Soaking up the arid beauty

By Paul Schmid 

A couple of Sundays ago, my daughter and I explored Schmitz Park in West Seattle. Beneath the dripping cedars were skunk cabbages, their yellow flowers lit by the flashing glimmer of Schmitz Creek and the plants’ odor mingling with the sounds and smells of running water.

A day later I was squinting under the blazing sun of treeless Eastern Washington near Vantage, surrounded by the dry, pungent smell of sagebrush and hot rock.

I had come with my paintbox, ready to record my impressions of the arid area. Yet how could I convey this scent of sagebrush, the sleepy coo of a mourning dove, or the harlequin flash of that magpie trying to steal my lunch? These things -- sound, smell and movement -- are as much a part of the landscape as the painter’s arsenal of color, form and light.

Vantage lies snug on the Columbia River, 25 miles or so east of Ellensburg on Interstate 90. Behind its sleepy demeanor there is quite a lot to do. You can view 20-million-year-old trees at Ginko Petrified Forest State Park. Discover Native American history at the Wanapum Heritage Center. Frenchman Coulée, across the Columbia River, is famous for rock climbing. There’s boating and fishing on Wanapum Lake, its crisp, cobalt-blue surface surrounded by arid, rolling hills and towering basalt cliffs.

A short hike rewarded me with close encounters with a motionless gopher snake and a scurrying sagebrush lizard. The wildflowers were out in subdued abundance. It is beautiful here in the parched, Mars-like landscape. But the beauty only partially lies in the dusty gray-green of the desert plants, the burnt-red rocks and the rugged contours of the hills. All my senses are engaged here, but as a painter I’m limited to working merely with what’s visible.

Pablo Picasso is quoted as saying: “There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.”

One day I might be able to paint the smell of sagebrush.

—Originally appeared in The Seattle Times