Those Darn Mountains

When I first moved here, I was encouraged to write about the things I thought were peculiar about Reno before I stopped noticing them. Reno isn't another country, and it's hardly another culture. I feel there aren't too many differences between here and home. (Besides the lack of turn signaling, which is a[whole]nother story!) The biggest difference is that Kansas is known for its flatness, and the name of this state came from a word that means "snow-capped mountains." I haven't written about it, but thats because I spend a lot of time trying to think of how to word my thoughts on the mountains.

I never wished to live in the mountains when I lived in Kansas. Even when I was little I decided that living in Kansas was great for vacations. When I went to the mountains or the forest or the ocean, I wouldn't take them for granted.

Although my newfound freedom has started me painting again, I haven't included the new scenery in my list of subject matter. First, because mountains in art seem to be a cliche. They either seem desktop-backgroundy or very generalized like an amateur's painting in a second hand store. It's not that I feel above this; I just am not sure I want to waste my time painting mountains if I can't get it right.

The second reason I haven't tried painting mountains is that I'm not sure quite how to get them right. Often, the part of the scenery that intrigues me isn't the vastness of the California mountains (with typical mountainy stuff like pine trees, jutting rock forms and snowy peaks) but the bareness of the desert mountains on the other side of the valley. I sometimes worry that I would simplify the details too much, and they wouldn't look real, but mostly I worry that I would cover the canvas with cookie-cutter trees and rocks, and ignore the true shape of the mountains that interest me most.

It is too dry for trees, and there are few rocks or houses on these hills. There is only dull yellow grass, which make the hills stand in a striking contrast to the bright blue sky. (exact opposites, to be exact) When the hills are covered in snow, and the sky gray, color gives way to the sheer form of things. These mountains have no distractions; only color, or only shape.

Sometimes I try to take pictures. Usually they're of the clouds on the mountains. Sometimes it's just as one would expect with the mountains rising up to disappear in the cloudy sky like a radio tower would back home on an exceptionally cloudy day.

Usually, though, we have very different weather down in the valley than they do up in the mountains. Once, the clouds almost sat on top of the mountains like whipped topping. They were definitely background, providing the kind of positive/negative space ambiguity that Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is famous for. Another time the mountains had their own background. It was as if someone had cut a picture of hills with inclement weather from a magazine and pasted it on the horizon of our sunny day. It really reminds me of those intricate decorated eggs with a scene inside.

I take pictures when I can, but mostly I just look, and wonder what it is about mountains that's hard to get right.