The Disappearing Month and Disappeared Days from Long Ago.

My readers, all 5 of you, must be wondering what happened to this blogger. Life happened, basically, and I found I had little time to paint, or to blog. The end of August found us, and the two Pulis, off to Lake George to visit old high school friends just the day after our wonderful 10 day Nantucket idyll with our son and family. (I do not have any of the photos from that trip on my computer.) Finally home, we cleaned up the garden, and enjoyed the end of summer, so eloquently captured in this poem.

The Round 

by Stanley Kunitz

Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked veronica
light flowed in rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses
in their second flowering,
my late bloomers
flushed with their brandy.
A curious gladness shook me.
So I have shut the doors of my house,
so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,
so I am sitting in semi-dark
hunched over my desk
with nothing for a view
to tempt me
but a bloated compost heap,
steamy old stinkpile,
under my window;
and I pick my notebook up
and I start to read aloud
and still-wet words I scribbled
on the blotted page:
"Light splashed..."


I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each day.

And then came Irene, which was a catastrophe here in poor little Vermont. Being high on a hill, and having a reliable generator, personally we were fine, but not our little village. Our neighbors' driveway was in the road, leaving them with a Grand Canyon-esque driveway. Homes were flooded, bridges broken. Here are some shots of our road:

Rt. 132 from Sharon to South Strafford.

We were stranded for a few days, but before long they got one lane open on this country road with a temporary traffic light in operation. We are hoping they can fix it, and the many, many other roads and bridges in town and all over central and southern Vermont which need it before the snow flies. If Eric Cantor has his way, I guess it will not happen.

I am so incredibly impressed by the way Vermnonters rallied together to help each other in a million ways. We relied on a town internet site and a hastily established Facebook site to find out what was going on, what roads were open, who needed help where, etc. The big excitement was when government helicopters arrived with emergency food and water for stranded Straffordites. Seeing the normally bucolic, lazy brooks, streams and the Ompoponoosuc River in a frenzied rage was astonishing. We felt as if we were living in the middle of a newsreel... and in fact, we were.


And September was a blur. We were away until the 12th, mostly at Long Beach Island, Barnegat Light to be specific, where we have gone for the last five or six years. Going to LBI has become an homage to my past --  it is the island where I spent part of every summer from the time I was 10 until we moved to Vermont when the family oceanfront home in Loveladies was sold. Some of the best memories from my childhood and  adulthood are of family times at Loveladies.

I was an only child, and spending time with my cousins at the shore every summer was pure joy. That's me in the center, in 1952, chin on the old rubber raft, squinting into the sun.

My uncles' first and second houses spoke of home to me more than anywhere else in my adult years, because I could not go to any of my other childhood homes. This one still existed, exactly as it had always been,  until I was 55.

The vintage 50's house had pink asbestos shingles and a gleaming white roof, built after my Uncle had been to Bermuda. It was filled with the Heywood Wakefield furniture that was so popular at that time, and would be worth a fortune today. Back then, there were almost no other houses on the beach. Circa 1952.

 When my Uncle Ben died and the house which he had built in front of the Pink House in 1972 was sold (and eventually torn down) my heart broke and it was years before I could bear to go back to LBI. But eventually the pull was too strong, and we found a funny little house right on the ocean to rent in Barnegat, the northernmost town on the island, and the one least spoiled by the "tear-down and build-up-a-McMansion-beach-house" mentality. Since my daughter and family always join us for at least some of the time, I guess we are building some new memories, although rather than a long meandering summer, we have only a week.

Our little grand boy and empty beach, early September.

 There is no sand like the soft white sand on LBI, and nowhere else smells as good. When our grandson Nate, age 5, first got out of the car he exclaimed "I smell the ocean!" and he had to go there IMMEDIATELY. I know the feeling, oh I know the feeling.

This year, one day I took some photos with my i-phone of the patterns and textures on the water's edge for future abstracted paintings of just that which I can take to Nantucket next year. (I have been unable to locate a really good gallery on LBI.) 

So summer, is over. I knew it the last day on the beach, with some drifting mist and a hint of coolness in the air, and the sanderlings and other peeps rushing back and forth by water's edge. The gulls were reclaiming the beach, and I knew it was time to go home, time to get back to work.

 I have a lot to do this fall and winter in the studio--- Sedona, Italy, and Beach works. Stay tuned.

But as the season shifts up here, and my Vermont landscape views out the window and off the decks are magically colorized, I am sure I will be doing some October work as well. I took the painting below done in another October to a show in Lyme this month.

"October Mists"  oil on canvas currently at Long River Gallery in Lyme, NH     $900

In Between Storms

 We are in between storms. Monday left us with another foot of snow, and a sheer layer of ice, creating a dazzling unreal beauty amongst the trees when we drove home on Tuesday. Another storm came Wednesday, with rain dissolving the ice by Friday. And then it snowed again. Even I begin to tire of snow by the end of March when, Jersey bred, I expect daffodils and birdsong -- but for a few more weeks I am happy to walk amongst the diamonds, and sit cozily by the fire at night. I read my cousin Howie's garden blog (see my web and blog links) abut his snowdrops and crocus coming up in Short Hills, NJ, and laugh, because nothing is coming up at his weekend house, just five minutes from here.

The snow that reaches the top of the front door  -- see photo below left (so that we cannot even open the door to get out to take down holiday pine cone wreath!) is a little overwhelming. It caused my 10 year old grandson, who is snow addicted, to whoop with joy when he arrived here late Friday night and walked up the covered walkway to the mudroom. (See top photo taken through the door, before John cleared it away, making an even larger mountain to the right.)

I am quite certain there will be more snow, more beauty, more to paint, but I hope it will go away by April. 

Winter’s Ferocious Tenderness

by Namaya 

winter returns

  

a hushed lullaby

of sadness

draping the land

in memories

I have not done much winter work this year, but of course up here there is still time. Since I am backtracking in this new blog, I thought I would add an image of a painting I did maybe three years ago because this is how it looks around here right now. I used it for a Christmas card a few years back. If I wake up early enough, the sunrise over the snow creates remarkable colors -- a prism of wonderment! 

Did you know that snow  is actually colorless? It appears white because light is so scattered when it hits the snow, reflecting back all the colors in light. Depending on where you find the snow, snow can actually appear red, blue, purple, black, and more. I discovered this when painting it, as in the piece below, and realizing how many colors were out there besides white. 

I found a very good, if a bit too technical for me, explanation of the colors of snow here www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/5C.html

" ... more first than sun ... "

And for anyone interested in the tools of the trade-- I have organized and detailed my past "Palette" posting so it is clearer, and makes more sense. I welcome comments from other artists on what is on your palette.

Hidden Worlds in My Hometown, and Faraway Worlds in Revolt

Interesting article in my home-town newspaper The Montclair Times in Montclair, NJ about an art show a group of folks from The Studio Group are having entitled "Hidden Worlds." One of the curators wrote " Every person on earth filters what they experience, sometimes seeing things that others might not notice, but is significant to them.  In this exhibit we reveal 'other worlds' perceived through the individual visions of the artists in our group. We explore ideas of obscuring and revealing, through abstract, metaphorical and literal means." 

No time to be in the studio this week, with our weekend in Nadick, MA blue-grassing away at the Joe Val Festival, and with my daughter-in-law and grandkids here for winter break. Next week my plan is to finish the portrait and move on to some new projects I have in mind. 

Meanwhile, I received an excellent comment on the portrait from an artist-friend Lew Dana who wrote:
  
"I looked at the photograph and the painting of the girl again. At heart it's quite successful and cheery.
"In view of the comment from the family that her face needs to be "rounder" -- you might consider one thing:

"The bottom of her left eye. In the photograph it has a downward arc -- the eye is widest at its center. In your painting, the lower edge seems to arc up in the center. It makes the eye a little "pinched" or "squinty". A slight adjustment in the arc (and a big pain in the neck) would widen the eye slightly and give her a "rounder" look.

"Eyes set the tone for one's "reading" of a picture. Mean, squinty eyes make people in paintings and real life look pinched. Eyes that are more open are more appealing, more welcoming, nicer and, well, rounder."

As an uncertain world swirls into chaos in the mid East, it is hard to imagine all that is happening there while living in the peace and serenity of a dense winter snowstorm here in Vermont. But I was amused by a comment in my cousin Howie's blog today:

"Democratic, big D and small D, demonstrations continue in the mid-East and mid-West. Tyrants like Qaddafi and Walker must be resisted by their subjects. Will NJ be next to throw off the yoke of the oppressor?" 

Portraits and Politics

Several years ago, I was commissioned by a family in Texas to do a portrait of their daughter. They wanted a Vermont artist because they used to have a summer home in Vermont which their daughter loved. The painting was taken from a photo of her at their Vermont home. Her mother and I worked back and forth with photos and Emails to a final happy conclusion, and it was shipped off to Texas. They were very happy with it. See below.  

Robyn

. Only later did I learn that the young girl’s father was a conservative Republican in the Texas house of Representatives who ultimately became Speaker of the House.  

Just tonight, on the John Stewart show, I learned that Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, was the target of some terrible, dirty politics in the election of the Speaker for the next term. Straus, a traditional mainstream Republican who focuses on fiscal issues and calls himself a fiscal conservative, is disdained by conservative activists who have targeted him since the fall election, when the GOP piled up a 101-49 majority over Democrats in the House . There were loud protests from Tea Party activists in the groups Americans for Prosperity, the Austin Tea Party Patriots, the Texas Pastor Council, and Texas Eagle Forum who insisted on a more conservative leader, and organized to oust him. Pro-life advocates including key Catholic clergy worked hard against Straus because of his weak pro-life record. Further, anti-gay forces worked behind the scenes in the race for speaker of the Texas House; it was made public when The Texas Observer posted a story in which John Cook, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, explained his opposition to Speaker Joe Straus. The race to lead the Texas House of Representatives took a very nasty a religious turn, with some conservatives in the state suggesting that the speaker of the House, who is a Jewish Republican, should be replaced by a "Christian conservative." Cook said “I got into politics to put Christian conservatives into office.” And apparently some conservative Republican activists working to unseat Straus circulated e-mails that emphasized his Judaism. I understand Straus handled the nastiness with diplomacy, grace, and intelligence. 
 

Now most of my few readers know that I am a liberal, and rarely come to the support of a conservative. But this whole thing really makes me sick, and angry.  I am happy to report that  the idiots were not successful in the efforts. On January 10, the Republican caucus overwhelmingly supported Straus for a second term effectively ending what was a very weak, sloppy, and feeble attempt by Tea Party conservatives and his opponents, Chisim and Taylor, for Speaker of the House. By a 132-15 vote, Straus successfully fended off a challenge from those ultra conservatives who wanted to replace him with one of their own. This is one time when I am happy about a Republican victory.

   

Robyn, second in, with her Mom, her Dad Joe Straus, 
and her sister Sara.

Terrible Tucson Day

My friend Neil Herrick writes “Palin, Limbaugh, Beck and all of the other the cynical hate-mongers of Fox (so-called news) have a lot to answer for in helping to create the toxic climate that encourages the unstable towards the tragic direct action that resulted in the massacre in Tucson.”I wonder how some of these sadly influential people are feeling after this tragic shooting, having consistently beaten the drum of violence and promoted divisiveness and hate so openly -- as opposed to respectful and healthy, democratic debate. The current Republican persona pushes their own narrow agenda (defeat Obama and anything he promotes) so continually, and never takes into consideration what is good for the nation and its citizens. I do not know if this climate contributed to the insane shootings, but I do not the GUN climate did, and too many folks in DC support the right to bear arms at any cost. Well, this kind of thing is the cost. I hope they feel deeply ashamed today, but I doubt it. I am sure the few remaining centrist Republicans do.

John's first-cousin-once-removed who is a graphics artist in France responded to the attacks by designing this logo, left, which I think is brilliant. He says, rightly, "It's as simple as that."Jay is in the process of copyrighting it. I often feel so removed from politics, living up here in the rural northlands, in a predominantly liberal area and state. The snow has gently fallen over the past 24 hours, so in spite of the awful news, I am  lulled into such a false sense of  peace and happiness. There are guns here, but MOSTLY hunting rifles, a whole other story.

Today we are going to the funeral of a lovely man, a retired English professor and a witty, erudite and gentle good soul, from our town, hardly a happy thing. It is the first time I will have been out of the house in a week, except to go to the art critique and to see The King's Speech (which I loved.) I view driving to town in a probably pathological way, i.e. I do anything to not go. John's mantra to me each time he leaves the house is "Do we need anything?" knowing full well if we do, he better get it. There are times, especially when John is not about, that it becomes essential for me to go forth to replenish supplies of doggy chicken, fresh fruit or wine, the newspaper and mail, but that can all be obtained locally down the hill at the little, unpretentious, old-fashioned general store which is not a threat. For the past nine days I have been creatively using up holiday leftovers, and digging down into the depths of my large freezer in the Cold Room to make our meals. I mostly shop from home for non food items-- and buy much of whatever else I need on the net. By keeping a running list of what I need locally from Hanover and West Lebanon, I just resign myself to the rare day of necessary erranding. Thus, even more than most artists, I work in a vacuum.

With the main floor of the house finally quite clean (well.....) and John off for three days in New York tomorrow, I am looking forward to lots of time in my studio for the duration.