Please Pray for my Son Bill

I haven't written here for a while, and now want to get up to date. First of all, my oldest son, Bill, is in the hospital, very sick with pneumonia. Yesterday he didn't know me, or even what his name was. Today, he knew me, thank God, and even said a couple of sentences. I hope this is the beginning of an upward trend. His brother, my middle son, Bob (Bobby Jameson), and I have been, and are, very worried about him. We want nothing so much as to see him well again, and able to leave the hospital.

If anyone happens to read this who prays, please pray for Bill Jameson to recover from pneumonia. I will be forever grateful. Thank you.

On another subject, after not painting for several years, finally I am painting again and have three paintings posted on my new art blog, "Unblocked Artist." There is a link to it on this page. Would love to hear comments.

Abstract No. 7

I painted this several years ago.

Cover of my book. I used pastels.

Here Is the Painting of Poppies I Promised

Months ago I promised to put up the first painting I did after overcoming my "painter's block" of many years. I finished this first painting in the early fall of '08, but, as I said yesterday, couldn't figure out how to post it. Last night my son (Bobby Jameson) helped me figure out how to do it, so now I can finally show what I've been doing since challenging myself last August on this blog in a specific way. The painting below represents a wonderful breakthrough for me. I hadn't been able to paint for a long time. I think the problem that had me so tied up was lack of specificity of intention. Now I am a happy artist, painting almost every day and loving the process.

I am now working on a painting of oaks, wonderful California oaks. I admire them because they are so enduring and adaptable. Out on Bob Jones Trail, south of San Luis Obispo (where I live), a huge oak was ripped out of the side of a hill by its roots in a big storm. It fell right across the trail. County people came out, removed it to the side, and cut it up into pieces small enough for people to carry away. Gradually most of them disappeared, taken, I suppose, by people who had fireplaces, and were happy to get free firewood, oak at that.

There was one rather long bough, not the right shape or size for a fireplace, that was left behind. Not too long after the dismemberment of the tree, this bough began to sprout. Now, many months later, there are branches reaching upward from where it is lying on the ground, and a new tree has begun!

Depending on circumstances, I have seen that an oak trunk can become root, or the root become trunk, whatever is required for life to continue. With such adaptability, no wonder so many of our California hills are covered with oaks. I love them.

Poppies by Laguna Lake, San Luis Obispo

My New Painting - Posted At Last

The painting below, Dawn in the Country, is my most recent one. I promised to post it here weeks, or perhaps months, ago. It took me until now, because I couldn't figure out how to do it. Finally, this evening, my son (Bobby Jameson) helped me. It was an agonizing procedure for him, because he has an Apple, I have Windows, and we discovered how very different they are. Even though he wasn't feeling well, he stuck with it until he figured it out, while making numerous colorful comments about what he thought of Windows.

I have two more paintings to post, but that will have to happen on another day as this one is almost over. I am happy, though to have this painting on my blog at last.

The Inconstant Constancy of the Wind

The wind has stopped. For three days it has been raging, moaning, and blowing everything around that’s not secured in place. Now, there is a wonderful silence, a resting from endeavors before the beginning of normal activity.

Man is indeed silly. He thinks he runs the world, but he can’t stop the wind, and he doesn’t even have the sense to use its power for the things he needs to do. When I was growing up, there were windmills on every farm. Then gradually, they fell into disuse as electricity became a rural as well as a city commodity.

Now, finding ways to use the power of the wind, as a substitute for fuels that send carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, is one of the latest ideas for saving the planet. And yet, it isn’t a new idea. It’s been around. We just didn’t realize what a great idea it was. We thought using coal, gas, or oil was more modern, technical, and sophisticated. Windmills were old-fashioned.

It was fun while it lasted, but now we have to find sources of energy that are renewable. The wind is like that. It comes and it goes, but never leaves forever. It always returns sooner or later. And even though we sometimes have much more of it than we want, it’s still the closest thing we have to the long-sought-for perpetual motion. I hope we’re smart enough to use it so we can give our groaning planet a break and a chance to renew itself

In the meantime, I'm happy it's not blowing today.