I have shown these paintings at the Washington Athletic Club, but now they are finally at a location open to the Public!

My ICONIC SEATTLE show will be on display at another iconic location: Catalyst Fine Art Gallery atThe Lodge at St. Edward Park in Kenmore; a renovated Catholic Seminary that's been turned into a destination hotel and an amazing place to show art. I also have a permanently installed mural there called "The History of Kenmore". 

Join the opening party for the show Sunday, September 6th, 4-7pm. Would LOVE to see you there! 

A shack by a park in the mountains above the city of Oaxaca

We returned to Seattle 9 days ago and have been readjusting to the more…..Scandinavian….environment here. It’s very beautiful, but also alarmingly orderly in comparison to Oaxaca. Almost sterile in it’s minmalism.

There is a much greater tolerance for chaos in Oaxaca. The traffic and building codes, not worrying if the streets don’t drain that well. Letting weeds overtake a property. Little order to signage; how many and what kind. Some of the city is pristine, but that seems out of place. Almost tacky. Like, quick, let’s get out of here to someplace more authentic.

Many of the streets had tarps and tents set up because of a Teachers Strike.

A tolerance of the old and in disrepair is also reflected in the attitude of the people. They are just not as uptight. “Tranquilo”, they would say. We like to think of ourselves as being all relaxed and west-coasty here, but when you go away to a more tropical zone for awhile, you realize that the Seattle Freeze is a real thing.

The long gray winters, albeit fairly temperate, take their toll and serve to cocoon us into little consumer units that connect to nature via REI purchases. We largely exist online (ahem) and often seem organized in groups based on our purchasing habits.

The Clouds turned to Thunderheads. It was the rainy season.

But hey, I am an insider here, and know too much. It’s easy to idealize a place as an outsider. I’m sure that a few more months in Mexico would have me complaining about too much religion and tacos. The traffic and emissions is definitely a drag. And do they have to be so easy-going all of the time?

Maybe I am just not clued in enough to see how they are uptight. It’s probably a different flavor of uptightness, that yo no comprendo.

Below is a video of us driving through the streets of Oaxaca on the last day we were there. Amie had just hurt her leg again and was in pain, streets were flooding, trees falling over the streets, traffic was crazy. When it rains it pours. (note: videos can be viewed by clicking the link that takes you to the Original Post, if you are viewing this through email)

That said, there was a state-wide Oaxcan teachers strike that descended on the city for all 3 weeks we were there. I discovered it by walking through a tent city that completely surrounded and inhabited the Zocolo, which is the central historic square in the city. It must have been…..5000-10,000 small camping tents in that area, covered with tarps between the buildings to protect them from the daily swing of sun and evening rain.

What stood out about this is that everyone just accepted it. The store owners, the vendors, the tourists, the taxi drivers…even the government (as no troops were sent in to remove them). They were quiet and well organized….whole families relocated to the streets for Lord knows how long.

Can you imagine Westlake and Pike Place being subsumed by a tent city for a month? I think even our new progressive mayor Katie Wilson would wind up calling out the National Guard. But who knows? It is so beyond our Scandinavian orderliness to even imagine such a thing. Or maybe it’s more of an American Individualism/pull yourself by your bootstraps and pay your bills kind of thing, making no time for true group unity and power in order to actually effect change.

Even sacrificing one day to show group unity is considered a waste of time here. Which seems like the perfect way of achieving….no change whatsoever.

While in Santo Domingo Square, we happened upon a wedding, or rather, it happened upon us. I saw a couple of giant puppets processing towards us in the distance, obviously Bride and Groom puppets. The groom puppet looked oddly caucasian, which made more sense as they got closer and we saw that the groom actually was a caucasian, being ritually subsumed into a very rich cultural tradtion through his betrothal to a Oaxacan woman.

This was no waspy wedding. Women with large headresses and flowing skirts led the procession with the bouncing puppets, and a spinning Tiliche dancer, while a phalanx of musicians played with the wedding party following. The procession stopped in the street right in front of the cafe we were at, and everyone would dance to the same song on repeat for like 15 minutes, and then they processed to another spot, and another, and another, dancing the whole time.

It seemed almost like a show for the tourists in its level of spectacle, but it was just a wedding, full of exhuberance and celebration. It was easy to get caught up in.

The ubiiquitous plethora of art in Oaxaca is somewhat overwhelming, so I will just focus on one museum: The Rufino Tamayo Museum of Pre Hispanic Art. Renowned Zapotec artist Rufino Tamayo and his wife Olga founded the museum to stop ancient artifacts from being sold and smuggled through illicit markets. Tamayo’s core vision was to display pre-Columbian relics based on their aesthetic power, shape, and originality, rather than focusing strictly on their historical or religious contexts.

I really appreciate that perspective when looking at ancient art: The aesthtic power in and of itself.

There is very often a condescending attitude taken when displaying prehistoric art. Kind of like, “Isn’t it cute that these savages can actually make things. It gives us excellent insight into their silly beliefs and customs.”

Personally, I am struck by the aesthtic power way more than the symbology or historical context, and I appreciate that this museum displayed the artifacts with that intention.

Side note: It took 3 of us to haul Amie up the stairs in the wheelchair (thanks museum guards!). It was smooth sailing,…unitl she had to come down again.

The Food! Pretty fantastic. I will leave you with this: Criollo is a mind blowingly good restaurant with a multi-course meal that I highly recommend (Not cheap, but worth it.) Also, a 30 min. taxi ride out into the Oaxacan countryside is Don Agave….Go for the Mescal tour and a 7 bottle tasting, but the food is even better. Almost equal to Criollo. Also, street tacos…..sample a bunch, and don’t be afraid of getting sick. We never did, and we ate everywhere.

Thanks for coming along! moodysteffon@gmail.com

“Fuente Cerca Mercado” - Watercolor and watercolor pencil on #300 paper - 9”x12”. (I kept thinking of John Singer Sargent’s watercolor of a fountain as I was doing this)

There is an open air market that we frequent near our apartmento that has a very small square next to it with a fountain. I sat down and drew and painted it LIVE, rather than from a photo…4 sessions I think. The drawing was pretty complex, which took 2 two hour sessions, and the painting about the same. Here is a GIF that shows the process:

It really is a completely different thing when you do observational art on site. I am not saying it is “better” than working from pictures, but there is a total experience that cannot help but be transferred into the work itself, which then acts as a memory trigger when you look at the painting again later.

Kids playing in the fountain. A man washing his face and filling up his water bottle in it. Two pigeons bathing in it. Me jockeying for the bench position in order to get the correct spot from the perspective I was drawing from. A dog drinking from a plastic bag filled with water. The tiny doves here….Tortollitas…politely pecking at my feet. The man next to me pointing to the dark clouds in the distance and saying “nubes negros”, indicating that I should take cover from the coming rain, which…I did.

I’d get some comments like, “Muy bonita! or, Is it for sale?”, but mostly people passed by on their way to and from the market, ignoring the gringo doing what half of the population here already does: Make Art. They produce arts and crafts like Americans produce…..what is it that we produce?

Art is ubiquitous here , and unique from region to region. The artisan is still a respected archetype. They might not make a lot of money, but they do make a lot of art, mostly traditional styles. It is a society that has not forgotten the magic of making. They even have Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo on their 500 Peso bill:

Which says a lot about the importance of art in this culture.

You see it in the museums, the murals, the market stalls, in the old architecture. Little kids hawk it from baskets that hang from their arm. And worth mentioning again: When a country puts two artists on legal tender, it signals that the artist is an integral part of society.

Below is a GIF of some of the photos I took while here. Each one worthy of a painting. This glaring beauty and richness is how I see the world. You see how it can be too much. How one might need to slow down and take stock in one beautiful thing.

There is more to show and say, but I think I will save that for another day. (Teacher Strike, Food, Mescal).

Tomorrow is our last full day before returning to Seattle. I think we will be going to a park in the mountains to get a more rural and elevated feel for this area.

Right now, in the distance I can hear a play by play announcer punctuated by immense cheers everytime Mexico scores a goal against South Africa in the opening game of the FIFA World Cup. 2-0 Mexico. There will be lots of Fireworks tonight!

As always, thanks for coming along. moodysteffon@gmail.com

“Woman on Oaxacan Street” - watercolor, gouache and graphite on 300# paper. 4”x8”. I was taking photos on the street while walking and picked this one to paint. After starting the painting I kept seeing the same woman walking about town. You start noticing people that live in the neighborhood when you stick around for awhile.

Traveling and Art are interesting bedfellows. They simultaneously compliment and contradict one another.

Both help you to see the world anew: Travel plunges you into new environments. While Art helps you to codify the new perspectives, which could lie anywhere from the exotic to the mundane. (Specifically, I am talking about doing oservational Art while traveling.)

First….who has time for it!? Aren’t you missing out on a lot of amazing stuff….?

Well, yes, but I can get overwhelmed with endless sight seeing. It gives me time to reflect and unpack the density of a single moment, which can easily get lost in the millions of moments we navigate daily.

Also doing Art on sight, en plein air, gives one the opportunity to not only observe a place, but commune with it. It is a very different activity than say, camera clicking or shopping or food consuming, which are all great, but I quickly get my fill, and just want to create in a new environment.

I know of no better way of being present for an extended period of time.

But aren’t you also dissassociating by focusing so much on creating something?……maybe, but the opposite is true as well. I am taking time to absorb something rather than just zooming by.

It also brings the world to me. People stop and look at what I’m doing. I notice how things change around me as I work. I feel a part of the fabric of a place.

Lastly, as time passes, and the trip is long over, having the artwork on the wall or on this blog is an incredible reminder. The level of engagement creating it cements the trip so much deeper than any photo ever has (for me).

That’s it for now. We return to the States on Friday. I have so much more to share about Oaxaca, and will in the next post. Museums, Markets, Giant trees, a Wedding, Archeolgical sites and a teacher strike!. It is kind of overwheling…….That’s why I focused on doing a watercolor of a woman walking down the street.

moodysteffon@gmail.com

The Tule Tree - The largest Tree in the world (girth-wise) . it was surrounded by fencing to protect it, which does not allow you to undersatnd the scale in relation to a human. You see the one fairly distinct knot near the bottom on the right? The top of the knot is my head height. The tree was twice as big as I expected it to be. It’s over 2000 years old, and the birds love it.

Amor En El Parque - Watercolor on 9”x12'“ watercolor paper

How do you decide on one image, out of all the gazillions of potential images?

You just do.

Something tells you it could be worthy of your time, but you are not sure.

As you work on it, you start to see meaning and connections that maybe you didn’t see at first. You edit stuff out, maybe add stuff in. You start to make this one of a gazillion images ….special. That’s the magic of commitment. The magic of spending time, of patience and reflection.

It’s not the image itself that is the important thing, it is the patience and reflection and conciousness behind it that matters.

The faster this world gets….the more I become enamored with the one image. It takes time to see something. The story keeps unfolding.

Above Video: Watercolor in the Rain.

Oaxaca has lots of booming fireworks, and thunder, and hard rain, and avocados that fall on our tin roof and a big cactus that fell in the storm. KABOOM! There are the occasional sirens and the musica, and then more fireworks.

The rain falls hard now forming a lake around our covered patio. The thunder again. The rain softens. The fireworks abate. It’s Thursday.

moodysteffon@gmail.com

Forgive me if this post is a bit scattered. By itself, traveling, doing art and blogging about it is kind of a lot, but adding a medical emergency to the mix is …..more than a lot, and also weirdly amazing…..like a Spanish Soap Opera amazing. So I will spare you the drama and just tell you the ending:

Amie’s torn achilles surgery went well! And I managed to eek out this one watercolor amidst the medical funhouse ride we were caught up in. (Not to make light of it, but also, yes, making light of it seems to have been a good way of coping so far. )

(I will show the steps I took to make the watercolor further down in this post)

Beneath the Palapa by the Boardwalk

On arriving in La Paz from a 6 hour bus ride from Loreto, we were both a bit crabby, from the whole painful ordeal, but also at having to stay in La Paz for 4 nights instead of the scheduled 1 night. After seeing the orthopedic surgeon, it soon become clear that that would be the deal.

But the medical attention was top-notch, and the La Paz boardwalk wound up being a pretty amazing place, specially in the evening. So my attitude shifted quickly. While Amie was in recovery, I gave reports of the outside world and shuttled food to her like a Momma bird.

Everything Up in the Air

We had to cancel our flight to Oaxaca last minute. Could we get a refund? Would the surgery be successful? Would Amie fly back to Seattle of continue on to Oaxaca?

At some point you realize that a lot is out of your controi, other than deciding what the next step should be, which was,: Do the surgery in La Paz and find a new Air BnB to stay in while recovering…..

Amie decided that it should be near the beach. A beach always softens things.

Brave On the Doctor’s Table - (The intake doc wondered why I wasn’t drawing him)

Dr, Toba was our Orthopedic Surgeon. He was amazingly calm and clear, and present with you when he was with you. We never felt rushed.

Aaron was our cab driver, who shuttled us about wherever we needed to go. You form these alliances while traveling.

Amie posing with Cast, Crutches and my Favorite Sculpture on the BoardWalk. The first big walk post-surgery. She has been a super trooper!

Disasters Connect People

I like to go to different countries, not just because I want a vacation and a playground, but because I am interested in other cultures. When you are in emergency mode, you learn a lot more about the culture than you would otherwise. Nurses, Doctors, Orderlies, Cab drivers, Bus drivers, Flight Attendants, Taqueria Waitreses and Hotel Receptionists, all came to our rescue, whether they could speak English or not.

That’s when you realize how amazing humanity is, and that’s when you understand what a culture is really about.

Also, when you are traveling with someone, and something happens and plans change, well, there you are, in another country, just dealing day to day. It’s a very cementing experience. Everything is the journey.

Below are the steps in the watercolor process: I think I like the un-lined one best. Sometimes things go too far. Which one do you like best?

I love to get responses to these posts. If ya wanna: moodysteffon@gmail.com is the best way.

We have been in Oaxaca for the past couple days and it is AMAZING. So much to say about it, and I will in the next post. Until then….con Dios.

In the Airport and on the Plane

I think this is my 5th time coming to Reed Nichelson’s Luna Negra hacienda at Playa El Coyote on the Sea of Cortez. There is no power here, so those resouceful enough to rig up solar sytems and have water trucked in are the kind of people that reside here. It keeps the population low and nature the main attraction.

Mesquite Tree - Watercolor on 9”x12” cold press 300# paper

It’s also far away from things like… hospitals, which was unexpectedly needed when my girlfriend Amie ruptured her achilles tendon the night we arrived. We had to drive a couple hours to get to a doctor the next day, and it was nearly impossible to find crutches. We were both losing our minds,….but we played a lot of piggy back in the interim.

Readfing with injured foot in repose….. and borrowed crutch

The watercolor at the top started out as a drawing (below). There’s a lot going on here: Entrance to the old bathroom, rock walls and concrete walkway, mesquite tree with aloe plants beneath and tilted butte in the distance.

Also, we found out this evening that there is even more going on.

A woman died in that bathroom of a “mysterious” head injury. Blend that with tales of her roving the desert mountains barefoot with a pack of dogs before her death, AND the property being taken over by the Cartel for a few years after her death…all that, makes this image even more…..complex

Graphite on watercolor paper

Tilted Butte (not its actual name)

It really is truly stunning here. Desert and Sea. Birds abound. The stones and cactus eminate stoic patience. The ocean water is a plasma that you can float in for hours. All of this resets one’s state to an earthly tempo. Oh, and the stars! We had never seen the Milky way so clearly…and the net of satelites…and the occasional shooting star.

This is both the worst and best place to get injured. There is a different kind of healing here.

Coyote Bay

Drawing of Plants on the Patio (done during two online DigiPen meetings)

We all leave tomorrow moring. Us, to go to Loreto and La Paz on our way to Oaxaca. And Reed back to Vashon for the summer. Luna Negra will be left to the lizards, buzzards and bouganvillia until his return in October.

I wish we could spend another 2 weeks here, but onward to more… medical testing, and one-legged adventuring.

we’ll keep you posted! moodysteffon@gmail.com

Fourteen oil paintings, all 2’x3’ in size, are now installed in the Grand Staircase Gallery at the Washington Athletic Club.

In two previous posts I showed the steps involved in making them, and in the video linked below show them in situ.

The words below are my artist statement. It’s been a great way to make myself home in Seattle. Thanks for coming along on this journey with me.

In a city defined by change, Iconic places cement a Seattle Identity

Seattle is restless.  

 Since moving to the area in 1987: I watched Grunge come and go.  The Kingdome implode.  Felt the Nisqually Earthquake.  Watched The Sonics and the viaduct disappear.  Said goodbye to the OK Hotel and The Lusty Lady, and hello to the Seattle Art Museum, a new library and Light Rail.

There were two Superbowl parades. A crane littered South Lake Union during the pandemic.  Stadiums built and re-re-named.  Amazon bubbles. EMP became MPC.  Tech start-ups a plenty.  And new sports teams: The Reign, Sounders and Kraken. 

Also, Seattle is the most re-engineered city in the US, because of the Denny Regrade, Lake Washington Ship Canal, HWY 99 tunnel, and Harbor Island, which used to be the largest man-made island in the world.  The Space Needle, built for the World’s Fair in 1962, was a monument to a city ready to step into a fast-paced George Jetson-style future without looking back.

But 64 years later, on a sunny afternoon this past January, I did look back…and scoured the city looking for iconic places that I felt captured the essence of Seattle; that have managed to survive Seattle’s tumultuous penchant for change:   Pioneer Square, Pike Place Market, Seattle Center, the old Rainier Brewery, Paramount Theater and the deco-inspired WAC building are some. I’m sure you can think of many others.

The rush of trying to sum up this city in one afternoon was countered by three months of whittling those photos into the fourteen oil paintings.  Each painting is my attempt to stop time, unpack a moment and better see a place. It is my way of being a co-creator, rather than just a voyeur.   

We all co-create this city wedged between water and volcanoes.  We are the lifeblood of a place that doesn’t just survive but thrives.  A beacon to the world; an icon of vitality, coffee, tech, natural beauty and moistness.               

 I want to thank the WAC for letting me have a show. It is a great place to begin a series of Iconic Seattle shows that I intend to have in the coming years.               

 And yes, they are for sale! moodysteffon@gmail.com        

The video below shows all of the paintings on site. You may not to be able to see the video in the body of an email, but if you click the link to the blog, you can.

I lived on Green Gate Farm on Maury Island for 26 years. Raised two kids, Remodeled the whole house. Made a garden. Had pets come and go. Made lots of largescale art, from giant puppets to murals to scenery for theater, and for the last 14 years, I painted it in oil and watercolor.

I live in West Seattle now, and went back to Green Gate Farm yesterday to clear out the rest of the stuff in my old treehouse studio. When I stepped onto the unmown path to my old studio, I suddenly welled up with tears. It was unexpected and viseral. Like my body’s own reaction to touching a friend that had been close for so long. The mix of sadness and love did not seem to come just from me, but from the land itself as well

I had walked the 1 mile trail that circumnavigates the 15 acre property literally thousands of times. It is more than just a piece of property with woods, fields and ponds. It has been my muse. Songs, poems and ideas for essays percolated up from the soil as I traversed it daily. I watched how the seasons transformed the land, how the trees grew, and animals migrated. Mushrooms, ferns and frog. Heron, Deer and Raven. The madrona and cherry trees blossomed, as did ideas for performances and sculptural installations. As if the land itself was planting seeds there. “Imagine what I can become”, and I did.

Swamp Bottom Jamboree was born from thousands of walks; listening to what the woods and waters wanted. An Outdoor Persformance Celebration at Dusk is how we described it. I think it happened 3 times (or was it 4)? it took around 75 people to put on the progessive performance/art installation for about 400 attendees. People always raved, saying they had never experienced anything like it. I think it is becasue they had never experienced the land itself being such an equal partner in the storytelling. It was not just serving as the enviroment, but was the main character as well.

I love and miss you GreenGate Farm. I want to thank the Atwells, especially Adam, for being the being the Tree Herder, Trail maker, Land crafter. it’s been an honor to watch you work. So much has spun out of those 15 acres, and it’s meant the world to me; a place of healing, creating and becoming. May it always be so for those who are held in its arms.

Above is a painting I am close to finishing, but the paintings in the video link below are almost all in what I call the “2nd Pass” phase, which means most of the colors and values have been laid in, but loosely and without attention to much detail. (if you are getting this via email, I believe you have to go to the blog to view it.)

I showed the “1st Pass” in a previous video, and before nothing but finished paintings are left, II thought it would be good to capture this stage in the process.

I have to be done by the end of April, so I paint every spare moment I have. The show will be at the Washington Athletic Club in Seattle, which is private, and is what prompted me to show the process, so that others can see it that way. The show will be up untilt he end of July.

If you want to comment, direct by email is best. moodysteffon@gmail.com