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WHITE MOUNTAINS IN THE SOLSTICE MOON
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2023 - 2026
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Lebanzon Kolinsky Brush, Bobcat Brush, Tsutakawa Brush, Dagger Striper brush, Ivory Black Watercolor, Dip Pen, India Ink and Storytelling.
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"At the time of the solstice, the light of the full moon is so to speak, piercing. It seizes everything. It applies itself and spreads over the earth with a sort of suction."
Victor Hugo, Les Miserables. 1862
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MOONLIGHT HIKE
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On June 20, 2016, I experienced a convergence of unusual phenomena.
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After a lifetime of exploring wilderness and a distinct relationship with trees, it is surprising that Kathy and I had never been to the White Mountains in eastern California. Along with Great Basin National Park in Nevada, the White Mountains are the most significant habitat of ancient Bristlecone Pines, among the oldest living things on the planet. The older trees are believed to be between 4,500 and 5,000 years old.
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We planned our White Mountains trip to correspond with the convergence of the Summer Solstice and the full Strawberry Moon. Prior to our trip, many believe this had last occurred in 1967. It is a rare phenomenon that Victor Hugo so colorfully described in the 19th Century.
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On the day of our trip, we drove south from Reno on highway 395 through the towns of Bishop and Big Pine to a narrow highway 168 and began climbing. This road is notoriously winding and steep. There is an overlook that looks down over 4,000 feet into the north end of the Owens Valley. We made camp at the Grandview campground high up on the ridge. The primitive campground sits at 8,600 feet and the Schulman Grove of Bristlecones is only five miles away at 10,000 feet elevation.
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We made camp and then went to the trailhead at the Schulman visitor center to hike the 4.5 mile Methuselah loop trail. It is a sturdy hike through the mountainsides of ancient, sculpted trees. It was clear that we were experiencing something exceptionally rare and deeply moving.
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After dinner we went back to the trailhead to hike among the trees in the solstice moon-light. Because of the convergence, we thought for certain that many of our fellow campers would also be there but the parking lot was deserted. We were the only ones there. We hiked in and I will never forget the Bristlecones moving and pulsing in the silvery, undulating moonlight. How could this moment not be affected and charged by the solstice? The trees were unmistakably moving to a choreography of a cosmic energy source.
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After this full moon hike, we returned to camp and I was very agitated. It was late and all I could do was pace back and forth in our campsite under the full moon while sipping imperial stouts. Poor Kathy was trying to go to sleep in the tent and I kept waking her up with one thought after another. I don't remember what I was saying but Kathy will confirm that I was obnoxiously awake. The next morning, we went back and I did a simple brush drawing of a Bristlecone in my journal. But it would be a few years before I could properly process what I experienced that moon-lit night.
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This is where I need to offer some personal context. I'm a tree person. I have a long relationship with trees. In the past, I did a range of forestry work and fought fires in the U.S. Forest Service. In 2010, I initiated an unsuccessful public protest the save a riparian forest in Iowa. I have favorite trees in many places and I was grateful to visit the great Banyon tree in Maui before it was seriously burned in the 2023 Lahaina Fire. For much of the 1980's and early 90's, nearly every painting and drawing I did was of a tree. Later, for over twenty years I produced wood sculpture, hand-carving over thirty different species of wood. I have an authentic relationship with trees. I talk to them.
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In August 2022, we returned to the White Mountains with my long-time Chico friend Phil Johnson and Kirk Peterson from the Friends of Nevada Wilderness. This time we drove deeper in to the more remote Patriarch Grove. The Bristlecones were in peak flower. When we brushed against a limb, the flowers would put out a puff of purple pollen. I touched my finger to some fresh sap and put it to my tongue. I expected a strong turpentine taste but it was clear and sweet. We were not there long but I took the moment to do three blind-contour field-sketches of Bristlecones in my journal.
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In 2023, I decided to see if I could do some abstracted drawings from those three Bristlecone field-sketches. My first attempts were failures. But on one of them I started cutting in a heavy black background in India Ink. I immediately recognized that I had unconsciously stumbled upon the memory of that Solstice moon-light hike and the essence came vividly rushing back. It felt like the dormant memory had been waiting patiently for me to wake up.
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This memory is kinetic and fleeting so the immediacy of drawing has proven to be my most direct access to what I experienced. Working directly from the field sketches, I began making gestural brush marks in Ivory Black watercolor with a Kolinsky brush hand-made by the late Keith Lebanzon. I then rendered modulated, shaded volumes into the brush marks with India Ink. As the drawings evolved, I began incorporating a medley of brushes including my Lebanzon bobcat brush, the brush George Tsutakawa gave me, a dagger striper and an old crusted warrior bamboo brush I bought when I was seventeen years old.
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There is not a mark that is not derived directly from the field sketches and thus, from the ancient Bristlecones. The finished drawings are aggressively calligraphic and abstract. They are almost akin to electro-cardiograms. In the process, I'm trying to inhabit an essence of a phenomena.
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BECOMING A PROJECT
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I decided these drawings would become a long-term project and I knew that those three original field-sketches were not enough source material. On June 29, 2024, I left Reno and once again drove through Bishop and Big Pine and up the steep winding road in to the White Mountains. I arrived in plenty of time to make camp at Grandview and then hike the Methuselah loop. I completed 16 blind-contour field-sketches of Bristlecones on that first hike. As I stopped to sketch certain trees, I kept bumping into a guy named Ray. I wondered at first if he would be a distraction. But as we walked through the Mountain Mahogany grove and chatted, I learned he was an official guide for the restricted Coso Range and China Lake Petroglyphs, some of the finest rock art in North America. He was very knowledgeable and I was glad I spent that time with him.
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It was a heatwave in the western states and the Grandview campground was too hot to sleep well. Yet, the night sky was alive and I could not remember the last time I had seen the Milky Way so vividly. I rose early the next morning and drove to the Patriarch Grove of Bristlecones. The road is notorious for sharp rocks and flat tires so I drove our Toyota Sienna van most of the entire 12 miles at 12 miles-per-hour. I did 10 blind contour field-sketches there and then returned to hike the Methuselah loop again and finished 30 field-sketches total in two days.
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I finished that last hike and went in to the Schulman visitor center for bird and flower checklists. I especially needed the flower list as there was a decent bloom. I met a very knowledgeable ranger named M. Skip Vasquez. She was also an artist whose intimate, elegant leaded glass works were exhibited in a small side gallery. She told me about the environmental conditions separating the wetter Patriarch Grove and the steeper, dryer drainage of the Methuselah Grove and why the Methuselah trees were nearly twice the age. She knew her flowers too.
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I had intended to spend one more night in the campground but something weird happened. A large truck with many offensive stickers drove through my camp. It literally drove through the middle of my camp between my van, fire ring and the picnic table I was sitting at playing my guitar. In a lifetime of camping, I had never had something like that happen before. The guy in the passenger seat waved as they drove past and then they made camp nearby. More people arrived and it was clear they intended to have a loud party. Between this, the heat and the mosquitos, I broke camp at 7:30pm and started driving home. I stopped for gas in Bishop and there was a big, swarthy panhandler loitering by the gas station door. I broke a five-dollar bill for a cup of coffee and gave the change to the panhandler. He said "God bless you" which I appreciated because I had a long drive ahead of me. A Miles Davis CD kept me awake and I arrived in Reno just before midnight.
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My ultimate objective was to get the field-sketches I needed so it was a very successful trip.
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THE HAND
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I lifted my hand from my big drawing after making an aggressive brush mark. The handle of my Chinese brush was in my hand but something was weird. The brush didn't have any bristles. I looked down and saw the bound bristles lying in a very wet puddle of India Ink in the mark I had just made. I was just over half done.
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The drawing was the second of two 14 foot-long, aggressive brush drawings I was doing from my Bristlecone field sketches. The paper was from a perfect unopened roll of Arches Hot Press watercolor paper I had inherited from Arthur Frick. The brush was one I had bought sometime in my 20's and I had never been gentle with it.
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Now I was holding an empty brush handle. The brush marks were off to a good start and I had a wind at my back. Without a great deal of thought, I put on a latex glove that was nearby, grasped the fallen bristles, and stuck my hand in the tub of India Ink. I started slapping down big, explosive brush marks and I could feel splatters of India Ink hitting my face.
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When I was done, I texted my painter friend Cedra Wood and told her what happened. I told her that since I finished it "by hand," I thought I might put a hand-print in the drawing. She said, "Absolutely, put a handprint in there."
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HORNET'S NEST PAPER
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In 1985 I was fighting wild fires for the U.S. Forest Service. It was a busy fire season and we were getting a lot of overtime in California, Oregon and Washington. During one of our breaks at home in Chico, I hired a paper-maker named Cal Ling to make me some of her beautiful, one-of-a-kind paper. I paid her in full and then got dispatched to more fires.
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I think we were on a fire on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. At the end of a shift, I was in the fire bus when one of my crew-mates got on the bus holding two Bald Faced Hornet's nests he had found. He gave them to me and when we eventually got back to Chico, I went to see Cal Ling. She had not made my paper yet and I asked her to pulp the hornet's nests into it. She was resistant but relented that it would ultimately not cause any harm and agreed to do it.
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I'm not sure why I did not use this paper earlier. The paper was stored in a portfolio since 1985 and I finally did something with it forty years later in 2025. I was not intimidated. It just wasn't time. When the time did come, I attacked the paper with India Ink and a special Chinese brush I inherited from Arthur Frick.
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