Washington

A beautiful, perfect Saturday morning on the Columbia River; Port of Camas-Washougal to be specific. What could be better? (well, not having an infected Vermont spider bite on my ear would help..but never mind...who's complaining?) So everyone and their brother, dog, kid is putting boats in the water and unloading fish from boats and really enjoying the start of a great day on the river.

Then something happened that I don't think ever happened to me before; a woman jogged by and stopped to tell me "You picked the most beautiful place around here for your painting. No Kidding, I've been all over the Northwest and this is the prettiest." That was a wonderful thing to say to someone who had been led to that spot by intuition, not experience or referral. Mostly when I am painting some train cars, or neighborhood corner garden passers-by tell me about a really pretty location and suggest I go there to paint. I always say 'I will, thanks'. I have tried not to rely on the state icons for this project. I like to find a scene that appeals to me and make a good picture out of it. It's the regular, every-day things that tie us together as a politically diverse country.

After I had made most of a picture of the Puffin Cafe,  Michael Poster and I walked down to have some "Caribbean Cuisine, Pirate Cookin' and Spirits".  It was very good. We loved the bartender. She may have concocted a potion to banish spider bites and swollen faces. I may not have been the first patron she's seen with a fat ear and red lopsided face...she serves pirates, after all.