Actually 2 days before the full moon, but it was bright last night. I headed out on my usual Tuesday night solo run—well, vigorous hike is more like it. Beach beautiful, with a 100-foot long glistening inland pond in moonlight, no one there, I had one of those almost chilling moments, surrounded by such beauty, alone, waves breaking, negative ions up the kazoo, super energizing of chi…
I started out in a down parka and gloves, brrrr…I don’t feel like going out into the cold night, but as always, the heart likes to pump, and pretty soon I take off the parka and gloves and climb the hills in a t-shirt. Circulation, circulation, circulation…
As I came back down into the valley, a coyote startled me. It was so close, and so beautiful. There were 2 of them close by and another at a distance. They were singing. Totally. One did a yodel, starting high, then breaking voice down to lower sustained note. Then a distant coyote would respond. Oh my!
I heard this about Australian aborigines: the smoke signals don’t contain the message. Rather, they’re a notice to a group maybe a few miles away to tune into psychic forces and get a telepathic message. Wow!
On the way home, moonlight streaming across the ocean, on Little Steven’s Underground Garage (Sirius): “Beautiful Delilah” by the Kinks, followed by Chuck Berry doing same (his) song.
https://grooveshark.com/s/Beautiful+Delilah/2725La?src=5
At long last a book documenting the art of Godfrey Stephens has been published, and it’s stunning. Godfrey has been painting, drawing, carving, and assembling all his life (he’s now 70), and his niece Gurdeep Stephens has performed a Herculean task of sifting through a blizzard of Godfrey’s art to assemble this collection. Oh yes, he’s also built over a dozen sailboats.
I’m hardly an objective observer: I’ve known Godfrey and his art since meeting him on a Mexican beach in 1964, and he’s a dear friend. I’ve never been able to figure out why he isn’t world-famous. The quantity and quality of his output is staggering. And his energy: there are almost 800 emails in my “Stephens” mailbox, over 600 photos in my “Stephens” photo folder. How Gurdeep ever prevailed to assemble this excellent collection is beyond me. High five!
It’s best to let his art speak for itself, but I’ll just point out something about his carving: when he was 12, he hung out around Mungo Martin, a famed Kwakwaka’wakw chief who was creating totems and building a “big house”, at Thunderbird Park in Victoria. Godfrey’s best friend, Tony Hunt was Mungo’s grandson, and Godfrey and Tony started out carving little bears to sell. Godfrey has always been close to the native “First Nations” culture, with many Indian friends, and it shows in his carving. It seems to me a blend of the powerful north coast indigenous art and wide-ranging abstract and representational artistry. Godfrey doesn’t drive and he’s never had a “job.” Just art.
https://woodstormswildcanvas.com/
https://www.godfreysart.com/
Wood Storms, Wild Canvas: The Art of Godfrey Stephens will have a first book-signing at Munro’s Books in Victoria, BC, on November 1st at 1 pm. Both Godfrey Stephens and the author Gurdeep Stephens will be signing copies at Munro’s between 1-2 pm on Saturday November 1st. The book will be available for sale at local independent book sellers in addition to online. For each copy sold, the publisher will plant one Native tree species locally in BC.
The water is SO warm right now. Only one other time in all my time on the Pacific Coast. Especially when sun-warmed water is flowing out of the lagoon. 60, maybe even 65 degrees. We are stylin! Couldn’t swim due to rib injury but I just went in the ocean and floated. Such a difference from normal. Oh, you guys that live where the water’s warm — ecstasy. To be able to swim relaxed, no tight wetsuit.
A fisherman caught this little (3′-4′) leopard shark. It had never occurred to me how beautiful they are. I mentioned this to a surfer friend who was there and he said, Yeah that’s true. It had been hooked in a fin. The fisherman got the hook out and it took off out into the sea. There’s just so much going on in the world every day!
Dear Lloyd,
I made a short documentary about a friend of mine who lives on a small 50 year old boat and is one of if not the happiest person in my life. The movie is short but I think honest and hopefully a little inspiring. The movie has been touring film festivals but just yesterday I was able to upload it online and make it available to the world for free.…
Kevin Fraser
https://www.kevinafraser.com/
I went paddling a few nights ago. Warm day, high tide. You can never tell what the ocean (or lagoon, lake, river) will be like until you get right there. So many variables: wind, tides, temperature, sunny or foggy or rainy, moon (and planetary) cycle, but the most important factor to me is the surface of the water. If it’s glassy, I don’t care about any of the rest of it. My (Joe Bark 12′ Surftek) paddleboard skims across the water, I get a bow wave going, a joy to paddle.
I ended up taking a mud bath, for the first time in months. It’s one of those things, like jumping under a cold waterfall, that you’re always glad you did, but that the part of your brain concerned with comfort, resists. I told a couple of friends at the dock that’s what I was going to do, so had to do it. Paddled a ways…shorty wetsuit off (not visible to anyone), smeared as much of my body as I could reach with mud, which in this case had sand in it,…let dry in sun a few minutes, then swam in a channel a bit, then washed it off. Boy did I feel good.
Got home, took outdoor solar shower, heated by nothin but sunshine…then shot of grappa…stylin…turned out to be exfoliating…spa treatment…skin really smooth afterwards…simple pleasures of life…so much you can do right around wherever you live…just look around…
Tide pools, coves, caves. Great idea for kayak trip from Pt. Arena lighthouse south the Pt. Arena pier — gonna do sometime.
Again, I’m frustrated by the narrowness of the screen. I’m going to print out 4×5’s when I get home, mount on board (and bring to Louie). The first stitched-together series of stills I ever saw was on the wall of Robert Frank’s home on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Black and whites. Then I discovered the photo collages of David Hockney and bought his book Cameraworks. Such an eye-opener.
I prefer to shoot with a 50mm or so lens setting, it’s pretty much the way I see the world (as opposed to wider angled lenses, which distort things), then paste them together. (When shooting a building, I keep backing up and adjusting the zoom until it looks through the lens the way appears to my eye.)
The drive to Pt. Arena is about 3 hours. Usually takes me about 4. This time, leaving in the afternoon, instead of (as usual) early morning, it took me 8 hours to get to Louie’s. Did I have fun! I must have stopped, usually to shoot photos, 50 times…I’m thinking of changing the nature of this blog once we get THESHELTERBLOG up and running, maybe tie it in with Instagram, a photo+ caption a day. More like getting you to ride shotgun with me. For example:
Anywhere on this Pacific Coast, there are creek beds, rivers, canyons running perpendicular to the ocean. Water-carved arroyos. As you drive, you can look down and see if there is a trail down to the beach, and there often is. Just before sunset last night, I spotted the trail here. it was like going through a jungle. A pristine white (dirty white color — the best — sand beach, mountains of driftwood.
“Spring is a great time to be outdoors -the weather is warming up, but you still aren’t hit by the oppressive summer heat. Unfortunately, in most places, it’s still too cool to head over to your nearest natural body of water and take a dip. Of course, if you have a Saunalautta, you might not feel that way. That’s because the delightful creations feature a fully functional sauna so you can cool down and heat back up, or go the more traditional route and build up a good sweat before jumping into the the icy waters below…”
Sent by Jon Kalish.
Click here.
This just in:
“Lloyd, can you put this out there..
info and trailer plus episode 1 in full
https://350.org/years
Mike W”
Google search for this Showtime documentary here
