grackle skull

photo: jetheriot

gentleness

photo: jetheriot

A blizzard of thoughts and emotions swirls around each of us, obscuring the true nature of mind. But if we learn to sit tall and let the blizzard happen around us, and if we do this over and over, we come to know the blizzard for the emptiness it is, and we begin to see through the snow clouds in which we've become ensnarled.

bath time

Catahoula, 1982

cameraproof

photo: joel kalmin

I painted a fourteen-foot branch on the gray wall of a room. The room has one glass wall -- the wall opposite the painting -- and is so narrow that a photographer wanting to take a picture of the mural can't capture it in its entirety, even if he presses himself all the way up to the glass wall, unless he has a wide angle lens. And standing outside the room, looking through the glass wall, the view of the painting is obstructed by the glass wall's steel frame and the blur of a privacy stripe. The mural isn't easy to photograph, so you can't really get a sense of it unless you're standing in the room with it. In a way, the painting resists the capture of the camera. You have to go to it to see it. I took my mom to see it today.

the men of the family

Near Gatlinburg, 1976

poulet coco nouille

Poulet au Lait de Coco et Pate de Curry Vert

A while back I dreamed the word "coconouille". I googled it today to see if it was an actual word . . . and it was. "Nouille" means "noodle" in French. I never knew that, go figure. So "coco nouille" is "coconut noodle". I learned this when the recipe for Poulet Coco Nouille came up in the search results. It sounds pretty tasty, like a good dream should.

dad on a tractor

photo: jetheriot