Dale Fairbanks

Fairbanks:  May 2013

 

 

An Ignominious Defeat

I looked it up online in Vocabulary.com. You’ve lost the game, you are face down in mud, and the once cheering fans are burning effigies of you.  This would be an ignominious defeat.  I have suffered no such ignominy.  An inglorious defeat, perhaps, surely my comeuppance, and there is the embarrassment, but in these past seventy years on the ride of my life, this defeat barely makes the Top Ten. 

I am writing my third and last entry for May 2013, from my worldwide favorite place to be, my back porch overlooking our little slice of Paradise on Santa Rosa Sound.  My knee is encased in ice, my body is slowly freeing itself from massive doses of ibuprofen, and my spirit is soaring with our yard eagle, the magnificent resident osprey, hunting hard over the water to feed his nest of fledglings.  I am home. 

I departed from Atlanta on April 24, bound for glory, Spain, and a long walk of unknown significance.  I failed to achieve glory, failed to walk across Spain, and failed to find significance.  My physical goal was to return home with no injuries; I failed to do even that. 

I should be devastated, depressed, and wrapped in melancholy.  How is it possible to feel so satisfied, so satiated, so full?  There’s no sweet taste of victory here, this is failure at its most miserable, and yet I am good…I am very good. 

After a fool’s parade by taxi from the sleepy Meseta village of Castrojeriz to a bus in Frómista packed with peregrinos, to a train in León, to a Delta flight out of Madrid, I arrived on the afternoon of May 20 in Atlanta.  On May 21 I was in the Pensacola examining room of my new doctor-for-life, Elise T. Gordon, M.D., Sports Doctor Extraordinaire.  Unable to walk or put any weight on my right leg and suffering from no-sleep exhaustion, I was in excruciating pain and scaring my dear Bill half to death. 

The good news is that I am an extremely committed person; the bad news is that I am an extremely committed person.  I rarely give up or give in…I will hold on longer than a loggerhead turtle.  “Overuse, constant friction, and stress with pain increasing during exercise or climbing” was the defining description of the diagnosis, pes anserine bursa.  For eight days I had held on and had pushed the daily twelve to fifteen miles across the dreaded Meseta in mud and rain and freezing wind gusts. 

 

                                    

                             Dale's boots                                  Tatiana's boots

The last day of holding on, I walked with Dave of California and his daughter Eva.  We trudged from Hornillos del Camino (population 100) to Castrojeriz (population 600).  Dave is an experienced and licensed chief engineer, who has worked often on the drillships in the Gulf of Mexico.  He distracted and entertained me with the adventures of a seagoing man and his work on the BP’s fleet of exploratory drillships.  I had a thousand questions and the day passed uneventfully, but with more knee pain than I was willing to reveal.  It was my last grandiose effort:  no more walking, no more O'Rosey on my back, no more heroics.

 

Beautiful Bridget of Ireland accompanied me to León, and after walking what seemed like an endless trek into the city, we found comfortable and private lodgings.  We celebrated at dinner that night all of the Camino Angels who had passed through our lives…angels we would not see again nor find to bid farewell.  It is the way of the Camino. 

In wine-producing region of La Rioja - Dale and Senja of Vancouver, British Columbia

Adrian and Morgan of Australia at the Monumento del Peregrino on Alto del Perdón

Tatiana of California as we leave Santo Domingo de la Calzada

My friend and fellow artist, Michael DeMaria, wrote to me in León that out of great defeat is born great creativity.  He quoted Rilke:  “I will tell you how we grow, by being defeated by greater and greater things.”   “A heart warrior,” wrote Michael, “knows how to let go, to be humble, and to walk into her own vulnerability and defeat.” 

My family swept me up, brushed me off, and filled me with gratitude.  They are each and every one obnoxiously proud of my effort.  I did walk over 200 miles, carrying a backpack at seventy years of age…no small feat, right?  My new best friend, Dr. Elise T. Gordon, assured me that pes anserine bursa is not an old woman’s injury.  “It is an athlete’s injury,” she said. 

Hey, I like that.  An athlete’s injury.  I can go with that.  Yes.

Out of the ashes...she rose 

a fledgling… 

the Phoenix. 

May 2013

ANGELS ON THE CAMINO 

I quit on May 12, Mother's Day.  I gave up once before on May 9, but this day was a serious "quit," a massive cave-in, THE miserable failure.  I awoke on a cold, beautiful Sunday morning in the tiny and remote village of Ages with a screaming right knee.  Never in all my years of running have I ever had a knee problem.  It hurt like hell.  I could put no weight on it without buckling. "This is it, the end."  My head was reeling and I was defeated, going home. 

There are angels on the Camino.  You never see the angels coming; they appear out of nowhere just when you need an angel the most.  On Saturday the angel named John the Sculptor from Nevada City, California, showed up at my elbow and carried me up and over what I figured was going to be an impossible climb: three grueling ascents across Alto Mojapan, Alto de la Pedraja, and Alto Carnero.  I was so deeply engrossed in "art talk" with this angel that I missed the hardship and was descending into San Juan de Ortega and then into the town of Ages before I knew it. 

Being happy and damn proud of myself all evening made the shock of waking up in trouble blow me off track.  Fear took the reins.  I limped downstairs on Sunday morning to meet up with John for our planned early departure.  "I'm done in," I said.  "Oh, it's probably just a phantom pain," John said as his angel wings fell off!  "Put your boots on and walk around the village until your knee warms up...you'll be fine."  John told me later that I had the look of total devastation on my face.  Ya think!!! 

Maryanne from Switzerland, an angel with wings, appeared at my side with a miracle cream all peregrinos swear by.  I coated my knee, took 3 Advil, and I did walk around the village for a while as John disappeared over the horizon.  Three more angels showed up at exactly the right moment:  Senja from Vancouver, Hege from Norway, and Amy from England.  We turtled together 23 km into the beautiful city of Burgos...a hard slog through hours of city bustle and pavement.

OK.  So quitting was a delayed option, I thought, as I read one incredible response after another to my first blog post.  I couldn’t quit with everyone watching me, counting on me, cheering for me!  My body, however, said, “Rest time!”  Burgos was the perfect place.  I booked a hotel room for TWO NIGHTS.

Day of much needed rest in Burgos

You can see by my grin that rest was the perfect antidote, and who should be in the same hotel?  Angel Tatiana from California!  How coincidental was that?  We hadn't seen each other for several days.

Tatiana and I spent Monday morning in the magnificent 13th century Catedral de Santa Maria.

 Plaza of 13th century Catedral de Santa Maria

I cannot truthfully say that I was called to prayer in the opulence of such Gothic grandeur, which was the purpose of such wealth and embellishment, but I was in awe.

I Spy altar in the cathedral

The massive altars guaranteed no child would ever be bored at Mass again.  You could play I Spy for decades and never discover everything.  What child wouldn't be motivated to find the peeing angels?

 I Spy angels peeing

Rested and restored, I struck out Tuesday morning, May 14, for Hornillos del Camino.  I was entering the dreaded Meseta and I was alone.  My John Brierley guidebook refers to the Meseta as "sublime wilderness."  He describes the peace and quiet of endless crop fields of wheat, barley, and oats.  Pilgrims describe the Meseta differently:  relentless heat, no shade, and villages few and far between.  We are cautioned to protect ourselves from the sun. We are to expect 4 to 5 days of mind-numbing boredom.

It was pouring rain, the frigid wind was unforgiving, and the only coffee bar was 3 hours into a morning that had started at 7.  I was in horrendous shape.  My knee was begging for mercy, my hands were red and frozen, and I was wishing for the too-heavy gloves I had shipped home.  The path was slick and dangerous with mud.  The only thing Brierley got right was the endless part.

The dreaded and dreadful Meseta

Six hours of peregrino angels all walking toward the same warm albergue in single file, no sound, no song, no laughter, trudging slowly and wishing for the relentless heat of somebody's brutal sun.

Why was I not surprised when there was no room for all of us at the inn?  I was too tired to panic or even react.  I got into a car with a vivacious lady-angel from Spain and a husband and wife angel-pair also from Spain and went blasting off across the Meseta.  I had no idea where I was going, but suddenly the sun was shining and my hands were warm.  The lady-angel was talking fast, furiously, and non-stop.  I had no clue in the world what she was saying.

 Casa rural El Molino, a bed and breakfast

The pictures speak for themselves.  I was in the company of El Molino angels. The hot shower was cathedral magnificent, and the house was unbelievable with a river running through it.  There were peacocks, geese, and ducks in the yard, and the angel-lady's husband wrung a chicken's neck and began plucking feathers as we got out of the car. Chicken for dinner....

 Dinner!!! Yum!

I thought I might never leave.  Coffee was waiting for me by the fireplace when I finished my shower, and the sun was glorious, spilling over the green expanse of lawn and flowers.  

Heavenly home for angels

How did this happen to me?  Must be some angels praying for me somewhere. Thank you, each and everyone.

La Peregrina

Fairbanks:  May  2013

EL CAMINO DE SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA:  El Camino Frances

FIRST WEEK:  THE BACKPACK

It's all about the backpack

O'Rosey be her name.

Cumbersome and difficult,

Impossible to tame.

On the March:  I just came from as far as the eye can see.  Eat your porridge and do your lunges!

I started walking the Camino on Tuesday, April 30.  It was early morning and it was pouring rain.  To tell you that I was terrified would be a gross understatement.  I'd sent a box of non-essentials home on Monday, and yet when I heaved O'Rosey up on my shoulders Tuesday morning, my knees buckled and tears ran down my face as I closed the hotel door behind me and took my first steps out on the Camino. 

Before I had walked 10 steps, the mercies of the heavens rained down on me, and Kirsten of Denmark appeared alongside of me to be my guide and new best friend.  Kirsten had not only walked the Camino; she had also walked hundreds of miles all across Europe.  At 74 years old, Kirsten's long legs and long stride set a pace I could follow, even with my pack clinging to my back like a four-year-old child gone boneless. 

We walked 10 hours that first day and covered only 15 miles.  Snow in the Pyrenees Mountains had closed the recommended Route de Napoleon.  It was a blessing for me, as I could never have carried my seriously overweight pack through such snow and freezing cold.  The alternate Valcarlos Route was difficult enough; we climbed in the rain and mud all day long.  I was running on pure D grit and adrenaline and have never in my life felt such exhaustion.  I trained hard for this walk across Spain, and I must tell you now...there are no hills in Florida. 

My first night on the Camino was a shocking challenge to my Grand “Diva-ness.” Upon reaching our destination Roncesvalles, we were assigned a bed in the original medieval hostel Itzandegia, a building constructed of ancient stone with arched beams 20 feet high above our heads.  Just a single huge expansive room, it was filled, I kid you not, with 110 white iron bunk beds, every one cradling a tortured and broken peregrino. 

On Wednesday, May 1, we departed again in the pouring rain and made our way slogging through mud down out of the Pyrenees to Zubiri for our second night.  As difficult as I found climbing, the treacherously slick descent was the real killer.  I'd like to mention again my backpack...everything up to this very day is about the backpack:  the padded straps that dig into my knobby shoulders, the vertical packing, unpacking, ­repacking, the constant adjusting and readjusting of five thousand straps! 

We stopped for our third night on the outskirts of Pamplona in the ancient Albergue Trinidad de Arre.  Once again we were in a medieval stone hospital, which had been attending pilgrims since the eleventh century, but this time there were “only” 41 bunk beds in a massive room with an arched ceiling.  I was near total depletion and yet again no sleep.  I was sure I had landed in a bullfrog pond.  Never have I experienced such snoring, so many men in their skivvies, or such personal intimacy with total strangers. 

Running with the bulls in Pamplona

I was determined that in Pamplona I would find UPS or FedEx and lighten the O'Rosey load.  After walking miles and miles searching through this incredible city, covered in mud up to my knees with my boots caked and dripping, I resolved never ever again to look in disdain or turn my eyes away from the homeless backpackers who often grace our own towns and cities.  I have never felt so filthy and lonesome and neglected. 

Our next night we spent in a beautiful hamlet called Zariquiegui.  Kirsten and I were assigned different rooms, so I joined five young men in a small room with (again) bunk beds.  I was getting used to spending my nights with lots of different men, and young men don't snore so raucously.  At last I had a good night's sleep and a backpack I could finally manage at 27 pounds. 

I could feel my body adjusting and getting stronger.  The climbs seemed less monstrous, and I was beginning to take note of the incredibly beautiful landscapes we were passing through.  I stood in awe under the massive wind turbines and actually used my camera to record the famous wrought iron sculptures of the medieval pilgrims on Alto del Perdon.  I even instigated a 4 mile detour off the Camino to see the beautiful twelfth century Romanesque church of Santa Maria de Eunate.  Simple and small, this unadorned chapel was truly holy ground...Kirsten and I both came away touched by something "weird." 

Kirsten and I at the Romanesque Church of Santa Maria de Eunate

We were now moving at a faster pace, eating bread, cheese, ham, and just about anything that got in our way.  (EVERYTHING tastes delicious when you are STARVING, and I am starving all day long.)  We spent the night in Puente La Reina on May 4 and in Estella on May 5, and we reached Los Arcos yesterday where we drank wine and ate paella outside in the village square at a huge table of close and treasured friends who have known each other, maybe three days. 

Tonight I am in Logroño with a lovely first blister on my left big toe after a brutal day of steep ascents and descents.  It is a well-earned blister after a steady 17 miles of walking, walking, walking. 

I'm including some pictures but will save my slate of amazing scenery photos and SPECTACULAR wildflowers for another day. 

My "the hills are alive with the sound of music" moment

I am well and happy for the most part.  I could do with less freezing cold showers, and coffee would be really nice BEFORE I have hiked 2 hours to the next village.  People in Spain eat late at night around 10 and do not get up to see the pilgrims off at dawn.  I can now pack O'Rosey fast and fairly efficiently in the dark and no longer take 30 minutes to get my sleeping bag stuffed in its tiny sack.  I can heft my pack up onto my shoulders passably well and no longer stumble backwards across the room trying to find balance. 

Oh, yeah. One week down and only 406 miles to Santiago, and it is all about the backpack…. 

Buen Camino!

La Peregrina

Dale Fairbanks:  April 2013

So Rang the Bellwether, a painting by narrative abstract artist Dale Fairbanks, will be featured in the Art & Design Matters exhibit at this year’s Modern Market Week, April 15-22, in Houston, Texas.  The event, held in the Winter Street Studios, 2101 Winter Street, is the largest cultural celebration of modern art and design in Texas.

Modern Market Week is an impressive showcase for selected fine art, furniture, jewelry, art objects, design, architecture, and clothing.  The featured exhibits will be open for viewing beginning with a preview party on Friday, April 19, and will remain on display through Sunday, April 22.  A supporting schedule of lectures, films, parties, and tours will begin on Monday, April 15.

 

Dale Fairbanks’ paintings have been shown at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Anchorage, Alaska, and at the Rainforest Arts Foundation Gallery, New York, New York.  Additionally, they have appeared in exhibits in Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, and Washington, D. C.  The March 2013 edition of Country Roads Magazine, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, featured her painting Pick Me, Pick Me as its cover art work.

 

So Rang the Bellwether

©Dale Fairbanks   Oil on linen  120" x 72" 

Photography by Gary Langhammer Studio

"Fires were raging in the virgin rain forests of South America, catastrophic explosions were spewing oil into the pristine waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and one-hundred-year perfect storms were devastating the eastern coast of the United States.  So Rang the Bellwether was calling me to wake up, pay attention, come out of my house, and be witness to the vast and deadly threat of global warming, mankind’s toll of intrusion and denial.

I was unprepared for the impact of oil on linen, the ominous fires, and the shafts of light that forced their way through the lush greens of comfort to pierce my complacency.  I was unprepared for the challenge to rescue…or at least…notice."

DF

 

Dale Fairbanks:  March 2013

“What do you paint?”  It is the first question I am asked when I identify myself as artist, so I find myself in need of a sound bite, a descriptive label of my own making…and fast, before I am corralled and pigeonholed in an unwelcome compartment.

I am not an expressionist painter, nor am I a realist.  To call my work abstract is too vague; every brush mark on canvas is by its very nature abstract.  My grandchildren ask that I explain my love for “dots,” but I prefer to call it a devotion to pattern, albeit a disordered pattern that becomes, hopefully, order and beauty.  I am thematic, intrigued by enigma and mystery, excited by the idea of the cryptic and secret.  I am a storyteller, perhaps, and therefore name myself: abstract narrative artist.

I love this man, my brother, and when he asks that I paint for him a canvas he has dancing in his head, I acquiesce against my better judgment.  He has been asking for and describing this particular painting for three or four years.  I put him off again and again, but he persists.  Out of a desperate need to shut him up, I say, “OK, damn it, OK.”  Ah…the irony.

Revelation 12:1-4 describes a woman robed with the sun, pregnant and crowned with twelve stars, standing on the moon.  A monstrous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns waits at her feet for the birth of the child the dragon intends to devour as his tail sweeps a third of the stars from the sky and hurls them to the ground. 

Are you kidding me?  WHY?  A private and spiritual manly-man, this brother of mine reveals only that this particular verse is vivid and alive for him.  Did I mention that I do not do realistic work?  It’s too hard.  My patience with proportion is thin and brittle, nor is my expertise the human figure, which takes hours of life drawing and practice.  My touch is heavy-handed and messy.

We agree to compromise.  I will do a drawing of said verse in oil pastel, and I will work on paper.  I am looking for a way out of this entrapment.  Halfway toward completion, my brother shows up at my studio and tells me that the drawing-in-progress is not how he imagined it.  Only a brother can get away with that kind of crap.  He shut me down for two solid months of staring, staring and problem solving, and no work.

My sister-in-law rushes to my rescue.  She is my committed fan and finds me to be but a tool in God’s hand.  She focuses on her own love and devotion to Mary and tells me that already in the unfinished drawing the face of the woman encompasses the toil and struggle of our lives on this earth, the vulnerability of our human nature.  She writes to me of seeing Mary’s “holy resignation.”

By this time I have left the building…the church building, that is, and become totally engrossed in the seven-headed dragon.  “Go where there be dragons” is playing non-stop in my head, and I am out of my comfort zone.  The fog is dense and I can smell smoke. This is at the end of the known world: Finisterre.  And I scratch and scrape, layer and smudge the oil crayons across the paper, and begin to tell the story. 

Revelation 12:1-4

©Dale Fairbanks   Oil pastel on Rives paper   42" x 30"

Photography by Gary Langhammer Studio

 

 

 

Dale Fairbanks:  February 2013

I asked my friend and mentor, Kes Woodward, once upon a time long ago, “What is your favorite painting?”  His answer struck deep and has stayed with me over these many years.  With no hesitation whatsoever, he answered, “My next painting.”  I knew then and I know now exactly what he meant, and I trust we are not alone in believing such in the vast field of artists.

When a painting is completed and off my studio wall, regardless of the joy, the pleasure, or the beat-down gratitude of a job finally done … I am finished, already moving on with great anticipation and expectation.  There is nothing more exciting to me than a white, blank canvas stretched and waiting for my first mark, nothing quite as thrilling.  Old paintings still hanging out in my studio drive me nuts!

If memory serves me, I do believe I have not sold a painting out of my studio ever, but I have sold many a canvas out of my house.  Our home has beautiful light and is more about windows and the glorious Santa Rosa Sound than elegance and style.  The ceilings in all but the living area are eight feet.  I have large paintings, five feet by seven, five by five, and even a painting eight by six feet making themselves quite at home.  My husband, who believes white wine chilled to perfection is essential to the sales pitch, is my gallerist.  I am better at writing about my work and staying in the background.  A potential client sees the canvas in context, so to speak, and the idea of a large painting in a bedroom or a kitchen becomes less intimidating.

The Berry Pickers are leaving home.  I am happy to see them go, very happy that they are going to watch over a wonderful family, colored with the well-worn patina of raising sons.  My client confided that she finds herself thinking, ”Well, we’ll leave that to the Berry Pickers,” when distractions arise and stir the pot.  This is every artist’s dream come true.  My husband may grieve the Berry Pickers’ departure; he has attachment issues.  I cannot wait to fill the space with the unknown of a white, unmarked new canvas.

The Berry Pickers

©Dale Fairbanks   Oil on canvas  60" x 60" 

Photography by Gary Langhammer Studio

 Our son is returning to Alaska and the river Tanana, his truck primed and loaded, hauling behind an eighteen-foot Jon boat packed with cold-winter gear and provisions. It is May of 2008. The man, my boy, is twenty-one years old, fierce on the trail of a dream and old roots he calls home.

Crying like a fool, for what I am confused, I am slashing paint across a white fresh canvas before he crosses out of Florida. He has made sure in two months of packing that we would be glad to see him go.

The Berry Pickers appear unsummoned to remind me that this boy is formed and done with growing. They taunt me, call me his yoke, a reminder of his vulnerability, his fear. The Berry Pickers will see to him now and not in my fashion. They will leave him be, watch him out of the corners of their eyes, monitor his mistakes with no word, no opinion, no judgment. He will follow the trapping trail and disappear, and I trust with faltering faith he will return. The Berry Pickers understand he may not, and so they go about their business of gathering, gathering blueberries, salmonberries, lowbush cranberries for the long, impatient white of winter.

Dale Fairbanks:  January 2013

I confess. I do paint flowers, but flowers that are of my own creation, my egocentric design, my choice of unexpected colors. In the past year, however, I caved and joined the ranks of many an artist, hobbyist and master, unable to resist the lure of the exquisite Helianthus annuus, the Sunflower.

This vibrant sun worshipper follows the track of the Sun god from east to west across the sky, turning ever so slowly, keeping the rays warm on her face . . . as she was anointed to do.

In the year 2004, Hurricane Ivan devastated the Gulf Coast of the Florida Panhandle and became the harbinger of fierce storms yet to come. The Sunflower, bold and brilliant gold, was the first of us to rise up out of the putrid muck left in our yard and under the shell of our house. Her grace as she reached for the sun made us remember the good, the beautiful; she reminded us to reach as well and lift our faces to the glory still shining, still in place, still celebrating life.

A year later in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the floodwaters withdrew, and again out of fecal and contaminated mud arose the indomitable Sunflower stretching to the sun, resurrecting hope and determination in a city destroyed and broken.

The explanation for such a sight can be logical — scattered seeds carried across the city from a thousand birdfeeders in a thousand back yards — but the fields of wild yellow in a destitute environment spoke to me in a different way. The Sunflower became the silenced voice of the unidentified and unburied dead. The Sunflower became the voice of the abandoned, the helpless, the forgotten. In the pride of its high-held yellow head, I heard the voice of the separated and discarded, the voice of thousands who departed their only known home for faraway places . . . some never to return.

Pick Me, Pick Me is an oil on canvas painting, 36 inches by 48 inches. It records for me the outreached hands of the newly overwhelmed and devastated homeless, begging to be noticed, leaning toward the light . . . see me.

Pick Me, Pick Me

©Dale Fairbanks   Oil on canvas  36" x 48" 

Photography by Gary Langhammer Studio

Dale Fairbanks:  December 2012

Not long ago a person significant in the art world described me as an emerging artist. I understood. An emerging artist is an artist new to this scene of painters and sculptors, surfacing, just coming into view dim and pale, but gaining focus and visibility. I comprehended fully his well-meant intent, and yet I was insulted. A woman in her seventieth year is hardly emerging.

When I first put brush to canvas at fifty-three years of age, it was like opening an ancient bottle of wine covered in dust and cobwebs. Will there be an exquisite and full-bodied red, or will there be vinegar? On occasion it’s wine, but more often than not . . . it’s vinegar. Somehow this artist, perhaps like most artists, pushes through the vinegar times, battling the monsters and dragons that create chaos on every single canvas stretched and hung on the wall.

The ugliest and most terrifying dragon that stalks my studio is Ambition, and this beast is outlandish and over-sized and arrogant. One such ambitious painting is done, long done a year or so, and still it hangs on my studio wall, unseen and un-emerged.  Incarcerated and in chains, this painting taunts and tortures me, baits and belittles me. I work with my back to this monster and refuse to let my eyes roam its surface for fear of what I will discover.

Once compelled to move paint across that expansive white surface, I stepped off the edge of the cliff knowing full well I might not fly. Terrified of judgment and ridicule, cringing, dying inside, but unable to ignore the incessant call - honoring, in spite of the outside clamor, that deepest part of myself, that soul of creativity that lives quietly and in secret - I made a mark, then another mark, and then another.

 

Rescue Me is an oil on canvas, 120 inches by 168 inches. The piece stretches 10 feet vertically and 14 feet horizontally across an entire wall of my studio. It’s difficult to pretend this canvas doesn’t exist.  Today I am turning the key and opening the door.

Rescue Me is the second completed painting in a series inspired by the disaster that fell upon New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  This series of paintings, large and small, entitled Don’t Blame Me is a series that has no venue, no audience, a sketchy future, but yet lives and breathes and emerges.

Rescue Me

©Dale Fairbanks   Oil on canvas  120" x 168" 

Photography by Gary Langhammer Studio

 

 

 

 

Dale Fairbanks:  November 2012

I am intrigued by "uppity" women and I know a few. . . or more.  Their flat refusal to stay in line or in a designated assigned area I find sometimes surprising, often horrifying, but always, always I am moved and inspired by these fearless females.

O Bright and Radiant Star, How I Wonder Who You Are I painted with one such uppity woman in mind - a woman who thrives on the crisis management of a demanding, relentless corporate world, communicating with clarity and authority when the chips are down, the flood gates have failed, or the rush of a tsunami has exposed millions to nuclear disaster.

The painting was for her new executive suite on the exclusive and formidable Twelfth Floor.  I was struck by the click of her four-inch heels on the marble of the hallowed “men only” halls when we had our meeting regarding this commission, our meeting to discuss the size, scope, and industry of the international Shaw Group, Inc.

In our short thirty minute conference, I learned way more than I needed to know about nuclear power plants, pipe and steel fabrication, emergency response, and the engineering and construction of mega projects.  I was dumbfounded when just about everything we discussed made an appearance on the canvas.

Yes.  Uppity women do intrigue me and I do know more than a few.

 O Bright and Radiant Star, How I Wonder Who You Are

©Dale Fairbanks   Oil on linen   72" x 96" 

Photography by Gary Langhammer Studio

 

Dale Fairbanks:  October 2012

I am passionate about and committed to diversity. It may be reaction to my Deep South Mississippi upbringing, or it may be simply my offspring who make “the road not taken” so vital and alive in our family.

My oldest daughter converted to Judaism and married into a large and boisterous, geographically scattered Jewish family: a family conservative, liberal, rational and irrational, religious, not so religious, and without fail politically involved. For me personally, the union of our families under the chuppah was delightful, surprising on many levels, and certainly diverse.

Commissioned by the bride and groom to illustrate their ketubah, a Jewish marriage contract and an integral part of a traditional Jewish wedding, I was introduced to an artist who has become a colleague and a collaborator and even a friend, though we know each other only by telephone and email.

Patty Leve is a professional calligrapher specializing in Judaic art and especially in writing and designing ketubot.  Her work is astounding and beautiful. Patty and I collaborated on this particular ketubah, and I have included an image of the finished piece in this post. I have also attached a link to Patty’s website. 

 

I received another commission this past year, and it is my favorite of all commissions: “Here is the wall - this is the size.”  I began work on the canvas before I realized that I was being prompted and pushed to answer a call of sorts, a directive, and a physical direction. The clients were in their house after a long and arduous journey through the New York City desert turmoil of remodeling battles and endless waiting for permits and permissions. They were “home” after several years, and they were rejoicing in that peace of place.

Inspired by Jeremiah 11:5, I called my artist friend and said, “Patty, I have this idea.” So began another long and arduous journey through the desert as Patty, with extraordinary patience, taught me how to paint to her perfectionist ideal a string of incredibly beautiful Hebrew letters.  

Every once in a wild while, a painting will appear on the white canvas, done already in an artist’s mind’s eye before the first brush mark. This was one such painting, and I felt only exhilaration every step of the way.

 

"...a land flowing with milk and honey."

©Dale Fairbanks   Oil on linen   72"x84" 

Photography by Gary Langhammer Studio