Week 6.. pre show

Week 6 – The end of the road.

There is so much to recount now. It seems like much longer than a
week.. It is over now and I'm attempting to rest, recover, and
digest what we just did.

Last Thursday I woke in Bryce canyon and headed to the airport to
meet up with the owner of the plane and heli-tour company operating
out of Bryce. We realized a helicopter ride would be too expensive,
but I traded a drawing of his helicopter (plus my last $100) for a
ride in a 6-seat Cessna down to South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It
was an amazing ride- over Escalante, the grand staircase, Vermillion
Cliffs, and Lake Powell. A bit queasy, we all unloaded in south rim,
grateful for an unforgettable ride.

At the small diner in Tusayan I traded a sketch of the manager Mona
Lisa (her real name) for lunch. It was great. I was broke, but
happy. We slid over to the rim to check out the canyon amid the
masses of tourists. Never ceases to amaze. When the rest of the
crew arrived from Bryce, we set out to hitch to Vegas.

A great guy named Levi picked me up and drove me to Williams, a large-
ish city on the 40. He was awesome, I did a cool drawing for him and
he got me a hotel room and gave me some food money. I felt rich.

Now the challenge to hitching out of Williams. After 2 hours at a
certain exit I realized I had to be back 1 mile to where the Grand
Canyon Exit meets the 40. A couple cool German guys I'd met at the
hotel gave me a lift back, and I proceeded to attempt to get a ride
again.

Not much luck.

The highway patrol was pretty cool, considering it is technically
illegal to hitch in Arizona. They took my info in case something
happens to me. Cool guys.

Car after car, no rides. None. Lots of RVs, tourists.. nothing.

Finally an adventurous couple named Dustin and Bianca picked me up.
They were the type that were on their way to go miniature golfing and
ended up at Grand Canyon and were heading to Vegas. Off we went!

We arrived in Vegas to 108 degrees at sunset. We barged into the
Golden Gate Casino (the oldest in Vegas) in downtown, intending to
talk to night manager Aaron and the owner Mark. We rap for a while
and eventually come to an agreement--a sketch of the casino for $200
in chips some of which I'd gamble there. Deal.

Cacophony of noise, drunken gamblers, go-go dancers, inquisitive
staff, camera crew... Not easy conditions in which to draw. It did
turn out well, though.

But in that time a nice drunk New Yorker gave me $200 for a quick
sketch of his girl. This gave me the fall back money to walk up to
the craps table and proceed to loose my 200 in about 15 minutes.
Pathetic. Aaron gave me and extra 25, the go-go dancers rolled up to
cheer me on in front of the camera, and I could do no wrong. Till
they left.. then the table got cold and I pulled out! Back to the
Artisan Hotel with a good memory of perhaps the last descent casino
in Vegas.

Next night—showgirls! We went backstage of the Follies Bergere at
the Tropicana and I chatted with Cari and Britney.. 6'1" and 5'10".
Some of the last of the old school showgirls, their costumes were
astounding. They posed for me and re-applied their makeup and re-did
their hair for me. I then went out to the stage and sketched some of
the girls stretching and warming up. It was a blast, a treat to see
into their world.. very familial actually. Then we got to kick back
and watch the show…

The next day was tough getting out of Vegas… 2 hours at one gas
station, then another long cab ride to Stateline. At stateline
Kasara stopped to pick me up.. having partied all night, I drove us
all the way back to Venice. We went straight to the beach and I ran
down and jumped in! It was the best. Reborn in the pacific!

Seb and I walked back to the house and Doug and Aiyana welcomed me home.

Now—2 days to prep a show… that is the last Blog. Coming next…

week 5 pics (II)

pics from week 5 (I)

End of Week 5

I'm in Bryce Canyon, Utah.

This week has been incredible.

It started in Aspen, meeting up with an artist from Colorado Springs
named Josh. He does all sorts of painting, is part of a collective
gallery and generally makes cool stuff. But appealed to me was his
guerilla style of making art and giving it away. He would just
enter a bar or restaurant or whatever and put one of his paintings
up. Years later they would still be there. They would get
grandfathered in.

So we made couple new canvases (I did my best attempt at quick
acrylic, spray paint and makeshift stencils.). Then we set out to
stash them around Aspen.. the most fun being in the Ralph Lauren
display window. He gave me a cool shirt on which he'd used bleach
to make a stencil image. A great morning.

After an afternoon in Aspen spent doing little dog portraits for
possible lodging money, (surely an idea from my producer Seb who does
enjoy this sort of thing) I got in touch with Pam and Bruce, a nice
couple who own a hot air balloon company out of Snowmass. I wanted a
killer ride. Above It All seemed the answer.

We agreed on an oil sketch for my own private balloon and space for
the cameraman and tripod in the next balloon! Up at dawn, we floated
up and over the mountains of Snowmass into old Snowmass, watching
deer and elk as we floated.

It was a spectacular feeling to float silently with very little wind
as we're moving at the speed of the wind. It had that gentle
movement of floating on a river, but with the surreal visual of
nothing below your feet.

The two balloons floated closer then farther away, Bruce moving ours
up down, leapfrogging the big one as we went. The big balloon was
called OMG because it really was that massive. None bigger in the
US. 18 Passenger 300,000 + cubic feet (315?).

When we landed, I found this great spot above the valley we landed
in, and painted a landscape, inserting a balloon from a digital photo
reference taken that morning by Pam. It was a long day, but I liked
how the painting turned out.

I stayed with them that night (their son David schooled me in Rock
Band) and the next day I was hitching out toward Moab.

I got a couple lifts to Grand Junction where I proceeded to cook
myself in 98 degree heat waiting for a ride. Rough. A van stopped
to pick me up and we were off . This crew did dinosaur bone tours,
and were heading back 15 or 20 miles down the road. I convinced them
to trade me a ride further down the road for a sketch of
little Ian. So I went to work in the car.

They dropped me in Cisco, a skeleton of a town.. looked like a mix of
Mad Max and Texas chainsaw massacre with a bunch of hillbilly thrown
in. But the crossroads was promising, as everyone who passed was
headed to Moab.

A Volvo containing Heidi stopped inquisitively, but hesitated, "I'm a
girl. I can't pick up a hitchhiker." But once we explained the
trip, she was down. As we winded down the river road, we were
plotting a raft trip to gain transport west. We followed a raft
truck all the way into town and barged in on them. The owner of Red
River, Carl, knew what we wanted and called a competitor, Navtech,
who runs a crazy 117 mile one-day raft trip through Canyonlands and
Cataract Canyon all the way to Lake Powell. We sorted it out and had
a celebratory beer over stories of scary rapids. Bruce our guide
said we had nothing to fear. We were to have 70 horsepower motor on
the back of the raft!

So bright and early we set out to haul ass through a huge section of
the Colorado River, with a notorious 29 mile stretch of rapids. It
was stellar. We hauled at about 28 miles per hour when gassing it,
sometimes we'd float and marvel a the red stone canyon which
stretched forever. We'd pass petroglyphs and tiny ruins, arches and
blue herons. We stopped for lunch and I did a nice drawing of the
first rapid we were about to hit (called Brown Betty after the food
boat lost at this rapid on the first expedition).

We hit some really fun rapids and I had the time of my life—no
paddling just cruising through the nuttiness. One wave in the river
was about 25 feet.. The Colorado had so much water in it. Impossible
to comprehend. They were saying Lake Powell was rising a foot per
day at high water. Unreal.

They pulled the boat out, we staggered about in the heat, then drove
through the dusty desert, exhausted and blissed out from the day.
They dropped me in Hanksville… and passed out in a cheap motel
immediately.

Yesterday I caught a morning ride from three women who had gotten
wind of my trip-- Kim, Iris and Chris. Through the rafting grapevine
in Moab they heard of this artist hitching across the country trading
art. They saw me at the side of the road and stopped, and after a
laugh we were all off.

They drove me all the way to Bryce! They were on their way back to
Vegas. We stopped along the way and I did a drawing for Kim who did
all the driving. It has to be my favorite drive in the country—
route 12 through Escalante. Spectacular natural beauty.

Now I'm here in Bryce and ready to attempt an air lift to Grand
Canyon tomorrow on my way to Vegas…

Shows coming up soon—starting to get nervous. Lots to do…

Love
Kenny