Old Memories Retreived - Easel Tripping

"Summer Morning, Approaching Jemmerson" - oil painting - ©Bruce A. Morrison

I often wring memories out of that brain I claim ownership to; I believe its those that have remained closest to the surface that spill out at the easel. These paintings have seen daylight most recently, and both are of times and places that I think we all identify and seek sometimes. That piece of solitude…a refuge perhaps.

I’ve begun a quest to pry these away from that “I really should someday” quagmire I’ve saddled this host with for decades. I’m keeping them small. They are a more intimate part of me after all. The earth didn’t shake, but it felt like it was cradling me…like I was there before in another time - it was familiar and gave a sense of calm and joy at the same moment.

The above painting "Summer Morning, Approaching Jemmerson" depicts Jemmerson Slough in Dickinson County, Iowa just west of Spirit Lake.  Its a beautiful wetland complex made up of several potholes and marshes.

I used to spend many weekend mornings at Jemmerson when I was younger and full of myself and energy...I had thoughts of someday living on a marsh and wading around in my home-made floating blind...taking photographs of the many birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, going about their daily lives there.  It was a great dream.  And it was a priviledge to have experienced what I did there.  I can still smell the decaying earth under the marshy waters as I crawled along in my blind - stirring up the muck from the bottom...it was like an elixir!  The sounds there were raucous, and then even sublime.  Some years later I took up recording the sounds of nature...I wish I had done so from that marsh blind!

"Waterman, Below the Slides" - oil painting - ©Bruce A.Morrison

I've actually been working on the painting above, "Waterman, Below the Slides", a while...maybe 20+ years!? I first visited the Litka Wildlife Area after we moved here to SE O'Brien County, Iowa 23 years back. I took a little trip down there (just 2 miles as the Crow flies), and was really taken with it...a great descent to the creek - which I had made my way down and saw the extreme bank drop off! It reminded me of the "Slides" I knew, growing up along the Des Moines River in Ft Dodge, Iowa.

Waterman Creek makes a quick turn south here and the bank had sluffed off steeply over the years. I'd just be guessing the height of the drop off at some point, but maybe 75+ feet would be close?

Anyway, it was an ideal day there nestled in the bottom of the ravine, just the birds and I...a beautiful flowing pool of reflections eventualy passing into a small rock filled rapids, as the stream turned the corner.

Sadly...at least my thoughts, Waterman flooded not long after that and carved a new channel behind the trees in the background of the painting...and as far as I was concerned - not as nearly serene and peacefull as it once was - at least in my memory.

I wanted to remember it at I saw and felt it...this is an attempt to do so.

I found the elements of the landscape very interesting and symbolic here.  The decline and destruction taking place on the right side, and the serene woodland embrace on the opposite side of the creek.  The pleasant calm-like pool of water in the foreground, with the more chaotic, and yet-to-be-seen of what lies ahead downstream, as the creek dissapears around the bend.

Isn't that so succinctly describing this moment we are living through right now as a nation?  Even as a world?

I hope you can take a moment to refresh or recharge from that pressure we all feel throughout our busy, or maybe even troubling lives. Take a moment to look and listen, where the quiet presides. Keep that memory. But whatever we do, embrace the “good” - its something we all need.

Thanks for stopping by! Please be good to one another - we’re all in this together.

A Rant or Hope?

 

Great Blue Herons - Waterman Rookery - 2023

This might be a wordy post...the image is from last year, yet this morning we have 2 Great Blue Herons on the Waterman Creek Great Blue Heron Rookery across the valley this morning.

I'm hopeful, but a backstory follows.

Last year the rookery failed...for the first time since it was colonized back in the 80's and 90's. It failed last year largely (my speculation) because of the drought we've fought since 2020. Their local fishery/food source failed...the Waterman quit flowing in the late summer of 2022. With remaining small stagnant pools freezing to the bottom during the 2022-23 winter, there was a system fish die-off. Although the Waterman began a small flow in 2023, it once again stopped flowing shortly before Labor Day in 2023. Then in October we received an amazing 6.5" 2 day rainfall and the Waterman once again began to flow. The fishery had some months to experience resurgence but just how long will a self sustaining condition actually take?

The rookery "tried" last year...in June it was abandoned...when around 30 pairs of birds give up - something is wrong. That can't be argued.

Water is much too taken for granted in Iowa. A fairly significant stream stops flowing two years in a row, yet no one seems to notice? Well maybe nitpickers like myself...

In December of 2022 the Des Moines Register ran an article on the Ocheyedan River...a 2 mile stretch of the river ran dry for the first time in recorded history. This event was apparently man made and technically illegal. But who noticed? Apparently someone needs to notice for any story to surface. Thankfully someone did notice and it was reported. But has the situation changed? Maybe, or its going to be glossed over and forgotten because yesterday it started raining - Finally.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2022/12/21/section-of-iowa-river-goes-dry-as-water-pumped-to-minnesota-customers/69745918007/

"IF" things return to a "historic norm", maybe we won't see degenerative siphoning of our stream's water tables. But our resources are not finite...hear how much the proposed Carbon Pipelines will require to take from our water tables and aquifers? It is staggering!

The Waterman never had the type of struggle it now has with water usage from it's existing water table. When the upstream Ethanol plant was built back around 16-17 years ago, not a noticeable "visible" change in the creek was apparent. But the Geological Survey no longer measured stream flow of the Waterman, so who would notice?

Once the drought began in 2020 here, things started slowly changing...by 2022 it was obvious the Waterman system was in trouble. When a stream - for the first time in memory - quits flowing...it's mouth at the Little Sioux completely bone dry; there is a problem.

Could a new drain on a water resource, like the Valero plant in Hartley exacerbate the issue? The Valero web site states it produces 140 million gallon of ethanol per year, and it takes 3 gallons of water to make 1 gallon of ethanol. 420 million gallons of water per year from the water table along Waterman Creek. How much of an impact on a drought stricken stream and it's ecosystem would taking away 450 million gallons a year make??? I'm not a hydrologist nor a scientist but when a stream goes dry like this, all stresses have to have a cumulative causal affect.

While the Ocheyedan River drying up in that localized section of it's stream was attributed to the siphoning off "for sale" to another state, it may not have been noticed had the drought not have happened.

But the drought did happen and while we are "Maybe" climbing out of that drought - that doesn't mean we can just go back to business as usual and not protect our natural water resources. It has proven to us to not be finite!

So much of our natural heritage is hidden from view...what is in that stream? We see water and assume all is well with the world. But we are being assaulted by nitrogen and herbicide runoff, the loss of invertebrates and viable fisheries, as well as amphibians and turtles - so its very likely "all isn't as it seems".

Case-in-point - the 50 mile fish kill in the East Nishnabotna River south of Red Oak just last week, due to a huge fertilizer spill, apparently an untended valve just gave it all to the river......all man made destruction.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/tech/science/environment/2024/03/18/iowa-fertilizer-spill-results-in-miles-long-fish-kill-east-nishnabotna-river-red-oak/72995246007/ 

Everything in nature is connected...how many times has that got to be said? Are we all so far removed from the natural world now that we don't give it a passing thought any more???

If there are no longer invertebrates, micro-organisms, fish, amphibians, OR WATER in the streams - then we lose everything else above ground and the Waterman Rookery is now serving it's own sad purpose as being the proverbial "Canary in the Mine".

Two Great Blue Herons showed up this morning...they were sitting together on one of the few abandoned nests from last year.

I have hope. Is there still time for them? It all starts somewhere. There has to be some skin in the game or we are all going to lose something, piece by piece...

(Great Blue Heron and Nest photograph - ©Bruce A. Morrison)

 

Fridays - "Archived Works" Day!

 

"Low Water Morning" - oil painting - © Bruce A. Morrison (from a private collection in Maine)

 

I've decided to try and make Fridays an "Archived Works" day. I'll post a painting, drawing or serigraph (silkscreen print) from the "archive" files of years past...and give a little back story on the work. I hope you'll find it interesting! 

 

This first posting will be a summer one - lets warm things up please! It's a small oil painting of the creek across the road from our home and the studio - Waterman Creek. I'll get into a background on the creek's name some other time, but it has a lot of history with "known" Native Americans...as far back as the Mill Creek culture of 1200 A.D. and earlier. The oldest known "remaining" Native American crop field in Iowa is just behind this view depicted...maybe 3-400 yards. 

 

I'm cognizant of these things when I'm out hiking - and I'll add that this is private property that I've been given permission to walk - making it even more special because I am less familiar with the landscape and its much more of a privilege to be there.

 

If you grew up near or on a creek or stream, you can relate to the draw of it all...the sounds of the water rippling over and around rocks, the occasional flash of minnows, a water strider or two in the back pools...a crawdad on a clear bottom, or a frog jumping in ahead of your gaze. They are a magnet to me. 

 

When I walk a creek, it brings back so much that I can be completely distracted from "adult" things and usually that means my mission of finding composition, color, movement and light...something to paint, draw or photograph. It's a shame I've become so serious...I tell myself to just chill and find a rock to sit on...just close my eyes and listen - take it in and hang onto the moment. 

 

This painting was done more as a "study", a term meaning it may or may not be revisited another time as a larger, more in depth work. I was happy with the color usage and play...it was a drought year that summer and the creek was easy to walk while running so low. This little painting now resides in a private collection in Maine.

 

(This painting and other archived artwork can be viewed at - https://morrisons-studio.com/archived-works/ )

 

"Low Water Morning" - oil painting - © Bruce A. Morrison

August in the Valley

"Hidden Pool"

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

Its a mystery to me how summer vanishes before our very eyes.   Oh it hasn't yet by any means, but it just began a blink ago; and here it is August in the valley.

This morning the sun found me south of the studio two or three miles, walking the "edges" of the Waterman Creek valley.  I had planned on walking the creek, because it is so low that traversing and wading is not a problem right now...we're having another very dry summer here.  

This section of the Waterman is embraced in what I'd describe as a "bowl" or "basin".  I've walked the creek on this section several times but never explored the edges surrounding it.  It was a pleasant surprise when I came upon this small woodland pool on a ridge above the creek.  Some Wood Ducks , likely in molt, paddled towards the opposite side of the pool, softly expressing their displeasure or concern.  The duckweed gave the pool a soft green blanket; a convenient salad breakfast for the "Woodies".

As I had hoped, the air was still as the sun broke; this always helps with closeup landscape photographs like this...leafy branches hold still for a longer shutter speed.

This image is a bit deceiving, as it is mere feet away from the valley opening below,  and this creates a perfect edge habitat for Orioles, Eastern Bluebirds and Field Sparrows.  The Field Sparrows were doing that wonderful trill; its a beautiful song and I was so happy they were still present with their notes!  Soon many of our birds will be in that transition mode into fall and the familiar favorite songs and calls will be absent until returning next spring.  I always regret seeing this transition come.

There are other transitions coming to us here, I won't get into it too much at this moment as I'm going to hold off until I can gather more information.  But it involves a "possible" change for our valley and for our personal lives here.  A very large (it will be the largest in Iowa) transmission line is applying with the state's utility board to run through our property and across the valley past the Waterman Creek Great Blue Heron rookery.  This is a 600kv(+/-) line system to cross the entire state and into Illinois...it will cross 16 counties "if" it is approved, and it will be carried by 200-240 foot lattice work towers.  

We aren't really the masters of our destiny as we so often find out.  And this isn't written in stone yet.  We have joined forces with an association of landowners to do our best to see that this does not happen, and hopefully 16 counties worth of landowners will find a voice to prevent it...but this will be a shadow for a couple years or more before we know what is happening, or not happening.  This has been a unfortunate interruption to the creative flow of work here at the studio, needless to say.  I am now doing my best to direct research and followup time for this specter, to a smaller part of my day, trying to keep things in perspective. I am hoping to stay out of its shadow and into the sunlight so I can still create and enjoy this beautiful gift we have treasured since coming here 11 years ago.

I will write a little more in depth about this soon...in the meantime it is August - grab summer by the collar before it s gone!

Drawn to the Water

"July Morning, Waterman Creek"

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

Gathering more material and first hand experiences is very important for any artist...particularly the "first hand experience" part! And lately I really seem drawn to "water"!  

It really doesn't matter what a person chooses to walk, wade, paint, photograph or even immerse themselves into; it is what it should be if it is emotionally or intrinsically satisfying or important to that person's life and/or work!  Don't you think?!!

The past 2-3 weeks have found me "in the drink" so-to-speak..in Waterman Creek here in the valley, to be more specific.  And loving it!  Why, with the rotten high temps and humidity again in the forecast, I can't think of a better place to be with leaky boots and my tripod and camera...and maybe paint brushes too.  In fact, I think the creek has got me for the easel and drawing board for a good part of my summer yet.

Drawn to water in more ways than one.

Stay cool and happy out there!

Early Morning Along the Creek

"Riffles - First Light"

© Bruce A. Morrison
6X12" oil painting - SOLD

(click on image for a larger view) 

Its trying to look and feel like winter here for a change...just a skiff of snow this morning but the temps are more winter-like.  I'll admit I have "some" misgivings about the weather being so mild and unwinter-like lately - but not many!!!

Being just "brown" outside hasn't charmed a "current" landscape out of me yet, so I've been working on ideas from my image bank of last summer...if it can't be a gorgeous winter outside, I'll enjoy summer inside on the easel instead! (Or maybe make believe its winter on the easel sometime this winter yet?)

I just finished a small study along the Waterman in the valley here.  This scene is actually only about a mile and a half downstream from the studio here.  If you were to float the creek during decent water levels, you'd probably reach this spot in an easy 10 minutes.  If you were to walk to it, it'd take about 45 minutes or more.  But as the crow flies, this is just next door!  What a beautiful little stream and valley here - don't pinch me please, I do not want to wake up!!!

I've been doing so many small studies the past 2-3 years; I wonder if I'll ever do some larger works from them?!  Guess that's a fair question I'll ponder some more.

Hope your winter's been nice - enjoy the nice ones if you get 'em!

Drawing From The Neighborhood

"Waterman's Mouth - Summer"

5X7" - color pencil rendering

© Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view)

I feel fortunate that there are so many things in the "neighborhood" that interest me.  The features of the landscape and the landscape's entirety as well.  Waterman Creek flows past our place in the valley here and is a prairie stream with so much natural and cultural heritage going for it.  It keeps our focus during the winter months with the wildlife traffic following this "trail" up and downstream during all times of the day. 

 "Waterman Bald Eagle"

 © Bruce A. Morrison

The past couple weeks have been filled with Bald Eagles flying upstream in the morning and back downstream during the evenings.  We've found them congregating upstream along the creek and couple miles from here.  

 "Red-tail in the North Grove"

 © Bruce A. Morrison

A couple days ago Georgie and I were watching a pair of Red-tailed Hawks flying low along the fenceline across Waterman Creek.  We have resident pairs in the valley here each year and really love watching them catching thermals during the summer or sitting along the road or even in the grove here at Prairie Hill Farm.  The pair I mentioned stopped together and copulated on an old wooden fence post as we watched...we were very excited to see this because it's pretty convincing we'll have a pair nesting here in the valley again this spring!  Now if we were to see a pair of eagles mate out here in our "neighborhood", we'd have huge cause for excitement!

The color pencil drawing posted at the head of this blog is of our favorite creek - the Waterman.  The drawing is a small study of the creek's mouth where it flows into the Little Sioux River just a few miles south of the studio here.  There is no extreme drama here, in fact I was mentally processing the scene when I first walked in to it and thought, "Huh, so this is how it ends."  I suppose that could be a metaphor for a lot of us!!

A life is complex, interspersed with drama...ups and downs; witness to events, experiences...out of control and sedate.  Think of what this small little creek has seen!  No, I think it's a pretty cool character myself.

The studio newsletter is off and running and it's certainly not too late to subscribe...gain some insight to the work!  You can subscribe at -

http://www.morrisons-studio.com/Newsletter%20page.htm

See you in the neighborhood!

Memorial Day Weekend

Spring Along Waterman Creek
photograph © Bruce A. Morrison
(click photo for a larger image)

I keep hearing that "summer begins" this weekend. It's that unofficial start that begins when school lets out and the vacation season begins, but I'd rather it stay spring for the next 3 weeks until the 21st of June when the summer solstice begins...I don't want things to move too quickly - time already passes by way too fast!
It does seem like summer though doesn't it?! We had our first Lightning Bugs of the season this week here (fire flies for some of you)...seems a little early. I love Lightning Bugs! Brings back many, many memories of days long ago...catching them in jars and watching them from the bedside at night.
The Waterman Creek photograph, at the top of the blog (taken about 3 weeks back) also brings back memories...memories of the creeks I used to wade along and fish and swim in as a kid. These memories inspire artwork and photography of, somehow familiar landscapes - like Waterman Creek here below the studio. I was attending an archaeological weekend event 3 weeks back when I visited this section of the Waterman. We were visiting the oldest known agricultural field in Iowa at this location. The field was dated at 900 - 1100 AD, and was tended by the Mill Creek culture that lived and flourished along the Waterman Creek valley here. The agricultural field was just 3 miles from the studio - wow...I love to think about who was here centuries back and how they lived! Amazingly, the entire "ancient garden plot" encompassed roughly the same area of 2 1/2 football fields or more.

Off in the distance behind the far trees in the photograph, is the Mill Creek Village that archaeologists refer to as the "Double Ditch" site. There was another village about the same distance in the opposite direction...archeologist's had recovered spoons from that site - spoons carved from Conk shells from the Gulf of Mexico...can you imagine?! It boggles the mind - the trade and commerce of that era. I find all this very intriguing and amazing to think about.Memorial Day weekend...amazing how soon that happened!
Another critter seems to be enjoying this weekend - it's that little bug on the screen among this blog. It is probably the worst scourge I find around here (although ticks and mosquitoes run a close second). They're about the size of the image on the screen (well, that depends on your screen resolution of course) and have jaws the size of Grizzly Bears! OK...an exaggeration - but they feel like the jaws of a Grizzly Bear!We've tried many things over the years for them...deet doesn't deter them...they just seem to get stuck to you with deet. Skin So Soft is a joke...they like soft skin too and lather it on; Vanilla works for a couple people we know, but I'm sure it's a weird anomaly or just a psychologically induced phenomena...we've tried it...more than once...with "real" vanilla...I think they really like it as a sauce on their food - US!What am I speaking of??? Black Flies. Huh? I call 'em Black Flies, some people call them gnats...some people call them biting gnats, but the official common name is "black fly"...they are from the family Simuliidae. Everybody reacts to them differently, but Georgie and I swell up like burning balloons! This too shall pass and the high winds we've been having will be more welcome than usual till they're gone :)Blessings to everyone out there and to your loved ones remembered on this weekend...