Drawing Towards Transcendence

As I sorted through my old art supplies, I recognized my favorite pencils and held them, once again. The feeling was familiar and filled with promise. I examined my old sketchbooks, opened one, and started marking marks on paper. Cautious at first, reticent, facing the blank page, I feared the possibility of making a trainwreck of a drawing. I proceeded slowly, gradually regaining confidence and then surprisingly experiencing emerging joy.

Several months ago, my wife suggested that I might enjoy a return to watercolors. I found her suggestion curious since I had not painted in many years. Having finished a prior project, writing an illustrated memoir of the mountain adventures of my youth, I was now free to try something new. Perhaps she sensed that I would benefit from a new project that would focus my now untasked mind. After some consideration, I agreed that her suggestion had merit.

Soon, old art supplies were exhumed from closets and cardboard boxes and assembled before me. Where to start? I had no idea about the subject matter and was quietly concerned that I might experience a void. When in doubt it sometimes makes sense to start moving forward and see what happens. That had worked for me in the past. So, I began by assembling paints, drawing a grid, and painting color charts on an expansive sheet of watercolor paper. As I wielded a wet brush with paint over the textured paper I once again felt like a child.

The physical sensation of moving water and pigment on paper is so amazingly tactile that I knew I wanted to keep going. Beyond the color charts, I chose mountain scenes from prior hikes and climbs. So much for my concern about the subject matter. As I examined the mountain adventures of my past, I realized that I had found a deep well, which was reassuring. Diving in, brush in hand, it was soon evident that boldly splashing color on paper would not satisfy my creative desires. To more fully explore the medium and convey my chosen artistic vision, I needed to improve my artistry through drawing.

I recalled reading that Vincent Van Gogh spent an entire year practicing and mastering drawing before he proceeded with painting. He made that conscious decision because he felt the quality of his paintings would depend on those drawing skills. Even intuitively, I knew he was right. But, unlike Van Gogh, I never considered spending a year devoted only to draw. Perhaps I could do both, jumping back and forth between watercolor, pencil, and ink.

Yes, the pencil could be a most valuable tool. And to effectively use it, my first quest would be to see subjects more deeply again. The art of seeing would be the backbone of any artistic practice. My seeing needed to become sharp and finely honed. And in concert with seeing, to utilize drawing to more accurately render subjects, compellingly portray a range of values, and create visual drama, all in the service of achieving a more robust foundation for watercolor painting.

My practice with pencil soon evolved, becoming so much more. As I proceeded, I realized that part of my attraction to pencil sketching was its more forgiving nature. While one can stop partway through a watercolor to pause, rest, and assess, there are natural break points. For example, it might not be in one’s best interest to pause and stop partway through a wet-in-wet sky unless an expert at resuming. The humble pencil allows one to stop anywhere, and that’s valuable. Unlike watercolor, most pencil mistakes can be corrected. And your trusty eraser can be an effective drawing tool, useful to remove and change, and even reveal highlights in smudged clouds. Pencils and paper are so accessible, contained, and portable. Why leave home without them?

But a deeper, more profound reason to draw with a pencil was the need to soothe my soul and to merge with that magic world that I could create on paper. A first, I felt compelled to draw a completely literal representation of my chosen subject. It seemed like the right thing to do. But, more often than not, I found it tedious and needlessly frustrating. The rock and structure of granite peaks, a favorite subject, were often confounding in their complexity. And I struggled. Eventually, from my frustration emerged a valuable insight. I realized that I was under no obligation to slave away, trying to accurately convey every detail. Who makes the rules anyway? The pencil police? No! Absolutely not! I’m in charge! Whew.

At that moment, I realized great freedom, the freedom to creatively interpret my subject. Of course, I realized it is not a new concept. Most artists, especially those who instruct, are specific and clear when mentioning this concept, and perhaps a mandate, to freely interpret the subject. The door had opened. And, I found it significantly more impactful to leap from the cognitive recognition of that concept to the actual ‘ah ha’ experience driven by my personal insight at the moment.

Literal or figurative, that would be the question. And to what degree? I suppose a literal rendition would be mandatory for an illustration in a climbing guidebook or such publication. But in a memoir, with ‘look back’ stories told through the haze of recollections, an interpretative approach would certainly be acceptable, even irrefutable. In fact, it would probably be preferable as a means to illustrate the most significant elements retained in one’s selective memories of places and events from the distant past. And beyond the conveyance of memories, and probably more importantly, the figurative expression provides a doorway for the artist to convey what is most meaningful to them, whether from a compelling memory or a current vision. It makes perfect sense in the context of creating powerful and memorable art.

With my newfound freedom to interpret my mountain landscapes comes the ability to shift perspectives, change the depth of field, simplify details, change the direction of sunlight and shadow, create skies with any type of clouds I might imagine, and even, more remarkably, move mountains! I never imagined that I would someday so easily move mountains. But best of all, I’m creating a world to which I more deeply belong. The spiritual nature of the experience is significantly enhanced, and I find myself more at one with my creation. And that is perhaps the greatest gift of all.

All artwork is by the author.

Naked Ascent

We were soon at the base of the West Ridge route on Mount Stuart. I cheekily suggested that we might want to climb it nude. Nicolai readily agreed. He was known for his nude ascents, especially his first nude ascent of Mount Rainier, probably the only one by anyone ever. A stunt that seemed a bit crazy, and one with no small amount of bravado and risk. I heard that the weather on Rainier, that day of his nude climb, had been perfect, or he would not have been able to pull it off. But pull it off, he did.

The weather on this day was perfect, the risk of freezing to death was, unlike on Rainier, slim, and I was eager to try this outrageous naked climbing thing by making a nude ascent of the West Ridge of Stuart. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We dropped our packs and took off our clothes. We stuffed them into our rucksacks and began climbing upward. I was self-aware in a whole new way. At first, I felt a bit smug. The heat of the sun warmed my skin, a satisfying sensation. This nude climbing was a cool thing to do. Definitely.

We climbed un-roped since the difficulty level of the route was well within our capabilities, and it also helped us make up some lost time. We stayed close together, climbing in tandem. Pitch after pitch went by, and as we got higher on the ridge, the immense scale of the mountain became ever magnified as I looked around and down. As we climbed further, a thought occurred to me. What if I fell? I didn’t expect to take a fall. Falling was a remote possibility in my rational mind, but the seemingly irrational thought wouldn’t go away.

By now, the novelty of climbing naked from one jagged granite block to another had worn off. No longer smug, I was just a small, naked climber, a mere speck, on the West Ridge of the mighty Mt. Stuart, the single greatest exposed mass of granite in the United States. My thinking had progressed to envisioning my small crushed body found bloody and naked on the rocks below after a horrendous, terminal fall.

For some reason, I thought it would certainly be okay for my lifeless body to be found, fully clothed, but not to be found stark naked. No, that wouldn’t do. I continued mulling this over, perhaps overthinking it. Yes, I was definitely overthinking it. I climbed on and upward and as we neared Long John Tower, reached a decision. I called out,

“Hey Nicolai, hold up. I’ve had enough of this naked climbing. I’m going to put my clothes back on.”

Without a word, he patiently waited, and after I had hurriedly rejoined the world of the clothed, he turned, and we both continued up the ridge. We hadn’t seen anyone else on the climb and thought that we might have the entire route to ourselves.

We soon came upon a group of four climbers. They were all roped up and geared up as if they were attempting the North Wall of the Eiger. Even though this was a ridge climb, they all wore climbing helmets. It seemed a bit much. They looked like they might be right out of a Hollywood movie about climbing an extreme European alpine route. One of them had some blood on his face. It looked like a close encounter with a rock during a belay, but I couldn’t tell for sure. I didn’t ask.

They had stopped and clustered together, presumably discussing either the injury or the route, or both. We suddenly appeared, two scruffy-looking guys climbing un-roped with minimal gear, one aboriginal, tautly muscled, darkly tanned, and stark naked. Of course, now I wished that I hadn’t put my clothes back on because the shock value would have doubled, but it was too late.

The four turned and stared as we approached, mouths open, no words. The buck-naked Nicolai shouted out,

“Do you mind if we climb through?”

They nodded as if in a trance, and we climbed quickly past them, resuming our un-roped ascent. And as we did, I examined their faces and was shocked to recognize two of them.

Those two were the same guys that worked behind the hardware counter at REI. The climbing hardware at REI sat in a glass-fronted counter, a display case not unlike what you’d find at a jewelry store, presenting precious hunks of forged and machined metal bits precisely arranged, displayed like objects of art. 

The floor behind the counter seemed raised. I always felt the guys who worked behind the counter were looking down at me. They were a shopper’s nightmare, conducting themselves as self-absorbed, narcissistic smug little know-it-alls. Consequently, when I wanted to physically examine something that resided inside the display counter, I always felt like some poor small wretch out of a Dickens novel.

“Please, sir, may I see the piton?”

I bought some climbing hardware at REI in my early mountaineering days. I found their attitude so disagreeable and unpleasant that I quickly transferred my subsequent hardware purchases to the Swallow’s Nest. I named them the hardware punks in my mind. They were so full of themselves that I grew to despise them.

To see them now on the West Ridge, fumbling around like incompetents, was better than laughable. It felt like redemption. So, the undeniable truth was that there was no foundation whatsoever for their self-assured smugness. The curtain had been pulled back and the hardware punks revealed for the posers they were. I laughed heartily inside, a very self-satisfied laugh, as we swiftly left them behind, arguing amongst themselves about what to do next.

Nicolai and finally I roped up and belayed each other for the more difficult 5.6 layback crux pitch near the summit and then, un-roped again, deftly made our way up the jumbled granite blocks to the top. The sun was slipping towards the horizon, painting the sky in warm orange hues. As we paused on the summit, Nicolai, bronzed and naked, crouched like a primate eating peanut M&Ms from the bag. We rested there, savoring our accomplishment and the view ahead.

Nicolai was in that monkey-like position when the four climbers appeared below and began making their way up the granite blocks, slowly coming towards us. I could only imagine how Nicolai’s crouching silhouette might have appeared to them with the fading sun behind us. It might have well resembled the opening sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Dawn of Man scene that featured the dark apes. 

Before they arrived at the summit, we were up and gone, already descending towards the saddle between Mt. Stuart and Sherpa Peak. We would not see or think of them again. And it was there, in the rocky granite saddle, we bivouacked for the night, settling into our down sleeping bags, staring wordlessly up at the pinpoints of ancient lights in the moonless sky, as our conscious thoughts slowly faded to black.

This is an excerpt from ‘Climbing Naked,’ a mountaineering adventure story about our ascent of the West Ridge of Mount Stuart. The story is told in my mountain memoir, Banquet of the Infinite, which is available as an illustrated eBook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.

Photos and mountain art are by the author.