Bird’s Eye View Over The Fork

Posted on by Spyder Webb
Acrylic on MDF panel 6″x6″ $144.00

Just for a change of scenery, we’re looking down on the landscape in this one. Sometimes you want to be among the trees, but sometimes you need the long view.

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All works are available for sale. Please visit my website:

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As Above So Below

Posted on by Spyder Webb

As Above So Below.jpg

The old saying points to our three dimensional world as being a reflection of the greater dimensionless world of spirit. That the rules of spirit are the same as the rules of our physical world.

Well, to a point. But let’s not get all carried away with all this. A reflection is not the thing itself. You can’t shake hands with yourself in the mirror. The reflection only points to a reality greater than itself.

And so we have to be very cautious when we try to apply the rules of — well, let’s call it the spirit world for now, although that word carries a lot of unfortunate hitchhikers with it — to the world we seem to inhabit.

A reflection actually can give us very accurate and very helpful information about our world. Is our hair in place, are we buttoned up straight, and more importantly, is there a car coming up in the next lane that I need to be aware of before I move over?

We’re hinting at very large questions here, way too big to cover in a short blog post. But as you look at the little (8″ x 8″) painting with its clouds that are reflected not quite perfectly, and the grasses and flowers in the foreground — now where did they come from, and what are they reflections of? — let it serve as a reminder of the relationship between the big reality and the reflected planet earth physical human animal reality that is our boots on the ground experience.

No big deal. It’s just fun to ponder big ideas. We don’t have to understand them completely or solve anything.

Yet.

This image is from my new gallery, Paintings — check it out here when you get a chance. 

Cactus Valley

Posted on by Spyder Webb

Cactus Valley

Amazing things, cacti. Where a human would die for lack of water, some living things can thrive and grow to enormous sizes.

Some people flourish in one set of circumstances where others are overwhelmed and drown or wither and shrivel up in a situation that isn’t right for them. Take a beautiful saguaro and put it in a rain forest, and you’re not doing it any favors. Same for a lush tropical fern if you put it in the desert.

Thing is, the cactus, being a plant, doesn’t try to force the fern into its own comfort zone. And the fern is just as happy to let the cactus be a cactus. Kind of a nice way to veg out, if you think about it.

All depends what you’re built for, I guess.

This image is from my new gallery, Paintings — check it out here when you get a chance.

Yellow Lake

Posted on by Spyder Webb

Yellow Lake

So other than the fact that the colors are interesting, why is the lake yellow anyhow?

Well for one thing, the whole darn scene is alive and following its own agenda rather than ours. You’ve got trees marching over the horizon, clouds hanging in the sky checking it all out, and the yellow lake not reflecting the blue sky like it’s supposed to. Darn uppity lake, anyhow.

So who says things have to behave in ways we’re used to? We humans tend to get awfully confused when things don’t follow a “normal” script. And sometimes they just don’t. Or won’t. So we explain those things away as hallucinations, delusions, dreams, mental illness, fabrications, anything to avoid dealing with the reality that sometimes reality doesn’t behave, well, like reality.

Kids know better, of course.

Messes with our tidy boxed up categorized and domesticated safe little worldviews, though. Unless you’re some kind of mystic or shaman or new age flake or something weird like that, which in itself is quite enough for those of us who aren’t to dismiss it anyway. Or a kid. But hey, what do kids know?

Except sometimes the sky is blue and the lake is yellow, and trees march over the horizon. And little orbs of light start floating around.

Oy.

This is one of my favorite styles to work with — it’s reminiscent of a block print, a look I really like, but it isn’t. The original is acrylic, painted with brushes with a strong graphic look. The paint is protected with a semigloss or satin protective varnish. It’s easy to gently clean with a soft cloth and water, even mild soap if necessary, just don’t scrub. I paint on paper mounted on plywood, so it’s very stable and sturdy. And it’s small (the original is 8” x 8” x 1/2”), so it’s perfect for small spaces.

This image is from my new gallery, Paintings — check it out here when you get a chance.

The Blue Farmhouse and God

Posted on by Spyder Webb

Blue Farmhouse FAA

It’s actually a lot bluer when you’re standing in front of the actual thing than it is when you’re looking at the photograph. But even the actual thing as we see it before us is just a representation in our brains of what’s there, it’s not the thing itself.

A bat would have a completely different way of perceiving that farmhouse. More than likely, “blue” wouldn’t enter into it.

So what is reality exactly, that we are able to grasp it so differently? The photo is a real representation of the farmhouse, even after I’ve run it through my artistic software tweaks. It’s real enough that you could pick out the real thing after seeing the image, anyway. But a dog, say, probably wouldn’t connect the two dimensional image (which smells very different anyway) with the three dimensional house.

So. There’s something there, but we don’t know what it really is, do we? Our senses give us enough consistent information so that we can interact with our physical world, but as to what that physical world may actually be, we truly don’t have a clue.

Same with God. Let’s say the Methodist is a bat, the Buddhist a dog, the Cherokee an eagle, the atheist a fish. (A fish is probably never going to even be aware of the farmhouse. Just sayin’.) Each of these is just a way of trying to get a handle on some kind of something that’s ultimately incomprehensible, and there’s no point whatsoever in the fish arguing with the bat. Just leads to frustration.

Oh, man. All I wanted to do was take a pretty picture of a farmhouse, and I ended up in theology. See how one darn thing leads to another?

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance because you’ll get to see the full resolution image in all its detail. Plus a little about how I go about creating these images. Just go here.

Red Machine in a Green Field

Posted on by Spyder Webb

Red Machine in a Green Field FAA

I have no idea what this thing is. But it looks cool in the green field. It sat there all winter looking cool (ahem!) in the snow. It’s my next door neighbors’ field, so I guess I could ask them, but so far I haven’t…

Sometimes you don’t need to know everything about a thing to appreciate it. Sometimes knowing too much about something can even kill the enjoyment. Nothing against knowledge, but sometimes it’s good to just perceive what’s in front of you on its own terms, not as what it does, or what it’s for, just for what it is, and what it is, is just… that red thing in the green place.

And it’s cool. And that’s enough.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance because you’ll get to see the full resolution image in all its detail. Plus a little about how I go about creating these images. Just go here.

Thanks! Let’s have fun.

Attack of the Killer Dandelions

Posted on by Spyder Webb

Attack of the Killer Daisies FAA

Look out! They’re coming to prettify your lawn!

Ah, but then they turn white and all those little puffy things go all over, and most people don’t think that’s so pretty.

But wait! — then after that there’s more pretty dandelions!

Oh my, what are we to make of this cycle of pretty, not so pretty, and back again?

Well, we could defend our lawn and attack it with powerful lawn mowing tractors. Or with killing chemicals. Both of which are what’s usually done.

Defend our lawns from nature’s pretty patrol?

What’s wrong with us two-leggeds anyway?

Where’s the balance between the human need to tidy up nature and nature’s persistent efforts to be extravagantly beautiful?

I don’t know, but I don’t think the answer lies in tractors that pollute the air and poisoning the soil for our children and grandchildren.

I know. The neighborhood association isn’t going to like my attitude.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance because you’ll get to see the full resolution image in all its detail. Plus a little about how I go about creating these images. Just go here. Thanks! Let’s have fun.

Into the Sun

Posted on by Spyder Webb

Into the Sun FAA

An old dry stream bed, a few of last autumn’s leaves still clinging to some branches, debris from the winter storms littering the ground, and early spring grasses poking through the whole mess and yet…

All it takes is a dramatic light source down low where we can’t ignore it like we can when the sun is high up in the sky, when we so often take what we see for granted as if it were just ordinary.

But then once the sun drops into our line of sight so that we have to flip the visors on our windshields down, or put up our hands to shield our eyes, everything takes on an ethereal glow like we just walked into a realm of spirit.

Which of course we have.

But there’s nothing there that wasn’t there before the light changed. So do we really want to wait until the day we walk into the light to appreciate the magic that’s right in front of us right now?

Just another one of Nature’s helpful hints hiding in ordinariness.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance because you’ll get to see the full resolution image in all its detail. Just go here.    

Sunset Silos

Posted on by Spyder Webb

Sunset Silos FAA

It’s a magical time of day at the farm. It’s called the Golden Hour, but this gold shines as bright in the city or suburbs, the desert, the jungle or ocean.

There’s a unique beauty that hides beneath the bright daylight, as lovely as that can be. But that warm slanting light that comes in the last hours of the day is just magical. It’s transformative, it takes the ordinary and kisses it with a kind of love that reveals to us that behind that ordinariness, that everydayness, that ho-hum same ol’ same ol’, there’s a numinous reality that’s more magical than any fantasy.

Because this magic is real. This fantasy is not fantasy at all. It’s hiding in plain sight, teasing, enticing, inviting us to see deeply. And all it takes is a little change in the light to show us what’s there all the time.

Ho hum indeed.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance because you’ll get to see the full resolution image in all its detail. Just click here.

Tiny Deer

Posted on by Spyder Webb

Tiny Deer FAA

I’m not at all sure what kind of deer these are. But cute. definitely cute.

Which is not to minimize the magnificent beings that they are. Just because they look all cuddly (which they’re actually not!), don’t weigh in with the mass of an elephant, or command fear like the big jungle cats, does not mean they are not awesome creatures.

Hmm. A lot of negatives in that last sentence, so let me try to put it another way.

These little guys are living out their existence according to the place they have on our planet, same as all us earthlings are. And they are worthy of exactly the same degree of respect as every other magnificent and cute and cuddly (OK, some not so much) living creature. Including you. (Whoa, snuck that right in, didn’t I?)

But they’re still ridiculously cute.

Maybe like someone you met in the mirror this morning?

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance because you’ll get to see the full resolution image in all its detail. Just go here.