Can an elephant really draw or paint?  Watch this video!  But remember: “There is a trickery about our senses that makes our seeing all suspect, save as we test it for the stray effects of fancy.  And only far more testing than we think to do can make it fancy-free.” W.R. Johnson, Your Most Enchanted Listener

Whatever you may think of this, the elephant is holding the brush and making the marks.

Writing group met today at 11 and we just finished having a wonderful meal and reading, revising, and sharing our work.  Rosalind brought poems on late night thoughts and whirlwinds,  and Hub an essay on Palm trees.   He also served great bloody Marys which you can see he enjoyed as well.  Check out Rosalind’s incredible custard, Toby’s feet and snacks, the post prandial dinner table, and post prandial poem editing by Rosalind.  My apologies for not getting everyone in the photos.  Some didn’t come out too well.  Thanks Laura for your photographic efforts, Hub for hosting and great chicken, potatoes and steamed day lilies, Laura for wonderful no knead bread, Glenda for super appetizers, Rebecca for yummy blueberry, blue cheese and red lettuce salad, and Rosalind for the Custard and fresh fruit. Don’t you ALL wish you could have a writing group like this one.  Lots of help for aspiring writers like me.   If anyone doesn’t like their photo, let me know and I’ll photoshop off a few years!

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Stanislaus County Evening News
Wednesday Evening, October 4, 1893

One Entire Business Block Totally Destroyed

The Fire Fiend visited our neighboring town of Turlock last night and the main business block of that place with nearly all of its contents was burned.  The fire broke out at 10:30 o’clock in the rear of the shoe store of Leitchman near the middle of the block which was composed entirely of wooden buildings and burned both ways until it reached the street upon either side.  Turlock is entirely without facilities for fighting fire and when it was found that the fire had gained a good headway the entire population worked diligently with buckets of water and wet blankets to save the Allen hotel, across the street, and the old Dallas warehouse.  The trees in front of the hotel were a valuable aid toward saving the building. At the warehouse a number of men arrived with buckets of water and wet woolen articles and put out numerous small blazes which started there.  The building was badly scorched but was finally saved from total destruction.
The properties entirely consumed were L. Strauss & Co’s building and very large stock of general merchandise, M. A Fuller, saloon; — Leitchman, shoes and children’s shop;  R.J. Lecusson, barbershop and building; E. Hill, saloon;  Patrick McGrath saloon and building: Charles Davis, saloon; William Convey, chop house; Meyer Bros., meat market; W.A. Smith, drug store; Sherwood’s tin shop; Charles Huber, saloon, and empty buildings belonging to J.T. Davis.
The shoemaker in whose place of business the fire started lives in the back of his shop and cooks his victuals upon an oil stove. He has set the place on fire two or three times prior from his carelessness and is considered to be mentally unsound. He is known in Turlock as the “crazy shoemaker.”
It is impossible to state the loss at this hour nor the insurance. The loss of Strauss and Co., however, will be the heaviest and will equal if not exceed, all of the rest.

Walking through smoldering timbers of their store the next day was a harrowing experience.  You could hear Max swearing bitterly about the shoemaker. While Sam kept his voice low and controlled, he was in a rage.   The brothers struggled emotionally with the magnitude of the event, and for a week or two they argued about what to do.  Of course Helena was consulted.   Not only did they lose the building, but everything in it, an astonishingly large loss. 

The foreground will be reworked in layer three.  The water shape on the left doesn’t work yet and the upper left horizon line needs adjusting.  The foiliage in the foreground will also require much more work.  I’m letting it dry well for a few days before proceeding.  This is 12 x18″, oil on canvas with zinc white, indian yellow, prussian blue and permanent rose.

These two images were created this morning (12 x 16,oil on canvas).  The first is a single layer value study of a sunset over a river, done with transparent red earth with a little perm red mixed in, using a marble dust, linseed oil medium.  Done very quickly over a fast pencil outline of the composition.  The second is layer two on a painting which is a favorite watercolor composition.  It was done with perm rose, mang blue, and indian yellow.  It’s got quite a bit of paint on it for a second layer and will take a few days to dry.  Yet to come are some white birches on the dark background, and a reworking of the sky and the grasses in the front.  

Seeing the Thuringia in Hamburg on a cold, gray morning in 1871, Aron’s pulse rose. His collar was tight and he could feel the throbbing beat. The journey would be a life changing event, and he knew it. Passengers were lining up, following one another like fish in a swirling school.  A flock of birds overhead darted left, and then right, before dropping down like a single living thing, towards the water.  The odor of fresh horse droppings near the edge of the road and drifting smoke from a barrel of trash mixed together,  producing an acrid smell which irritated Aron’s nose. Oily patches shimmered in the water where the hull of Thuringia reflected an image of itself, upside down.  Bits of wood and debris floated on the water’s surface. Dozens of ships were at the docks, both small and large. The size of Thuringia made Aron feel hopeful, but also afraid.  He’d slept little the night before traveling from Rogasen to Hamburg, and had eaten no breakfast. His stomach felt empty, but he had no appetite.

Thirteen years later he would become an American citizen.