Jeffrey Baumgartner - Chicago Actor and Artist
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"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream." — John Steinbeck, opening sentence, Cannery Row (1945)

5/16/2012

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Day 8 - Wednesday

I am loving it here in the campground! Just off Carmel Valley Road, wineries up and down including Chateau Julien; also, within a mile is Earthbound Organic Farm, I certainly recognize the label as we buy the products all the time, fresh and organic fruits and veggies.


Breakfast at the Wagon Wheel, down the road a spell - yes, I will return here if not several times this week. Charming as heck, and local color. I make a bunch of notes.

Carmel Art Festival kicks off tomorrow so I have today to explore sites, figure out where I want to paint, etc, get my bearings. Thanks in large part to camp hostess, Maren, who sat me down with a couple of her maps and made tremendous suggestions, I have a plan. But first, on her recommendation, to the Big 5 sporting goods’ store as I have discovered in buying a 10x10’ canopy on Amazon, I have only the wrap-around netting, no structure or top!! Guess I will need that, ugh. $85 later I have a tent, but it is so big, long, no idea how I will travel with it, no more room. I get it set up at camp and looks pretty cool, so I unpack virtually everything, but do not want to get bogged down yet with going through boxes so I set out for Mr Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.

It’s cool, learn a bit of the history of the sardine industry and its eventual demise due to over-fishing in the 50’s. I run in to a gallery co-op featuring the work of local artists. I get lots of photos but keep moving along. And it’s cold! I left everything at camp that had been in the car e.g. windbreaker, jacket, and I’m wearing shorts and a tee. So I decide to make the "17 Mile Drive" which includes, of course, Pebble Beach and its trade-marked 'Lone Cypress'.  It's all very cool and impressive, and many good ideas to paint, but I shant return as it's $12 to make the drive.


I head for the grocery and prep for my first cooking extravaganza, finally use the new Coleman stove. Pork chops with grilled onions and peppers, steamed broccoli, and potatoes with big hint of rosemary in foil on the hot coals (yes, there is a grill at the camp site, ten feet from the tent). Oh, and red wine.

Left-overs, and they are plentiful, will be breakfast as, of course, I haven’t refrigeration… save for the weather. Prompted by a word of caution at check-in, I put the food away in Tupperware and into the car, my impromptu fridge, as there is apparently a mountain lion that has been known to make appearances.

Settle in fairly early, try to watch a plein air dvd featuring painter, Richard Schmid, but fall asleep quickly, my little space heater in good service in the tent. To think it was one of the items considered to leave behind in Chicago. What was I thinking! Egads.

Picture
On Cannery Row, Monterey

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    Jeffrey Baumgartner

    A professional actor for over twenty-five years, Jeffrey is an accomplished oil painter based in Chicago.  In 2008, he established  JB ArtWorks studio gallery. 

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