You Can't Get There From Here

I leave here this Friday and start driving east for the first time since I left Cape Cod in early September. Cape Cod was warm and summery and now I find myself surrounded by snowy mountains and a thin layer of ice on the lake. When I first arrived this place seemed desolate but now I have grown to love Summer Lake, Oregon with all of its subleties and constantly changing colors and forms. I leave Oregon with yet another mouse in my car or perhaps a stowaway mouse from Wyoming (I have killed 5 mice in my car in 36 hours!). I have truly had one on the best adventures of my life, ranking up there with trips abroad and to exotic places. At the risk of sounding corny, I have woken up every day feeling gratitude for this life I didn't quite plan or ever imagine.

With Shelby on a sunny day.

Paisley is our nearest town (Pop. 240).Shelby, Maria and Heather and I went on weekly latte runs to the coffee shack, Paisley Perk.

A week ago I finally went to the Summer Lake Hotsprings which is a ten minute drive down the road. I had been warned that it is more lukewarm than it is hot, but one should still go for the experience. The hotsprings is enclosed in a wooden and corrugated metal shack built in the early 1900's. It is surrounded by a large, empty, flat landscape and the playa. I went in the early afternoon on a Friday with my friend Liz, a sculptor from Chicago. We we greeted at the shack by a naked man who swung open one of the wooden doors. Clothing optional is allowed after 7 pm but not in the middle of the day. Inside of the shack, the hotsprings fills a cement pool, the walls are filled completely with carved out initials, and there are white christmas lights hanging from the wooden rafters. Liz and I had about 20 minutes to enjoy the place until the naked man returned with a friend. It turned out that he was so drunk he couldn't find his clothes. He stumbled into the pool along with his dog and his friend sat on the deck trying to take his pants off for half an hour and then eventually climbed into the water wearing his boxer shorts and tube socks.

Summer Lake Hotsprings, scene of the crime.

I will leave you with one random story and some studio shots. The director of Playa is a down to earth, kind and tough woman. She told us about how she and her husband were skiing in Montana (I assume cross country skiing) when they happened upon a dead moose. They removed the head and then took turns carrying the moose head as they skiied home and wondered, "How does a moose hold up it's head? It's so f---n heavy!" When we asked her how she was able to decapitate the moose on a skiing expedition, she motioned as if she were pulling something off her back and said, "Oh, you know, there is a lot of winter kill so you carry a hack saw with you."

I'm going to miss my drawing walls.

Experiments with materials.