OK, so this series has expanded way beyond Zion NP. Maybe I should call it my American Parks series. This scene is from Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park, here in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Since Harry was one year old, we have spent a camping weekend here every September to celebrate his birthday. The Diggins, depicted here, is a massive valley created by feverish hydraulic gold mining of the 1800s and early 1900s. Miners reduced a mountain to a ghostly canyon of white rock where now mineral pools glow with weird colors, where willows grow and bears forage among rusting mining equipment. See the high line of trees on the horizon? That was the ground level before the miners came. The park centers on the ghost town of North Bloomfield, where apple and pear trees grow wild and where the park rangers, a married couple, lead visitors in ice-cream churning and candle-dipping.
Malakoff Diggins. 11x14 watercolor. SOLD.
The really sad aspect of this image is that, after this Labor Day, neither our family nor yours will ever see this sight under the stewardship of the people of California. This is a protest painting. Our short-sighted leaders have put this park on the chopping block, to save a few pennies. The price will be the death of this public resource. All over the state, the greatest idea and a defining characteristic of America is being sold out for short-term gain. I guess it's ironic that our modern politicians are showing the same irreverence for the same land that the miners who created the Diggins showed. Maybe someday we'll have a State Historic Park there, enshrining our own foolishness. I doubt it will be as beautiful. Ooof, I really want to cry!
I have spent this series doing pretty realistic (slightly impressionist) paintings of favorite places. The places carry the paintings. I am going to do a few more like this, and then slowly, like a swimmer who knows the water is cold, I am going to start getting funky again. :)
BTW:
HEATHER OGSTON OWNS THE SOLE COPYRIGHT FOR ALL THE IMAGES ON THIS BLOG.
