Click here to read the article.

Recently, my area was pelted with 8 inches of rain in 48 hours. Creeks and rivers rose to levels I hadn’t witnessed before. Flooding occurred, and some people dealt with property damage. Landslides washed out roads. However, I’m always amazed at the resilience of this area to weather heavy storms. This one was no exception.

The video posted here is footage I took when a break in the storm occurred. It would have been an opportune time to beach-comb, since most of the material I paint on is found this way. I hadn’t checked the tides, so I wasn’t expecting what I saw. Watching shore-breaks made of logs and twigs is kind of hypnotic. Not to mention that it smells incredible due to the mulching taking place. You can’t hear it on the video, but logs are making great twisting and crunching noises. There’s irony finding peace in something that would grind you to a pulp; a bit like a moth drawn to a flame. We regularly surf with debris in the water; you learn quickly how to spot and dodge it. There was no chance of dodging destruction this day.

Part of my goal when I started this blog was to post things that can inspire. The hope and idea being that that would make the blog more interesting, rather than just telling you what I’m up to. In the spirit of that, here’s a video featuring Elizabeth Gilbert talking about a different way of thinking about creativity. I really identified with her thoughts. I’ve never read her book “Eat, Pray, Love”, but she’s great speaker.

010010000110000101110000011100000111100100100000010000100110100101110010011101000110100001100100011000010111100100100000010010000110000101101100001000000011100100110000001100000011000000100001

If you find yourself in Southern California on the 21st, then find yourself at this event. Fifteen very talented artists (and myself) were asked to paint a surfboards to raise money for SurfAid International. The finished boards look amazing! I highly recommend seeing them in person, and buying one while your at it.

If you follow my blog, you may realize that I haven’t been posting much art as of late. The reason is that I’m working on a new body of work, and I don’t want to unveil them one piece at a time. The art will be a bit of a different direction than my normal routine of painting waves. I’m excited about working on art with a slightly new direction. If you love my waves, I’ll still be painting them regularly. I also think you’ll like this new direction as well. Thanks for taking interest in my artwork and reading my ramblings.

There are many interesting people tucked away in the nooks and crannies of this coastline. One person I’ve known since the late 80′s is Les Stansell. We met because we both love indulging in oceanic activity; and also because the term “population density” applies better here to trees and fish than people. He has a specialty wood-shop where he crafts some of the finest Flamenco guitars you can find. I envy his shop and various wood-working tools, however, I wouldn’t know what to do with most of the tools if I owned them.

The photos above are the results of a visit my friend Joe made to Les’s shop the week before Christmas. Joe needed some Port Orford Cedar trimmed down to make fins for the surfboards he’s been shaping. While I was just along for the ride.

My father and I both possess a lot of the traits they talk about in this article. I don’t think I want to share too much about this on my blog. I’ll just say that the central theme of all my art is attempting to find a comfortable balance between seemingly opposing forces. Maybe that’s my attempt to not feel like a “Round Peg in a Square Hole”.