Ars Longa Vita Brevis

Greetings and best of the season to all.

Double-vaccinated, we made our way back in mid-November from Maine to Southern California. Shortly after arrival we got our boosters. As with the second shot, this decked me for a day or so, but then all was well. I sure hope this does not become an annual ritual.

The weather here, as you would expect, has been generally sunny and pleasant, punctuated by a few cool periods. Suitcases and boxes are all sorted, we've visited the grandchildren twice, and Christmas decorations are up.

I’ve resumed near-daily walks with the neighbors, who continue to share their extensive knowledge of Southern California living. And I learn something useful nearly every day.

On Coyotes and Avocados

For example, until just this week, I had no idea that coyotes eat avocados. But they do -- my next-door neighbor told me so.

The hill behind our homes is a kind of coyote superhighway at night. While usually nocturnal, yupping and wailing on the hills around, they at times appear at dawn and dusk or, more rarely, broad daylight. The neighbor says they sometimes sit on the garden wall at night and watch her watching TV.

Early one morning recently, her dog started barking. She looked out the window and saw a tawny coyote eating an avocado right off the tree in her side yard. And he licked the skin clean. The coyotes evidently jump up on the garden wall adjoining the tree to reach the fruit, which is all gone from the side of the tree near the wall. “Isn’t that clever?”

I thought coyotes ate mainly rabbits, mice and other small animals. But it seems they also eat fruit and berries (including avocados) when other prey is scarce. "I guess they're hungry," the neighbor said. She is careful to keep her dog inside after dark.

When I first moved in a few years back, rabbits abounded, including in the bushes behind my house. Now they are nowhere to be seen.  My first instinct was to blame the coyotes. In fairness though, a friend recently reminded me, there were reports last year of an outbreak of Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease (RHDV2) in Southern California. So while the coyotes may have contributed, chances are that, just as we were fighting a losing battle against Covid in 2020, so too our little bunny friends were fighting a losing battle against the highly contagious RHDV2. According to a July 8, 2020 report in the Desert Sun of Palm Springs, the virus had shown up in Mexico, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Texas before its first sighting in Southern California in May of last year.

This does not mean that I am ready to absolve the coyotes of all guilt. They are established avocado thieves.

Venturing into Signed Artist's Proofs

I maintain two websites – one for original artworks at daviddpearce.com, another for fine art prints at Geo Galleries. This keeps me pretty busy. This month, for the first time, I experimented with a third way – selling a very limited number of signed artist’s proofs of fine art prints on the site for original artworks. These artist's proofs are test prints that I have on hand. I order them for myself in small quantities to test papers, color, image resolution and general quality before releasing them on the prints site. I don’t do this for everything, I do it as a kind of periodic sampling and quality control method.  Those that come out well I sign as artist’s proofs and  occasionally make available for sale. They are quite collectible, both because they are signed prints and because there are so few of them. While more expensive than an unsigned print, they are a much smaller investment than an original painting.

The thing is, this is time-, cost- and labor-intensive, since I must package and ship each signed print myself. I have yet to crack the shipping code and seem to come up short on every package. (Unsigned prints ordered through Geo Galleries get shipped directly from the printer to the customer, without me in the middle.) The lesson here is that I need to become a more efficient shipper; that will be a work goal for 2022.

On the other hand, the response to availability of signed artist’s proofs was quicker and better than I expected. I had only three proofs on hand of Ram Island Light and all sold within a day of the art alert going out. At this writing, two of three In the River (graphite) fly fishing prints have sold.  So for the time being, I will continue to add occasional items to the A.P. collection on the main website. For some prints there may only be one example available, for others there may be several.  Those who have signed up for my Insiders List monthly newsletter will get an email alert when any of this new work becomes available.  

Red Acropolis -- signed artist's proof, four available

Christmas, 1886, Portland Head Light

I have included with this blog an image of my 2021 holiday greetings card. This is a uniquely Maine Christmas scene from 135 years ago – a shipwreck at Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. The Head Light commands a rocky headland at the entrance to the Portland harbor channel. It was commissioned by George Washington and is one of the oldest lighthouses on the eastern seaboard.

The bark Annie C. Maguire ran aground on Christmas Eve, 1886 on the ledge next to the light and broke apart in a storm the following week. Growing up near Portland, and visiting the lighthouse many times, I had often seen the memorial to the shipwreck painted on the rocks next to it. So I decided to reconstruct and paint the scene. It was a major challenge both to draw and to paint. For the drawing, I studied historic photos of the ship aground on the ledge before it broke up as well as photos of storm waves at Portland Head Light. Then I did this 20” x 28” painting, the largest watercolor I have attempted to date.

I was drawn to this because it showcases not only the lighthouse, but also the other protagonists in its long story: the ships and men who set out to sea, the rocky Maine coast, and the magnificent, powerful and unpredictable force of Nature. The original of this painting is not available for sale but prints in various sizes may be found at my Geo Galleries website.