SRO #042-043

Title: Walking the Dinosaur

SRO #042, #043

Author: Smooth Ray

Size: 3x2”

Date: 2021 (image taken 2015)

Medium: Photography, watercolor staining, mounted on 140-pound cold pressed paper

Note: Back in 2015, Smooth Ray was somewhere near the middle of South Dakota when he saw this amazing sight: a child walking their pet dinosaur.

You see some strange things, when you’re on the road. The world looks different from the vantage point of motion. There is more space for serendipity, which depends on clear seeing—a hard task, when surrounded by the familiar.

Smooth Ray was doing about 90 on I-90 when he caught sight of the dinosaur on a leash. Foot on the brake even before the image fully registered … but it being Montana, turning around at the next exit meant a 30 mile detour. Nonetheless, absolutely worth it.

Statue is in a field near Murdo, S.D.

SRO #042 Was donated to a free art project hosted by Higher Self in Portland, Oregon. SRO #043 was left in a random location in Trumansburg, NY.

Posted on September 2, 2021 by Smooth Ray and tagged Smooth Ray Originals.

SRO #040-041

Title: Girl on Bike, Washington, D.C. (2006)

SRO #040, #041

Author: Smooth Ray

Size: 3x2”

Date: 2021 (image taken 2006)

Medium: Photography, watercolor staining, mounted on 140-pound cold pressed paper

Note: It seems like a lifetime ago, but there was a time when Smooth Ray made his living as a freelance photojournalist for newspapers and wire services.

Smooth Ray photographed disasters, small town festivals, national political events, sports at all levels, religious ceremonies, people who seemed to have everything, and those who seemed to have lost it all.

The image here is an example of Smooth Ray’s documentary work in Washington, D.C.

With support from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, Smooth Ray spent almost a year documenting changing life in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood.

The result was The Mount Pleasant Project.

SRO #041 was donated to a free art project hosted by Higher Self in Portland, Oregon. SRO #040 was left in a random location in Trumansburg, NY.

Posted on September 2, 2021 by Smooth Ray and tagged Smooth Ray Originals.

YOU ARE LOVE: What does it mean?

If you’re reading this, it’s possible you’ve found a YOU ARE LOVE print and are understandably curious about a few questions:

What is this thing?
Did someone forget the ‘D’ on ‘LOVED?’
Why does it have a number on it?
Who the heck is Smooth Ray?

Some of these questions have answers, and others do not.

The ‘thing’ is a relief block print, made by Smooth Ray. He makes a lot of these, and then gives them away. The prints are numbered, allowing people to come to the site and find their print (and perhaps leave a comment, and connect with others).

What does ‘YOU ARE LOVE’ mean?

There are a couple of ways to think about this phrase.

In one sense, it means We (you, Smooth Ray, everyone) can be that act of love. We can act with care and compassion for ourselves and others and infuse even our most seemingly-mundane moments with connection and love.

There is also a more literal way of thinking about it.

The experience of love is the experience of connection rather than separation, wholeness rather than lack.

The thing is, this sense of separation and lack that we often walk around with is an illusion. We are not separate. And seeing that clearly — knowing the true nature of our connectedness, of our being — that is the same experience as love.

You Are Love is an invitation to know ourselves as love itself. Ultimately, we are already what we seek.

Posted on September 2, 2021 by Smooth Ray and tagged Blog Posts.

SRO #039

Title: The Door.

SRO #039

Author: Smooth Ray

Size: 4.5”x2.5” (on 4x6 canvas)

Date: 2021

Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper

Note: Some time, a long time ago, Smooth Ray was down in Oaxaca, Mexico, eating tacos and drinking tequila. Pretty standard stuff, really.

Except on the last night, Smooth Ray came back to the hotel and had a little trouble finding his room. A pleasant desk clerk helped, and on parting asked, "Necesitas algo más?"

"No," an ecstatic Smooth Ray replied. "Excepto ... todos los misterios del universo!"

Rather than laugh, the clerk pointed towards a door at the far end of the hallway and solemnly said, "Esa puerta." And then they were gone.

Smooth Ray didn't get much sleep that night. The clerk's voice, their serious manner ... what if it were possible? What if all the mysteries of the universe existed just beyond that door? Why not? Maybe all the answers lay inside Room #312 of the Hotel Oaxaca?

Smooth Ray never knocked on the door, never got close enough to touch the doorknob. This was decades ago, years before he would ask the same questions in earnest rather than jest. Today, it's not hard to imagine Smooth Ray kicking down the door to get at answers. Then, however. ... Was Smooth Ray, even Smooth Ray?

The door stayed closed. Tequila courage only takes you so far. ... A regret? Could It have all been seen, so much earlier? How would life have unfolded differently, if Smooth Ray had opened that door?

Absurd questions. There is a universe where Smooth Ray reached out, turned the doorknob and stepped through. That just isn't this universe, and that's fine. Smooth Ray is working his way back to that door. Or if not that door, back to the space on the other side of it, through a different door.

Status: Donated to a free art project hosted by Higher Self in Portland, Oregon.

Posted on August 30, 2021 by Smooth Ray and tagged Smooth Ray Originals.

Smooth Ray Originals For Sale!

There are currently eight Smooth Ray Originals for sale, six in the shop here and two on Etsy.

Another **9** will be distributed around Trumansburg this weekend in random locations.

Posted on August 27, 2021 by Smooth Ray and tagged Blog Posts.

SRO #037

Title: Low noon.

SRO #037

Author: Smooth Ray

Size: 3.5”x2.5”

Date: 2021

Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper

Note: Smooth Ray is happy to report that “Low Noon” has serendipitously found a good home. This piece was left on windshield of a car at Taughannock State Park. See comments!

Posted on August 27, 2021 by Smooth Ray and tagged Smooth Ray Originals.

SRO #036

Title: At night, there was always a vague feeling that we were being watched. But nothing ever came of it.

SRO #036

Author: Smooth Ray

Size: 3.5”x3.5”

Date: 2021

Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper

Status: Donated to a free art project hosted by Higher Self in Portland, Oregon.

Posted on August 26, 2021 by Smooth Ray and tagged Smooth Ray Originals.

SRO #038

Title: Mystery Location #1

SRO #038

Author: Smooth Ray

Size: 3.5”x2.5”

Date: 2021

Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper

Note: Smooth Ray is always scouting possible locations for his taco shop. It's hard work that involves visiting tropical islands and sampling local food. A few spots have been identified, but for the time being those are confidential. Here's a little sketch of one possibility, somewhere down in the Caribbean.

You come in by ferry (or else a harrowing puddlejump over a steep mountain range just east of a tiny airstrip). Smooth Ray likes boats, so you can keep that flight.

There's plenty of local produce and good fishing. Lush coconut trees line the beach. Locals love spicy food and tacos.

SOLD to private collector.

Posted on August 25, 2021 by Smooth Ray and tagged Smooth Ray Originals.

SRO #035

Title: Midnight Empanada

SRO #035

Author: Smooth Ray

Size: 3.5”x2.5”

Date: 2021

Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper

Note: In private collection

Posted on August 16, 2021 by Smooth Ray and tagged Smooth Ray Originals.

Trumansburg NY Art Drop!

HELLO TRUMANSBURG!

Smooth Ray is gonna be firing little pieces or artwork out into the village, so be on the lookout for tacos, smoothies, watercolors and linocuts!

Along with the 17-piece ART LOVE JOY series (each one indivdually numbered and cataloged here), watch for other geometric watercolors, sketches of taco shacks, and hellscape city scenes. If you find one of these, IT WAS PUT THERE FOR YOU. Please take it to enjoy, pass along, or put away in a vault to never be seen again in public.

And if you don’t FIND a Smooth Ray Original, don’t forget you can always check the shop.

One of these days Smooth Ray will open a smoothie stand or taco truck around town, but until then he’s making art.

And don’t forget, “The Secret is Extra Lime!”