A California Painter Laments the Drying Landscape
As the Drought Rages on, an Artist Struggles to Find Inspiration Among Shriveled Poppies and Ankle-Deep Rivers
As an outdoor landscape and seascape painter, I’m used to seeing places change over the years. I painted a stately cottonwood tree on an Owens Valley country lane in the fall of 2010, its golden crown contrasting dramatically with a cerulean blue sky. A recent trip found it vanished, the victim of a brush fire.
A traveling painter learns to seize the moment with pigment and brush, because it may not look the same on the next visit, or even an hour from now. Old, charming buildings are torn down …