August 15, 2009
Got home at 3:15 yesterday afternoon and turned in the rental (paid $338.45 for a week's rental and i put 1,400 miles on the Chevy van, between Kingman last Monday and New Mexico).

Woke up this morning itching to try some of the dramatic cloud scenes I saw both coming and going to Lincoln. I had my camera with me but couldn't find a Walgreen's or camera store (are they all gonners with the digital revolution?) to buy a new battery for it. So, instead of a hundred reference photos I tried to take snapshots with my eye and store them in what's left of my brain. I also forced myself to stop and do sketches at least three or four times. This is very difficult. In order to override and over rule the male impulse to "make time" one must actually take one's foot off the gas, get over losing the speed thing ("I passed that truck and I'm back to averaging 70 mph and at this rate I should be in Socorro fifteen point five minutes earlier than I projected."). This is not an easy thing to overcome. But, I forced myself.

It might have been a blessing not to have had the camera because it forced me to actually look and then quickly sketch what I was seeing. Snapping a photo is so easy, I often run across photos that I have never utilized because they stack up and I forget about them. On this point I have made the comment to Kathy that she could lock me in my studio and I would have enough art reference for ten years at least. One year, in the eighties, I spent an embarassing amount of moola with the local photography store. I know this because I went in to Foothills Photo one day and John Brinkman, the owner, said, "Well, hello number one customer. I just had my books done for the year and you have spent $10K on photo developing so far this year!"

Some might say that I'm just like a kid careening around the countryside, spending money and playing with childish things. Gee, I wonder what ol' Spock has to say about this?

"A child loves his play, not because it's easy, but because it's hard."
—Benjamin Spck