Summer

This morning I walked Luna.

I picked these.

I ran some very important errands and popped into my first farmers market of the summer.

I got all this.

And these.

I made this.

Sophia and her friend Zach made this gorgeous carrot cake that is awaiting me in the fidge.  They made it with carrots from our garden, and about the most expensive walnuts ever purchased by anyone.  I guess when you tell teenagers to go get some raw walnuts in the health food store and then don't bother to check the price per pound or the receipt...that's what you get.  I will let you know if it was worth it.

I love summer.  

I didn't always, when I was kid I was bored and missed school.  I was weird. 

But now I love summer with everything I've got.  

Summer makes me want to breathe deep, ride my bike, eat my vegetables, read, hike, drink iced tea, hang out with the kids, (Notice it isn't play with the kids anymore, I have been informed by Sophia that she doesn't "play" anymore.  Wait till she finds out what a huge mistake that is.  Good thing it is an easy fix.), grill, walk to the ice cream store, garden, paint, ride a cowboy...I mean horse, watch the sun go down, walk through the cemetery at twilight with the kids, (I hope they get so scared they cry and I have to hold them.), picnic, go to the creek and oh that's right...BREATHE DEEP.

I hope you all are enjoying your summer and that you get to ride a horse.  Or whatever floats your boat. 

 And that you remember to BREATHE DEEP, because it is good for you.

The Blue Revolution

There was an artist, his  name was Yves Klein.

He was french.  He was on the art scene during the late 40's and throughout the 50's.  He is considered the father of conceptual art.  Conceptual art meaning that art was fundamentally about the process, the experience, not the product.  As in painting nude bodies and pressing them on canvases while an orchestra plays, or making images on paper from burning it in front of an audience, or painting a whole gallery the same color white, the doors, the lights, the floor...and that being the "art".  All of which Klein did.  He was also the first artist to bring onto the art scene monochromatic pieces. (Monochormatic being...of all one color.)  He was into the experience of the color, how it made you feel, what it made you think, what it made you remember, that kind of thing.

 He died in 1962 at the age of 34.  A few months later his only son was born.  Tragic.
But tragedy is not what I wish to convey to you on this day, it is just a sidebar that is so common in stories about artists and art.  That topic will be another blog.

Today, I want to convey to you...Blue.
Yes, I said Blue.

This Yves Klein...he was into blue.  He was so into blue that he had a patten on his blue, International Klein  Blue.

Stan the Man, my father, Stan Padilla for you new readers, is really into blue as well.
After my mom died, he went through a phase, understandably so, where he didn't create much.  But once on the other side of this phase, he came out blue.
Not literally.  But if he did, we would call him Papa Smurf. (His grandchildren call him Papa)
 Like Picasso had a cubist period, Degas had his dancers and Hugh Heffner had a blonde phase, my dad is having a blue phase.

Aside from a "phase", my dad has really taken up Blue as a way of life so to speak.  And as the world synchronistically realigns itself...our home and specifically Sophia has blue enter her life in new and unexpected ways.

So I wonder...?  How does this color affect our lives?  Why are we drawn to certain colors at certain times in our lives?  Why do we have resistance to certain colors?  Why are baby girls put in pink and purple and baby boys in blue?  Why do we in the West get married in white and wear black to funerals and in the East white is the color worn to put to rest the dead?

Is it culture that defines our color agenda?  Is there something inherent in the colors themselves that are somehow universal?  Do we cling as a society to the standards set by previous generations or approach the very element that helps us distinguish one object from the next and we from each other with fresh eyes and new visions?

Back to this Blue...it is half of what we see in our world everyday.  The sky, in varying shades and intensities.  If you are really lucky, your water is blue, and here in Oregon and in Lake Tahoe,  we are very lucky.

Yves Klein's most famous quote is, " Blue is the color of the invisible becoming visible."  I think there might be some truth in that.

So my dad may be onto something with this blue deal he has going on. He may be onto more than one thing, but at the very least this one thing.

Blue....it's  is pretty hot right now.

For right now, you just get a snippet into the blue world I got to be around while I visited my dad during my trip to CA,  a few Klein Blues and Sophia's emerging blue world.

A few weeks from now I will take you on a journey though the blue world of my dad's artwork.

Bambinos

My dad, known in some circles as Stan the Man, lives on some acreage in the Sierra Nevada Foothills.  If you know my dad, you would know he is an interesting guy with lots of talents and plenty of quirks...like most us  I suppose.  Anyway...this dad of mine, Stan the Man, has a certain, shall we say presence about him.  An air, an aura, a mysitic.   This aura he has allows certain magical things to happen around him, in his life, in his world.  I am sure it has gotten him in some trouble too...but this isn't about that.

This land that he is living on now is pretty special too, and the combination of his mojo and the land being  special allows some magical things to happen...not Harry Potter kind of magic, but magic none the less.

Living under my father's deck is this family.

They were so sweet and relaxed around  us.

I could hardly believe my eyes.

There were so relaxed, they even played together as I was right by them clicking away with my camera.

I am not a wildlife photographer, so these are a little unsavory in my opinion, but they capture the mood.

I love this little one looking at me.

This one was scared by a dog walking on the road and ran back to the house to wait for the mama.  Lucky me.

I know that a picture is worth a thousand words, but these ones cannot convey even half of what I felt to have been around this family. And not just because the pictures aren't very good, but because experience lives  in our hearts and our souls and a picture...is just...a picture...a thing.

  No substitute for the real thing...Experience.

Lake Tahoe

I have been away so long, it is now a new month.  The middle summer month, the birth month of my oldest, the birth month of our nation, and high travel season.

As all of you are off in Switzerland, Italy, France, Portugal, India, Spain (I hate you all by the way), I had my little summer trip to California.  Only one state away, a days drive, my birthplace and my home for the better part of my life. Well, not the "better part",  just the longest part.

As I am sure all of our travel destinations this summer will provide us with spectacular landscapes, interesting people, wonderful food and treasured life time memories...mine was special.  Really.  I mean really special, at least for me.   Because rediscovering something you never payed much attention to while it was right in your "backyard," is like finding a twenty in the jeans you forgot you had.

This was  the theme of my little summer jaunt to California in so many ways and on so many levels.  And I will share those ways and levels with you all, (all nine of you followers) in the coming days, but today I will share the biggie.  It was the reason I went to CA and what took my breath away for the  first time in my life,  although I have seen it, visited it, drawn it, learned about it since I was a young whipper snapper.

Lake Tahoe.

Lake Tahoe, California, Nevada.

About the Lake:

1.  Lake Tahoe is the largest freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada's that  span the U.S.
2.  It is the largest alpine lake in North America at 6,225ft in elevation.
3.  It is the nations 2nd deepest lake at 1645ft, with Crater Lake, OR being the deepest at 1945ft.
4.  It is the 16th deepest lake in the world.
5.  It is known for it's clarity and gorgeous blue water.
6.  It is 22 mi. long and 12 mi. wide.  There are 72 miles of shore and the surface area is 191 sq mi.
7. The lake was used by the Washoe indians.  It was at the heart and center of their territory.
8.  Lake Tahoe is fed by 63 tributaries and has only one outlet, the Trukee River that flows northeast, which feeds into Pyramid Lake, Nevada, that has no outlet.
9.  It shares shore line with both California and Nevada.
10.  There is gambling on the Nevada side.
11.  It is a major tourist attraction for both California and Nevada.
12.  It sits in the Tahoe National Basin, which was created by faults and the extinct volcano Mt. Pluto millions of years ago.
13.  It is thought that the lake was filled with melted glaciers during the ice age.

Spoils of Spring

It has been a particularly long wet winter here in the Pacific Northwest.  I think we had two nice days without clouds or rain, but up until yesterday and today, it has been cloudy and cold.    Okay...today it is overcast, but it isn't cold.  The middle of June and it is just now getting over 70 degrees.  Someone should have told me.

Needless to say, our gardens and yards and our proverbial spirits have suffered from lack of sun and warmth.

But even though we have suffered, what hasn't killed us, just makes us stronger.

What has survived,  is more cherished and beautiful because it has had to work so hard.

Just like the human spirit.

A few months back my dad, Stan Padilla, asked me to make a series of books for him.  He had a plan.  Something I aspire to.  So...I made him a set of 5 books.  We picked out the papers together, and then he left me to my work.  This is what happened.

Once I was done with the books, I sent them to my dad and he went to work.  He told me his plan for said books, but a picture is worth a thousand words.  So I wanted my sister to take pictures of them once they were done so that I could see them.  But she said no, she had too many things to do.  The nerve, how dare she have a life.

But this weekend while my dad was here to celebrate Kai's 8th grade graduation, he brought the books with him.  He did this with them.  I approve.

I hope that my dad and I get to collaborate on more projects together.  It is a pretty lucky thing to share with someone, let alone your own flesh and blood.  It is pretty special that we share not only flesh and blood, now we share this.