Title: The center remains steady. Mostly.
SRO #091
Size: 4x4”
Date: 2021
Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper
Status: For sale in the shop!
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The Secret is Extra Lime!
SRO #090
Title: The Mystery of the Murdered Fortune Teller
SRO #090
Size: 3x3
Date: 2021
Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper
Status: Smooth Ray Original #090 was donated to a free art project hosted by Higher Self in Portland, Oregon.
Note: Years ago, Smooth Ray created a series of postcards based on text-based ephemera. Vintage stamps, old encyclopedias, book catalog cards … stuff that basically doesn’t exist anymore.
You can purchase those postcards here, in case you’re the type that still writes letters and is nostalgic for a more tactile world. Smooth Ray sure is.
SRO #089
Title: In an infinite universe, there is no room for chaos.
SRO #089
Size: 4.5x4.5
Date: 2021
Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper
Status: In private collection.
Note: There’s an old riddle that Smooth Ray has been thinking about lately: “If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?”
The scientific answer is pretty straightforward — No, because sound requires an ear to interpret vibration. No ear, no sound.
However, the question is really about perception and existence. It asks one to consider, does an unperceived object exist?
The wikipedia page for this “riddle” (or perhaps it is a zen koan) is fascinating.
The question is often attributed to the philosopher George Berkeley, but its modern format didn’t evolve until 200 years after he wrote, in 1710:
“The objects of sense exist only when they are perceived; the trees therefore are in the garden... no longer than while there is somebody by to perceive them.”
We make our world through the act of perceiving it. Which is to say, we are our world — we are not separate from it.
YOU ARE LOVE.
SRO #088
Title: There was always a bottle of olive oil sitting by the window. "A most important elixir," she called it.
SRO #088
Size: 3.5x2.5
Date: 2021
Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper
Note: Something a little different on the back of this one, instead of the classic Smooth Ray signature. This is a truly special Smooth Ray Original — and a pretty amazing bottle of olive oil.
Good olive oil is important, particularly in a dish like gambas al ajillo, which has only 3 ingredients: shrimp, garlic and olive oil. Smooth Ray lived in Barcelona for a brief time, and often had meals of garlicky shrimp and the ubiquitous bocadilla de tortilla.
SRO #087
Title: Some folks called it progress. Many still do.
SRO #087
Size: 5x4”
Date: 2021
Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper
Note: The first electric power lines were built in the late 1800s, and not too much of the technology has changed, until recently. When Smooth Ray sees power lines furiously criss-crossing a country road, he is reminded that time often appears to pass like garlic in the pan: it goes slow, until it goes fast. Not much happens, until everything appears to change at once.
**SOLD** For sale in the shop **SOLD**
SRO #067-086
Title: YOU ARE LOVE
SRO #067-086
Size: 4x4” print on canvas of varying size
Date: 2021
Medium: Relief printing, water-based ink on 140-pound cold pressed paper
Note: Love is what you ARE, fundamentally: energy, light, peace, happiness, joy. Love.
Love isn't something you need to find. You aren't lacking in it. You ARE it.
Will be distributed in the Trumansburg-Ithaca area.
2 others available for purchase (#050 and #065). Support the project!
SRO #047-066
Title: YOU ARE LOVE
SRO #047-066
Size: 4x4” print on canvas of varying size
Date: 2021
Medium: Relief printing, water-based ink on 140-pound cold pressed paper
Note: Love is what you ARE, fundamentally: energy, light, peace, happiness, joy. Love.
Love isn't something you need to find. You aren't lacking in it. You ARE it.
18 will be distributed in the Ithaca-Trumansburg area. If you find one, leave a comment!
2 others available for purchase (#050 and #065). Support the project!
SRO #046
Title: What makes a thing exist?
SRO #046
Size: 5x3”
Date: 2021
Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper
Note: Will Smooth Ray’s taco shop exist one day? Who says it doesn’t already?
True enough, You can’t go right now and order a smoothie or a breakfast burrito. You can’t pay a buck for a beer, and then go sit in the surf and let the waves wash over your feet. You can’t … And, Smooth Ray has already done it.
Smooth Ray has seen it, imagined it: blending those bananas and limes, frying up the perfect fish taco. Smooth Ray has handed you bliss on a plate.
What’s the difference between a memory and a daydream?
If time is an illusion and all of life temporary, then does When a thing exists really make a difference?
Go ahead and put your order in. Just don’t be impatient.
Status: SRO#046 is in the private collection of a prolific and well-known artist.
SRO #044
Title: When the crack first appeared, we didn't think much of it.
SRO #044
Size: 3.5x2.5”
Date: 2021
Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper
Note: Will be left in random location in Trumansburg, NY.
SRO #045
Title: In the future, cities will be mostly metaphorical.
SRO #045
Author: Smooth Ray
Size: 3.5x2.5”
Date: 2021
Medium: Watercolor on 140-pound cold pressed paper
Note: A rare mis-stamp! This could be the next Inverted Jenny!
WIll be left at random location in Trumansburg, NY.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
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!”
