There are sacred sites all around. When I was younger the thrust was to outside places: Martha"s Vineyard, the Maine Coast, the Navaho Nation; were places people visited and came away enlightened or not depending on what they saw. Trips went farther afield Africa for some opened eyes, Asia for others. Mongolia Inner and Outer, even Australia's Ayer Rock became a place to visit. People spend millions visiting the place of the true cross unless there are mobs and soldiers trading blows.

I was driving though Navaho Country when I thought that all the Turtle was sacred. Not just the places of power we find far from the nest.

City park in Denver as well as the railyards, most of the banks of the Platte. Polluted and forgotten places. Stillwater and Canon City places where hope is forgotten, New Hope and humanity discarded, the rez, ghetto, trailer park, hood, slum, the rust, pellagra and bible belt are all part of the sacred.

The Platte all the way East is filled with places to stop and think. Cozad Nebraska is the birthplace of Robert Henri a painter whose zeal still inspires the viewer to do the manly thing and paint...The Dells seem to keep their mystery from this painter yet the West opens like a book.

I never painted the Vineyard where I grew up. Home was a contradiction, art was written and talked but painting was not allowed. Yet it was there that I started to learn painting from Tom Benton and Georges Shribier who pushed me to draw and to look and see. I learned the camera first and thought there was no use in painting. Art, in mother's word, was about talent and magical gifts. (How we smash our children.)

Years later after study and painting and drawing I have arrived at the conclusion that art is about seeeing and hard work. Benton used to complain about having trouble getting a likeness. He drew and sculpted his South and Midwest found where the power was and he was unafraid to express himself. It cost him dearly but he saved American Art and a boy, asking questions, from madness.

Benton taught Pollack and wondered why Pollack went to Sequerios to finish his education and why Pollack went to his place in art. I a silly kid might have found out the answer to that koan. Pollack found an easy way; he took it to the limit and beyond and paid with his life when he did what he was told was good after being taken to the top of the mountain.

Not that abstract expressionism was wrong or bad art but for a few years it was the only art that the few gallery owners and critics thought was art. Art is wider than fashion: both Pollack and Benton knew that. They both knew the sacred and the profane, just that Benton would, as a good American, not bow to ideas he did not agree with. Benton knew where he lived and, like Fritz Schoeler, T.C. Canon, Doug Dawson, lived there.

Truches is a mountain town in Northern New Mexico. It has attracted artists who are tough enough to endure like the Latino residents. It is a also Psycho city filled with violent and wonderful people. One of them was a painter and judge named Bill Tate.

Bill was a pretty good painter and poet who lived many years among people who had no idea about limits in life. Bill was respected and ununderstood. That he was respected he stayed alive in a place where every Sunday they had running gun fights between the drug dealers and their hoards of enemies. Bill attempted to bring order there and paid by having his home and art work torched by a fifteen year old thug, such is the fate of culture. It is place where the unwary had best be armed. Bill's sworn enemy a politico claque who arranged to kill him several times and each time was thwarted.

The town was settled by Madmen from Spain and was wrested from the Navaho-Apache by 1500 men from the asylums of Spain. They massacred the men and took the women and due to their origins did not intermarry much with surrounding villages. They lived like poor people in a very beautiful harsh place that required them to be strong even in their anger with everything. The cross in the Sangres De Christo is there to see, as are views of our multiverse unavailable anywhere else in North America. Very seldom did the Indians fight so hard for a place. The ridge commands the old 'High road to Taos' so the Spaniard put the Indian to the sword without pity. Indian People remember as do their Latino cousins. Places are not forgotten.

Crested Butte where I lived was the same except it was the gold and coal hungry White guys who hunted the Utes out of there, then fouled the place and left...When they returned they were New Yorkers and Kansas speculators despoilers without conscience or placeness, we artists call them real estate magots. They feed off the superficiel view or place, like the fate of Golden Pond or Martha's Vineyard or Aspen or Carmel. They feed off the artist's optic nerve. For years the artist has been used by these cheapskates to cheat the people out of home and hearth for simple greed: generally they leave irreparable damage to both the land and the people's lives. There is nothing but another doped out suburb left behind in once wonderful lonely places. Less damage to Boulder was done by Rocky Flats than the real estate scum that have flocked there to turn the Flat Irons into tract housing for geeks( really smart people living on plutonium, coal and gold tailings.)

These are all far away places to most readers and can be visited for a price. What they are missing at home however is what is priceless. To quote Buckaroo Banzai the great American philosopher.."Where you are is where you are at."

The place within five minutes walk can be just as important a view from Where Tate's house once stood, and you don't have to risk your life. Unless you live in a totally trashed out place, which is something you can change or at least ameliorate, walking out the door will bring you to a place of wonder. We artists carry our work to plein aire with the camera the proshade box and the portable easel. The writer has the pen. The average guy could care less give him more beer, TV and weed. Joe six pack dies horribly; respect that and bury him in bubble packaging. If the neighborhood is good the hoods will strafe the Realtor's Lexus and that burned out hulk will give the right 'feel' and 'mood' to your next masterpiece.

Getting back to it all: art supplies . I might even publish this.

I went into our local, state wide art supplier, Meiningers, Denver store for my consumables. They had announced a web special of a easel that I need so I went to check it out, even pay tax on it and pick it up in person. I have done business there for thirty five years which means I know their stock, the owner and the staff.

The owner has in the past charged a keystone price to professionals so I am very careful not to let him rip me off. Mail order however is hard on buying tools unless one is savvy. This time I was.

Since the advent of the web as a place of business I have been buying airbrushes, compressors and heavy equipment on the Net. Saving hundreds of dollars which I spent foolishly on taxes, food, transportation and children. I have become web wise. So when the manager of the department became surly about the web item I reminded him that lost professional sales might mean nothing to him but there is a hole in their business, me.

I continue to buy the small items and the consumables, price differential there is small, but for one time expensive items I am compelled, no, forced by responsibility to get the best price. The manager's employer, a good man, no doubt, was doing his best to not serve a side of the public that pays his profit and loss sheet. This is how capitalism works. Final point, the burger who owns the place is unwilling to link with the professionals who are being over-charged. Good will cuts both ways on the Web where there is no money, just trust.

Just when I thought I knew something and said it Golden Paint announced what looks like a break though except in price of refletant metallic paint it looks great and can be airbrushed but it costs 28.00 for a third of an oz five times the of a lid when I was a kid. A swatch can be ordered at www.goldenpaints.com ask for the Panspectra information. This will change acrylic painting, if permanence is good..

Gamblin has not been sleeping at the wheel either, their new stuff ought be affordable. Go see their high intensity line which compliments their varied palettes see them at www.gamblincolors.com

Both Gamblin and Golden have excellent web presence. Both companies have artist safety at the heart of their business.

Part of the Media Collective is immersed in the visual arts. As our computer power grows so will our graphics, but right now we are limited by a lack of computer power. If you can help, we are a 501- 3-(c); your donation is tax deductible. We are looking for a Canon digital still camera with lenses compatible for reproduction work, or a Canon Digital video that would aid in our production quest, and also an F3 Series or better analog Nikon with 2.8. 80-200 Lens and/or 28-105. Trades for goods and services can be negotiated, but are not deductible.

There has been little on the reporting side right now since I am painting and drawing which take lots of time as each medium has its own tempo. The web is fast but painting has its own pace. Painting with reporting produces yet another set of rythmes.

Oil painting is quick; I work small and fast there. Takes forever to dry, however, the medium is rewarding. I am working on Where I live, In Remembrance of Free Speech, and 100 views of Pike's Peak series.

Airbrush painting is no longer ritualized. I have changed and evolved a style that is very different from two years ago. My airbrush painting is acrylic based; that's what I feel comfortable with. Acrylics are the same price as oils. Let's be honest: the same amount of work goes into each. As for the crate, it requires a woodworking shop. Shipping is a bear; I build a crate for each oil and acrylic painting (except the tiny ones), knowing folks move and the crate will last longer than the owner with proper care. Open carefully.

Mankind in Search of his Symbols, Country Roads, Women of Columbine, Local Heros, In Remembrance of Free Speech, and One Hundred Views of Pikes Peak are my main painting themes.

Disclaimer: I am asked how effects are achieved and what tools I use. I am not paid endorse any product; I am merely expressing what works for me and other collective members.

About quality: I paint in the French manner, which means five coats of gesso over board, then start thin, finish thicker. I use Gamblin paints, they are America's Standard. Their quality is the state of the colorman's art.

Acrylics: I use Golden Colors and I mix them myself for the airbrush; though most folks in the airbrush world don't care about paint, I do. In acrylic I tend to the Italian-North European School. Golden has excellent colors and is the best acrylic paint in America.

Air brushes: I use Rich Pen and Iwata air brushes; they come from the same foundry, as do most Japanese air brushes. Unlike the Japanese, Italians and Germans, we Americans seem unable to make an airbrush or a compressor with quality.

There are limited pencil drawings that I let out of my sketch books, various sizes of oil paintings, many air brush paintings, and pen and ink drawings, any of which may be yours for a reasonable donation. See one you like, call us 719-541-2042 any day from 9:00 am to 10:00 pm (MST); leave a message to get a reply. For details on how you can obtain some of this artwork, please contact us, either by phone or e-mail.

More On Tools

Tools define the results of labor. Eric Sloan defined farm tools and hand tools in general; he showed us how the designs come from thousands of years of tradition and science. Regions developed shapes and types of tools such as the oriental brush shape which is defined by the nature of the result desired. Twenty thousand years back, the caves of France were painted with a primitive airbrush.

The oil painters' brushes in the West were very much defined by the medium and the desire to define content. The great painters of the Renaissance used rounds and a limited pallette. Then, as chemistry improved, the way paint was made and applied changed the way brushes were used, challenging the artist.

The same happened to the farmer and the laborer. Advances in the arts were mainly coupled with social- economic changes; great etchers and painters followed the Renaissance north to join with advances in metallurgy and the printing press. Warfare, with its need for accurate maps after the invention of modern warfare by Hawkwood in Italy, pushed communications and math forward. The artillery man and the artist needed to understand the new math.

The industrial revolution with the dyes and improvement to printing, invention of photography, and dye-making made the Impressionist, Nabis, art nouveaux, etc. possible. The airbrush came into being over that period of time. The fine arts took to the new tool very quickly. Illustrators recognized potential in the invention and soon there was rumbling from the arts establishment which appeared to ban the tool from the gallery and the museum. "Too related to photography" was the reason given as the door was slammed by the effete. Sequerios, the great Mexican Muralist, used airbrushes early and impressed his student, the young Jackson Pollack, with his Plastic Reality. Pollack traveled another road but he worked a couple of years with the great Mexican artist.

In the early sixties the advertizing industry developed the super airbrush. Computer regulated for sign making, this can produce prints any size needed, setting the stage for today's laser printer.

One of the reasons there haves been no advances in the paint sprayed by artists is that the newest coverings are toxic. Space age coverings carry a space age death sentence to the artist. Sequerios himself suffered from ill heath due to inhaling fumes from the laquer he used in his mural work. Today's paints are dangerous; a "mask must be worn at all times" (Jurek in correspondance.)

This may sound nanny like but its not. I ask why affordable protection is not available. We artists must spend a lot of money for safety or die young, art has its price, the Impressionists died blind for the most part. I want to know what did it: pastels or the paint? One would think some bright minds would be working positively in this direction. Artists, because they work alone are very vulnerable to environmental consequences, keep this in mind. I gave up silk screening, cannot work in a photographic darkroom and cannot use French painting methods because of health concerns.

I was airbrushing in the mid eighties when the current technological wave hit what was an esoteric art tool. The Japanese air brush was a radical departure from the difficult to use American and British brushes that were available. Paint also improved at the same time. Firms like Iwata and RichPen appeared and the tee-shirt and car painters quickly picked up on the new equipment. I was at this time a fine artist and not out there in the arena to pick up on the latest happenings. I was lucky to meet Neil the techie from Meinningers, a local art dealer who hipped me.

The improvements: strengthening the body of the brush and getting the shoulder of the needle just right. Tips got both smaller and more robust. The two kinds that I use are the Iwata Micron and the RichPen Gemini Series. The Rich Pen, though hard to come by, is the more versatile; it can handle heavier acrylic paint, gives even distribution at a distance and holds the line well.

The Iwata Micron is a wonder tool but it is best used for fine work. RichPen does the heavy lifting, large areas, even paint distribution and is fine for medium detailing. This is where, in the way I work, the rubber and the road all meet.

A man named Jurek affected my way of working and my respect for the tools and traditions. Artists ought to be ready for change yet be mindful of where one is on the path, Jurek looks forward and back at the same time, a painter who can think, a solid teacher. When I was learning painting one had to journey to the teacher, today with video and streaming media the artist can make house calls. Of course nothing beats a good long talk or silence or a look. But the world is large and time appears to be short so we use the Internet, tee shirts, motorcycle tanks, video, tape to communicate while the academicians cower in their ivory towers.

The most important point to grasp is the tool ought to work for you and bring the desired results. I have three airbrush links: one is for absolute beginners, then there is Jurek's and RichPen. I am not a teacher rather a student or a signpost. The brain is our best tool, how we underuse it.
Continuing