NW Indiana

Photos – NW Indiana in January

I like winters in NW Indiana. The land is very flat and a covering of snow makes for a stark minimalist beauty. Here are some photographs shot from a car in Stark and Porter Counties. said car was travelling at 55 mph and the light was low as it was dusk.

Just click on the thumbs to enlarge. If you want to enlarge durther click on the double arrow top right – it will makes sense, I promise.

Lots and Lots of Snow

The view out of the front door yesterday:

The view out of the side door today. After about three hours of shoveling that is.

Valpo Admin Building- version 2

Valpo Admin #2
Acrylic on Canvas
20 x 16 inches

An even more abstract version of the Valparaiso Indiana administrative office.

Latest Painting: Valpo Admin Building

UPDATE: I have since painted a second version of this, only this time even more abstracted. I like it but most people prefer the one here. I’ll post version 2 within the next day or so.

This painting took me longer than usual to complete. The reason for this is that I wasn’t sure of exactly how abstract I wanted the image to be. The painting had a tendency to drift towards representation so every hour or so I had to simplify it.

The initial image had three very clearly defined regions- Sky, Building and foreground, I knew that I wanted to break down these boundaries. Building and foreground was relatively easy but the the painting was not working on any level while there was a strong delineation between the building and the sky. Obvious in retrospect but took me about 4 hours to work this out.


The painting is 24 x 18 inches and is acrylic on canvas

Health Reform Valpo

This will be a more or less random collection of thoughts about yesterdays pro healthcare vigil in downtown Valpo. Read I cannot be bothered to anything further than a 1st draft.

This will probably piss everyone off just about equally so I’ll state up front that I am still firmly in favor of universal healthcare but would settle for a robust public option and loathe Bluedogs. I don’t loathe anti health care reform advocates, they may be misguided but there position is a lot more honest than the Bluedogs – who were given their privileged position by people who support a public option at the very least. There is one rung on my personal hierarchy of dislike lower than the Bluedogs and that is the one that Leiberman perches on but I digress.

The first words to hit me from the pro reform side, coming via a very good megaphone were the following (paraphrased): They may outnumber us but numbers don’t matter. Note Mr Speaker – they matter one hell of a lot. I cringed and stopped walking hoping that the speaker would move on and remember that politics is all about perception and you don’t give the opposition anything that they can use. Well, guess what, he liked the sound of it so much that he repeated it.

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