KEN JARVELA. JOURNAL COMPILATIONS 

 

 

 

 

Art and survival

 

 

Fantastic cloud formations with a couple of berserk warriors unwilling to give up the battle, lashing and cloaking and twisting over the mountaintop and letting go of a few more tons of snow…Painted one portion of the break-up without losing the canvass in the wind. Saw a huge sheet of ice peel off a sheer pinnacle above and crash into dust below…

 

The firewood I find is wetter each day and takes a few hours of roasting over the spit before being much good…another evening break in the storm with lifting fogs showing much texture in the upper clouds…different levels of flat cirrus, anvil-topped cumulus and rolling fogs like the tendons and intestines of a gigantic, sprawling beast…

 

Time does not exist, only progression. Days run together in uninterrupted succession. Food enough for only two meals a day, of rice, noodles and soup powder. Tea is gone, replaced with hot Tang…

 

Finished a few paintings today, including the sunset view.  A couple more are nearly done and it looks like 13 or 14 will be the total and I am happy with all of them. Luckily the wood rat in camp didn’t care for the taste of canvass thought a few edges have been gnawed…A special feeling in this day, the light falling in a celestial mist and reflected back in kind.  Peaks stand in the twilight like anthems and become sky themselves, rising high and wearing the same colors.  Bats fly among the trees, seeing in neither color nor black and white, but in some other way. 

 

After hours spent rigging the packs, and three more hours hauling them one at a time for four miles, I am at the lower falls, bear tracks everywhere.  After hiding the packs and canvasses near the trailhead, I walked down the road to find a phone.  Waiting for my ride home it is so dark that closing my eyes makes no difference but for their being no more stars.

 

 

 

 

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Residing in the wild

 

Camped under Red Firs on the edge of the upper meadows, following Mountain Lion tracks most of the way up. Nicely formed in the dust they seemed to have an odor. Not many deer tracks on that section of the trail.  Several paintings seen on the way in…Good nights sleep despite going to bed with questions about the various noises I was hearing. Thumps and growls and a rattling bush. 

 

While painting this morning two does came around a bend of brush and were caught quite off guard by me, snorting and stomping loudly away. 

 

Morning of the 13th: Clear and 30 degrees. Few birds.  I have coffee and then it is off to paint near Deer Creek Pass and the fabulous rows of foxtails.  Three good starts just as clouds come in at noon.  Misty rain about midnight.  Gusts 40 mph all night.

 

Saturday the 15th: 22 degrees and clear. Snowed half the night with wind all along, roaring blows and loud explosions. No snow in the trees today and an inch or two on the ground. Feet already painfully cold. 

 

Good painting done yesterday and differently. More time spent on drawing the forms, with line instead of thick paint.  Turned one to twilight after three hours of sun and shadow work, improving it greatly.  Also, a seemingly  chaotic meshing of low hills in a sunset pulled off  in an hour. 

 

Quiet moonlight again: much of the silence comes from the lack of birds and squirrel talk. A great day of painting  and watching for the hawks…Cobweb cumulus form over the local peaks and head north.  Smog rises from the northern Sacramento valley.  They have grown accustomed to this? It has the appearance of something being wrong…

 

Three paintings started on some long walks. Up into the Gibson spires for one. Cirrus in the evening.  My back is better. 

 

Very good painting today but I’m afraid the weather will soon change. Fine twilight spectrum with a few southerly cirrus.  The mountains looking like billowy, dark cumulus. The highway near Burney, 50 miles away, has traffic again tonight. No waiting up for the moon. Under the moon the earth looks like it glows from within. Without it, the earth is as black as coal.

 

 

 

 

A bear in camp

 

I headed off to paint, stopping at my camp below but found a bear had been there last night.  First, trying to climb on the tarp, tearing a paw-sized hole and smearing dirt. It evidently jimmied the door to get in, eating or ruining half my food!  I was lucky, though. Besides the mess of food and wrappers and torn tarp. It liked the dried apples, raisins and apricots.  Not so the rice noodles and dried vegetables and did not touch the bucket with the breakfast stores.  No sheriff here to issue a report to, so I just packed it all up and have moved uphill. Having not finished off the food and meeting no resistance, I’m sure it will be back tonight. I’m inside the shelter and there is no moon anyway. Besides, I’m scared. A bear leaves a heavy presence behind, and fingerprints the size of a hand…

 

Seven painting days left. Only two blank canvases and a few that need more work. The careening patches of blue sky say “paint,” while the wind says “just you try.” Foxtail bark shows the direction of rain, absorbing water and color and then turning into a a rich purple orange  from the dry light lavender of  summer.  The juncos do well in the wind. They feed mostly on the ground anyway, and the turmoil fits their personality. 

 

No sign of the bear at the old camp. Mountain Lion tracks, though, seem to come from Long Canyon. Painted for six or seven hours with surprising effects…

 

 

 

 

 

Art and solitude

 

Once again, like a heavy wool blanket, solitude makes itself felt. Extremely windy night. The worst I’ve camped in. Woke ceaselessly to 70-80 mph winds, the tarp sounding like it was being kicked by Big Foot…

 

It is a cold, bleak morning. The mountains say to me “We have nothing for you here, unless you want to be stormed upon.”  I take my last steps out and onto the trail heading downhill. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—Compiled by William Haigwood  

August 2025