SIDE TRIPS part seven—Another Side Trip

During our instruction WBL did a PowerPoint presentation including other artists. work.

I liked this artist's work. WBL said he had become too lazy to paint like this.

Sample of another artist's work. So random--- (I was starting to get visions of Missoula Art Museum, --see Side Trips part three below). Another sample. So unusual and original and thought provoking. So not my style. By the middle of the second morning’s lecture I had stopped taking notes. I could tell by eye-rolls from some of the other students that I was not the only one who was perplexed. Mr. L said we should paint like we were rich and sent us back to work. There would be a critique at three that afternoon. Irritated. Annoyed. I didn’t want paint like I was rich. I’d brought quality expensive watercolors and paper. I probably could have painted like a five-year-old and enjoyed it if I’d had a bunch of cheap acrylics or poster paints. I also wasn’t ready to waste my time-off-without-pay to be miserable in a little cinderblock room. I finished what I was working on not long after everyone left for lunch. I left the illustration on the table, gathered my stuff and walked out. I went for a drive through the nearby farm country, trying not to think about blowing money on tuition in an amount that could purchase a Kenmore Refrigerator. Spotted cows and ponies stood up to their bellies in thick pasture. Gardens overflowed with flowers. And everywhere I went I could see Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands to the west.

I made a phone call to Linda Sue and left a message on her machine. She has a wonderfully entertaining blog called, All I Ever Wanted. She also happens to live only half an hour up I-5 from where the workshop was being held. We’d never met, but had emailed and made loose plans to get together when she learned I would be in her neighborhood. All the time I was driving around I had a song in my head. It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe

If’in you don’t know by now

An' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe

It’ll never do some how.

When your rooster crows at the break of dawn

Look out your window and I'll be gone

You're the reason I'm trav'lin' on

Don't think twice, it's all right… So long, Honey Babe

Where I'm bound, I can't tell

But Goodbye's too good a word, babe

So I'll just say fare thee well

I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind

You could have done better but I don't mind

You just kinda wasted my precious time

But don't think twice, it's all right Good ol’ Bob Dylan. Can’t sing worth beans, but he has a way with words. I ended up in Anacortes at the ferry terminal. I‘d spent some time in Port Townsend and I knew a huge ferry took passengers, cars and trucks to Whidbey Island. I asked the man at the ticket window how much for a ticket to Whidbey Island. “Why would you want to take the ferry to Whidbey?” “Because IT’S-AN-ISLAND.” Patiently he explained that I could just go down the highway and drive over the bridge. Oh, I said in my best Emily Litella voice…Never mind. The bridge goes over what is called Deception Pass and is an amazing feat of engineering.

It is actually two spans over a deep turbulent channel. Note the shadow of the bridge on the water. As the tide changes, the water in the channel churns like a washing machine. Pretty impressive. Check out Linda Sue’s story of sailing through Deception Pass. Speaking of her… When I got back in my car she had left a message on my cell. We chatted and made plans to meet the next morning in her town. No problem.