Webster Art

In 1998 my son Clint was in the seventh grade when he started bringing his BMX friends over to the house. That was 1998. There was a gang of them including Tony and his brother, our neighbor’s son Jeremy and a few others. They’d build increasingly larger dirt jumps in the neighborhood, sometimes just beyond our property in the green belt. I didn’t think about it at the time, but there were never any girls in the group.

Lisa was always around of course, and I’m sure some of her girlfriends like Andrea would be nearby. But they weren’t into BMX. As they got better Sue would act as a soccer mom, BMX style, driving them around town to the various skate parks and forested jumps in our 1996 Ford mini van. I went on some of those trips if I wasn’t working.

Clint has been around climbing his whole life, but sometime in their late teens, early twenties, he invited Craig to try climbing for a weekend. Craig was a natural and within a few years he, Clint and some of their nursing buddies were climbing at Exit 38 on their own. We all made some trips to Yosemite Valley as well.

On one memorable 14 day trip we met Bretts friend Crystal in the valley. Clint and Sue drove home in his Tacoma while Craig, Crystal and I stayed another week. Gradually, as Clint got busy with his nursing job he cut back on his climbing. I can’t remember the exact timing, but we had a great run of about 12 years. Craig, on the other hand, had a shipyard job with a lot of vacation time.

Craig fell in love with climbing. He and Clint still ride the jumps on their mountain bikes to this day. But while Craig does both sports, Clint doesn’t climb rock anymore. He still climbs Rainier every summer, but his sports are the mountain bike, bow hunting and skiing, mostly on Rainier, but also lift skiing.

I wasn’t planning to revisit all this history… I started this post to show my latest painting, which is Craig. I guess I felt I needed background since up till now my portraits have all been family. My first portrait was of two of Clint’s chickens. Then a cat, then his daughter Rose and then Clint. Next I did Lisa’s daughter, grandkid number 2. Then I painted Lisa. I thought Lisa’s portrait was my best painting ever.

During my annual jtree trip…I still haven’t written that trip report…I got some great photos of Craig. My darn iPhone 17 pro almost matches my full frame camera for portraits in good light. Craigs wife Shannon liked Lisa’s portrait and mentioned in passing that she was thinking about commissioning me to paint Craig for his birthday. She has a print of an old portrait I did of Craig by campfire light in Jtree. I didn’t respond immediately to her statement. These days I paint for enjoyment and satisfaction. And I still don’t know how I feel about that. I dislike money between friends.

Long story short I started Craigs portrait by drawing it in pencil on masonite covered with an oil ground. That went fairly well after the usual stumbles. It turned out so good I wished I’d just done the pencil work on good drawing paper. I could have called it done. But as the old saying goes: “In for a penny, in for a pound”.

When I started in on the color I immediately started hating life. I’ve never painted teeth before. The reason ancient painters never did teeth is because photography hadn’t been invented and no one can pose smiling. Being a traditionalist I also never did teeth, preferring to work from life. But no one has time to pose anymore, and it was a great smiling photo my camera had captured.

For several days I tried to ease in on the color with non committal washes, letting the strong pencil work show through. I’d fixed the pencil so it was bulletproof. But I was getting nowhere and knew I had to launch into thick paint. For a day I was using the color picker in Photoshop on my iPad to tell me what colors to put where, but that didn’t work. Painting from a photo is not just copying colors. You might as well just keep the photo. No, the whole point of a painting is to bring a portrait to life so it breaths in a way that a photo never can. There is a reason painted portraits are treasured.

Finally I started interpreting the photo colors into something that spoke to me. Soon the painting came to life. There was a moment when I was painting my crazy ass colors and a good song came on my playlist. I think it was “Gimme’ one reason” by Tracy Chapman. I was so happy with the painting I started dancing in my studio.

Sue knocked on the door and came in.

“Oh, those colors are awful! His beard isn’t green, what were you thinking? I’ll bet it was all those acid trip that messed up your ability to see color!”

But before she had come in I’d been wondering about my choices. My daughter Lisa is an excellent judge of my artwork and I’ve always known I can get the straight skinny from her. Here is a text message string to Lisa:

Because I was focused on painting and then building 4 new hand painted and gold leafed picture frames, I’d stopped playing guitar. Or I think that was why. Perhaps my mind only has so much creativity available. I finished the frames today and was pottering around the house and saw my guitar gathering dust.

I put on my harp brace and started playing The Rose as a one man orchestra: guitar, harp and out of tune voice. The song dug out some deep emotions of joy and sadness combined that could only happen through performing live music. I feel fortunate to have these talents.

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My iPhone has a function where I can press a button and it goes grayscale. It’s supposed to reduce screen time by making it less interesting and therefore addictive. I hit it accidentally while looking at his portrait and was stunned at how accurate my values were. Any hue will work if the values are correct.

Had a fun day at the gym Friday. Brian and I have an on and off Friday afternoon rendezvous that depends on us both being in town. Earlier in the week Craig, James and Chris all asked me to climb, but I only had Friday available. I invited them all to join Brian and I. A great time was had by all. We know each other from previous trips, though James hadn’t met Brian.

I feel lucky to have a core group of climbers who love the sport. For a little background, I met Craig first when he was 12. He and my son with BMX buddies who started climbing. He in turn met Chris and shortly thereafter Lisa, who later became Brians girlfriend. I met James on a legendary trip to Jtree in 2007. That was my first return to Jtree in 7 years. We had a carful of characters also including Austin and Brett, joined the next year by (blind) Paul. Since then I’ve only missed 2 years in the high desert. Chris and Lisa G and I have made many, trips together to Yosemite, Smith and Squamish. Here we are in Yosemite 16 years ago:

Earlier in the week I climbed with Terry and Roger J, of Roger’s Corner at Index. I think I met Terry through Roger, and of course I met Roger through Jim P. Terry is an old alpine climber who has been everywhere and climbed everything. I met Jim P at Spire Rock in 1977 and must have seen Roger there too, since he and Jim Yoder spent years building the darn thing one stone at a time.

I also played doubles ping pong 4 times this week. Tuesday Thursday and Friday mornings with Sue and a cast of merry makers: Pam, Dennis, Casey, Lissette, Carol, Mary, Cary, Jackson and his mom, John the policeman, Eric, and a couple others whose names escape me. Wednesday evening Sue and I played with the pros: old Bob (90) Randy, Kathleen and Yo. John also showed up there after work in full armor.

I pedaled my uni twice this week. Today there was a motorcycle meetup at the ferry dock boat launch parking spot. As usual I was the only one wheeled weirdo. A little kid got so exited by my uni he raced alongside me for half a block, hooting like he’d seen a unicorn. I had enough in the tank to pedal up the hill to the skywalk. Pedaling uphill on a uni is a flat out sprint. I’m pushing as hard as I can while desperately fighting for balance. It’s important to maintain some speed because inertia helps with stability. It’s such good exercise!

I was pleased to do all that without Ibuprofen. I’ve been taking a teaspoon of a Tumeric anti-inflammatory supplement every day. It’s not as good as Ibu, but less toxic.

After riding today I stopped at Clint’s to pick up Sue who was babysitting 3 month old Gracie. Clint and I worked on truing up his new fence door. As a homeowner of an older house he is becoming quite handy. He’s put in real slate flooring in his kitchen, tiled the walls in his bathroom with grout and installed two wood stoves and a dishwasher. Being retired I help where and when I can.

I guess I could work around our house. I have to change oil in our two Toyotas. Sue is after me to replace the front and back doors. I did one on a shed last summer which turned out good for a non carpenter. I also need to clean the traps on both sinks. We’ve been overbooking ourselves in retirement. Here is a week:

• Two hours of doubles ping pong up to 4 days a week
• Climbing gym up to 3 days a week, often on same days I play pong
• Unicycle every other day, Sue walks with Pam
• Helping out, visiting and or babysitting 5 grandkids
• Playing guitar
• working on cars
• dental or medical appointments
• feeling guilty because I’m too busy to be an artist

I’ve started a new portrait from a photo. It’s really tough orange lighting with a smile. I rarely do teeth. I did a nice pencil drawing on oil gesso. That was so nice I wished I’d just done it on good hot press drawing paper. Now I am trying to put oil color on top of fixed pencil and it’s an awful transition. What was once a well value balanced drawing is a train wreck of a painting. I need to have faith that I can get it past the awkward teen years to adulthood. The suffering involved reminds me why artists are rare. It hasn’t rained in 11 days.

I bought a new pen by Pilot. It is the Vanishing Point (VP). It’s a 60 year old design and keeps the ink wet just as good as my other Pilot Namiki Falcon. They both have an 18 Karat gold nib. They both have a small flex range and handle the same. The VP has a clicky ballpoint pen function that is very cool. However, the steel involved in the mechanics makes it noticeably heavier than my Falcon. It’s not so heavy it’s dumb, and my arthritic fingers are the real problem not the VP.

I prefer drawing with my Falcon, but it is all plastic and the cap may crack someday. But there you have it, two overpriced Japanese fountain pens. You get what you pay for with pens.

I treat these semi blind contour pen drawings as practice. Like a pianist running her scales, I draw to maintain my hand eye coordination.

We have mixed feelings about this. I guess pioneers taught kids how to shoot squirrels back in the day. She does it under strict supervision, with the bow out of reach when he isn’t home.

If you live in an old house your clothes closet doesn’t have lights. What did people do back then? I wasn’t about to pay an electrician to wire a new circuit from the main panel to each closet in each bedroom.

Amazon sells motion activated rechargeable closet lights for $17 advertised to last 60 days, but I don’t believe they are as good, bright or as controllable as my DIY system. I did buy a couple units from Lowes but they ran on 4 disposable C cells which are expensive and short lived.

The system I built uses 4 separate components.

• Motion – infrared sensor
• battery
• charger
• LED light strip

The battery can be something as simple as a motorcycle battery, recharged with a car trickle charger. So it depends on what you have on hand. I already had two 12 volt rechargeable LiFePO4 batteries that I use when I hike with my ham radios.

I charge them with a $37 LifePo charger that plugs directly into the battery:

I also had a 20 foot 110V dimmable plug in light strip already up in my closet. These Chinese made light strips are cheap and super bright. You can also find them at Lowes. But it was annoying because the power chord over to the wall outlet ran under the closet door and looked like a fire risk. And it wasn’t motion activated. I’d plug it in to use the closet, then forget and leave the light on. I looked into door activated switches, meaning the light turns on when the door is open, but that requires hard wiring 110 volts which seemed too much.

Over the span of a couple years I went though the C cell Lowes closet light, the 110V LED strip and a simple headlamp hung on the door. None were ideal. Then I was on a climbing trip and went into one of those classic cement outhouses at night in Joshua Tree. A light came on in the ceiling. There is no electricity in Jtree. I looked up and they had the solution.

Rechargeable battery powered closet light sensor

Inside a metal cage on the cement ceiling they had a small rechargeable battery wired into a motion-infrared sensor with wires that led to a small LED light and a small solar panel on the roof.

While staring at it I realized I could replace the solar panel with my Bienno battery and charger and my system would be complete.

I wired in a standard automotive fuse for safety. I used Anderson PowerPole connectors because that is the standard in the Ham radio community and the YouTube learning curve is short. Plus that is what the battery ships with.

The beauty of this DIY closet light is that it is very bright, lasts for weeks, is rechargeable, is fused, and never has more than 12 volts in it. So fire risk is low. The only real risk is when charging the battery with the 110V chord going under the door. We are always careful to unplug any chargers before leaving the house. This includes laptops, iPads, phones, vacuums, etc.

I offered to put one in my wife’s closet but she prefers replacing C cell batteries. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.

Mountain closed, what to do?

Yesterday we were supposed to ski Rainier but two of the plow drivers recently retired. As with many boomer staffed blue collar trades these two old dudes took a ton of experience out the door with them. Our inside connection tells us that the online park service application process is incredibly cumbersome. The local loggers and diesel equipment operators who would be ideal for the job don’t have a chance of wading through the byzantine park service application process. Besides, who wants to drive a snowplow?

Fortunately there is a skinny ski and snowshoe trail on the way to Rainier. It is run by volunteers. It’s basically a couple old logging roads with reservable huts at the top. They have their own ski resort style grooming plows. If it snows a lot you park at the highest parking spot they can keep clear. You need a $50 yearly Snowpark pass, but other than that it’s free.

Yesterday Lisa and I skied – skinned 3 miles up the snow covered road to the 4700 foot high hut. I’d forgot to carb up the night before and ran out of gas in the last mile. I should have brought a rope so she could tow my sorry old ass. Both kids are incredibly strong: lungs with legs. But by stopping every 60 feet I managed to dig deep and arrive on top.

Lisa took off down the road like a shot, effortlessly linking turns on the narrow cat track. Both kids bought season passes as soon as they got hired in the ER. They can ski anything anywhere, including off the summit of Rainier. I ski the lifts maybe once a year. Who can afford $230 a day?

So when we go as family we skin up which is totally free and better exercise.

There was a crew of women dragging light plastic sleds. We couldn’t figure out why they needed McKinley style sleds to haul up light backpacks. But when they hopped in at the top and went zooming down the road, steering with their feet, we quickly saw the logic. No skill required and a fast trip down.

I started out snow plowing like a raw beginner. But with 3 miles to go I cramped up. The slope lessened and I was able to practice my cat track turns. Couldn’t keep pace with Lisa but she’d stop now and then and look back. Twas a fun ski day. Thanks to Sue for babysitting so Lisa could get out. My wife is a saint.