Tracking

Tracking

acrylic/fluted sbs
28"x 34"


So.......
Years ago, I lived in SW. Wyoming in a small town called Evanston, it was your everyday small town in the West, there were the typical places to go, and things to do....As Western standards go.

I worked as a bar back in a place called "Billy's Country Emporium" that was short lived..... eventually I worked construction.... The work was hard and rewarding, it was up on a mountain in an area called "Carter Creek", the rest of the country was in recession,  we worked like slaves and lived like kings....

We were a rough-shot bunch and would take small road trips .........Blow off steam and take in the surroundings,(which were unbelievable), usually we'd just throw sleeping bags and cooler's in the car/truck and head North, either to Southern Montana, Jackson Hole/Yellowstone or Southeastern Idaho area..... it was truly one of the highlight's of my youth....

So on one of these trips, we were just South of Yellowstone and a group of us probably 10,  pulled off the road and set up camp under a long stretch of pine and aspen, built a fire, and  proceeded to enjoy the day.

After a while I remember stretching out under the sky... and watching the day pass, The sky there is different from any where I have lived before or after.

I somewhat ignored the party going on (for a while) and just watched the sun moving across the sky....

And I thought ... As a young man

" I will never forget this....."

So here it is almost 30 years later.... I have not forgotten it, the people that were there are a bit fuzzy, but the clean day and the air that swirled around us has remained as fresh as it was that weekend. or just last weekend.

(I hope I didn't give away my age on this story, but its all part of sharing one's experiences)

In the Electric Room

In the Electric Room

36"x 28"
acrylic/fluted sbs

The String

The String

28"x 36"
acrylic/flutted sbs


So, when we were kids, we'd go to visit my father on the East side, he lived in a nice little town out side the city.....  He had a house that had a creek running along the back of the house, it was really more of a water over run to prevent flooding.
 We would explore it and sneak cigarettes and do all the things boys will do when left on their own, at the end of the creek there was a tunnel, the water would flow through, it had a bend in it, so one could not see to the end, to do that you would have to enter.... so we did... with candles.....
When we would get to the bend there was light, and at the end it was squared off and the water would flow until it dropped about 60 feet to the river.

Years later I would have a reoccurring dream... as an adult I was outside the tunnel, there was a girl or woman, I was never sure...... She would see me then run into the tunnel, I could never catch up with her until I reached the squared off end.... and as I would approach she would just stand there....
When I was just about to her, she would jump head first to the river....... I could never stop her or help her

I probably had that dream 9 or 10 times

in kansas

i visited my father for almost two weeks recently.  he lives in kansas city, the place in which i grew up.  i seldom visit any longer-there never seems to be enough time, and, furthermore, it is expensive to get to from the east coast.  however, since my father was ill, i made the time.  it was good.  since i was without my children i was given the gift of being able to view the places of my childhood in a way that i had been unable to before.  certain landmarks that had been taken for granted by me earlier in my life took on mythical qualities.  in particular, i became transfixed by a group of factories by the missouri river, with bright candy cane striped smokestacks.  they seemed so surreal and slightly absurd against the grey days and the muddy, murky river. i am sure i had seem them many times before, but, i never noticed them. i was really struck by the notion of how much i ignored because it was familiar.  i probably missed a lot.  now that i am back at home, i hope to notice more here.  visual magic is everywhere.

Via Diablo

Via Diablo

34"x 28"
acrylic/fluted sbs

spring will come

this triptych is less about an actual dream and more about dreaming.  like so many people, i have a difficult time getting through the dark and cold days of winter-although i do appreciate the flat light it brings.  with this painting i wanted to capture the feelings of hope i have about the coming spring.  i have been lucky enough to greet 45 springs and i am always surprised at how powerfully they regenerate and lift my spirits.

Side Effects

Side Effects

34"X 28"
acrylic/fluted sbs

When She was Young

When She was Young

28"x 34"
acrylic/fluted sbs

This somewhat staying with the "mother" theme.....
When we were kids, our grandparents,aunt, and dad would tell us stories about our mom,  about how she was just like the boys, and in many cases braver and more fearless.

 She would go swimming  in the river full of eels, crabs, fish ....and god only knows what else!
Fish on the dock, cut her own bait and clean her own fish!
She was on the swim team and would frequently beat the boys at their own game,  I can attest to the humiliation of losing to her in ping-pong matches and other games of skill.

So I felt that this painting best represents her in a single frame.... what other gal would pick up two writhing snakes at the same time?

I'm not getting mushy, I just felt it was a nice tribute... Hi Mom

by the red door

i think my most memorable dreams from the last ten years are those with my mother in them.  she died in 2000.  the encounters i have with her have never been negative. she always seems to be in a place of peace. although she never beckons me to join her, most of the time in my dreams she does watch from afar from a place that is very nebulous and unrecognizable yet somehow strangely peaceful. the painting above is based on such a dream.  when i awoke from it i was filled with sense of well being and understanding. 

The Beauty of War

The Beauty of War

28"x18"
acrylic/canvas

I have a habit of turning off the sound during the television commercials.....  It always seems to annoy, I don't watch all that much, but when I do, I seem to watch PBS.

I was watching with the sound off and during one of the breaks......

And the program was going in slow motion showing a bombing run during the Vietnam war.

It was very elegant....and eye catching, the bombs would slowly release from the plane and drift downward in a weightless slow silence, almost like it was an everyday occurrence without care or reason......
I'm not sure what was being said during the trailer.

Then the bombs would hit the ground, and the reason was evident, fireball, flying debris, smoke and much destruction, it almost seemed like the sound came on..... it was visual sound, and loud as any other.

Still Here....
From the Last Time I was Here

34"x 28"
acrylic/fluted sbs

This is my first post of this project....
The project was conceived 3 or 4 months ago.... the concept of the project is to document dreams or visions sleeping or awake,  I very rarely remember any of my dreams, but I have a acute sense of what is happening around me...

So most of my submissions will be of what I perceive and conceive of my surrounding....
I tend to pick up on things that may go unnoticed.

This painting is in reference to a e-mail I received from Laura while we were hashing through the outlines for the project;  part of the letter was her describing a book she had read it had a philosophical rule that went like this: 

This concept states that if you view eternity as endlessness and not as a linear, unending narrative then experiencing only the present is eternity.

I hope she doesn't mind me c/p part of the e-mail.

holding the moon in your arms

my sleeping dreams are usually very vivid and i remember most of them.  this painting attempts to capture a very compelling one i had on the night of the lunar eclipse that occurred on the winter solstice of 2010.  i had the dream after i went back to sleep-post eclipse.  it was very dark in the dream and i was trying to discover the reason for the darkness.  i found out then that a person had taken the moon out of the sky and was holding it on their shoulder.  keeping all the glowing light to itself.  the person was neither man nor woman yet i knew who it was.  which is very strange and enchanting! the overlap between waking reality and the minds processing of events into sleeping dreams is so interesting to me and i think about this crossover often. what does it mean?

collaboration

welcome.  this blog is to be a place to share a collaboration between jb krost and laura ferrara that centers around capturing, through painting, writing, or photography, visual images that present themselves in our mind's eye and become too compelling not to record. these images may be from either day dreams or sleeping dreams, or, perhaps just ideas or sensations elicited from the multitudinous forms of creative stimulation inherent in being alive.  it is a work in progress! enjoy.