On a Tuesday morning in Red Rock Bakery, the hiss of an espresso machine regularly cuts into the music pumping through the speakers. Customers waffle between jam flavors as they order at the counter, and the staff calls out names as they serve up quiches from the kitchen. It’s the familiar hubbub of a Moab staple, and amidst it all sits a man, alone at a table, painting.
If you’ve ever stopped in for a coffee or a Bob’s Bagel to go, you’ve probably seen Greg MacDonald – and if not, you’ve definitely seen his art, on display at Red Rock and various other spots in town. MacDonald enjoys working from cafes, finding quiet in the chaos through a simple daily practice he’s held for decades.
MacDonald grew up in Montana and remembers receiving paints from his grandmother in the fourth grade, planting a seed that would eventually grow into an art degree when he moved to Seattle for college. He’s worked as an illustrator, a graphic designer, a web designer, and a teacher, but through it all has been one constant: the daily act of putting brush to paper – day in and day out, creating something from nothing, and finding meaning in ambiguity.
He calls these daily paintings “whats,” an affectionate name for the dream-like creatures and beings that emerge through the watercolor.
“Each day I sit down… I just follow what the paint tells me it is going to do. I try not to judge it. I try not to have any idea of where it is going to go or where it is going to take me,” MacDonald says.
Sometimes he continues on a piece that hasn’t been finished. Sometimes he misses a day. He gives himself grace. But for the better part of 30 years, he’s carved out consistent time to immerse himself in the simple joy of creating.
The process is not unlike meditation. It’s fluid, intentionally undefined, and relies on a state of mind that MacDonald describes as “suspended somewhere between knowing and not knowing.”
MacDonald starts by laying down paint with a larger brush, working back and forth between intense and washed color. Then, he transitions to a smaller brush, bringing in calligraphic lines, thick and thin, delicate in some areas, powerful in others. Like a Rorschach test, he starts to find meaning in the shapes, the lines, and the colors, laying down more definition until he has a what.
“When I have a preconceived idea, I am less likely to discover something new,” says MacDonald. “Less likely to discover something that is unexpected and surprising, and marvelous in its own right. Something beyond what I had conceived of – I think that is the way a lot of artists work.”
MacDonald moved to Moab in 2013, in search of the same beauty that he chases each day through his paint strokes. Though not a landscape painter, the magic of the desert environment occasionally finds its way into MacDonald’s work, whether consciously or subconsciously.
“I feel like I am right in the bones of everything,” MacDonald says. “Everything is exposed and there’s this sense of ancient being and continuity. I marvel at it.”
MacDonald finds additional inspiration through the people of Moab, and the other artists in town. He acknowledges that the art community has ebbed and flowed since he moved here – he’s seen galleries close, new shops pop up, and waves of artists move to town, drawn by the same gorgeous scenery and outdoor access that brings so many others here.
“I would love to see it become more of an art town – maybe educational institutions where people can study art, then the art goes up around that,” says MacDonald. He references Desert Sun Ceramics, a pottery studio founded in 2016, and hopes that more places like that will emerge in the coming years.
He himself helps facilitate biweekly figure-drawing workshops at the Moab Arts and Recreation Center, creating space for those interested in finding that same joy in creation that MacDonald knows so well.
“I just want to see other people doing it,” he says. “I love that we can be together and draw together… I think it gives people something solid.”
Working out of cafes has been part of his daily practice for many years. The natural distractions of the environment can sometimes pull MacDonald out of the meditative state he so carefully accesses, but he often finds value in these moments, especially when they allow him to share his process with an interested listener.
“You do not want to be doing something for yourself entirely, off in a vacuum in some place. I also do it for connecting to other people,” MacDonald says. “When people are interested in the work, wanting to know about my process – that is a marvelous connection. It’s a connection that I care about.”
Ultimately, MacDonald hopes to inspire others to find their own practice, whether it’s painting, drawing, writing, or making music.
“We do creative work because of the discovery. That is the definition of creating something – coming up with something new,” he says. “There is a point in the doing of it where a different part of my brain starts working, which is a part that is connected to memory and to meaning… I engage in this every day.”
MacDonald says that, like any artist, he sometimes looks back at his work with frustration, wondering if he’s wasting his time. Other times, he looks back and catches something spectacular in his own creations.
“I know there are artists who don’t make it… because underlying it all is the suspicion that it doesn’t really make sense, that it is as empty as your notion of yourself,” he says. “But you go on with it, because you find that stroke and you say ‘Wow, that’s beautiful,’ and you go to the next one – ‘Oh, that’s beautiful, that’s really lovely’… and then eventually you have something that’s beautiful all the way around.”
Those are his whats. His vivid, otherworldly paintings, not so much created as they are discovered, day in and day out, through the simple force of habit.
“It is not easy to continue,” MacDonald says. “It is not easy to sustain it… but I know that I have to keep doing it, as long as I can.”
Greg MacDonald’s art can be found at Red Rock Bakery, Moab Made, and Moonflower Community Cooperative, or purchased on his website at gregmacdonald.com.
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