Painting Boldly

tinyExpanse North Idaho

A blogging, painting, exploring good time up north!

Sunrise at City Beach, Sandpoint

I began the day again at City Beach, a place that is now firmly on my "happy place" list. Sandpoint has so many great public spaces that are clean and well cared for, and well used. The Pend d'Oreille Bay Trail is another of these - a stretch of natural walking trail along the water, preserved by the efforts of Idaho Conservation League and the Friends of the Pend d'Oreille Bay Trail. These islands of sanity in urban areas often are my favorite places - from my childhood stomping grounds near Bandelier National Monument, to the stunning Redwood Grove of Old Mill Park in Mill Valley, California, to the foothill trails in Hull's Gulch in Boise, many of my most peaceful memories of the places I've lived are set in these refuges.

Later this afternoon I returned to City Beach and took a swim. I love experiencing a public place early in the morning before it is occupied by other people, and then witnessing the transformation later in the day. The rhythmic oscillation between of tranquil rest and joyful activity always makes me feel strangely content - perhaps in the knowledge that these places have a life of their own outside regular human business hours.

After my swim I drove 30 miles north to Bonner's Ferry to paint at the Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge. This is the site of some of my most lasting impressions from my first visit to North Idaho with my dad almost five years ago. The Wildlife Refuge is an exquisitely, almost painfully beautiful place. A wide glacially carved valley is filled with the sounds of birds and meandering water reflecting the ever-changing colors of the sky above. After painting the sunset I slowly drove the tour road around the refuge, enjoying the color of the sky and water constantly changing into different hues of what I like to call magic pink and magic blue (the colors of sunsets), the grasses in the marshes fading from Prussian green to a gentle chromium oxide green as the deer emerged for evening feeding.

Solitude in natural places is a very different kind of aloneness than that which I experience inside in my studio. The solitude that nature provides is more of a feeling of "becoming one" than of "being alone." It is a great service that organizations such as Idaho Conservation League are providing by preserving these sanctuaries. Here's to 50 years of the Wilderness Act!

This was my last day to paint for the exhibition on Friday - tomorrow I will be painting edges, adding hanging wires, printing labels, photographing - all the numerous tasks that are part of preparing an art show. Thursday is installation day, Friday the opening (after a jaunt up Scotchman's Peak). Wish me (and ICL) luck! And if you are in Sandpoint, come on by! 5:30-8:00 at the Panhandle State Bank.