Variations on a 500 million year old theme

AKA 31 Days - Days 18, 19 & 20

Years ago I painted this little painting called "How the Light Becomes You."  It is a scene of the bay side of Duxbury beach with the Standish Monument across the bay at sunset. When I first went on Facebook in 2008, I posted a few paintings to start.  This one was bought immediately by a woman who had grown up in Duxbury and lived in North Dakota, and thus began an interesting turn of events...

"How the Light Becomes You" 8x10 pastel on board

Over the years I have drawn so many horseshoe crabs I can draw them with my eyes closed.  When I sign a book I always include a little h-crab sketch.

This is my stamp.  I use it on all of my art prints, my email signature, and my return address stamp. 

My hat from Lonza

My Nelson Telson sticker

I often include limulus on my holiday eggs (handmade chicken egg ornaments I've been making every year since 1985).

One of my all time favorite pieces of art is this one below.  I made it with rice paper, string and little clothespins.  The backing is rice paper tinted with ink on transparent plastic so you can see the light through it. It won a few big awards, too.

"Timelines" 26x38 mixed media

Every year I hold an exhibit to showcase my students' work.  And every year we have a silent auction to benefit a cause.  All of the kids made horseshoe crab paintings to donate.  This year we raised $550 for ERDG (Ecological Research & Development Group) www.horseshoecrab.org.  I donated this painting:

"Stop Over" 9x12 pastel

Before I get on with days 18, 19 & 20, allow me to explain how the universe is working here.  The woman who bought the painting is married to Dr. Lars Helgeson, a professor of science at UND. When I did a Kickstarter campaign to get Nelson Telson - The Story of a True Blue Blood off the ground, Leslie, Lars' wife, the woman who bought that painting, was a big backer of my project.  She had read the book at an early stage and gave me some great input, years before I finally published it.  The Helgesons got their rewards of books and such; Lars read the book, and we're off and running making the Teaching Nelson Telson Curriculum.  Meantime we have applied for an NIH grant and have brought all sorts of great horseshoe crab people - Limulus Lovers - onboard.  How cool is that?

THE LAST 3 DAYS

I purposely did not refer to the older painting while I was doing this. But it is a variation on that theme.  I used some molts I had hanging around for models.

There's actually a lot more dark teal green in the water, but here it is:  "How the Light #2" 9x7 pastel.

Where would you go?

Have a coloring page on me.  Please post a comment so I can see it when you're done coloring. 

31 Days - Days 16 & 17

Getting a little behind here, but all's well.  Of course, now I have so many ideas for these paintings, but time to move on.

Day 16, just a little bit, but the spook of the essence was clear.

"Streaming #5" 8.5x8.5 on a wine-colored colourfix

31 Days - Day 15

Went over to spend a few hours this morning with by buddies, the Tarkiln Painters, and did another edition of Streaming.  This one is kooky fun-with-color.  I may do a couple more of these so I can make a square of 4 that go together.  

"Streaming #4" 8.5x8.5 pastel on Uart 500

I'm kind of liking this process of doing the same simple painting a bunch of different ways. Maybe I'll do a few of my favorite path next.

31 Days - Day 14

"Streaming #3" 8.5x8.5 pastel on colourfix
yours unframed for 150

31 Days - Fried Fish on 12 & 13

The past few days got away from me.  I'll post the new little painting when it's finished, but today, we had bigger fish to fry.  Hopefully we won't be fried fish before the needed changes happen.

Entergy, the absentee landlord of our local decrepit, failing GE Mark 1 nuclear reactor is bailing out and promising to shut down the nuke sometime before June 2019.  Of course, our first thought after trying to get the thing closed for 40 years, is YAY, FINALLY!  But not so fast...
Here's the skinny from Bill Mohl, president of Entergy Wholesale Commodities 
The reason why Energy will be closing the plant is because it's losing money, NOT because it's ranked the LOWEST IN SAFETY of all nukes in the nation and should not be running at all.  The NRC should have forced its closure by now if they did what they're charged to do in the name of nuke regulation and public safety. 

So, what does this mean?  It means Energy will continue to run the dirtiest, unsafest plant in the nation, same GE Mark 1 design as Fukushima (that is dependent on external power to keep its shit cool) and won't want to be spending any more money on repairs and safety.  It is a huge public safety threat as it is, and now the threat is even bigger.

Oh, did I mention they had to shut down this summer because the bay water was too hot to cool the reactor?  Oh, and last winter's storms shut them down, too.  That plant has been shut down a lot lately.

Another time this summer a 1/4 inch copper pipe was the reason it had a SCRAM - emergency shutdown.  You can learn about SCRAMs here.

And just a few days ago, we see this report from the EPA.  Not sure what it means but this type of spike seems to happen with regularity, and there is only one other possible source in the Commonwealth, and that would be MIT's little reactor.

And here's a few months' worth

Hmm, I wonder if those spikes can be related to the shutdowns...

So hearing about this very quiet press conference today at the Radisson in Plymouth, I went and found my sign, and went over there.  

Of course, no one but the press was allowed in the room.  My friend Mary (Pix) Lampert had to have the Duxbury town manager call the security guys to prove she was on the Nuclear Matters committee before they'd let her in. And once she was in, she could only listen and take notes and not ask any questions. 
That meant some really important questions about public safety went unanswered.  But we made sure the press got to hear our concerns when they emerged from the conference.

Peeps from the Pilgrim Coalition came up from the cape

You can read more about "This Old Nuke" here at this terribly outdated site.

31 Days - Day 11

What a glorious fall day!  I took a nice row, one of the last of the season, and the pond was just beautiful.  A little breezy so I stayed in the lee on the south side (that you see in this picture).
I'd brought a barebones set of old nu-pastels and a few Terry Ludwigs (not any darks, unfortunately) and set out to make the daily painting. 

So, I decided to just paint a bit of the view from the deck.  I made a real simple underpainting, but didn't have any alcohol to fix it, but I did have some Bombay gin in the cupboard...

It reminded me of the time I'd mistakenly used witch hazel instead of alcohol.  There was a slippery quality, kind of greasy. The Bombay underpainting had a slightly oily quality to it.

SIDEBAR: What gives regular Bombay its unique complex flavor?  Spanish almonds, lemon peel, licorice, juniper berries, orris root, angelica, coriander, and cassia bark.

Lemon peel is a little oily and almonds have fat, so I'm guessing that might make it a little oiler than rubbing alcohol.

So I made this 5x5 number.  But, as I said, there would be some humbling posts here, and this is one. Since it was a lost cause, I schmooed it and took the picture in a different light.

5x5 Abortion on Uart 500