★ THE BLUE POCKETKNIFE (A TRUE STORY)
DIARY p.1, Spain, July 4th 1994. "That first step was SEVEN stories long. I leaned backwards 'til I was airborne with a seasoned chief pilot in control.
"Seven bungee jumps sealed the deal. I looked outward to my life changing goals at the far corner of the cushion below. Retreat with my tail between my legs and go back down the tower? No. I jumped off the bungee tower - 7 stories, 7x's. At the DFW Airport I was told to cash a traveler's check for pesetas before departure - As I stood in the queue I realized my checks and passport were in my zippered travel pouch beneath my belt and tucked-in shirt, above my rump. That led to a fine young Highland Park lady spotting me in seat 22B as she came down the aisle mirthfully saying, 'Oh no, it's you,' but, that is another story!
"Anyway, I'd marveled at our star spangled send off with fireworks shooting up toward us from diamonds on a necklace stretching from Dallas to Philly. At 33,000' I had a window seat view.
July 5th 1994
"We touched down in Madrid at sunrise. I deplaned with my backpack, day pack, paints, brushes, and 10 quartered sheets of watercolor paper and was greeted with my teacher's pair of welcoming cheek kisses and an 'abrazo.' So, off to the bus terminal we scurried, led by 'Paco' (Don Francisco Alcaraz), as I knew him, and his aristocratic Brazilian lady friend. All of our stops were unplanned along a few hours of highway lined with armed, military green clad, Guardias Civiles.
"The red hillsides reminded me of my bicycle racing days in Georgia. The high of 7 bungee jumps a few days before waxed and waned as my adventure really took off. I did not view art as a career choice at any previous time, nor did I in Spain. It was a thrill. You know, just drop everything and go. Art?
"Boy Howdy. At 9:30 AM the bus snorted to a stop, burped once or twice, and my feet scuffed down shiny metal steps onto the hard red clay in my 6-ounce racing flats. Oh boy! Or, 'Boy howdy' as I had learned to say in Texas (We'd said, 'Sheesh' in Pennsylvanian).
"Saldaña de Ayllón is a small, ancient village of 30-33 permanent residents in the foothills of a ski resort. They're craftsmen, gardeners, and sheepherders - I grew up on the outskirts of a country town of less than 200 people, 28 miles from Philly - But, we had a stop sign 'downtown' by the mineral springs, AND, we had a post office! The folks in small town Blue Ridge, Texas are like that. They looked out for me when I was hung up in some hard times. That's community. Keep your noisy, crime-ridden megalopolises and metropolitan areas! I'm a small town guy.
"Why make it easy to learn something new? Paco didn't speak English. I'd taken beginner Art in 7th grade, Art Appreciation in 11th grade, and I didn't know diddly about my teacher. My last Spanish class was 22 years before. I was prepared!?!
"His Brazilian friend said Paco was an orphan at seven and at nine was the youngest in hundreds of years to be admitted to a prestigious art school. I was half listening. She added that he had labored diligently on his first assignment for two weeks to win the applause of his esteemed teacher. When Paco presented his 'gem' to the great man it exploded into the air and crashed into the hungry flames of the atelier fireplace. His teacher knew the genius of his student and flung his work into the dancing fire, demanding his best --- not effort. His very best. That was his glad to have ya here story? What? No bezos y abrazos?
"We walked into Saldaña de Ayllón on a dirt road past Medieval mud adobes and skirted a cathedral on Calle Alcaraz. At 10:00 AM my first painting lesson began. 'He wants you to watch him and do what he does,' his aristocratic lady friend (England-schooled and fluent in 5 languages) told me. My first painting (#1, I intentionally mislabeled #3 on the back) was of Paco's favorite landscape, the very reason why he bought that Medieval shepherd's adobe in the foothills of a ski resort ... However, it was 105° F and I was hung over by a bad case of jet lag.
"Each day the temperature swung from 3.9°C ( 39° F ) at night to a hellish Death Valley 45°C (113+° F) by day. I slept on a rickety, swaybacked ol' sofa with tired springs in the old sub-abode sheep barn with an ancient Dutch door entry at its head and a screened open window at its feet. Supper was at midnight. Painting began at 6 AM, seven days/week.
"I struggled with sketching perspective, then cautiously, carefully, meticulously painted using ochre, cerulean blue, sap and viridian green - Hey, that's what I had on my paint tray ... And she said, 'He wants me to tell you that there are more than two colors of green, and to stand at the balcony looking down at that sapling until you tell him how many colors of green you see.' Twenty minutes later, to end the miasma, I blurted 'at least 1,000.' Paco was satisfied and I dodged another minute of blurry pain. FYI. Just 10 years before I was walking down Ben Franklin Parkway in Philly right after someone pointed out that I hadn't killed my older sister, which I blamed myself for, but hadn't anything to do with it. On that Philly day I felt the warmth of the sun, realized trees are green and the sky was blue for the first time. Wow!!! And, here I was in Spain with no idea what a color wheel is.
THE BLUE POCKETKNIFE:
"Paco beckoned with short, rugged, swollen carver's hands, clutching my pretty landscape. The lady's thick Brazilian accent intoned, 'He wants you to follow him.' I did. In his workshop (an 'atelier') I felt the crisp slap of a cold, aged, metal ruler on the face of my first masterpiece. His unfolded blue pocketknife surgically bisected my painting in one short, quick stroke. He pivoted in the doorway and returned to finish an oleo on the balcony. And, his lady friend said, 'He wants you to know you have two paintings. Go fix them.' I didn't know the summer sun could be so hot. I buried the smaller piece in a waste basket, thinking he wouldn't ask about it. He asked the next morning. I didn't retrieve it, but kept the larger part and re-signed it a second time, as you might imagine.
"By the way, Paco's flower-loving lady created the floral arrangements in the myriad vases I painted. Paco explained this was an important discipline to keep my wrists loose. Well, OK then.
"One night after dinner, so at about midnight, Paco opened a book of his friend Picasso's stains and traced the brushwork with his fingers as he explained how the icon had made them. He hadn't read about it in a book. He'd actually been there, with Picasso. It was an experience had by a small handful of artists.
August 23rd 1994 ...
"Let's jump to the end. Paco, his aristocrat lady friend, and I stood together as the oily, black exhaust of a creaking bus swept past the highway marker. Teary-eyed, Alcaraz handed me his blue pocketknife. As I climbed the shiny balding steps, the lady said, 'An artist is born.' Like a proud papa, Paco handed me his blue pocketknife. From my starboard window I saw he was crying. I scaled the bungee tower at Walnut Hill thrice more, blindfolded from the bottom, as a victory dance after I got back to Dallas, Texas.
Thirty years later (July 2024)...
In today's world self-centeredness runs wild over sincere gratitude, common courtesy, and true honesty. and mentorship are usually refused with an irritated, unappreciative backside, at best. Authenticity bows to confabulators. "I'm a romantic and yearn for deep emotional and spiritual relationship. I was married - BUT, she filed and re-married after I returned. My last painting (#39) in Spain was a glorious sunset. On its back, I wrote of my desire to have a loyal, adoring bride to return home to with a 4x0 in onyx black ink on the back of it.
"Only when there is a wilderness can man harmonize his inner being with the wavelengths of the earth. When the earth, its products, its creatures, become his concern, man is caught up in a cause greater than his own life and more meaningful. Only when man loses himself in an endeavor of that magnitude does he walk and live with humanity and reverence."
- William O. Douglas, Supreme Court Justice nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, authored Of Men and Mountains, Sierra Club board of directors, Columbia Law School professor, Yale Law School professor, born in Maine Township, Otter Tail County, Minnesota.
"Normality is a paved road: It's comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it."
- Vincent van Gogh
(The Bedroom, Starry Night, Sunflowers, Irises)
"I took several years off to make this web site. It's finished.
I'm back and better than before I hope!"
(Poem)
"I love morning tides and a gentle moonlit sunrise
soothing bare feet on warm accepting sand
with smooth shell fragments, and angels' slippers,
a frothy lace of surging, whispering foam caresses
and playfully wraps around tender insteps.
I feel your loving presence whether your hand
is entwined in mine or, I am walking alone. Thoughts
of you bathe my heart like the morning tide, yet
a thousand times greater than the swelling sea.
The white-robbed choir, on colorful misty ribbons,
dances and sings
I love you."
- Carroll
(YES!!!, Purple Thistles, Much in Common, She Wore Red)
"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." - Philippians 4:8-9
Dr. Vivien Thomas, surgeon and trainer at Johns Hopkins said, "If you are going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don’t even start." (Something the Lord Made, a 2004 film). LEFT: "YES Sir, I'm the guy with the beard and long hair --- But, you could bounce a quarter on my bunk at sunrise! I cleaned up pretty well. Well, pretty well. My attitude is unfettered."
"Don't ask if you want a corporate elevator speech. Won't happen. I invested myself drawing meticulous images of dissected insect anatomy, where highly-detailed accuracy was essential. DYK, 4X0 pens fit naturally in one hand with a beer in an introverted science graduate student's other on a Friday night. They're in the slideshow ART GALLERY on page one of this Website.
Richard L. Proenneke wrote, "To look around at what you have accomplished in a day gives a man a good feeling. Too many men work on parts of things. Doing a job to completeness satisfies a man." and "Eight and a half miles can be covered in minutes in a car on an expressway, but what does a man see? What he gains in time he loses in benefit to his body and mInd." and "There is always a sadness about packing. I guess you wonder if where you're going is as good as where you've been." and "When the time comes for a man to look his Maker in the eye, where better could the meeting be held than in the wilderness?" One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey.
SEE: www.nps.gov/lacl/learn/historyculture/richard-l-proenneke.htm
Carroll was in the Junior Curator's Club at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia as a 5 y/o. He loved entering the old mecca of science walking past the full-body statue of Joe Leidy, a University of Pennsylvania MD, examining a fossilized jawbone. Before the Burgoons moved to the horse farm 10 miles beyond Valley Forge NP, his best friend was the son of a former Navy CPO and small animal (dogs and cats) veterinarian., who matriculated at MIT as a 10y/o (Acc. to Carroll's mom). Carroll was a microbiology lab tech on C-14 studies of leaf decomposition in a 2nd order Piedmont stream and a taxonomic assistant to Jay Richardson on EPA environmental surveys of insect species, because of their high sensitivity to water pollution. He prefers being outdoors in cool, pine-stained fresh air, starry nights, fast-moving rain squalls, seagulls hovering above whispering waves and boulder-strewn shores, a lab paddling after diving ducks, splitting and stacking logs, a cozy fireplace, sleeping under a down comforter, fresh fish and blueberry pancakes, tall pines, and the chopping sound of a Twin Otter on a crystalline mountain lake heard from the co-pilot's seat --- It's all an adventure.
"My first job off the farm was principal investigator for BP, P&G, Scott Paper, Washington, D.C.'s water and utilities companies, in Limnology and Ecology at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP). Founded in 1812 by businessmen, clergy, scientists, and high society, it's the Western Hemisphere's oldest natural history museum ---
"It was a Harvard PhD, the Invertebrate Section Leader, Limnology and Ecology, Samuel LH Fuller, at the Academy of Natural Sciences who hired me over a few brews in the backyard of a hole-in-the-wall Philly restaurant. I told him I didn't like and wouldn't continue any of his current methodologies his former PIs employed. I replaced two gentlemen on their way to U Penn grad school. I had Sam's unassailable support. Don't ask me how to interview 'cause I don't know. I speak the truth. Oops. I wore jeans and a yellow Kliban T-shirt ("I loves to eat them mousies, mousies whats I love to eat ...")
Carroll studies trees in winter to paint them in spring, summer, autumn, and winter - All species have distinctive branching and bark. The leaves (Patterns, arrangement, margins and venation) come later. Trees are not a stick with a ball on top. All trees are individually recognizable with common characteristics. Listen to Mozart's 41st and Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Light, lines, depth, and perspective are compositional aspects. The finest abstract art complies, otherwise it is sophomoric, lacks depth, and is painfully cacophonic. Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night. masterful balances, harmonizes, and has depth to the 10th degree. Colorful storytelling will always be in vogue --- ALSO, it's the inspiration for great artist's wine bottle labels such as those for Château Mouton Rothschild.
"This jungle survival skill will help you: Chop wood & carry water."
A tiger's stripes are its fingerprint. (Panthera tigris)
ကျား, タイガース, 老虎隊, टाइगर्स, Harimau, 타이거스, കടുവകൾ, hổ.
Tigers are majestic, confident, competitive, unique, set apart, loyal, trustworthy, steady, threatened (ENDANGERED, IUCN 3.1 Red List) with extinction in our world.