October 5, 2006
I had a very successful day yesterday, forcing myself to paint in the office. I had this very strong urge to go home to my studio where I can utilize my tools (code for tracing projecter!), but I stayed with it and finished two paintings for Classic Gunfights. One is of Billy Thompson, surrounded by swirling shotgun powder (and don’t forget the winds of controversy), and the other is of Four Jacks and a Joker, which is how the Ellsworth, Kansas pioneers described their early lawmen, four of whom were named Jack. I had excellent photo reference from Wichita’s Old Cowtown when we were there last month, and I started to do a backdrop of the train station with the word “Ellsworth” on the side of the building replacing "Wchita," but I misspelled it as Ellsorth (I was working backwards and got lost). So, I overpainted that, kept missing effects and slopping paint. I failed again and again, until I took the mess into production to scan the dang thang, for position only (FPO), with the idea of going home and starting over, and as I walked by Robert Ray he said, “That’s nice.” Ha. Too funny.



On The Missing Ulzana’s Raid DVD
“I checked at Amazon for Ulzana's Raid.  You can have your own copy if you are willing to pay $120. It is no longer in production and only available from third party private sellers.”
—Mary Fiore

“ULZANA'S RAID is hard to find in DVD and then it is only a full screen job,
which being a wide-screen snob, is why I don't have it. I do think it is the
best cavalry film ever made with SOTMS [Son of The Morning Star] being a close second.”
—Alan Huffines

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, relief, joy.”
— Pema Chodron