Oliver Stacks

The Summer Home of Moonbeam D'Oute

There's a coupla things notable about "Moonbeam", I know her quite well so I gotta be careful and second she reinvented herself on her seventeenth birthday and it stuck. Formerly Kathleen Doute, she became Moonbeam D'Oute. It just so happens that "oute" means and I quote- "A Joint or Spliff with weed". Moony, as she became known, was the child of a single parent, the notorious, Branch Doute, logger turned actor (more about him in another episode). Since Branch was off killing trees mosta the time, Kathleen became a wild child with a hippified outlook and a renaming was necessary. So Moonbeam it was. Moonbeam and the rest of us spent a lot of time hanging out in the estuary of the lazy little river where this boat sat. How'd the boat get there? Glad you asked:

The boat belonged to my uncle, after whom I am named. Uncle Ronnie bought the boat sometime in the early sixties with the dream of sailing somewhere...anywhere. He parked it on the far side of the river and the only way you could get to it by land was over a decrepitated old log bridge. Misfortunately, my aunt's dream was to divorce ol' Ronnie. So rather than freeing Uncle R. up to sail away it sent him back to the plumbing business with a vengeance. The unintended consequence of this outcome was that I enjoyed a certain proprietary interest in the hulk. Moonbeam was the prime beneficiary, she stayed in that old boat off and on the whole summer of '70. I don't think I have to splain what went on, those summer nights...

Call It What You Will But Its Wet

The Last Temptation of Coe LaTrelle

Coe is currently doing a stret ch in the regional remand center awaiting trial on charges of marijuana production and distribution. Normally he'd get to carry on with only a few restrictions, but on previous occasions they had a hard time fin ding him. Cops can be real spoilsports when it comes to hide and seek. Coe is a large, bearded , bl ue-eyed, career scofflaw. If he had focused his good-natured energy on legal activities he'd be a beacon of something or other. This time, he buried a steel container on his rural acreage, procured with ill-gottens from previous crops, and set up a hydroponic grow show. State-of-the-art facility, power bypassing the meter, back up generator, flow through ventillation...bumper crops. Access was gained through the false bottom of a concrete water cistern and a precast tunnel. Foolproof operation, except for the fool running it.

Coe was proud of his work and couldn't resist showing it off just to impress the locals a little. I mean, whats the use of building such a fine operation if you couldn't share it with your friends. So bit by bit word spread as more of his associates got a glimpse of the inner workings. There was another complication. Coe was a pretty good shade-tree mechanic who loved (you know whats coming) old cars and the idea of restoration. He was mostly a theorist but he accumulated a collection of junk through his money laundering program. If you were in need of cash and had a interesting wreck you could push, pull or drag to his place, more'n likely you could come away with some cash. He became known as the "Pawnbroker". He got caught this last time because an undercover cop with a little leve rage on one of Coe's buddies showed up with an irresistible fifty-eight Edsel and a keen interest in Coe's production facility. A little flattery and when all was said and cuffed, Coe was in remand, again.

This is my pre-study its three feet wide at least and just an idea.

Dusty Rhodes and the Auto-Genome Sequence

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When they tease apart the last strands of the human genome and fire the whole batch into the centrifugal separator, then put it under the microscope (or whatever they do), put the data in the computer, and come up with a final diagnosis of the human condition, I am sure they will isolate the "auto" genes. Individuals with a predisposition for racing, building, collecting, and generally being one hundred percent concerned with anything self-propelled and internally combusted will finally have the proper excuse, "It's genetic dear, not a darn thing I can do about it, sorry. Have you seen my axle-puller?" O.C.A.D., "obsessive compulsive auto disorder" will finally be explained. I prolly should mention "painting of autos" but I am more obsessed with watercolor than cars.
Dusty Rhodes was a rodeo rider who lived on the far side of the Fraser in the territory of the previously mentioned, Clyde O. Skope. The only way to get across the river is by an aerial ferry contraption, which is a cage hung from cables, or a reaction ferry which uses the current, a barge and cables also.There is a bridge way up river but its a long way round and a rough road. Dusty would hitch to town or walk, do a little rodeoing where ever it was happening, buy a heap, a trunk full of liquor and head for home. The tar-paper shack musta bin cold in the winter, but plenty of stuff to burn and it being hotter than a frying pan in the summer kept him living here for a long time rent free. Since Dusty was batchin' it with only the occasional visitor of the female persuasion, he ran things sorta like a recycler without much actual recycling. Tear things apart, sort out the usables and file them accordingly....so naturally the whole property was a junkyard. I going to tell you how dusty died and its sad, I know because I worked on the new bridge a coupla years ago. There are a bunch of railway bridges across the river as two railways criss-cross the river on separate tracks. Dusty got drunk and took the railway bridge shortcut to town....unfortunately his scheduling was a little off.

Forlorne Ford

Freenbean & Magoo, Purveyors of Fine Collectables

This is a story about a coupla guys whose wives were always trying to sell their stuff on account of they were inveterate junk collectors (This sentence may be slightly ambiguous but you know what I mean).Twins, married to two guys who were friends, named Albert and Bartholomew, Bert and Bart. The twins were good natured lunatics whose life mission was/is to make people laugh, usually involving some sort of mayhem. The running gag being that the sisters would list various prized items of Bert and Bart, childhood buddies and neighbours from birth, in the Buy and Sell. They would describe whatever junk they wanted off the property in such irresistibly lavish terms that suckers would pop outa the woodwork to pounce on the valuable items, usually at bargain prices. When they got a load of the junk they either laughed or got mad but either way, there was much amusement and rarely did anything get sold. The husbands took this with a good natured, bemused attitude, kinda looking forward to finding out what they were gonna sell, knowing full well that something would intervene to prevent the actual loss of an irreplaceable piece of junk.

Okay, fine, but the fun thing is that "movie" guys came to town and were looking for a place to construct a set on a rural property. Bert was delivering a load of firewood to a guy who turned out to be a location scout and a supplier of props and they got to gabbing as they unloaded the wood. Said he was looking for a place where they could see mountains and had plenty of trees and where nothing else man-made was visible. Well the wheels started turnin' and boomo bongo, Bert and Bart's adjoining properties contained a perfect spot for set construction and it was rented for a fat fee. They built an old time road stop cafe and garage. Part of the deal was that the set be left behind and of course it was a perfect junk-magnet. Bert and Bart scattered their prizes around the facades, the house looking part was actually useable as a storage area, and they planted a wreck on the roof of the garage. They created a set piece from the movie set.

All righty then, this is what I batched up and it was actually a movie set for "The Pledge" with Jack Nicholson and I just added to it. By the way, the twin's nicknames for their respective partners were Mr Freenbean and Mister Magoo. The painting is an idea painting and in real life is rubbish but I am trying to work out the compo, I need more clutter, on the roof maybe...the cars aren't actually junk and they aren't for sale either.

Thirty-Eight Special, Shot

The Farmer's Collectables

Bink Me!

Beached Truck

This bit of silliness is just some brush fun...bink it!

Waiting in the Uncertain Hope of Resurection

The Colorful Ride of the Reverend Reyne Beau-Hughes

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Now, the guy that owned this rig was no more a reverend than I am. He was in fact the charismatic leader of a merry band of loons who built a commune on a bluff overlooking a remote stretch of beach on the island where I live. He was called "The Reverend", facetiously or ironically or sarcastically or something. He was a dope smoking faux mystic who led his flock in the worship of the lunar tides, the winter solstice and whatever other excuse he could cook up to get thoroughly stoned. It was the sixties and the "back to naturites" fled the cities and set up shop close to the water and became hippies or acolytes to a convenient guru (or both). When the local loggers got a load of the rastafarian do's and bright colored clothes of the congregation when they were on a field trip, much merriment ensued. The loggers and fishermen had a consuming pre-occupation with the hippy chicks and political correctness hadn't been invented yet so the comments weren't necessarily what we have come to think of as "acceptable" but they were often quite comical.

The commune's transportation needs were met with the de riguer V.W. Bus and an old school bus, but the "Rev". had his own personal ride, a 1935 Plymouth business man's coupe (hows that for irony?) When it bit the dust and was literally put out to pasture with a coupla goats who ate the interior, it had to be suitably honored. So the whole L.S.D. fueled bunch painted it with the remainders from their shack painting projects. The left over paint was bright enough and applied with so little actual planning that its presence long after the commune had vapourized was a puzzlement to all who saw it.

Rainbow Hues....colourful

A Tenuous Moorage at The Mouth of the River

The dark prospect of my own mortality was first impressed upon me at age six. I may have previously considered my own demise in theory, and who would be sorry, but only as an abstraction. It was forty-nine years ago, and that is a startling fact to begin with, that the child who lived on this boat died. The outfit that she lived with, amongst whom were her parents, was a collection of beach bums and ne'er do wells that had accumulated on this old fishboat. It was precariously moored where the sand spilled from the river delta and formed a beautiful beach about a quarter mile south. The moorage was built with raw logs beachcombed from along the coast and strapped together with planks scavenged from the throwaway pile of a local mill. It was darn near impossible for me to navigate this floating catwalk, but the pigtailed zephyr whose future was compressed, sailed over it to the beach and explained the tactics necessary for successful passage into the world of wonder that was that old boat. First time I ever saw a surf board or someone take a crab out of a trap or glass floats or a whole bunch of other exotic stuff. I don't remember much about her parents or if I even met them, but I will remember her always. She had strawberry blonde hair, according to my dad, blue eyes and freckles which is the standard issue description of a type of beautiful child, but that was incidental to the thing that was so striking about her. She could sing, plain and simple. It was miraculous to me that a child could sing in clear, melodic, wonderfully coloured voice at six...now maybe she couldn't sing very well at all but she sure sounded good to me. She sang songs that her parents must have taught her, songs she heard on the radio, songs from movies..."Who's That Doggy in the Window?" being a favourite.

Summer over and I was in grade one, the fall of 1959, when my mom told me that she had died. I learned later that it was from meningitis. The whole motley crew abandoned the boat and it sat there for at least thirty years until it was gone. The circumstances of her death must have been horrible for everybody concerned.

Bink to explode.

All Washed Up

Messy painting just for fun...bink it!

Riverbend Homestead

This is my imaginary idea of what an old homestead complete with abandoned cars would look like. It sits on a bench above the river....Bink to blow!

I Can See Daylight

Barn Fresh

Re: Oh, Henry, Say it Ain't So (Big Three on the Brink)

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There is a term used to describe finding something under hay in a barn and dragging it out and offering it for sale. No matter how rat infested the item is, it is ironically referred to as being "Barn Fresh" and is advertised as such. Regurgitated is usually more accurate. When I do this again I will make the cars way more digested... So maybe this is in reverse maybe the barn isn't eating the cars so much as spitting them out...?

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West Coast Work

Bashin' It Till I get It

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I am after that breezy west coast feel...motion,colour, fun and narrrative content. Calligraphic brush strokes, rich darks and clutter, sweeping shapes and morphed forms...someday I'll get it. Full sheet, I almost always use a full sheet of arches 140 C.P. with W/N as the core of the colour program.

The easiest way for me to get closer to what I think I am after is to let'er rip with a compo that I have already worked out. I wanted to squash this compo a bit and make the shapes more linked and flowing.

Since I am a thin air painter (they are pulled out of thin air) its a challenge to get the thing to make any kind of sense...

__________________
Ron Morrison

The Preserve of Captain Flood

"Captain Flood", sounds like a pirate, but no, he was a fisherman of indeterminate origin with a proclivity for gambling away the profits. A poker player before all the fuss. A shack on the beach, where women with dubious reputations and colourful dresses visited and occasionally sat out on the porch, was the off season domain of the Cap'n. We watched from down the beach, much entertained by the scandalous proceedings. The abandoned site brings back memories of how the beach was before the days of high taxes and big houses. Bink to BLOW!

Where Ever You Go There You Are

The Inheritance of John Innes "Office" Rocker

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In the pantheon of all great nick-named individuals, my buddy John Rocker, stands tall. As the studious son of a notorious father, he spent many childhood hours in his room reading, organizing his baseball cards and generally staying out of the way of his ol' man. His dad wasn't that bad a guy but he wasn't a citizen either and he wanted junior to get out into the world and let some daylight into the swamp. Which was his way of saying that John should follow him into the logging biness and become a professional drinker who collected his wrecked cars out back.. Well John, of the delicate sensibility, resembled by poetic inclination more his gentle mother than his dad. But here's the fun, his mom's maiden name was "Innes" and in the habit of giving the first born male his mother's maiden name, he was christened, John Innes Rocker and they called him Innes. Well, Rocker the dad, when asked about the whereabouts of his son would always say, "Innes office" and not in a proud tone but rather as if it was the shame of the whole outfit that the boy took after his mother, just for comedy of course. All righty then, as in the case of good puns and great nicknames the symmetry was obvious and brilliant because John Innes "Office" Rocker was both "in his office" and "off his rocker" at the same time so how could he help becoming "Office" and then Offs for short.
When the ol boy died, Offs inherited the junk collection and the shack where he had studied as a child. He never new what to make of any of it and maintained he had been delivered to the wrong family as a baby and that was that. I, on the other hand, drank beer with his dad (later on) and shared his love of junk. Offs got a degree in marine biology and then maritime law.