#chateaugrief

"Anchor Bay"

Mission San Juan Capistrano

This is Mission San Juan Capistrano, or ruins thereof, founded in 1776, and consecrated by Franciscan Fermin Lassuen, who looks like he could be someone’s grandfather  that jaw, man. This guy was Junipero Serra’s successor and practically the pope of California. 21 missions in all, and I’m going to paint ‘em all eventually. I’ve got Mission San Luis Rey  (Saint King Louis IX). And two of Mission San Juan Bautista(Saint John the Baptist).

So the obvious question to ask is, who the heck is San Juan Capistrano? Hoo boy, John of Capistrano 1386-1456 was a warrior priest. And by that, I mean he rode into battle on the side of Jesus Christ and Dracula. At age seventy. Triumphantly, I might add. In fact it took the Black Death to take this dude to his heavenly rest. So how did this all happen, well it all seems to center around that super important historical figure that no one talks about John Hunyadi, who had his fingers in more pies than I can keep track of. There was an unbelievable amount of military stuff happening in that era, so I’ll try to just keep it to the Siege of Belgrade.

The Turks were invading Hungary. The Hungarians sent for help, but none was coming. Transylvanian poo bah Hunyadi is even getting raided by the Wallachian throne in allegiance to the Sultan. So Dracula takes off to conquer Wallachia with Hunyadi’s blessing (from Hunyadi’s former puppet, lol) and Capistrano starts preaching in the streets to raise the army. Hunyadi’s got cash so he hires a bunch of mercenaries, but Capistrano starts a freakin peasant crusade. Everyone packs up and thirty thousand guys go to rescue river fortress Belgrade currently being besieged by 160,000 turks with heavy cannon, ships, infantry, cavalry and child-slave Janissaries who were brainwashed and then when adult sent as killers to ensure the continued repression of their own people. Dracula had been handed over by his father as a child hostage to these people. Damn. That’s three brigades. Anyways. The Sultan starts shelling the castle on July 4, 1456.  It takes two weeks for the crusade to walk to Belgrade. Hunyadi takes the mercenaries and immediately sinks a bunch of ships in the Sultan’s flotilla, breaking the naval blockade. They immediately bring food to the starved defenders of the castle. After a week or so of skirmishing, the Sultan breaches the castle with the Janissary corps. Hunyadi gets everyone to start a fire between the mind controlled Janissaries and their support column, rather successfully managing to separate the groups so that he could kill the invaders and repulse the turks still outside the castle walls. The turks take heavy losses, the castle remains in Hungarian hands. Daylight comes, and without consulting any of their military commanders the peasant crusaders seize John Capistrano and tell him that they’re going to push the advantage. 70 year old Capistrano rides out in front of them. The castle defenders charge the enemy camp and the turks are so surprised they scatter in a complete rout. Hunyadi seizes the opportunity to lead a charge out of the fort and captures the Ottoman cannons.  The Sultan and the brainwashed Janissaries try to rally the army but it’s no use and everyone flees across the river. The Sultan takes an ‘arrow in the thigh’ *cough* and is evacuated back to Constantinople. Dracula is victorious in his effort to take the Wallachian throne as well and we all know how that worked out. The peasant crusade has its brief victorious moment, and then Black Death breaks out due to unsanitary camp conditions. Both Hunyadi and Capistrano die of the disease within a few weeks. Dracula held the line against the Turks until his death (and after, some say ), one of his lieutenants in the battle was Stephen the Great, who reclaimed his throne as King of Moldavia as a result of the battle. The pope, Callixtus III, ordered that in celebration of the victory, the church bells should all ring at noon, every day. And so it continues to this day. And that’s what’s up with San Juan Capistrano. Things I didn’t know about history 101 for sure. A wild tale. Battles! Excitement! Glory! Charge, Men! Anyways. I think this is the second or third time John Hunyadi has popped up in stories from my paintings. I wonder where he’ll show up next.  

"Carmel Beach"

"Jalama Beach"

Salton Sea

This is the Salton Sea in Southern California, one of the several huge salt sinks in the western United States. I thought I knew the story, right? Crazy engineer guy wants to up water irrigation of both California and Mexico sides of the valley, international fights over who owns what portion of the Colorado River, some ill-thought-out canals that silted up and overtopped and boom! You have the Salton Sea, all of the sudden. Fast forward past the 50’s where it became a beach resort and you’ve got this toxic salt soup that no fish can live in that’s just sitting there, evaporating slowly and poisoning everything around it. Not quite. Here’s some things I didn’t know:  

Wasn’t the first time a sea formed in the Salton Sink, and the largest flood-in was 28 times bigger than the 1905 flooding.  

Wasn’t even the first time the Colorado was diverted into canals to support valley agriculture, that honor belongs to the Cahuilla Indian tribes way back a thousand years ago.

The canal didn’t fail in 1905, it was deliberately opened up to divert around a silted portion to make repairs.  

The mass die offs of fish and birds from the 90s stopped when the Salton Sea underwent a massive cleanup and restoration project and now that the lake is managed, both levels and wildlife have stabilized.  

Far from not being able to eat the fish, Tilapia from the Salton sea provide a huge tonnage of meat for consumption every year and it’s commercially fished. (Good old tilapia can live literally anywhere I guess)

saltonseaauthority.org/get-inf…

There’s still lots of fish skeletons around the lake though. I didn’t paint them in. Instead I painted in one of those wonders of the desert: a Haboob. Apparently they’ve got dust issues down at Salton Sea, just like practically every other desert and big old storms roll through when thunderheads collapse further away across the plain. It’s truly awe inspiring and not a little bit terrifying to watch a haboob roll over you. Phoenix tends to get hit with one at least once or twice a year. The wonders of nature never cease.