Here is the full excavation of the mountain as seen from the platform at San Clemente Rancho. Imagine that there was a mountain there last year at this time!  (from the long straight cut on the right to the cut on the left... that was all mountain! 342, 000 cubic yards of rock and earth, 200 feet high at the highest point on the right.  First pass on the painting started on April 1, 2015. Second pass painted today, April 4, 2015 from 8:30 am - 12:30 p.m. The painting is not quite finished in this photo. 

 

I will be doing more paintings from this location when the water is drained in a couple weeks in preparation for taking the dam down at the end of the summer. The subsequent paintings will show how deep the excavation is and the restoration to make the new river course with step pools for the steelhead.


I have been recording the bird sounds and other sounds while i paint. When I come home, I then have my own soundtrack to listen to! I plan on using the sounds in exhibits when the series is complete.


A quote by Robert Hass, poet, came to me in my inbox today from the Global Oneness Project/Cleary Vaughn-Lee:
“The fundamental work of the 21st century has got to be river restoration, because all the rest of life depends on rivers. So the future is going to be a complicated combination of human art, human science, human engineering, and respect for an understanding of natural processes that make room for the rest of life to thrive.”