo would require a moderately technical scramble up about 10 feet of sandstone. The directions I'd read online that morning said it would be more like 20 feet. Sucking in my old nervousness of heights, I pressed for more details. She said we'd have to help each other through a few tough scrambles, but that no ropes would be needed. Don and I were not well acquainted, but I imagined we could muddle through well enough together.

Don is good company. On the surface it seems we both tend toward a quieter approach to interaction. Politely inquisitive. Casually interested without ulterior pressures or motivations. I appreciated being able to probe his deeper knowledge of the area. Glad a more experienced professional would allow me to tag along for a little adventure.

The “Dry Fork Slots,” are located about 27 miles south along the Hole-in-the-Rock Road. It was heavily washboarded and high-clearance vehicles were strongly recommended. I was grateful Don had agreed to drive us in his pickup. A few miles in we made a brief stop at the “Devil's Garden” to wander among a different kind of hoodoo (and take a final bathroom break). Comparatively low to the ground and voluptuously smooth, these wind-carved sandstone hoodoos were an interesting contrast to the towering, brittle, and multi-faceted, rock gardens of Bryce Canyon I've been familiar with of late.

The last stretch of road leading to Dry Fork looked as though it was molded from mounds of clay. All guides state emphatically that the route is impassible after even the slightest rain. On a map, several roads lead south from highway 12 through the Grand Staircase—Hole-in-the-Rock, Cottonwood, Alvey Wash, Smokey Mountain—and look to many visitors like excellent alternative routes to highway 89 south toward Page. Seeing the conditions of these roads firsthand brought home the warnings I'd heard from other Bryce volunteers that one should ALWAYS check in at the GSENM visitor center before using them for travel. Scenic? Yes. Practical? No.

Once parked, we followed a series of large, widely-spaced cairns down a steep slick-rock outcrop. This “trail” leads down to a broad sandy wash into which Dry Fork, Peekaboo, and Spooky canyons empty. Dry Fork is a section of “narrows” (a little wider than a “slot,” but not by much), that can be followed for several miles. Maybe we would check it out on our way back. The entrance to Peekaboo was nearby to the left where a small group of people was clustered about its mouth. A young family who'd just come down its length watched excitedly as a number of twenty-somethings prepared to ascend.

 I looked up at the smooth sculptured sandstone with a bit of trepidation. A series of shallow hand and toe holds were carved into its surface. It was definitely more than 10 feet of climbing. I motioned to Don to go first, hoping to observe his technique. The first bit seemed fine enough. A stone ladder—a quick pivot over a thin vertical ledge—then a gradual chute where a little wedging between hips and feet would carry you up. Don struggled a little, but seemed relatively unfazed by the awkward motions. A knot had built up in the pit of my stomach, but, I thought, if a 67 year old man could manage it,- there's no reason I shouldn't be able to. Right?

A tall energetic German youth arrived suddenly, and virtually leapt up the whole way, stepping right over the top of Don who was just completing the last bit of his ascent. His girlfriend stopped beside me. “He's a real mountain goat!” she said. The German held out a hand to Don and helped him up the rest of the way. He then tossed a rope down to his girlfriend and offered to hoist up both our packs. “It will make it easier to balance,” he encouraged. I gulped and clipped on my pack. It was my turn.

I cautiously stepped up the pile of stones leading to the first toe hold. A little wobbly for my taste. One step. Hmm. Wrong foot. Step down. Switch feet. Start with the left this time. Umm. Still not so comfortable. It looked so easy for the others. Right foot it is then. Ok. Left. Sort of. Hold on. Pull up. Sit down. Ok! Two thirds to go. Take a breath. Now how to manage that pivot. I wish there wasn't so much sand in these toe holds. 6 feet looks a lot taller from up here. Lean into the rock. Swing my body around. Ok, sit! It's so slick! Can't seem to make the wedging work. There's nothing to hold onto. My feet just want to slide. No traction. I can feel the pull of gravity. Not sure where to hold. The smallest shift of weight could send me sliding down to the ground. The German can see my fear and throws me the rope. It's such a thin little thing. Just a string. Holding onto it gives me no assurance. Their hands are only a couple feet from my grasp, but I can't seem to push myself higher. Mom and kids are watching below. “You can do it. Just a little bit higher!” But my legs are shaking now. I can feel my broken bones below. Hear the sound. A dull crack.

“I'm going to make a decision for my own safety. I'm not sure enough on my feet. I should head down.”
“I don't accept that!” insisted the German. “You can do it.”

“I've got to be honest about my ability. If I'm struggling here, it will be worse further up.”

A wave of disappointment.

I resolve to indulge in minimum apology. I won't wallow. This is a practical safety decision. I have to understand and accept the limits of my ability.

With guidance from Mom and kids below, I shakily make my way back down the stone ladder. The German girlfriend takes her turn. Struggles a little, but slowly makes it up. They send down my pack. Don descends. I'm embarrassed, but feel I've made the right decision. I make my apologies, say thank you and good luck to Mom and kids and the German couple. I'm grateful Don seems to be easy going enough to not be too put off by my backing down. “There was a real danger there,” he says reassuringly.

We walk along the sandy edges of the giant mound of rock from which Peekaboo was formed. Climbing slowly now—one step forward, half a step back in the hot slippery sand—we eventually top the sandstone bulge and begin to explore. Cairns! An alternate route around the canyon perhaps? Soon we are looking down into the narrowly winding, knife-edged slot. It's an easy descent to the bottom from here...

...and now I hear voices! Our German friends are squeezing their way through the sculpted zig-zags. “What took you so long?!” I say.

They don't have a map so we share ours, along with the directions for finding Spooky from the upper exit of Peekaboo. Now it's our turn to descend into the zig zag. It's hard to believe that an adult human body is capable of gliding through the contortions of sharp-edged sandstone that lead us deeper into the canyon. We take off our packs and bend, slide, bump, and lean through the one-way maze. 

As the walls rise around us, I imagine a flash flood sweeping through—filling the canyon to its top and rushing over its edges—the water thick with sand and broken bits of brush. We reach a point where Don judges the descent a little too steep—a hoop of rock showing a sandy bottom many feet below— and then head back up the way we came. Here and there I give him a push up from behind, and he offers a hand up in return.

Back down in Dry Fork Wash, we head toward the entrance to Spooky. Temperatures are mercifully mild, but a fierce wind whips up billows of sand that make my teeth grate like sandpaper. The gale is desiccating. I can almost feel the moisture wicked from beneath my skin. What would it be like to travel across this landscape with limited provisions? What must those early pioneers have endured along their journey south to Hole-in-the-Rock—a passage they had to carve out themselves to enable travel by wagon team? 1880. That's not all that long ago. My grandparents would have been old enough to have spoken with someone who made the trip.

 Spooky's entrance is much more inviting—sort of. There's no steep climb. The trail remains level as you enter this slot. But the high walls close in rapidly. Packs must be removed, and travel through the canyon is only possible sideways. Our chests and bellies slide over bumpy sandstone conglomerate. “This is the slottiest canyon I think I've ever been in,” quipped Don. Shadows are deep and hues of reflected light cast an eerie glow over the rock. Spooky indeed!

...and not ideal for hand-held photography as you can see from the blurry pictures...just think of them as action shots!

Voices ahead. Our German friends once again. We hurry to a slightly wider cutout in the rock and allow the couple to pass. Smiles all around. Continuing on there's a hint of...music? We meet a photographer with tripod set for a long exposure, earbuds in, no doubt preparing to take a classic shot of light cascading over elegant sandstone curves.

I honestly never thought I'd actually be able to see one of these picture-postcard desert-calendar slot canyons in person. I'd always assumed that the photos I'd seen were captured in secret corners of wilderness shared only among elite climbers, adventurers...people infinitely more well-equipped and more in-the-know than little old me. But I am actually here. Feeling the rough stone scrape my skin. Willfully trapped within a world of pale light, rich shadow, and fanciful geometry, lit by nothing more than a thin line of deep blue overhead. Looking way up we see huge boulders suspended in mid fall. Wedged between the canyon walls, piles of plant debris has collected around each point of contact—a sobering reminder of the violent floods whose currents carved out this channel just wide enough for a medium-sized adult to navigate.

Finally we reached a point where further squeezing might have caused torn shirts and uncomfortable scrapes. I can't say we turned around—there wasn't room for that—we just reversed our sideways shimmy and headed out the way we came.

The climb up was hot, sandy, sunbaked, guesswork. I downed the last of my water, happy knowing I had a third full bottle back in the truck. At one point we lost the trail of cairns, so just kept climbing till we reached the top of the hill and could see the parking lot in the distance. Stepping gingerly so as to avoid the fragile cryptobiotic soil growing all around us, we made it back. My water was hot enough to brew tea and tasted like plastic, but who's complaining? After another noisy bumpy drive up the road, we rewarded ourselves with cold drinks and pizza at Escalante Outfitters, and relaxed to an old tape recording of “The Hobbit” on our way home. In spite of my embarrassing bout of acrophobia, it turned out to be a very enjoyable and rejuvenating day. Thanks Don for the idea and the invitation!

Utah Visit, July 2013, #5: Bryce

Cher mademoiselle, you can name anything in Utah after me, even a tiny pebble in Bryce Canyon, and I will be deeply honored. 

--Olivier Messiaen...in response to Julie Whitaker, whose efforts eventually led to the re-naming of Parowan Canyon's White Ledges "Mount Messiaen." 

When Messiaen was initially approached in 1971 by musical philanthropist Alice Tully to write a new piece to commemorate America's bicentennial, he refused the commission because he so thoroughly disliked American cities. Perhaps Tully expected his reaction, or just wasn't inclined to accept defeat easily, but in either case, she had one trick up her sleeve that caught the celebrated French composer unaware: photos of southern Utah.

Messiaen was widely known to be a synesthete (seeing colors in correspondence with sound, and visa versa), so it isn't hard to imagine how visions of the painted desert might have appealed to him. Sufficiently inspired, Messiaen made a special trip to Utah in 1972, and was struck by the light, colors, sounds, and otherworldly landforms he encountered in Zion, Cedar Breaks, and especially Bryce Canyon. His experiences led to the premier, two years later, of Des canyons aux étoiles (from the Canyons to the Stars) which, in the composer's own words, serves as "an act of praise and contemplation" that "contains all the colors of the rainbow."After the 2003 release of a new recording of Des Canyons, a BBC reviewer wrote:

Messiaen's music links the land itself, the canyons of Utah--whose colourful layers reach back in geological time--with the stars sparkling in the clear-blue desert sky, their light emanating from long ago and far away. A sense of colour then, natural majesty, a palette of every shade of red and rich orange-brown; a timeless quality that reaches far back in time and human history...also a direct analogy with the American flag: the stars in the night sky and the geological stripes of the canyons.   

--Andrew McGreggor

The piece's central movement, Bryce Canyon et les rochers rouge-orange ("Bryce Canyon and the red-orange rocks"), is bracketed on either side by dramatic and haunting celestial strains: Appel interstellaire ("Interstellar Call"), and Les ressucités et le chant de l'étoile Aldebaran ("The resurrected and the song of the star Aldebaran"). That celestial wonders feature so prominently in Messiaen's tone poem seems especially appropriate. Today, Bryce Canyon is internationally known for its unparalleled views of the starry night sky, and the park's "Dark Rangers" are on the forefront of promoting and protecting natural darkness as an important natural resource.

It was primarily for the starry sky that Patrick and I headed down to Bryce that afternoon...or so we hoped. He was scheduled to give a presentation about space exploration at the park's lodge, while I'd planned to set up a telescope in the visitor center's parking lot immediately afterward and assist in showing interested visitors the deep-sky wonders that appear so beautifully from Bryce's dark-sky high-altitude vantage. He'd even taken the trouble to rearrange his schedule with the park in order to accommodate my visit...in part because I'd also been hoping to speak to a Dark Ranger about my own aspirations to join the force someday.

We travelled along a back route west of the Oquirrhs (including a portion of highway 6, the aptly named "loneliest road in America") in order to avoid construction delays on I-15. I'd never been through this part of the state before, and found myself entranced by the sparse open plains. Wind whipped up sand and dust, sending its pale billows streaming through sage and over the road. Storm clouds roiled above, and the occasional crack of lightening flashed in the distance. It all made for dramatic views of the landscape (I regret not taking any pictures)...but didn't bode well for our star party that evening.

Along the way, we enjoyed pleasant company and conversation, stopped twice for snacks and stretches, and still arrived at Bryce well enough in advance to take in the view along the canyon's rim. The sky remained mostly overcast, but the setting sun easily found holes substantial enough to blaze through across the geological splendor arrayed before us.

And even in the shade it was easy to marvel at the range of color that seemed to melt over the layered topography like spilled paint...an inspiration for Messiaen's synaesthesia? 

At one point, I noticed our shadows projected onto a ledge in the foreground and snapped this picture...one of my favorite of the trip. A good friend is a wonderful thing...and one who enables experiences like this is even better. 

From my sketchbook journal:

From the pleasant ways in which time flies though beautiful country and easy friendship, I find myself at the canyon rim watching the last golden rays of a cloudy afternoon dance across the piqued landscape. A game of perspective. It spotlights some distant chorus of color...dims...and radiates again in fluid counterpoint. It steps back now to cast an audience in profile: a pair together in trusted solitude, foundations mingled atop ruddy talus slopes that float over a depth of reaching hoodoos. Just enough of what is right, and honest, and innocent, and sustaining, collides in that moment to awaken a prayer of gratitude and quench the fevered longing that has of late been my habit of being. I say nothing of this to my companion, but hope some equal measure has filled him also. 
Parallels stand. Look. Breathe. And continue walking. 

Good clean Bryce Canyon mud!

The stars didn't ever make it out that evening...at least not above the Park. Patrick's presentation was as entertaining and inspiring as I remember. Stories of exploration and discovery held the audience in rapt attention. But the star party was cancelled.

Along the return trip, somewhere south of Nephi, I looked up through the car window to discover a sky awash with stars...the Milky Way's familiar clouds eagerly gleaming through a gaping patch of clear.

I hoped to return soon...

Scribbles

Since finishing my last drawing, I've had a few ideas for the next one floating around in the back of my head, but nothing that's asserted itself enough to actually inspire a formal beginning.

This latest project of reinterpreting astronomical subjects has been really enjoyable for me. Though most of the drawings have required a mind-numbing amount of painstaking sharpie work, experiencing every small step as definite progress toward a specific goal has helped keep my head above water during a time when the rest of my professional life is mired in uncertainty. I guess that's one thing that has always appealed to me about drawing, and perhaps why I've gravitated toward the stark materials and style that have become my standard. Once a line is applied to the paper, it remains. Once a work is complete, it can be easily and repeatedly viewed in its original finished form without concern for physical alteration. No matter my physical or mental condition, if I need to demonstrate my creative accomplishment, I can always pull out a drawing or two for display.

Creation for a musician, however, exists from moment to moment, and concrete impressions of a performance recede into the forgetful past soon after its final notes have dissipated. True, recordings can mediate this to some extent, providing an exactly repeatable performance at the press of a few buttons, but just as a Van Gogh print doesn't do justice to the texture and color of the original, even the most faithful recording cannot capture the richness and depth of live performance.

A performing musician strives for an elite physical capacity that infuses flawless technique with profound artistry and enables both to be called up in front of an audience on demand. One great performance of a piece does not necessarily guarantee another. Just because I once had a very successful performance of the Arutunian Trumpet Concerto (played here by Tine Thing Helseth), doesn't mean I can just push my internal Arutunian button and play it all again for you right now. Staging a repeat performance would require several weeks of practice and rehearsal. Musical ability is active, dynamic...and impermanent. The highest standards of proficiency must be rigorously maintained. In the best of times, this practice is exhilarating. During tougher times it can can be exhausting, discouraging, and downright terrifying.

I suppose this comparison is a bit simplistic. It's never desirable to sit back and "rest on your laurels" so to speak, and I'm of course always trying to improve my ability as a visual artist as well.

While waiting for my newest formal ideas to gestate, I've been experimenting with new techniques just for fun. I tried sketching more views of the moon through the eyepiece of my borrowed dobsonian, but had quite a lot of trouble. Those sketches went straight into the recycling bin! Though as I think about it now, maybe I should've saved them just as a laugh. In any case, I decided I'd need some practice before going out again, so yesterday I tried sketching a lunar landscape using an online photo as a reference...and as an added experiment, employed scribbling as my method...

The scribbles appearing earlier in this post show a few "details" close up.

In a way, the roughness of these scribbles--the way they resolve at a distance into something resembling a recognizable object--reminds me that all of it...the music, the drawing, my career, my life...is a never ending work in progress. I can't help striving for improvement and even yearning for (an unachievable) perfection, and it's often difficult to forge through tough times still believing that things will eventually work out. But in my better moments I remember to step back and take the long view. Sometimes those scribbles do add up.

Just Beginning

Because I'm never sure whether a work I've started will survive through to its successful completion, It's not usually been my habit to share in-progress artwork with others. Though, especially if it's clear the work will take a long time, I have been known to let my excitement to show off overcome any worries of incompletion.

So, yes indeed, I've started another drawing...and this one feels like it's going to take forever! I'm continuing to indulge my recent penchant for astronomical themes, and the subject I've chosen (which I may divulge at a later date), allows for a good deal of creative license. The exciting (and most challenging) thing about this project is that as I began planning it out, I couldn't seem to fit it properly to a single sheet of even the biggest paper I have. Instead, I decided to spread it over three panels. They're not quite as big as the ones pictured here, but in the end, should be at least a little more, well, detailed?

**just a side note: yes, I do think the above three canvases (housed in Paris' Centre Georges Pompidou) constitute a legitimate piece of art. Much as John Cage's infamous "4:33" redefined our concept of "music" and "silence" (there's a great article about this here), these blank canvases set up conditions inviting us to re-imagine how we frame our visual experience, and to consider again that pesky little question that never seems to go away: "what is art?" It took me a long time to appreciate this myself. The first time I went to the Guggenheim in New York and saw similar conceptual and minimalistic works, I was completely aghast. I felt that stuff like this was just thrown together by a bunch of lazy con-artists who were laughing their way into the art-history books. Over time, however, various experiences led me, almost without thinking, to reconsider that initial response, and somewhere along the line I was surprised to hear myself even defending (or in the very least, reserving hasty judgement of), similarly thought-provoking works. Feel free to disagree with me here. I understand why many eyes roll over such pieces (and don't worry, I won't be producing a blank-canvas series any time soon...it's not quite the style through which I best communicate), but you might be surprised what a second glance and a second thought might spark... 

Anyway, here's a snippet of what I worked on yesterday...

I don't have any idea how long the whole piece will take to finish, but I'll likely post more teasers as I make progress.

The Beehive Cluster

So, maybe this abstract astronomy art idea I've been exploring recently is turning into something bigger. I finished my second piece this morning after picking away at it for more than 2 weeks. The drawing is loosely based on one of my favorite star clusters--the Beehive, M44, or Praesepe (the manger)--and is done in bic pen, black and red sharpie, and colored pencil on white paper.

A fun fact I learned while preparing this post, is that the Beehive Cluster is Utah's official state astronomical symbol...fairly obvious, I suppose, for "the beehive state, but I had no idea that states even had official astronomical symbols to begin with. I guess not all of them do. Ohio, for instance, has quite a few official symbols: our state beverage is tomato juice, state bird is the cardinal, state bug is the ladybird, state flower is the red carnation (I'm sensing a pattern here), the state rock song (no I'm not making this up), is Hang on Sloopy...and the list goes on...but still no official star or astronomical wonder. Maybe the buckeye state should continue its penchant for red symbols and adopt Antares, or Betelgeuse (both beautiful red supergiants prominent in the northern sky), as its symbol. A ruby-red carbon star might also be nice...or why not just boldly claim all the universe's glowing red hydrogen?

Anyway...I've strayed from my topic...

I haven't seen the Beehive in quite a while. These days it doesn't come up until after midnight (which isn't itself a good excuse, as I could just as easily buck up and pull out the scope before sunrise...except that lately I've been a bit of a lazy bed bug...and its been cloudy here for nearly 2 weeks straight anyway), so my work on this drawing is based entirely on a few online images, and my own memory. I first saw M44 as a new member of the Salt Lake Astronomical Society while volunteering at an elementary school star party. When the constellation Cancer is high in the sky, the Beehive looks to the unaided eye like a hazy little smudge in between two of the crab's central stars, so is super easy for a beginner to find in binoculars or a telescope. The cluster is populated by a bunch of tight little triangles of stars, which to me (after I learned the cluster's name), appeared as little bees swarming around the heavens. 

It is these triangles that have really stuck in my memory. A few months after my initial sighting of the Beehive, I wrote a little trumpet etude whose triangular note patterns mimic the angular sense of fun that I associate with the cluster. I have yet to record it or otherwise share it publicly, and my handwritten copy (pictured on the left), is quite rough and lacks important expressive markings for dynamics and tempo, but it's still a fun and challenging little ditty to play around with. Perhaps as I continue my visual musings on astronomical sights, I'll make further attempts on the musical end as well. Triangles also feature heavily in my new drawing, and I think the two creative experiments make a good pair. 

I want to stress again that my focus with these astronomical abstracts is not necessarily to represent scientific meaning, or achieve perfect visual accuracy (this should be fairly obvious), but rather to portray some sense of the aesthetic and emotional experience I have while participating in amateur astronomy. I love seeing the fine work of dedicated astrophotographers, and (especially now that I have a borrowed Dobsonian to play with...courtesy of my friends at BRAS), I hope to continue practicing more realistic astronomical sketching, but I'm excited by both of these new drawings, and hope I find the inspiration to continue the series. 

Flute-a-Pillar

After a weekend forecast of persistent rain, how could I not take advantage of a refreshing Sunday-morning break in the clouds and head outdoors. At the recommendation of a fellow BRAS member, I decided to visit the Schoepfle Garden (one of the many metro parks operated by Lorain County), to stretch my legs a bit and take some photos.

The park--only a short drive through the cornfields from Oberlin--consists of a traditional European style formal garden (complete with meticulously-manicured topiary), surrounded by acres of natural woodland that edge a stretch of the Vermillion River. Though this adorably perky green sculpture was undeniably charming, I'll admit I generally prefer seeking out slightly more chaotic and hidden treasures.

A jumbled leafy mess at first glance, the tantalizing geometry of this spiderweb drew my attention...

...and maybe raccoons are so common here as to be a nuisance, but what beautiful little five-fingered footprints they leave behind...

As cliche as it can be, I don't suppose I'll ever get tired of gazing at bits of dew glimmering in the morning sunlight...

...or finding bold bits of color that glare out atop beds of mud and decay...

 Nature high aside, nothing prepared me for what I later encountered in the children's garden. I'll let this one speak for itself...I really have nothing else to add!

..."OF COURSE"...  

                                     Hmmmm...

A Flute-a-Pillar... What they won't think of next!

I certainly didn't expect musical instruments to feature so prominently in the local landscaping...

But no trumpet...aw shucks!