EBay Auction, 2-8-10-Wait For Me! (Baby African Elephant)

Wait For Me! 6x8" oil on canvasboard

Wait for Me! is a study of a baby elephant I saw in the Samburu in Kenya when on an art workshop/safari in October of 2004. The herd had crossed the river right in front of us and a couple of the “little” ones were hurrying to catch up with the adults, who were engaging in a morning dust bath. Click to bid here

Mongolia Monday- Book Review: Genghis Khan And The Making Of The Modern World

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This book is on my short list of “must reads” for anyone interested in Mongolia. It’s not simply a history of the Mongols and their empire, but what they did that still influences us today in ways that you might find quite surprising. Weatherford effectively demonstrates how the way of life dictated by the vicissitudes of living on the steppes of Central Asia formed Mongol society and, indeed, Genghis (hereinafter called by the more accurate rendition, “Chinggis”) Khan himself.

After reading “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World”, I was left almost wishing that the Mongols had been able to keep going to the Atlantic and beyond. So much of what people know about them was, unusually, written by the “losers”, historians and chroniclers in the countries that the Mongols conquered. Not surprisingly, the emphasis is often on the destruction and disruption that they caused wherever their armies appeared. The only surviving source of information on Mongol history by the Mongols themselves that is available in English is “The Secret History of the Mongols”, a book that will deserve its own post once I’ve acquired the latest translation, which, with luck, will be this summer.

Chinggis Khan was not a man to take “no” for an answer and he and his sons and grandsons had the warriors and tactics to back it up. Being practical people, they went with what worked. Not reveling in, or particularly liking, bloodshed, their campaigns were designed to minimize it, at least for themselves. Against other armies, they used the same methods as when they hunted game on the steppes back home. Retreating to draw the opposing army onto favorable ground was a common tactic that seems to have worked every time. Against cities, they used Chinese-designed siege engines, re-routed at least one river and, in another siege, when the inhabitants had barricaded themselves within their city walls, built an entire second wall around the perimeter to demonstrate who was really in charge.

When the Mongol army arrived at a city, it was given the opportunity to surrender and if it did, then everyone, except leaders who could foment revolt, was pretty much allowed go on peaceably about their business, but under a Mongol administration. Defiance was met with total destruction, hence their reputation for violence and ruthlessness in the West.

The boundaries of the empire expanded until they were defeated by the Mameluke army of Egypt in the west, failed twice to conquer Japan in the east and were more or less defeated by the hot, humid climate to the south. Kublai Khan, Chinggis’ grandson, over the course of twenty years, defeated the Sung dynasty of China and founded the Yuan dynasty, which ruled for over 100 years until overthrown by rebels who established the Ming Dynasty. The other parts of the empire more or less faded away over time and the Mongols were assimilated into the local populations.

For most Westerners, that’s the end of the story. But as dramatic as it is, it’s what happened during the existence of the Mongol Empire that I found fascinating and which is the heart of this book.

The Mongols, over three generations and thirty years, created the largest land empire the world has ever seen. They created countries, Russia is one example, that hadn’t previously existed. Within that empire the Pax Mongolica reigned. It turns out that Chinggis Khan wanted peace for himself and his people. The irony, of course, is that he waged war for most of his life to achieve it.

So, how does any of this relate to the modern world? Well, here are a few highlights from the book…..

-Chinggis Khan established the supremacy of the rule of law, which he applied to himself the same as to the poorest herder. It’s known as The Great Law and was based, not on divine revelation or the codes of settled lands, but the customs and traditions of the nomadic steppe people. This at a time, the 13th century, when in Western Europe kings ruled by divine right, no rules need apply.

-Given that within his empire, virtually every religion, including Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, was represented, Chinggis Khan decreed total religious freedom for everyone, though he himself worshiped the traditional Mongol spirits and always had a shaman in attendance in his camps.

-The Mongols had no written language. Once they found themselves administering an empire that was almost 6000 miles from east to west, that had to change. Since the Uighers are closely related to the Mongols (Xinjiang in China in their homeland) and already had a perfectly serviceable writing system, Chinggis Khan simply adopted it. That, plus the addition of professional administrators from China and other countries like Persia, and bureaucratic paperwork, Mongol-style, was born.

-Most Americans have heard of the fabled Pony Express, which operated for a short time in the 19th century American West. The Mongols had the “arrow messengers”, a system of fast riders. The stations were about twenty miles apart and staffed by about twenty-five families. The system survived from the 13th to 18th centuries, when it had sixty-four stations. Chinggis Khan knew that efficient, reliable communication was essential for administering the empire.

-Under Khubilai Khan in China (the empire had split into four parts by that time), the Mongols: “guaranteed landowners their property rights, reduced taxes and improved roads and communication”. They reduced by almost half the number of capital offenses that had existed under their predecessors, substituted fines for physical punishment and moved to limit the use of torture (evidence had to be gathered first; physical compulsion was a last resort) at the same time European authorities, both church and state, were expanding it through, among other things, the creation of institutions like the Inquisition, no evidence sought or used.

-Khubilai Khan greatly expanded the use of paper money, which Marco Polo remarked on, creating opportunities for both credit and bankruptcy. No one could declare bankruptcy to avoid debts more than twice. A third time could lead to execution. The money was made from mulberry bark, cut into various sized rectangles, marked and stamped.

-Unlike the Romans and their enthusiasm for blood sports, the Mongols had a cultural abhorrence, mentioned earlier, of bloodshed. They had no interest in pitting animals against each other for entertainment. Execution of criminals was not a public spectacle as was so prevalent in Europe.

-What made Chinggis Khan’s, and his descendant’s, empire tick was trade, on a massive scale. Under the Pax Mongolica, the Silk Road flourished like never before or since. The quantity and quality of goods that flowed between east and west was incredible. A partial list of what the author mentions includes: silk (of course, and in massive amounts), bronze knives, wooden puppets, iron kettles, board games, perfume and makeup, musk, indigo, jewelry, wine, honey, cinnabar and sandalwood. It was the closest thing to a global economy until relatively recently.

The author, Jack Weatherford, has produced a compelling, compulsively readable account of how one man, starting from nothing, even being kept a slave for some period of time, rose to become the ruler of the world’s largest empire and, in doing so, laid much of the groundwork for the world we know today.

And…. he has a new book coming out on Feb. 16, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued his Empire.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, Three Rivers Press, New York, 2004

Some Of My Latest Drawings

I’m in the middle of a rather large painting (no, not the argali one; a subject for another post; short, short version: got stuck, needed to let it sit for awhile), so I thought I would post a few drawings that I’ve done recently and then get back to the easel. It’s juried show painting season, so I’m trying out different reference images to see if I think they’ll make a painting. These were all done with Wolff’s carbon pencils on Canson Universal Recycled Sketch paper, which turns out to be quite a nice combination.

Ibex billy; from Baga Gazriin Chuluu, July 2009

Bactrian camel, Arburd Sands, Sept. 2008

Bactrian camel, Arburd Sands, Sept. 2009

Takhi stallion "Temujin", Hustai National Park, Sept. 2008

Takhi mare, Hustai National Park, Sept. 2008

Takhi foal, Hustai National Park, Sept. 2008

Mongolia Monday- The Saga Of The Scissors

When I went to Mongolia last July on my AFC Flag Expedition, I knew that arrangements had been made to meet with some unknown number of women at the Ikh Nartiin Chuluu Nature Reserve research camp to talk about helping them set up a felt crafts cooperative. I sorted through all my sewing stuff and came up with a pretty good-sized bag of needles, thread, notions and one extra pair of very good sewing scissors to donate to the cause. You can read about the meeting and see photos of the four intense days I spent with the women here.

The scissors, I found out late on the third day, were very, very, did I say very, popular. I was asked during a last meeting of everyone, if I could get more scissors. Sure, I said, how many pair? One for everyone, so 20 pair. I knew I could figure out some way to do this, so I said yes.

Then a burly man in a del, clearly one of the herders who had spent most of his life out of doors and who had quietly come in and was sitting by the door, raised his hand. Through my translator, he shyly asked if it would be possible to get 21 pair. His wife hadn’t been able to come to the meeting, but he would like to give a pair to her because it would make her happy. Yes, of course. I still choke up a little when I remember him sitting there in a ger full of women (Mongol women can be formidable), summoning up the courage to ask a total stranger for something for his wife.

My gift scissors being used to cut out the fabric for a del for my husband. The women made two, one for each of us, in three days. Notice that there is no paper pattern. The skill to make these traditional Mongol garments is either passed down or there are classes where it is taught.

Then, during a series of “competitions” that celebrated the end of the meetings, everyone divided up into teams to do skits. One team did theirs on where the scissors were because everyone was wanting to use them.

I think what is being said is something like "I need to cut this. Where are the scissors?"

Fast forward and I’m back at home. My husband generously offered to donate the money to purchase the scissors through his company. I got on the internet and in touch with one of the staff people at the Denver Zoo Foundation. It turned out that a fabric store chain had 8″ Gingher sewing scissors on sale at a very good price. Sewers know that Ginghers are about the best you can get and that’s what I wanted the ladies to have.  So they were ordered and delivered to my contact person at the Zoo.

Next was how to get them to Mongolia. We’d hoped to send them over with someone, but no one was going in the near future, the scissors weighed a fair amount and, with security being what it is, we felt like it was a lot to ask for someone to take them on a plane, even in checked luggage.

The Director of the Conservation Biology Department, which is who I work through, said that the only reliable way to make sure they got to where they needed to go was via FedEx, so that’s what we did. That cost over $400. My husband had included $100 for shipping in his original donation and the Zoo picked up the rest. So far so good.

The scissors arrived at the airport and then it got complicated with customs paperwork that none of us knew had to be done ahead of time. More fees, which my husband covered. But the scissors were in UB and in the possession of the right person, who would make sure they got to where they needed to go.

All along I’d had this vision of the scissors arriving in the winter when the women didn’t have as much work to do, so would have time to make felt items to sell this summer. And it would be cold and things would be difficult, but maybe this would be a nice mid-winter surprise. And I would be announcing that this endeavor of my Art Partnerships for Mongolian Conservation had been successfully concluded.

Unfortunately, this winter has turned out to be what the Mongols call a “Zud”, heavy snow and extreme cold, as in below -40F, which is a “normal” winter low. Haiti has the world’s attention, deservedly, but for those of us who care about Mongolia, there is a crisis happening there, too. I wrote to the scientist who goes to Ikh Nart every month and who is going to deliver the scissors, asking how my friends are. His reply was that he hasn’t been able to contact anyone, but will let me know when he does. I suspect that he can’t even get to the area right now. Conditions may not improve until April. I know that the Mongols are resourceful people and they’ll help each other through this, but I am concerned. I’ll be very glad when I hear that everyone is ok.

I’ll post as soon as I have news. In the meantime, I’m making my plane reservations for the next trip in July/August.

EBay Listing, 2-1-10

Back Country Summer, Humboldt County 8x10" oil on canvasboard

“Back Country Summer, Humboldt County” is a typical late summer scene in southern Humboldt County, California on the road between Petrolia and Honeydew. Although world-renowned for its coast redwoods, the inland areas have rolling hills and prairies with native oaks and often eucalyptus trees planted by early settlers. I wanted to capture a sense of the stillness of hot summer day and the contrast of the rich greens of the trees with the golden grass. Click to bid here

Five Things Artists Can Do While Waiting For Spring

We had a heck of a series of winter storms last week here in California. And this week a large chunk of the rest of the country is getting wacked. It’s stay indoors season. Not a great time to paint outdoors, unless you’re one of those seriously hardcore plein air folk, or do fieldwork if you are an animal artist. Snow is one thing, but driving rain and hail, high winds or ice storms are something else. What to do (drums fingers on table)? Here’s some ideas:

1. Ask yourself- What are you really bad at?- Trees? Water? Fur? Eyes? Be honest. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. I remember my artist sister-in-law telling me about a classmate at art school whose use of color was, apparently, pretty awful. He made a commitment to improve and is now a nationally known artist and illustrator known for, among other things, his incredible use of color. What I learned from this story is that, with hard work and a willingness to struggle and learn, a weakness can be turned into a major strength.

There's probably at least six exercises that one could do from this photo. What are they?

Cinereous vulture, Bronx Zoo; opportunity to show depth and form in an eye study; the photo flattens the image; what do you have to do to compensate?

Exercise: Set aside some time each week to work on something that’s hard or that you feel is a weak point in your work. Do little studies that should only take a hour or two. Don’t bit off a big chunk like “water”. Break it down into smaller problems like reflections or what pebbles look like through water. Robert Bateman says that he used to sit and watch water for hours to learn what the pattern was. You could throw stones in a big mud puddle to study ripples.

2. Take a look at your old work- Creating art can be very discouraging. Sometimes it seems like we’re just spinning our wheels. Progress in gaining any skill is usually incremental. Someone who hadn’t seen my work for awhile was visiting my studio recently and commented that my work had taken a great leap since they’d last seen it. I found that very gratifying, but also interesting. I do occasionally paint something in which it all comes together and there is a big move forward, but that’s the exception.

old reference 4x6" photo (cropped) from 1996

Painting (cringe) from 1997; it looked ok to me at the time; I could write an entire post now about what's wrong with it

Brush drawing from a couple of weeks ago for an 8x8" painting; the difference should be obvious

Exercise: Get some of your favorite beverage, pull out your old work and set it up next to your latest pieces. What do you think? I hope you see steady improvement over time, which should give you some well-deserved encouragement. If you don’t, then see if you can figure out why. Be honest. I know some artists who seem to think that amount of years spent painting equals good work. Not true at all. Twenty-five years of doing the same subjects in the same way with the same technical problems still means mediocre paintings.

3. Evaluate your photo reference- a famous wildlife artist who I was lucky enough to study with a couple of times told us that “you’re only as good as your reference”. I have found that to be absolutely true. Every time I’ve been able to upgrade my camera equipment or how I view my reference, my paintings have shown immediate improvement. You can’t put in what’s not there unless you know the subject extremely well. Trust me on this. The biggest leap for me was going from film to digital, which let me move from prints to the equivalent of big transparencies. I’m slowly purging my photo print reference of all the kinda-sorta images that I know aren’t good enough.

Impala painting from photos shot during my 1999 trip to Kenya; flat as a piece of paper with everything in local color

my main reference photo; notice the absolute lack of any perceivable light source

Thompson's Gazelle; no hint of a background, but you know there's light because of that cast shadow on the neck

Exercise: Go through your reference, in whatever format, with a fresh eye. Ask yourself- How much work will it take to make this into something? Does it really represent what it was that caused me to take the picture in the first place? Is it blurry? (I tend to keep those because there still might be a hoof or other information that I can use, but I don’t use blurry images for primary reference. Or let’s just say that every time I’ve done it, I’ve regretted it.) Is it under- or over-exposed? How about the lighting? Is it interesting? Or is it flat?

4. Start a sketchbook- You know you “should”. One of my teachers in art school did a lot of storyboard work for major San Francisco ad agencies. High pay, super short deadlines, no time to shoot reference. He did a drawing a day besides whatever work he had. While I was in his class, we all did a drawing a day. I had fun using my favorite felt tip pens and also Berol color sticks, which were new for me. So it was a chance to try different media, too.

Table and chair; not easy to get the perspective right

But no one says it has to be literally realistic

I tend to do this kind of drawing with carbon or charcoal pencils in the studio, but still use felt pens on location

Exercise: For one week, do a drawing a day. Of anything. You can set up a still life, draw furniture, work from magazine photos. With any media. But draw. Then add a second week. See what happens. Send me a 500 pixel jpg of your favorite and I’ll post them here.

5. Dream your dreams- Blue sky time. If resources, monetary and otherwise, were not a factor, what would you be doing as an artist? Some of us want to paint full-time, which I am fortunate enough to be able to do. Others want a special place in their home where they can do their art or want to go to a workshop or travel to Italy or…..the possibilities are as endless as the ways artists express themselves.

Dream big, but don't miss the stuff that might be close by

Exercise: Set aside an evening and make a list. Try to be specific. Instead of just “workshop”, how about “I want to study plein air painting with…..”? Or not just “I want to travel”, but “I want to go to Kenya and see wild lions”. Then think about what steps you can take to achieve one or more of your dreams. Get on the internet and see what you can learn about how other artists have achieved their dreams, both for inspiration or ideas.

So, there you have it. Five ideas and look! It’s April already!

“A Republic If You Can Keep It”

This blog is primarily about my art and adventures in Mongolia. But I’m also an American and I’m very concerned about what is going on in our country. Not just economically, but the “body politic”. Who will have time for art if we lose what fundamentally ties us together as a people? I have no intention of changing the focus of my blog, but it also doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Civilization and a civil society are required for culture to flourish. Our society, thanks to a vocal few, has become anything but civil. We have lost our ability to have honest disagreements and work them out. The shrillest and most extreme voices are prevailing. And it needs to stop. Now.

“All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. “ Edmund Burke.

How many of us stood by for the eight years until President Obama’s election while the Constitution was dragged through the mud? I’d have to raise my hand. How many of us stood by while, at the very highest levels of government, fear was used to control people and keep them from seeing that we were engaging in a war of choice, that alleged enemies were tortured and that the civil rights upon which we all depend were deliberately, consciously and with malice aforethought eroded?

Andrew Sullivan, who blogs over at the Atlantic Monthly, posted something very important today. The title of this post is taken from his. It is a quote from John Adams. It is the best explanation yet of the situation that America now finds itself in. Whither goest our grand experiment in self-governance? Please click through and read it. Thank you.

EBay Auction, 1-25-10; Polihali Beach, Kauai

Polihali Beach, Kauai 5x7" oil on canvasboard

The guidebook stated in no uncertain terms that if you took your rental car off the road at this famous beach and got stuck, well, it was a long walk back. We left the car in the parking lot and spent part of one afternoon on our last trip to Hawaii enjoying the gorgeous colors of the water, sand and sky. A little spot of summer for you in the middle of winter. Click to bid here

Mongolia Monday- An Extremely Hard Winter In Mongolia

Gers in "winter quarters", late April 2005

I was going to do a book review on “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World” this morning, but in the modern world of Mongolia, the country people are suffering through a very severe winter. A Facebook page that I follow “Mongolian Business and Economy News” posted a link to this AP story “United Nations Warns Extreme Cold, Heavy Snow in Mongolia Threatens Lives”, from which there are a few quotes below.

The page administrator asks “Will anyone hear our plea when the whole world is focused on providing aid to Haiti. I guess most of the help and aid should come from domestic sources, but most people barely have enough money to support themselves, let alone helping herders.” He or she is looking into setting up a fund.

I’ll post more about this as it unfolds. I have herder friends, the women who have joined the felt crafts cooperative at Ikh Nartiin Chuluu, who I am concerned about. I have no idea how they are doing, but am going to try to find out.

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“…..extreme winter weather that has killed more than 1 million livestock in Mongolia is likely to harm the country’s food supply and worsen poverty.

Nineteen of Mongolia’s 21 provinces have been hit by heavy winter snow and temperatures that have plunged below minus 40 degrees (minus 40 degrees Celsius)…….

……..particularly concerned about pregnant women cut off from medical facilities by the heavy snow – three have reportedly died in childbirth so far…….”

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New Painting! “After The Race; Baga Gazriin Chuluu”

There’s this saying about combat flying- hours of boredom interspersed with moments of stark terror. At a far less dramatic level, painting seems to have a similar rhythm sometimes. We spend days or weeks working on paintings and, suddenly, some get finished, signatures go on, photos are taken and, ta da. we’re ready to move on. I finished this painting a couple of days after the one I posted last Friday.

This piece is a scene from the mountain blessing ceremony that I had the good fortune to attend at Baga Gazriin Chuluu. There had already been an anklebone shooting competition, but the horse race was the event that everyone dropped what they were doing for. The Buddhist monks who had been sitting in a tent, chanting, came out and joined their families and friends. For at least a hour before the race, the kids had been warming up the horses by walking them in a big circle, sometimes singing as they rode round and round.

The horses were two-year olds, all stallions. As it turns out the Mongol word for horse, “mor” includes the fact that the horse in an ungelded male. That’s the default. Then there are geldings and mares. Being young colts, the race was a short distance- 7km. (The main national Naadam race for fully adult horses is 56km.) As with all Mongol horse races, after warm-ups the jockeys rode their mounts out to the starting line at a walk or trot, followed by a few vehicles which I assume included the starter and some of the trainers.

Everyone went out of sight behind a large rock formation. We all waited at the finish line, a small pile of rocks which held up a pole that had a colorful red scarf flying from it like a flag.

Horse race with spectators, Baga Gazriin Chuluu, July 2009

Pretty soon the crowd stirred and, looking out, we could see the dust from the horses. In just another minute or two they started to reach the finish line. I got as many pictures as I could.

The trainers checked the horses over and some scrapped the sweat off them, although none were lathered up or even looked particularly tired. Then the jockeys spent most of the next hour circling the wrestling competition, cooling down their mounts. That’s when I got the image I used in this painting.

I’ve also included the reference photos since I think too many animal artists just use whatever setting the animal is in when the picture was taken and don’t consider other options. In this case, the background was pretty boring. But, a short distance away were these really great rock formations.

The young rider:

The background:Put them together and….

After The Race, Baga Gazriin Chuluu 16x20" oil on canvasboard

The rocks were deliberately placed so that the boy would be against the large shadow area. I kept things on a diagonal so that the background would be at a different angle from the main subject and keep the composition from being too static. After going 14km, the rider was still having to pull firmly to keep his mount at a walk. I wanted all the elements of the painting to support that pent-up energy.