Capturing The Spar

I had planned a long weekend of painting on The Mountain.  Gary Knutsen was volunteering as a Smoky out of Sunrise Visitor Center for four days and invited me and the Artmobile to join him in White River Campground.

While I'd been to Sunrise several times in as many summers, I hadn't driven that serpentine route in 40 years.  And I hadn't had the Artmobile--a 2002 GMC Safari van--that far off-I-5 since I'd purchased it two months ago.  It was a test, for both of us.  We both passed, but barely.  Thursday afternoon, I crossed the parking lot from

My acrylic painting of The Spar

the visitor center in a drenching rain.  It 
 seemed to worsen by 5, so I headed down the mountain to see if Gary had arrived at the campground.  

On the way I skirted a half-dozen sand-and-small-rock slides.  Since this was only two days since a record 2-inches-in-12-hours rainfall, I imagined the slides were indicative of the bathtub beginning to fill.  I was mindful of the Oso mudslide last spring.  I decided I wouldn't be coming back up that hairpinny road on Friday. 

Besides, I learned something about GMC's cost-saving design.  Although I had geared down to second and sometimes first gear in the automatic transmission, I used the brakes a lot.  With years of experience in Wyoming and Montana, I consider myself a careful mountain driver, not one to overheat the brakes.  But on the first hairpin turn--like a U-turn into the next lane--I found the brakes okay but the power steering absent.  So the first turn found me making a wider-than-comfortable turn that took me to the edge of the pavement.  Two more hairpins to go.  On each I came to a full stop, then eased the brake and found I had a bit more wheel in the turns.

I had known the power-steering pump would be needing replacement soon, but the mechanic had assured me it would give me plenty of notice before that time.  This obviously was that notice.  I found Gary under a rain-hammered tarp in camp beside the White River.  I told him I was heading down the hill while I had some steering left.  I had no driving trouble the rest of the way into Tacoma, despite the persistent rain.

Next morning, I had the pump replaced.  The mechanic said it was a surprise to him to learn that GMC uses only one pump in this model van to power-boost both the brakes and steering.  Its capacity was down, so on those hairpins I had enough full power for one, or the other--not both.

At 5 Friday evening, I was so delighted to have the Artmobile back in safe condition, and only for the price of an arm, not a leg too, that I took my acrylic paints down to Old Town.  I hadn't painted with these in three years, using oil pastels in the mountains and then watercolors, until June, when I lurched into oils for the first time.  I set up in front of The Spar tavern and painted a 16x20-inch canvas.  I presented it next morning to Kathy Manke, queen of The Spar, who promised to find a place to hang it.  (Probably in a broom closet--the walls seem filled, already.)

Reprinted: Baseball in Tacoma

Baseball in Tacoma

A view from the uphill side of the net in Cheney Stadium, home of the AAA Tacoma,Washington, Rainiers.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

 

Yeah, him and Ricky Henderson!

Owen Huelsbeck sends this snapshot of him in action:

"Just wanted to show you a picture of me on third base, about to steal home!" 

# posted by Bob Lane @ 12:09 PM 0 comments

Sunday, March 26, 2006

 

Two antiques

I went to the open house at Cheney Stadium yesterday. I couldn't find where I had stashed my Rainiers or Mariners caps last fall. But I did come across this Tacoma Yankees hat, which I believe is from 1978. As a general-news reporter for The Tacoma News Tribune that year, I was supposed to interview Yankees manager Billy Martin when he was in town for a fishing trip with his son. We caught up with him at the Point Defiance Boathouse. The kid had caught a salmon half his own size. Mr. Martin was off by himself amid the stacked rental boats, head down, hands in his back pockets, not even looking out at the water. I didn't follow sports, much less the Yankees, but I was aware that he was having his problems with Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, among other things. I hated to interrupt him. I asked him one of those vaccuous "how do you feel about . . . ?" questions about his son's good luck, and he mumbled something about "very proud . . . great kid . . ." End of interview. We took a picture of the boy with his fish and published it the next day.
Maybe they should have sent a sports reporter. It was only a photo caption, anyway.

# posted by Bob Lane @ 7:56 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

 

Reindeer Meat

The Tacoma Rainiers we've known since we've had season tickets have been owned by a Mr. Foster, who we are told raises chickens. We are grateful that Mr. Foster, while hoping to get out from under the ownership of this minor-league club, has chosen not to sell it to someone who will spirit it out of town, to, say, Portland, or Everett. Yet.

However, we are puzzled by his lack of interest in the team name, or its mascot. Our recollection is that the Rainiers once were the property of a Seattle brewery, and named for their product. We'd have thought an appropriate mascot would have been one of those prancing bottles we used to see in the Rainier ads. But a contest among fans resulted in their mascot being a reindeer. (Heck, it's not even spelled the same! "Raindeer" would have been more appropriate for any team in the Pacific Northwest.)

When Mr. Foster bought the team, why didn't he rename it? The Tacoma Foster Farmers? Why not? Isn't this a farm club, after all? The mascot could wear coveralls, say, and wave this big foam pitchfork. And these big, oversized brogans, that he could always be scraping on a concrete step, as if he's cleaning something off that he just stepped in.

How about the Tacoma Fryers? Or the Chickens? (Hey, is that why we have the Fun Squad doing the Chicken Dance every other inning? Maybe Mr. Foster is watching the game!)

Well, we've sort of grown fond of Rudoph the Reindeer at every game. Like the team's name, Rudolph is the only mascot we've ever known.

But we have one thing we'd like to call to Mr. Foster's attention. To the best of our knowledge, Foster Farms raises chickens. Not cows. Not pigs. So why doesn't the snack bar serve anything other than those overpriced, oversteamed hot dogs? Why not chicken?

Maybe it's because Reindeer Meat leaves no bones.

# posted by Bob Lane @ 11:01 AM 0 comments

 

Season Tickets

Rainy days like today make me want to call Tim Eyeman and see if he'll circulate an initiative for a domed Cheney Stadium.

I'm haunted by the prospect of spending my April evenings moving ever up and back in Section H, seeking a dry seat, while watching the grounds crew rolling out the tarps, again and again.

Nevertheless, one of last season's most memorable evenings, for me, was of an April game eventually called in the fourth inning because of rain.

It was surreal. The dugouts were empty, except for an umpire, a groundskeeper and manager Dan Rohn. The tarps had been spread on the field for the second time. Puddles of water rippled in their folds, reflecting the stadium lights. After a time, families with children left. "School night," one woman explained. Young couples went in search of a warm bar, perhaps, maybe one with the Mariners game on cable. Then there were almost none.

The cheap seats on the wings emptied. Those diehard fans who elected to stay moved over and up under cover.

Some bonding-dad's toddler tossed a foam-filled baseball up the seats, then waddled after it, over and over. His old man never noticed. A guy near me said, "If I get my hands on the ball or the kid, either one, I'm tossing them over the dugout!"

The ushers made periodic trips to assure us the umps were keeping an eye on the weather radar. One confided that they wouldn't call the game for at least an hour. The drizzle increased.

Clare, the usher whose dugout-top dances guarantee a win, brought out an umbrella. As the speakers played "Singing in the Rain," Clare pranced up and down the stairs, brandishing his bumbershoot. The miniscule "crowd" sang, "Duh-dee-dut-dee-duh-dut, duh-dee-dut-dee-dut-dut!"

We gravitated toward a cluster of regulars, half-a-dozen guys and one woman who can name every manager and pitching coach of every Cheney Triple-A team, and A-Rod's batting average every year in Tacoma. They talked about the prospects of tonight's players, and of the Mariners. We had nothing to contribute, being almost new to Cheney and having grown up considering baseball a participatory, not a spectator, sport. (Color us dumb.)

The picture they painted seemed to be one of continuity, an unending stream of minor-league players swimming upstream from the bush leagues toward the majors. (Most never make it. Of those who reach The Bigs, most slip downstream after a short time and then out of the water.) They talked about not only the players, but the coaches, the ushers, the security people. Some of these, too, strive to swim upstream. Sometimes, one of them makes it up and over the falls.

Somebody came up the wet steps and passed around a tray of the last of the cocoa from the last refreshment booth still open. A few more diehards left. For us, hanging in there became a matter of principle, of loyalty, of simple curiosity to see what happens when a game is called for rain.

Finally, the big lights were turned off. Within minutes, the regulars had left the park.

# posted by Bob Lane @ 10:07 AM 0 comments

About Me

Name: Bob Lane

Location: Tacoma, Washington, United States

Retired newspaperman

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Slices of life

The following is reprinted from Cedar Street Artworks, posted February 7, 2014

  Friend John left the table to refill his coffee mug.  I used the interval to sketch a young man in a nearby booth.  He had an I-Pad bud in at least one ear.  He was holding his radio telephone to the other.  He had the far-focused look of the typical cell-phoner, so I knew he wouldn't notice that I was drawing him.  John and I had been discussing the value that "drop-in" artwork adds to text.

  The phoner closed his conversation.  John returned to the table.  We resumed our talk.

  We recalled the old New Yorker magazine.  Before color-printing had usurped the elegant and expressive lines of its contributors' contour sketches, its editors brought life to gray pages of agate typefaces by adding column-filler drop-ins of tiny sketches, doodles, if you will.  They seemed to be mostly of street scenes -- a trash can, a fire hydrant, the wheels of a vendor's cart.  Another might be a rapid drawing of a dog walker, with the dog's tail extended into a curlicue of stars.

  When I published my Tacoma's Express magazine some 20 years ago, I reminded John, I filled out my columns with similar sketches.  That led us into a discussion of my drawing technique.

I start with the eyes, I explained.   The pupil, the lids, the eyebrow.  I find these easy to lay down in relation to each other.  Simple strokes.  Simple lines.  When you have an eye, you have the soul.  Then the second eye, if visible.  The curve of the nose where it leaves the plane of the forehead.  A nostril.  The septum, that groove that drops between the nostrils to the mouth.  The line of the cheek where it departs from the nose, and drops down to define the widest edge of the mouth.  The chin. 

  Once I have a few lines on the paper, I  use triangulation to place the others, in turn.  I find it easiest to plot three points in a problem.  I hold up a pencil to see how far to one side of a vertical line the edge of the jaw might be.  I hold it horizontally to see how far above or below the tip of the nose the ear should be placed.

  My working rule of life-sketching, I told John, is to draw what I see, not what I know.   If the model moves, or as my cell-phoner did -- set down his phone, flip closed the lid of his laptop computer, gather up these and his jacket and walk out -- I stop drawing.  And sometimes that makes for a satisfying sketch.

  But John, I've seen your work.  You knew all this all along.

Waiting for a no-show

Arriving early at Steamer's for a lunch date gave me my choice of table.  I chose a chair just east of the patio door; it gives an unfettered view of the trains as they burst from the Point

The Sauk River near Rockport

Defiance tunnel, and of The Narrows.  

It was only on a trip to the central California coast this month that I began sketching again.  Then last Sunday, while waiting for friends to leave a nearby natural-history lecture,  I drew on a postcard a Sauk River scene near Rockport, .  I added watercolor.   With time still on my hands, I did a sketch on canvas-board with acrylics, the first I'd touched that medium in at least two years.

The Narrows, looking north from Steamer's

Today I had only a Pentel Rollerball pen and my pocket notebook.  But they were enough to capture a view of The Narrows.   My friend didn't show, so I finished the sketch, ordered lunch and counted 95 freight cars rolling south and a cup of coffee later, 85 hopper cars in a northbound coal train.

I take my entertainment where I find it.