Good “Memorial Day” Monday,

Edible fruit designs for my wife...

 “Tap” into a bit of reflection sometime around 3pm…Nationwide!

Copyright 2021/ Ben Bensen III

"Cruisin' With My Paint Brush"

On site painting at a coffeehouse CarShow...

"Little Deuce Coupe" was blasting on the stage PA system as I sat down with my friend Al to have my first cup. I don't know if Frank was a Beach Boy fan, but I was sending GiddyUp and a few "community papers" car crazy hints all week long.

Halfway through my first cup, Cathy Rodriguez, dropped by with En Plein Air intentions, so we walked the back driveway to check out the classics and find a spot in the shade that would work for the four hour cruise.

There were some great setups with a wide variety of cars to paint.

But, I found a shady place between two blue SS Chevelles and a 1937 delivery truck.

One of the fun things about painting at shows is the people that come by to see what I'm up to and the comments they make.

"Can I, um... can I look over your shoulder?"

"No," I'd say, quoting a Talking Heads song entitled, "For Artists Only"... "You can't see it till it's FINISHED!"

You know, I could've finished the painting, maybe not to my satisfaction, but completed if I hadn't spent so much time entertaining myself with the many visitors. It was so good to see people I haven't seen in years or, at least, since Covid.

One ten year old boy, who, I assume was the son of the owner of the delivery truck would come by every hour or so to see my progress.

"Sir, when you finished, can I have the painting?"

"I don't know, man. I don't give away paintings until I sign it and I only sign it if I am satisfied with it," I replied.

"It looks good to me now," he said.

"You'll have to wait till I start putting some paint on the sketch, first!" I said.

"And, thank you," I said. You can't make a good painting from a bad drawing!"

My instructional comment about the arts fell upon deaf ears!

In between the many stories and wonderful kudos I received from the visitors as well as the classic car owners, the boy would return to peruse and once again ask if I was finished.

"Mister, mister, he said. Are you gonna put the writing on the door?"

"It sure is looking good to me," he later commented.

After about the four or five visits over a period of four hours, I caved in.

"I tell you what, here's my business card with my email address," I said, handing over to him one of my cards.

"In about a week, when the paint dries and I can fix the wheels, you send me an email and we'll see if I like it enough to sign it."

"Okay?"

With the enthusiasm only a ten year old can possess, he smiled, put the card in his jeans front pocket and skipped back to his parents and the 1937 delivery truck. It will be interesting to see if he actually follows through with the offer.

Looking back over yesterday's activities including the many bands on the stage as well as Frank's harmonizing with his daughter's wonderful vocals, I wanna thank all those who came by to visit and said such nice things to me about the painting.

That was awfully sweet!

I never got to complete the car wheels, but people loved seeing the progress over the three or four hour attempt. I later finished, at home, the wheels in the spirit of the original effort.

Later in the day, after cleaning myself up and wiping the paint off my forehead, I sat down with some friends from Gus's and had a beer and the best fully loaded hamburger I've had in years. Thanks Scott Penton!

Second cup, y'all...

Copyright 2021/Ben Bensen III

Saint Philomena,” I said. “I Looked Her Up And She's Got "Saint Cred!"

A Gift...

 Good Throwback Thursday Morning, y'all.

Continued from yesterday's Facebook post... sorta!

"Oh, by the way, Saint Philomena,” I said. “I looked her up and she's got "Saint Cred!"

"She's got what?" he asked.

After explaining my rather pithy statement to Larry, he agreed that she helped him with his mesothelioma and had credibility.

I let him talk and reiterated that IF there is a heaven and that IF there’s a hierarchy up there, that he should rank pretty high on the charts. No one deserves it more than Badass Larry!

Rick disagreed with my "Doubting Thomas" comment. We briefly got into a discussion about heaven and the hierarchy of angels.

Rick was someone I have seen over the years at GiddyUp, but seldom had much to say to him. He was a rather frail, diminutive man that always wore a bebop hat and pretty much sat alone with his coffee.

Larry decided to hit the john, and when he did, Rick told about the motorcycle accident he had as a kid in 1961 where he lost control, hit a ditch, flew into a barbed wire fence and hit his head on one of the fence posts.

Brain surgery saved his life but the physical after affects are readily apparent. To this day, Rick needs a ride to and fro and his occasionally distant stare while standing outside appears to be nothing more than him searching for his ride.

Rick seems to have, over the many years, made the necessary adjustments to survive, and I told him so. I thanked him for letting me into an important part of his life.

When Larry returned, after more discussions about theology, he invited me to come with him to his pickup truck.

"Hey, Mr. Ben, I got sumpthin' I want you to have," he said.

"Hey, c'mon man," I said. You don't owe me anything. I did you portrait 'cuz I wanted to and gave it to you 'cuz you like it!"

"No, no, that's not what I'm talking about," he said as he opened the glove compartment of his truck. It was full of little plastic cases.

He hands me this carved wooden cross encased in a plastic.

My first thought besides thank you was that I don't keep these kind of religious things around in my life. Prayer cards for your wallet, scapulas on a string for hanging on the bedpost, medals on necklaces of assorted icons, miniature rosaries and framed paintings of religious heroes are a thing of my past.

Respected, but not my kind of faith.

"I want you to have this cross to maybe carry in your briefcase or in the car," he said.

"I get them at the Abbey and give them to people I care about!"

"I told you about the Abbey and my attending my own Mass outside around the pond, right?"

"Yes, you did, but..."

"Larry, this is really sweet of you to think of me this way," I replied.

With a grin from ear to ear, he goes to great length to tell me about gift.

"This is very special and I will keep in my car to protect me from myself," I said.

"Especially nowadays since St. Christopher has lost some "Street Cred!"

We laughed as we walked back to the coffeehouse. I picked up my belongings, and with my mini-tree, said my goodbyes to the baristas, to Rick and to Larry, who decided to linger over another cup.

"You take care, now Ben," Larry said.

I smiled back at him and waved high... my wooden chaperone.

Second Giddy Up cup...

Copyright 2021/Ben Bensen III

"Rock, Scissors... Paper?"

Coffee table entertainment...

 Good "fly away" Friday Morning, everybody.

When I saw this yesterday, it was too late for a Throwback post.

I remember having a book like this of paper airplanes as well as a book on constructing paper birds. It was not as thorough a compilation of historical aircraft like this one is. Paging through the book, the planes are pretty well crafted. Looks like I might have a try on one of those.

Unfortunately, there's no P-47 Thunderbolt. What's wrong with these people!

The ones I built as a kid did not look as good as these, but like these paper replicas, they're not very aerodynamic. As for the paper birds, I insisted on hanging a few from a tree in the backyard. They didn't do too well in this... um... environment!

Says something about my perception of form and function, doesn't it? My artistic DNA is lacking a few links, I think... ha!

It brings to mind a conversation I had once with aviation artist guru, Nixon Galloway, seated backwards on our flight to D.C. in a military C-141 transport.

He told me about a club of aviation "enthusiasts" that build these incredibly light, flyable, balsa airplanes that are powered by flies.

Yeh, that's right... Flies!

He told me it was pretty competitive group. For example, one "enthusiast" realized the pinning the bug to the fuselage was not as effective as super gluing the bugs legs to the plane.

The pin's weight negatively affected the plane's flight characteristics as well as the aircraft's ability to sustain flight. I thought for a moment or two, there was no one up there on his flight deck, ya know? Maybe, old Nick Galloway was on final approach or, at the very least, needed a "crosscheck!"

Pretty wild...

Anyway, on the cover of the book is an invitation to take one of the pages and "make a plane!"

I just might do that...

Third cup... I need it!

Copyright 2021/Ben Bensen III

"Sweating Bullets!"

Another Holy Shirt Subject...

 Good Saturday Morning, all bodies.

Last Saturday, at the Scenic Rivers Gallery show, my friend, Peggy Usner, noticed that I was wearing a new shirt. I don't know how she knew that other than the fact that I haven't bought any shirts since my stay in Palm Springs with the American Society of Aviation Artists three years ago and had seen over time every shirt I ever owned.

"Did you buy a new shirt?" she asked.

"Yes, I did. Why?"

With a twinkle in her eye she said that I forgot to take a tag off. I froze. I froze because a few days earlier, I bought three or four shirts and none of them fit once I tried them on at home. Two of the four were on hangars and the other two were created by structural engineers intent on making the deconstruction most difficult.

And, of course, once the shirts were taken apart in order to expose hidden internal assumptions and be analyzed, it was nearly impossible to put back together again. The shirts never looked as good as they did all neatly packed firm and tight.

On one shirt, which I came close to buying, I confidently snapped the plastic line that held the last possible deterrent. I was so sure it would fit, but it didn't.

"You shouldn't have broken that seal," my wife belatedly commented.

"They won't take it back now even if you have the receipt," she said.

Well, I certainly wasn't gonna keep a shirt that I'm not gonna ever wear, I thought to myself.

"Maybe, I'll just donate it to some needy shirtless dude," I said.

While stuffing all the deconstructed parts to the shirts in the original bag it dawned on me that I could mend the plastic strap by heating a screwdriver and melting the two ends back together again.

It always worked in my model airplane building days when glue no longer worked to hold two broken pieces together. Oh, the tactics of a fashionably covert shopper.

Once the tricky operation was completed, I tugged at the plastic cord with the label attached and it held together perfectly. The proof of my handiwork would be vindicated at the return desk...

... or sent to jail for defrauding J.C. Penney.

So, with the tags securely intact, I carefully rebuilt the two shirts that I had originally stuffed back into the shopping bag. I rebuilt them to the best of my knowledge with stickers, pins, collar inserts, cardboard backing and tissue paper folding them ever so neatly and hiding the repaired labels so the cashier would not suspect a thing.

Sweating bullets as the cashier took the two shirts off the hangers and placed them aside, she took the receipt out of the bag and never even checked to see my "cloak and dagger" handiwork.

It was a bit of a tense moment when she looked me straight in the eye and then... handed me my refund. I thanked her and walked off looking back to see her take the bagged shirts and throw them in with the other returnables.

Double Oh Seven styled stuff, I tell ya!

Copyright 2021/Ben Bensen III

"It's Okay, Man. I'm Just Messin' With Her!"

Psychadelica is good... no?

Good Thursday morning, y'all.

I went shopping a couple of days ago to find some casual clothes because most of my clothes are painted and tainted. At one store, sifting through the new styles and colors, I heard a voice that just tore through the hearts and minds of anyone in the men's department.

"YOU CAN'T WEAR THAT! IT'S FITTED," she screeched.

"Well, but I like that color," he timidly replied.

'NO, IT'S NOT YOU!"

"Well, how 'bout this one," he asked, pointing to a long sleeve paisley design.

"NO! THAT'S TOO FEMININE LOOKING. I WOULDN'T BE CAUGHT DEAD WITH YOU IN THAT SHIRT!"

I quietly put back down the pink madras shirt I was holding.

"Well honey, you all want men to show their feminine side. Don't you?"

"NOT LIKE THAT," she yelled for all to hear.

Well, I couldn't help it. I went up to the guy who was a rather large, robust man and tapped him on his shoulder.

"Hey man, I said, as wifey poo moved to another set of shirts, That's great... Stand up for your rights!"

"You can wear whatever you want!"

And, I guess the guy could have whipped around and decked me for even touching him, but he turned around with a twinkle in eye and smile on his face.

"Thanks, man. It's okay. I'm just messin' with her!"

First cup... at Giddy Up in Folsom, LA

Copyright 2021/ Ben Bensen III

 

“I Was Starting To Believe It Never Really Happened!”

Mystical or mistical?

Sitting outside with a friend just enjoying the weather and a cup, we got to the subject of inspiration to create and how being an artist seems a 24/7 job. Alan asked me what time of day was my most creative time.

“Oh man, I said, in the night between 3:30am and 5:30am just before the dawn!”

“Mine, Alan said, is not quite that early but usually in the morning time before the needs of the day take hold!”

He laughed when I told him how fleeting my ideas were and that if I didn’t write them down in the dark, by the light of day, they were all gone. Something about my eyes taking over all my senses at the crack of dawn.

“Whether I approve of it or not, my eyes say, “ You’re not really gonna pursue that crazy idea, are you?”

Or… “How you gonna visually make sense of that concept?”

“Well, most people just don’t get it...Right?” he says as he rubs his index finger over a rusted spot on the metal table.

“Try to explain to the every day Joe, why you are enamored with the juxtaposition of this rusty spot next to the smooth, shiny surface of the table!”

We both agree how frustrating it is to grasp or record the many things we see that most people could care less about. Alan told me he saw in the misty morning light a fox sitting atop a stump just outside his bedroom window. He just sat there staring in wonder at the beauty of one of Mother Nature’s creations.

“You know that as soon as I turned my head to find my cellphone or a camera to record it, the animal would be gone.”

I was so enthralled at his description of the moment that to find my own parallel story would have destroyed the moment. Lord knows how often when you see something, you’ve nothing to record it.

“I turned away, momentarily, to search for my camera and the fox was gone,” he continued. So I sat there disappointedly having lost the chance to capture a moment.”

“I put the camera back on the shelf only to see the fox back in front of the window. The foggy mist had backlit the animal to accentuate the red and sienna fur and fluffy tail. I dared not move again!”

“Well, at that point, recording it was no longer a priority, I guess… It was about the moment,” I said.

“Yeh, it was, but I needed to document it for my own sanity," he said.

“I was starting to believe it never really happened!”

Copyright 2021/Ben Bensen III