Natalia Andreeva Archives | Carol L. Douglas

November 20, 2020

Reflecting on water

At 5 PM today I’ll be participating in an artist’s talk on A Reflection on Water for Maine Farmland Trust Gallery. (It’s online, so feel free to sign up and heckle).

Beaver Dam, by Carol L. Douglas. Available through Maine Farmland Trust Gallery.

People who don’t know me well are sometimes surprised to realize just how ‘green’ I am. I was raised along the Great Lakes in their worst years, when we couldn’t eat the fish or even swim in some places. I’m aware of just how much we humans are capable of fouling our own nests (or in the case of moving manufacturing offshore, fouling the nests of others). I’d prefer that we all consume less, and my family will tell you that I’m quite capable of hectoring on the subject.

I don’t paint didactically, however. I hope my work speaks to my awe at and respect for God’s Creation, but I’m not called to lecture with paint.

Fog Bank, by Carol L. Douglas. by Carol L. Douglas. Available through Maine Farmland Trust Gallery

Water is a loaded and contradictory image. It is both the wellspring of life and its destroyer. Without it, life as we know it can’t exist. Christians are baptized with it; Jesus walked on it and turned it into wine. But on the flip side, water has great destructive potential. I only need to walk down to the harbor to see the power of the North Atlantic against seemingly-immutable granite. When God wanted to destroy civilization, he did so with a flood.

Why is water painted so frequently? Obviously, it’s beautiful and difficult to render in all its complexity. But it’s also a powerful metaphor for life. We humans are fragile vessels navigating seas that are sometimes serene, often tempestuous. In the end, no matter how many people we surround ourselves with, we sail alone.

Home Farm, by Carol L. Douglas. Available through Maine Farmland Trust Gallery

Only one of the three paintings I have in this show is about the sea. In Fog Bank, water obscures our vision. That can be very dangerous here where the ocean and land intersect. In Home Farm, water has been tamed and collected for agricultural use by a prosperous farmer. In Beaver Dam, the watercourse has been altered not by man, but by wild beasts.

Last Saturday I potted around the Steinhatchee River in a pontoon boat with Natalia Andreevaand Mary O. Smith. It’s a short, pristine and very southern river. A large oak was down in the channel ahead of us; we were forced to backtrack and choose a different route. My hydrologist friend Ken Avery told me something interesting about these big snags in waterways: if someone doesn’t remove them, they will ultimately change the course of the river. That’s clear from looking at beaver dams, which are collections of fragile sticks that nonetheless alter streams forever.

Deadwood, 30X40, oil on canvas, by Carol L. Douglas. Available.

It’s also a great life lesson and what I was trying to say in my painting Deadwood (which is too big for this show). Remove the detritus from your life or it will change the course of your existence.

I’ve been working so hard that my house is filthy, so I’m going to take the day off and use water—in a bucket, with a little Murphy’s Oil Soap—to do some fall cleaning. But at 5 PM sharp, I’ll be participating in an artist’s talk on A Reflection on Water for Maine Farmland Trust Gallery. (It’s online, so feel free to sign up and heckle). See you then.

November 13, 2020

Happy Friday the 13th!

We’re painting at Goodwood Plantation today. It has more than enough history, mystery and tragedy for any creepy holiday.

Goodwood Plantation, by Natalia Andreeva

In 1837, Hardy B. Croom, his wife, three children and maternal aunt perished on a steamship in a hurricane on the Outer Banks. Croom left no will; that created a legal mess that took twenty years to untangle. Croom’s business partner was his brother, Bryan Croom. Bryan assumed that, as the closest male heir to his brother, he automatically netted the spoils.

His former sister-in-law, however, had left behind a mother and other relatives. Contrary to modern belief, 19^th century women did have some property rights, at least in North Carolina, which the courts determined was the Hardy Croom family’s legal residence. At first, Mrs. Smith meekly asked Bryan Croom for some compensation. Croom refused. She went to court; twenty years later, she prevailed. Much of the estate reverted to her.

Awful wreck of the Steam Packet Home: on her passage from New York to Charleston, hand-colored lithograph, showing the wreck in October 1837 during the Racer’s hurricane. The entire Croom family perished.

The property was by then known as Goodwood Plantation. Hardy Croom had started a modest frame house on the site, but it was primarily a working cotton plantation. Bryan Croom had built a 10,000 square foot antebellum mansion. Mrs. Smith, having no interest in moving to the Florida panhandle, sold the whole kit-and-caboodle. It was purchased by a transplanted New Yorker, Arvah Hopkins. He and his wife paid an eye-watering $52,862 for the estate, 1576 acres of land and 41 slaves.

Hopkins had settled in Tallahassee as a young man. He must have done well at a young age, because he married the daughter of Florida’s last territorial governor and took his place among Tallahassee’s elite. The Hopkins family brought Goodwood to its peak as a slave-holding estate. Ultimately the Hopkins family farmed 8,000 acres of non-contiguous land on the backs of 200 slaves. Sadly, almost nothing of their history was recorded.

The Civil War changed the labels and little else. Former slaves were now known as tenant farmers or sharecroppers. Goodwood carried on.

Mrs. Tiers’ watertower and other outbuildings.

In 1885, the estate was sold to Fannie Tiers. Although she spent only a few months a year in the Deep South, Mrs. Tiers remodeled and renovated the house and outbuildings to her own New Jersey taste. It became less antebellum and more Mount Vernon. She added a water tower, an amusement hall, guest cottages, servant quarters, a heated swimming pool, tennis courts and a carriage house. All of these cluster around the elegant old main house like importunate chicks around a hen.

The plantation that once supported Goodwood is long-gone; it’s surrounded now by the very modern campus of Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Still, it is elegant, quiet and graceful under its canopy of ancient live oaks.

I added the shack to give some structure to yesterday’s demo painting, but I suppose the long-lost sharecroppers’ cottages probably looked more or less like this.

We’re painting there today, in our last class of my Find Your Authentic Voice in Plein Air workshop. It’s Friday the 13^th, which somehow seems fitting. Goodwood has more than enough history, mystery and tragedy for any creepy date.

Incidentally, the only other Friday the 13^th in 2020 was in March. That was the start of our ill-fated trip to Argentina, which was, coincidentally, where I met Natalia Andreeva. It’s a good thing I’m not superstitious.

Natalia, by the way, has continued to make videos of our workshop. I’ve put the most recent above; the rest can be seen here.

November 11, 2020

In the deep south

You might wonder what a painter from Maine has to offer to students in the Florida panhandle, but the basic principles of painting are universal.

By Gwen Mottice

One of the best things about teaching workshops is getting to visit places I’ve never been before. Tallahassee is one of them. There’s a saying that Florida is not the South, I presume because of the number of northerners who have relocated there. However, that doesn’t seem to the case in Tallahassee. In its suburban parts it’s interchangeable with any other mid-sized city, but that’s true everywhere in the world. I’m staying in the historic district. There the South is still in flower, with distinctive architecture, live oaks, palms, and palmettos.

Plants are more adaptable than we give them credit for, because many species that thrive in the North are also in Southern gardens—azaleas, daisies, and liriope, to name just a few. That may not be our northern white pine, but surely it’s a first cousin. And that’s pickerel weed along the edge of Lake Hall.

By Nancy Holland

Yesterday we painted at Lake Jackson. It’s a shallow prairie lake with two drains in the form of sinkholes. Periodically, the plugs get knocked out and the lake completely drains. We might be entering one of those phases now, because a fisherman turned to us and asked, “What happened to all the water? I was here last month and it was full.”

By Debbie Foote

A young man, still wet behind the ears, pulled his bass boat out into the narrow channel and got stuck in the mud. Apparently, this is a common occurrence, because he had a special tool for it, a pole with a flat end. He pushed with it, occasionally gunning the engine, until he was loose. Then he cranked country music, turned up the gas, and with a rooster-tail of water behind him, sped out into the lake.

“I feel like I’ve just visited a foreign country,” I said in awe.

By Wendi Lam

The weather was unsettled and beautiful. It went from mist to sun and back again several times. The importance of a value sketch has never been more beautifully demonstrated, because the scene shifted and changed before our eyes.

Natalia Andreeva is the host of this workshop, and she’s making daily videos. I’ll be sharing them on social media, but here’s day one:

You might wonder what a painter from Maine has to offer to students in the Florida panhandle, but the basic principles of painting are universal. We started with basic process, and moved on to color theory. I have a five-day plan, and it’s exhaustive.

By Samantha East

My goal is to develop students who can complete a good painting in three hours. We’re already at the point where they can easily finish one in a day. These painters came well-prepared to start with, which is a credit to Natalia. I’m deconstructing and reconstructing their method, they’re keeping me hopping, and that’s keeping me happy.

As we were left Lake Jackson, it started to rain, great gouts of water that obscured our vision. Since they’ve been talking about a tropical storm this week, I asked Natalia, “Is this normal?”

By Dorothy Shearn

Apparently it was, because it cleared in a few minutes. Lacy gold-and-peach clouds hovered over a turquoise sky. What a place!

March 27, 2020

Our last day of quarantine

Much of what we do is meaningless time-filler. When that has been torn away, where are you left?

Unfinished last painting.

We have certainly run into a pathogen, although I doubt it’s COVID-19. I’m secretly relieved that it ran through me before we start our engines and make a course for Rio Gallegos in the morning. Woe to them who are in its throes en route.

Yesterday, Cristina informed me that I was confined to my room until I was six hours without a fever. This wasn’t her edict; it was that of the village doctor. I could go outside for fresh air, but not into any common areas. My mind turned inevitably to a comment Jane Chapin made to me earlier this week about the shrinking nature of our confinement. I really should be ashamed of myself.

The Diary of Anne Frank was required reading in my youth. She and her family lived for two years in their cramped attic, and their release was immeasurably worse. My room is perfectly lovely, and I’d managed to snaffle The Spectatoron my phone before Cristina noticed me.

Bushwhacking with Jane Chapin. The undergrowth is thick in the valleys.

I went outdoors and sat on a bench in the sun. Eventually, Jane found me, and we went bushwhacking. Mercifully, we have only a few hundred acres to roam in, or we might have managed to get lost. We tromped around in the undergrowth until we found a small stream with a view.

We set up to paint. My gut had been acting perfectly foul all morning, and it was there that the floodgates opened. I am missing part of my colon—that critical part that tells the average person that the @#$! Is about to hit the fan. I wandered off into the brush and cleaned up as well as I could, then returned and folded up my paint kit. It was a beautiful day; so what if I was covered in merde? I lay on my back in the warm sunlight, chatting with Jane as she painted.

Lying on my back in the sun, talking to Jane while she painted.

I’ve had less effective colonoscopy preps.

As I write this, Jane is checking us into our flight from Rio Gallegos tomorrow. We will leave here at 4 AM, driving hours in the dark, keeping a close watch for the guanaco, vicuña, or huemules who might like to ornament our cars’ front grilles. Ours is the last flight from Rio Gallegos to Buenos Aires and we do not—as of yet—have a plan to get from Buenos Aires to America. But I trust in my God as my protector. He hasn’t let me down yet.

Iron-ore laden creek.

Meanwhile, the mountains are shrouded in fog today, as if they are sad that we are leaving. Every morning of this trip, Natalia Andreeva has sat by the window and watched the pink light flicker up onto Glaciar Electrico. “Beautiful!” she breathes. Stripped of all the impositions of our world—of socializing, parenting, working—she remained centered on this one joy of all creation.

Reader Robin M. asked me how we move our wet paintings. The wettest go into these PanelPak carriers.

The Age of Coronavirus has been one of great costs. There is opportunity here, as well. Much of what we do is meaningless time-filler. Some of it is downright corrosive. When all that is torn away, what are you left with? Do you like yourself well enough to be content in your own company? Can you organize your day, your week, your life, without someone else telling you what to do? If not, think of this as a wakeup call. Nobody owns your happiness but you.

Those that are drier are interleaved with waxed paper that I cut to size before leaving home. I then make a bundle of them, reusing the stretch film I brought. You can also use plastic bumpers or slivers of wine cork to separate the paintings.

This is my last post before we hare out of here. We leave tomorrow at 4 AM. I may be writing from Rio Gallegos, or it may be a week before I find a wi-fi signal I can poach. Until then, take care and remember to wash your hands.

March 24, 2020

Capturing the rainbow

I don’t think we can count on them sending the helicopters any time soon.

By the Rio Blanco in the rain, by Carol L. Douglas, 9X12, available.

My friend Barb made it back to Maine from Thailand and slept for 19 hours straight. Then she woke up and tried to figure out how to wash her travel-tainted laundry without access to a laundromat. Not that she’s going back to work any time soon; she works in a pre-school.

It’s good to know that somewhere in the world there are flights moving. Why they’re moving in Asia, the epicenter of this disease, and not in South America, is beyond me. But our carefully-laid plans of the weekend are now thrown into confusion. We have ascertained that we can take the cars to Rio Gallegos but we have no idea if we have a flight when we get there.

Jane Chapin is having vivid dreams, all reflecting her anxieties. She dreamt she was trying to keep a box of baby hedgehogs alive, and that she was naked at the mall. During the day, she’s her usual level, funny self, of course. In the dark hours, the fruitless effort and endless conversations are starting to wear.

We have no idea whether flights in Argentina will resume on the 28^th or the 31^st or some date in the future. Nor do our representatives at the Embassy, who are now in regular contact with us. Yesterday, the State Department sent out a survey to collect information about American nationals stranded overseas. There are some 13,500 of our fellow citizens who have requested help to get home. I don’t think we can count on them sending the helicopters any time soon.

We use WhatsApp to communicate with our Embassy reps. “That’s the same group as Doug Perot?” they asked each of us. How Doug became the point man for our group, none of us know, but I felt very important being married to him.

Painting by the window.

Some of my friends back home have told me that I don’t know how bad it is in the US; that I’ll be coming home to a police state. We have exactly the same news as the rest of you. With that, exile in Argentina isn’t markedly different from exile in Maine. I prefer the chipper attitude of my Uncle Bob, who’s in his eighties and immunosuppressed from cancer treatments. I couldn’t go see him before coronavirus, either. Instead of complaining about my absence, he said, “I’m not going anywhere near anyone!” and then told me all the news from Buffalo.

Also in Buffalo, my technologically-impaired brother-in-law saw Kellee Mayfield’s interview with an Arkansas television station. Stuck at home, he’s learning to surf the internet. I didn’t think the old boy had it in him.

Downpour, by Carol L. Douglas. That’s the first rainbow I’ve ever tried to paint.

Yesterday started with a halfhearted rain and moved to a downpour. It’s impossible to paint outdoors in these conditions, so we painted from the windows, or read, or played Scrabble. David Diaz set up in the greenhouse, where he was nearly deafened by the roar of rain hitting the plastic roof. Natalia Andreeva painted Lynn Mehta; if the bad weather continues, she’ll have painted us all by the time we go home. Katie Cundiff taught two university classes.

I spent a lot of time looking out the window, like a child deprived of her recess. The meteoric weather shifts remind me of Frederic Edwin Church’s The Heart of the Andes, that magnificent, show-stopping canvas that now resides at the Met. Even though it was painted in the northern parts of the continent, it captures something of the character of Patagonia as well.

March 21, 2020

That way madness lies

Stranded, we don’t have the luxury of recrimination. We recognize that we all must pull together.

I amuse myself with a weird little still life.

Yesterday was a wonderfully warm day of rain. It wasn’t heavy, like one would expect in a rainforest, but light and lacy. In a moment, the sky would cross from bleak to brilliant and back again. Rainbows broke spontaneously over the mountains.

Despite the exotic beauty, none of us are traveling with umbrellas. We decided to stay inside. Lynn Mehta and Lisa Flynnpainted interiors. David Diazagreed to sit, so he was painted by Jane Chapin, Natalia Andreeva, and Kellee Mayfield. I made a desultory effort at a still life, above. As you can see, my heart was not in it.

Jane, Guillermo and Cristina puzzling over this morning’s news.

Mostly, we attempted to find a way home. The State Department recommended that we contact a travel agent in Buenos Aires. We did; they could book us from Buenos Aires to America, but we are two thousand miles from Buenos Aires. The current rumor is that flights will not resume from El Calafate at all.

What we have found is that the Patagonians themselves are about a thousand times more informed and helpful than any central administrators, government or airline. I confirmed that the airport was closed over WhatsApp; my new friend Sebastian answers my messages, which is more than I can say for Aereolinas Argentinas.

Kellee takes our temperatures daily.

Of course, our Patagonian friends have only a few people to worry about. Our State Department and the airlines have tens of thousands of people on their docket. Still, a day spent on logistics left me feeling fractious. I’m not anxious, but I realize how oppressive our bureaucratic culture can be, even in small doses.

The irony is that we are at least as connected as people back home. Kellee gave an interview to an Arkansas television station; it was their lead story. Yesterday, I ordered a new brush roll from Amazon. That reminded me that I should Facebook my postal clerk to tell her that we won’t be home any time soon. I’m getting photos of my grandkids, family news, and even the occasional phone message.

Laundry, quarantine style.

My fellow artists remain patient, cheerful and kind. Yes, we could have made different decisions that resulted in a different outcome, but there have been no recriminations. Yes, we are running out of wine and clean clothes. But we agreed on our course of action, and we continue to support each other as we muddle through. Nobody talks politics; nobody blames anyone, and certainly not our government. We recognize that, in extreme conditions, we must all pull together.

At one point, Kellee pointed to Guillermo and Cristina and said, “See this couple here? They are the epitome of what humanity should be in a crisis.”

That—the best, rather than the worst—is what we’re focusing on. Paul exhorted the Colossians to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Nobody here is overtly religious, but they’re living that.

March 20, 2020

Hiking in the Andes

“You don’t belong here,” the young men said. “Go home!”

Rio Electrico, by Carol L. Douglas, 8X10, available.

Whatever our quarantine meant on Thursday, on Friday we were permitted to hike along the Rio Electrico. The trailhead is a few scant kilometers from Hosteria el Pilar. The trail leads into Los Glaciares National Parkand ultimately to Chile. We wouldn’t be walking that far; the park is closed. However, we would have views of other distant glaciers and mountains.

We’re traveling with fairly light kits, but they are still full painting kits. They weigh between 15 to 30 pounds each. Mine is on the heavier side and I did not bring a backpack. My solution is to loop the strap of my messenger bag across my chest, like pictures of Navajo women in my long-obsolete schoolbooks. It works, more or less, although after 8.8 miles of moderate hiking, my neck was feeling the strain.

Keeping a low profile is paramount, so we traveled in two small groups. Mine included Kellee Mayfield, David Diaz, and Lynn Mehta. We immediately proved our lack of woodscraft by neglecting to download a map. Instead, we searched the dust for footprints, as if we were trackers in a spaghetti western. A few kilometers of this nonsense and we found the trailhead. It was marked with large brown-and-yellow signs, directly across the road from a parking lot.

Jane Chapin above the Rio Electrico.

Guillermo had warned us not to allow ourselves to perspire as we climbed. “This is not Amsterdam,” he said. The realization that we were hiking in the Andes came slowly, but it left us rather awestruck. If I had a bucket list, this should have been on it. Most of the hike was through a wooded glade that the ever-present wind could not penetrate. It was, indeed, warm. But when we cleared the trees, the piercing wind was frigid. Wet clothes would have been dangerous.

Our first destination was a refugia two hours up the pass. A kilometer short of it, we came across another band of our fellows—Jane Chapin, Natalia Andreeva, Lisa Flynn and Natalia’s husband, Alexander. They’d been driven back from the refugia. It was occupied by four young Argentine bucks, intent on riding out the virus in the solitude of Patagonia. “You don’t belong here,” they said. “Go home!” It has been our only negative encounter so far.

Argentina has banned internal flights because too many people are using the break to vacation. I understand. Most of us live undemanding lives compared to our ancestors. We haven’t learned to take danger seriously. The impulse to break quarantine is terrific.

Painting along the Rio Electrico. Photo courtesy of Jane Chapin.

But it didn’t matter whether these four twenty-somethings were survivalists or just want to party in peace. We were best off leaving them to it. We retreated along the riverbank and set up to paint a superb view of what may or may not be Glaciar Cagliero Sur. It was horrendously windy. I’ve painted in more pleasant blizzards, and I’m from Buffalo. “We’ve hiked two hours to paint for fifteen minutes,” laughed David Diaz.

Alas, we are again confined to the grounds. We will be allowed to roam when we have a certificate of quarantine, or when the Marines show up to rescue us. Alas, our second set of flights has been cancelled. Right now, we have enough flight credits to travel South America for a year, great whacking charges on our credit cards, and no way home.

Meanwhile, the US State Department is calling in all American citizens. That’s of very little use when there are no domestic or international flights available. Those of us with political connections have contacted them to see if the government can intervene.

Meanwhile, the clouds and the sky remain spectacular.

Matthew Parris has a wonderful little essay in this week’s Spectator on the thrill of apocalypse to school children and other romantic souls. We all like breaks in routine—for a while. “On how many gravestones in how many churchyards does that phrase from Romans 15, 9-11, ‘and they shall sing a new song’, appear?” he asks.

We’re in no real trouble. We are not miners trapped in a cave in Chile, or schoolboys caught in a cave in Thailand. (Note to self: avoid caves for the nonce.) Being compassionate people, we want the US government to rescue those in danger first.

However, the break grows old. We begin to long for a return to the familiar. Despite internet contact (which the hosteria laid on in the face of crisis), we want to see our family and friends again. To maintain sanity, we cling resolutely to our groove. We eat breakfast, we contact our families, we wash our unmentionables in the sink, and then we paint. And then we repeat.

March 19, 2020

Plans derailed

I want to roam, but I don’t want to be a stupid American who gets into trouble with the military authorities.

Southern Beech, by Carol L. Douglas, 9X12, available.

Yesterday’s plans to hike along the Rio Electrico were derailed. The Army is making rounds, checking the hosterias in the area to verify that travelers are maintaining quarantine. Even though we would still be a self-contained group, it was thought that it would be better if we were not gallivanting around as a group. “I think it’s best if we keep our profile low,” said Jane Chapin.

Alexander is married to artist Natalia Andreeva. He’s not a painter, but is a dedicated hiker. Yesterday, he decided that the best way to get his exercise was to walk up and down the drive. That way, he’d see the soldiers when they arrive. Born in the Soviet Union, he has a healthy respect for the Army. I am listening to him.

We native-born Americans are cheerfully ignorant of the power of the military in other parts of the world. Our army doesn’t maneuver on domestic soil, we have no checkpoints, and people are constitutionally secure in their own homes. This crisis has reminded me of just how fragile that social contract is. Just as we experienced an erosion of personal liberty after 9/11, we may face a similar erosion from coronavirus. It’s up to us to be vigilant.

There were rocks in that large satchel, but it still didn’t stop my easel from going over.

In the Arctic and subpolar Canada, wind was my greatest enemy. It’s true here as well. My tough little pochade box blew down three times, despite being tethered with rocks. The first time, it wiped out my brush roll. The second time, my wash tank. The third time, it did me in, and I quit. By then, it was lashing rain anyway.

Being grounded to the immediate environs of the hosteria, I decided to paint the scrubby beech trees. Nothofagus pumilla is the predominant tree cover in this southern polar region, as common here as spruces in the North American taiga. These southern beeches have tiny serrated leaves that mimic their northern cousins. There any similarity with our northern beeches ends. The mature trees have deeply-grooved bark and are twisted and bent by the constant winds.

The leaves of the Southern Beech are about the only thing that resembles the beeches of the Northern Hemisphere.

Berberis microphylla, or barberry, grows wild. It’s known here as calafate, giving its name to the town. The berries of the local variety are edible. Legend has it that eating one assures you a return trip to Patagonia. Sadly, they’re out of season.

I’ve been carefree through this whole venture. Yesterday, I realized I was approaching my first real crisis. I brought 24 boards with me—two for each of ten painting days, and four spares. With the extension of our trip, I’m suddenly left with a shortage of painting surfaces. Typically, I bring too many boards, so rationing painting boards is new territory to me.

Rain, by Carol L. Douglas, 8X10, available.

Perhaps the Army will come today. After all, they have a huge range of territory to patrol. Meanwhile, we feel our range steadily contracting. First, we were limited to the country, then the province, then the town, then our hosteria and its grounds. Will we be limited to indoors next? Our rooms? Whatever happens, we’ll roll with it. In a constantly-changing situation, it’s best to be flexible.

March 18, 2020

On the road with COVID-19

What does the word quarantinemean? It changes every day.

Glaciar Cagliero from Rio Electrico, by Carol L. Douglas, 11X14, available.

Yesterday I outlined the problems we will have if we break quarantine to head back to the airport. These were reinforced by an email from the US State Department, which told us to comply with local authorities. However, just as the United States is suffering a lack of toilet paper, rural Argentina has a lack of information.

When we left, I asked Jane Chapin what the word quarantine meant. I wasn’t trying to be a jerk; I just wanted to know what was expected of us. It turns out to have been a prescient question, because the meaning of our quarantine has shifted over time. In the beginning it was enough that we traveled in a self-contained group. Now it means we stay in place, and strictly so.

Our host Cristina managed to talk with someone at the US embassy in Buenos Aires. Later, Guillermo suggested that we fill our cars against a possible gas shortage. (They happen here, coronavirus or not.) We duly drove the washed-out, rutted gravel road to El Chaltén’s single gas pump to top up. Although short in mileage, the trip took two hours.

When we returned, Cristina sadly informed us that—by the newest rules—we had broken quarantine. We were required to file documents and copies of our passports and are now confined to the immediate area of the hosteria. From now on, only Guillermo can go to town for supplies.

Painting with Lynn Mehtain front of Cerro Fitz Roy.

Yesterday, the town of El Calafate announced its first confirmed case of coronavirus, in a French tourist. We wince; it was not our intention to bring plague to the Southern Hemisphere. But we Americans in El Chaltén remain resolutely symptom-free. We have sufficient toilet paper, although this is a cash-based economy and we will certainly run out of greenbacks before we’re allowed to leave.

Meanwhile, the Argentines, having no work or school to go to, have decided to use this time for vacation. Despite quarantine, the streets of El Chaltén are full of young people skateboarding, trekkers huffing dutifully towards the mountains, and bicyclists. To counter this, the government is closing down all internal flights as of tomorrow.

Natalia Andreevadrew this wonderful portrait of me in front of the fire. You’d almost think I talk a lot.

This is a relief. Gone are the endless discussions of what we should do. There is nothing we can do except paint. This morning I shall gather up some hiking poles and head toward the mountains with some of the others. Apparently, there is a point along the river where we can get close to a glacier face. My husband, who is less enamored of glaciers than me, will try to do a few hours of paid work.