The years creep by, the past fades

Birthday journey, 6" by 14" 140# paper, on my Dad's old oak art table

Birthday. Just a profound word. Day of joys, days of celebration and remembrance, a day of a continuing journey. My mother spent her 71st birthday in the hospital, and died three weeks later. My dad died a month short of his 60th birthday. I know of people who didn't live that long. 
Every day I'm reminded by something to be thankful. There's no time for being negative, with so many blessings in the world. Sorrows, regrets, guilt, tragedies, missed opportunities, sins? Of course, but they are like steps in the sand that fade with time and wind. It's not Jan. 5 here yet, but elsewhere in the world it is.
We trod many paths, and it seems we are alone, but we are and are not. The painting doesn't show the ghosts of people now gone, of friends and families and relatives and loved ones  who have influenced each step. The future is a mystery, waiting the next step.

Birthday thoughts and old photos

Finding another trove of old black and white photos yesterday in the garage brought back memories and questions as another year starts and another ends as a birthday approaches.

Never before seen--two small 1" by 2" photos of my dad Terrence Miller Clark as a junior in Comanche, OK high school, 1930-31.

 Then some of me through the years.

No caption necessary

With uncle Rex after the war, in Fort Worth

With Mom, Jerry and uncle Mike at Grand Canyon

On Sandia Base, Albuquerque, cloud covered Sandias in background

And some of the people responsible for it all, Mom, Francis Faye Culp Clark, and Dad

In Taos, 1950s

Erle Thweatt Clark,Comanche, OK

Dad, grandmother Cuba Jon Miller Clark Reasor, and husband Worden, New Mexico

When the sun comes out

Shadow of the Cross, Ranchos de Taos, 11 by 14 watercolor, 300# d'Arches

After days of cold, gray, wet and unsettled weather, we awake to a north wind but clearing skies. Yes the temperature drops, but spirits rise with dawn. The sun comes up, casting shadows not seen in days, and personal shadows disappear  with hot coffee and a warm fire in the fireplace.
On the plaza at Ranchos de Taos in northern New Mexico, remnants of snow slowly melt atop the adobe walls of Saint Francis church, and the rising sun in the chill mountain air casts a fleeting shadow of one of the bell tower crosses on  its earthen walls.

Oklahoma January

Oklahoma January, 11 by 14 watercolor

I took a black and white photo of this old abandoned Oklahoma farmstead a long time ago, in Jefferson County. It can be bleak here when the sun doesn't shine, as the whole country turns gray, and what sparse color there is fades, making landscapes even more bleak.

Oklahoma New Year's ice

Oklahoma ice, 9 by 12 watercolor

This was supposed to happen today here, and didn't, though the skies are gray and wet, thankfully above freezing. But south and west of here in Oklahoma and Texas, people aren't so fortunate. I painted this perhaps a year ago, and of course it hasn't sold--who wants a reminder of this kind of weather? Still, this was an important painting for me--minimalist, impressionistic, and lots of free brushwork and imagination liberated from inside my controlling nature. Happy New Year.