We Went to a Hanging

We went to a hanging on Monday before the snow flew.  Actually John was the hangman, minus black hood, wielding tape measure and ruler. I supervised, but he is the measurer, and mathematician. The hangees were my 21 paintings now on display at Dartmouth Mary Hitchcock Rubin Gallery. It took several hours, because hanging on those track and slide systems, while nice because no tools are required, necessitate a lot of measuring and adjusting. Given the weather -- big snowstorm was on the horizon which is in full swing as I compose this --  people walking by were very receptive to the golden forsythias of spring, and the lush blues of the summer seascapes. Except one old man who walked by with his wife and grumbled "Too much yellow. Grump grump."           

I tried  to get photos of all the work going into the show 
before it was hung. Here are a few which I have not yet put into a blog, which show the results of a long journey towards somewhat abstracted impressionism, or whatever you want to call it. (I dislike labels.) 

Below are  the two largest of the forsythia series. I posted 
the second one sometime in the spring, but it was a bad photo. These are not bad, but the skies are not so turquoise at all, and the real paintings overall are lighter, brighter.

"Trranscendant Joy" Oil on board 24" x 35"

"Springtime's Yellow Telegram"   Oil on canvas   36" x 36"

I was after a very loose and free look, using the forsythia fronds simply as a mechanism to hold the dabbed, layered, scraped, glazed and sprayed paint. I would like to take myself to another level, and learn to do encaustic work with the oils. A future challenge.  

 Among the many seascapes are these little ones.

"California Coastline"         oil on canvas   12" x 12'"

"Striped Sea, No. 2"     oil on clayboard   12" x 12"

These two paintings are clear evidence of the direction in which I am going with my work. I will be working on a number of these in the next months to take to the Nantucket Gallery.

This is the rather cumbersome click and slide hanging system:

            The clear plastic hanging rods slide along the top rail and sliding hooks are     attached to it from which to hang the paintings.                                                                                                                                        

Meanwhile, I was very happy to get the show hung. It has been a long haul, and quite honestly,I was not sure I would be able to get enough new work created in time. But I did. We celebrated with a late lunch at Molly's in Hanover, and then I came home to work on the piles of laundry I have not done over the past few weeks (because I have had no time to do it due to painting and Skidmore 50th Reunion book writing and organizing)  --- lots of sheets and towels from visiting family,the dog sitter and us, and about 3 loads of personal laundry. Also washed the dog-dingied white duck couch slipcover and cushion covers and got that back on. Next chores: a general uncluttering of the house which I have ignored lately, and a real clean up in my studio!

But first--- to enjoy the beautiful late snowfall we are having today. About 10 or 11 inches so far, with it still falling. Sadly, no grandchildren will be able to be here this weekend to play in it, or ski. They were here a few weeks ago and had a great time outside. We miss them all.

Aidan, 12, on board

Eloise, 9 1/2, on marshmallow

Cousins Lily, just 8, and Nate, just 7, at the firepit

Lily on board, first time!

Grampa on A Bloody Mary

Nate on belly

Bob on board, second time ever

Mike on tube

 

Water Works

  “For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), It’s always our self we find in the sea.” – e.e. Cummings

At the end of summer, you can feel the inventions of fall in the air. The first day of fall with glorious weather, and I should be outside, but I am involved with a fairly large piece in the studio this week ... 48 inches wide. It is at the layering stage, and I am on about the 4th layer. It begins to take shape, but I am constantly fighting to keep it loose and abstract. It is of course for sale, as everything I do is, but I plan to hang it in our bedroom at the condo until my show at DHMC next year. I also need to get a much better photo of it, this one is very fuzzy.

The piece is a seascape, my favored métier these days. Perhaps because I am happiest when on the seaside, I am happiest when painting it. Also, it is what the Nantucket gallery wants from me.

I also reworked a painting I did earlier this year. I had been happy with the over saturation of color, and toned down the sky and water. Maybe I ruined it, I don't know, but it seemed a bit garish to me.

 I spent hours sitting on beaches this summer,looking at the water and the sky, studying each wave, different from the last, seeing how they catch the light, how they are affected by the wind; watching the horizontal patterns of the layers of waves, the sweep of it all -- just listening to the waves, the gulls, and breathing in the salty air. I took a lot of photos in Nantucket and, during Labor Day week, at the Jersey shore in Barnegat Light, and hope to get a series out of them.  

Nothing is the same as the ocean...ponds, pools, rivers, lakes, all nice, but none of them can compare.They have no energy, no soul. No excitement. I go whenever I can to the ocean for relaxation, rejuvenation, revelation, and peace. That was our last vacation in a year of many ---- Santa Fe, France, Nantucket and Barnegat Light. We were joined for half of the week by our daughter, son-in-law and grandson, and some very good friends. Then we had a few days by ourselves before saying goodbye to the ocean until next summer. I will revisit in in my studio, and in my dreams.

Rose Madder Red Face

Or is it perhaps Cadmium Red? It is more than embarrassing that I have not posted a blog since late May. The world has been too much with me .... filled with family/friends visitors, gardening, giant five-family garage sale, vacations, and all the effort involved in closing on and moving into the condo, our new second home. 

All of that is behind me now, except for one last foray to the ocean, coming up Labor Day week when we always go to New Jersey's barrier island, Long Beach Island -- where I spent part of all of my childhood summers (in Loveladies)  on up until 1996. 

Daddy and me, Loveladies, 1951.

At least the beach, and ocean is the same, but the then very sparsely built on dunes are chock-a-block with one beach McMansion after another spoiling what was once a magical place. It has become too chi-chi, to Hamptonsy for me. But the next town at the end of the island, Barnegat Light -- historically a fishing village -- is about as unchanged as anywhere on the island. And that is where we go for a week each year, in my perhaps misguided efforts to go home again to cook some weakfish, eat some clams, sit in the sun, and smell that extraordinary smell of salt in the breeze that is unlike anywhere else I know.

But art has been on my mind. I was part of an invitational farm-themed  show with at The Justin Morrill Homestead here in Strafford in July, and submitted these paintings:

 and this one, very poor photo from a slide,  that dates back a number of years:

"Summer Shadows" oil on canvas  24" x 48"

I sold the latter for a good price, which was nice, but I always miss them when they go.

I also have my large forsythia painting in a show at the Twin River Gallery in Lyme, NH, but I have yet to take a photo of that piece. 

And finally, I took three new pieces up to my Nantucket Gallery, East End Gallery, which sold three of mine in the spring. I brought one home which I do not think she has really shown, but which I like, and will probably hang in the condo. This is a poor iphone photo of it: I will get a better one and insert it here later.

" Hummock Pond, Nantucket"  12" x 24"

Michael

I ran into my friend Michael Moore at the gallery who was mounting a show there. Good to see him, and I fell in love with one of his pieces, see below.

"Lifting Fog"  oil on linen  9" x 12"

I have been asked to be a curator for the May 2013 show at the Tang Museum of Art in Saratoga Springs for the fiftieth reunion juried show to be held there. I have accepted.

Otherwise, and indeed I have a life besides my art, life has been hectic but good. Our time in Nantucket was especially wonderful, with the entire family gathered on the little bit of paradise my son located up there about 8 years ago. It could not be more delightful, with all my children and grandchildren, extended family nearby, the old shingled beach house nestled on a dune, the ocean out the back, and the harbor (bay) across the street for a front yard. With so few houses on this little spit of land, there is never more than one other family in view, way down the beach, which makes it an ocean paradise, as far as I am concerned. 

But where has the summer gone, and how many more are left to me?

I Feel As If I Were A Football ....

Lately, life has centered around "Not Vermont" and that is always a bit unsettling for me. It has been some month, with things moving so fast I feel as if I were a football being hurled through my life, much too fast!

But it has been very exciting.

We took some time off to go south to the New York Metropolitan Area for a variety of reasons--- to search for a condo closer to our kids than our current four hour drive; to help celebrate our granddaughter Lily turn seven; and to spend four days in Manhattan, getting our city fix.

The condo hunt, spurred on by me ever since we turned 70, became a reality. I know that someday we will need to move out of our wonderful Vermont retreat here on the hill, because a 11 room 5 bathroom house and 37 acres with a lot of non-low maint gardens is rapidly going to be too much for us to handle. I do plan to hire someone this summer to help me convert some garden areas to low maintenance spaces, and I do have 4 hours a week of cleaning help, but in five years, definitely 10 years, we will be in over our heads here. And, having lived two hours from Daddy when he was so sick, and almost five hours from John's Dad when he became so very needy, we know how difficult the distance can be for children of aging parents. Add to that it would be nice to have our own digs, our own bed, and a place we can bring the dogs whenever we go down to visit the family or go to New York AND the fact that interest rates and condo prices are very low, it seemed like the ideal time to consider this.

So in the course of two days, we saw about ten condos, and before we knew it, had an offer in. The ones we loved the most were not in developments, but in beautiful old buildings of their own, but were either too expensive, or had too many stairs (one had both those issues). We settled on an older one with a European feel inside and some interesting detail (curved arched doorways, Portuguese tiled kitchen, cathedral ceiling-ed living room) with a warm inviting feel and even a deck and back yard, in Heritage Hills, in Somers, NY. After the usual dickering back and forth we feel we got a very good deal, and as of this week we are under contract. No closing date yet, but I anticipate we will be there by mid April.This is the outside of our place:

We liked this because although it is one of about six condos built together around a courtyard, the only common wall we have is the end of the 2 car garage to the left of what you see. The other side is not connected to anything. And behind there is a view of nothing but trees and distant towns from the deck. We feel it will be quite private.

I am not posting any interior pictures until we have made some changes to it! It is owned by a 93 year old man who has lived there with his wife since it was built in 1975.

This has thrown me, the visual member of this household, into a tailspin. I am up to my ears in floor samples, paint colors, wallpaper samples, fabric samples, room schemes, and lists of what I have that can be used there, and what (few I hope) things we need to purchase (bed, TV, dining room hutch, lamps, inexpensive area rugs, etc) My husband is aghast, believing we can just move in there with a new bed, a TV, and take it from there. Not I. I need the old carpeting OUT and a new wood floor layed, and walls painted in yummy Farrow and Ball colors, some older furniture slipcovered or reupholstered. So I am busy on the computer all day searching out things.... EBay purchases, Pinterest for decor ideas and to start my own page of saved stuff, googling floors, paints, endless, endless. But I want this place to be done right, well, and beautifully. After all it is where I will live when I am really old, should I live long, and where I will likely die. I will not be able to do all this decorating then, so now is the time.

I will also be taking some of my paintings, and making new ones ... in a sense, commissioning MYSELF for some work.

Here is our Lily .

In the midst of all of that condo looking, we had the birthday party for Lily with all of the family. Always a treat, always lovely to be together. She is the cutest little girl, and so full of life, vitality and mischief, we just adore her. She is shown to left, just out of the pool with wet hair and a silly smile at her Hawaiian themed birthday party for her friends. 

On that Monday we drove into the city to our time share at The Manhattan Club. We just had time to change and go to dinner at Ed's Chowder House across from Lincoln Center, before going to see/hear Aida. Marvelous! It must be the third time I have seen it, and it doesn't get old. We especially liked Stephanie Blythe as Amneris. Being able to take a cab back to our place instead of driving for an hour to one of the kids' houses was wonderful!

It was a good few days. We went to the dog show at MSG, and oohed and ahhed even though we are not really into the dog show world. John left early because he had to go to the office where he consults.

One of the days we met at the Met (!!) Museum this time. In the new American Wing we saw so much that we liked... I was quite taken by John Singer Sargent's Three Sisters, the 

three beautiful daughters of the Hon. Percy Wyndham, a wealthy Londoner. I love the asymmetrical composition in the huge canvas, with the bright, bold whiteness of the sisters elegant, painterly gowns, the couch, the peonies, all appearing  toward the lower right as a counterpoint to the wonderfully suggestive dark background with wall portraits. Rather than conducting sittings at his studio, as he usually did around the turn of the century, Sargent painted the sisters in the drawing room of their family's residence on Belgrave Square. It makes me think of the Bellamys in Eaton Square from Upstairs Downstairs!  Displayed at the Royal Academy's annual exhibition in 1900, the portrait was hailed by the critics and dubbed "The Three Graces" by the Prince of Wales.

Willard Metcalf's "The North Country."

I also really liked Willard Metcalf's The North Country, painted in Perkinsville, VT, near Sprinjgfield. It actually reminds me of my own painting style when I am not being too abstract.

Metcalf took a long time to really bloom, but by 1905,  encouraged by his friend Childe Hassam, he began summering in Old Lyme, CT with "The Colony" working as both painter and teacher. He subsequently  held successful exhibitions in New York with his much lighter style and again at the St. Botolph Club. His expertly handled, subtle views of the New England landscape, such as this one of my home state, met with steady critical and financial success. To my mind he is not as good as George Inness though, one of my favorites!

I think James JeBusa Shannon was a superb portraitist, and I was totally charmed by "Jungle Tales" seen below. One of the things that really got me was the resemblance the little girl to the right has to my own daughter when she was young. A lot of his work is very Renoirish. 

John's favorite was Chess Master by Eakins, a painter we both admire. 

  It is a small oil on wood panel showing Eakins' father Benjamin observing a chess match. he actually wrote on the back of the panel that the painting was made for his father. The two players are Bertrand Gardel (at left), an elderly French teacher, and the somewhat younger George Holmes, a painter. The men are in a dark, wood-panelled Victorian parlour with a quality of light suggesting late afternoon. John thinks it is very Rembrandish.

And so many more we loved.

The Islamic Wing was given short shrift because we were tired, or I was, but it was a jewel of a place, and just marvelous! Very hushed and almost reverential, we tiptoed around admiring everything.  We especially liked the room of carpets, and The Damascus room, a nearly intact 18th-century reception chamber from a wealthy Syrian residence, which has been reassembled. The walls are inscribed with a sequence of verses inspired by the 13th-century Egyptian poet al-Busiri.

Contrasting all this culture was the gastronomic pleasures of the city, including a belated anniversary lunch at Le Bernadin on the 15th with dear old friends the Coopers, and fabulous Carnegie Deli Jewish sandwiches, just down the street from the Club, which we miss SO much in Vermont. We had these for two nights in our rooms, and one night our Strafford friends the Dycusses came over and had sandwiches and wine with us. The are buying a condo in the city, and were down for a month in the city in a rental to spend time with their kids. Condos to be with the kids seems to be the way to go.....

The football has come home to rest, and I think, I think we made a touchdown! 

The New Year

Happy New Year to my three readers of this blog. Maybe four. It doesn't look like January without the deep snow cover we usually have by now, but when I woke up this AM to 5 degree temps, it did FEEL like it.

We celebrated the holidays totally "away" this year, which felt very strange. This is the third Christmas we have traveled down to be with out children after years of them coming to us, but normally they then come up here for Vermont snow party and New Years. This year, it was decided that it was my son's in laws' turn to host New Years in Connecticut, so off we went again. It was all a delight in spite of being elsewhere, and I include a few photos below. 

Because we entertained rather largely this year prior to leaving, we did put the trees up, and filled the house with greenery and candles. Christmas actually came to TWO houses here ... I had to decorate both ours and the Littles' small domain ....

Decorating the tree in the Little house.

Our tree, featuring urn ornament which was originally John's grandmother's.

Mrs. Lily Little making Christmas cookies with daughter Minnie.

 We made real cookies too. My daughter now makes the traditional sugar cookies above, but I still make the molasses cookie cut outs (gingerbread, also above) and we all share.

Christmas Eve at my son's with three of our grandkids was delightful, but for some unknown reason we got very few photos  of their extremely pretty,warm and festive home, or of the glorious Christmas Eve extended family party. My daughter in law outdid herself. Did get this of the granddaughters' singing in their Christmas dresses....

The next morning was the usual and expected happy Christmas chaos of excited children (6, 8 and 11) stocking opening, plentiful gifts and yummy breakfast food. My grandchildren are very, very fortunate children.

They were all asked to give up a gift this year, and instead donate one to a deserving child. And I bought much needed school desks  for children in Africa in each of my four grandkids' names. 

Christmas day we made our way over to our daughter's home, where more gifts were exchanged. Things were calmer there, with just one 5 year old child, but every bit as happy. My  daughter and son in law try to keep things simple over the holidays --- Santa usually brings only one gift to my grandson Nate, plus the stocking, which keeps it very special. One of my favorite photos from the holiday is of Nate opening his magical gift from Santa... wrapped in glowing lights (see above)! (It was a child-friendly camera!)

Mantlepiece

Their home too was beautifully and simply decorated, including  the enormous beautiful tree in the atrium. Greenery and candles were everywhere. One of my favorite things was the Three Kings, who moved a bit every night as they approached the manger, and on the next to last night, rode the electric train under the tree! See below.

Santa stocking I needlepointed for Nate after he was born

. 

My son on keyboard, grandson on guitar,son in law on banjo, husband on guitar.

On Boxing Day, both families gathered at my daughters's -- a very special time, except my daughter in law was not well. The highlight was the music making, a traditional part of our festivities. This year my oldest grandchild Aidan was allowed to join in the merrymaking on his new guitar, so we had three generations involved. 


New Year's in Sharon, CT at our machatunim's home (spelling??) was a warm, casual, family Eve gathering, and the next day, husband and son cooked our usual southern feast, harking back to John's NC roots. Most of the recipes are his mother's or grandmothers--- black eyed peas, cole slaw, collard greens, corn bread, ribs and fried chicken! Here are the chefs and their creations:

Son and husband in their Nantucket Red aprons surveying their repast.

All I did was make the desserts, dense chocolate cake, and Virginia pecan pie. Nobody starved.

The good news on the gallery front is that I sold two paintings through my gallery in Lyme, NH --  one of which I never even got a good photo of. They went for good prices, but sadly I only get 55% of it. C'est la vie.


Happy New Year to my readers!!!!!

An Obsessive Fork in My Creative World

 When I was 13, my laughing  father walked into my room and saw me sitting by my dollhouse, and said "Aren't you a little old to be playing with dolls?" I felt as if he had slapped me in the face. My dollhouse had been my world, my obsession since I was 8 years old. How could I get rid of it? I was filled with adolescent angst.  Eventually, within the next year, my obsessions shifted to boys, especially one particular 17 year old football player, and the dollhouse was carefully packed away in the attic. But I can remember that doll house family of Flagg dolls as well as I remember my flesh and blood family, and that long-gone 1950's era tin lithographed dollhouse as well as my real house.

 I did not unwrap all the plastic Renwal furniture and the dolls from those boxes until my daughter was about 8. I built her a dollhouse which was a Christmas gift, and after 25 years, my obsession was suddenly back, and suddenly shared. I sometimes stole into her room when she was at school and straightened up the house, communed with the dolls, the same tiny, familiar family from my childhood which now were under her control, with new names and dressed in outfits which she made. I watched my daughter use her dollhouse as a decorative fashion statement, and a chance to play with the emerging roles of adulthood. A dollhouse provides a safe place to role play adult responsibilities, to let your imagination run wild, as well as a wonderful backdrop for creative expression of self and decorating tastes.

Before long, after a successful solo show of my paintings, I took some of the money and bought myself, as an adult, a large and complicated  dollhouse kit. And built it almost singlehandedly.

What do you suppose the psychological implications are behind an obsession with dollhouses and miniatures which lasts into one's adult years? It is not uncommon --  there is a huge world of miniature enthusiasts and craftsmen and women out there. Is it perhaps a need to be in control of a controllable, tiny world? A need to escape to a place where the sun always shines, and nothing bad happens (unless, as happened to me as a kid, a male cousin comes and sticks a tiny kitchen knife in the father and writes RIP on his coffin, and sticks the mother's head in the tiny toilet!)? Why does a miniature replica of a vase of roses, a chocolate cake or book give one with such a rush of serotonin, sense of well being, of joy?  In any case, I built the house, electrified and decorated it, and staged it to be set in about 1928, when my mother was a teenager. I began collecting and creating items for it, and had it pretty well in hand when we moved--- to a wonderful small Cotswold Cottage type of house, but with no room for a large dollhouse. It was relegated to the basement. And shortly thereafter, a kitchen pipe broke, flooded the dollhouse, ruined the lighting,  and made me so sad I just left it there, stained wallpaper, buckled siding, lost shingles, and covered it with a sheet.

When we moved to Vermont 15 years ago I had it placed in my studio, thinking I would get to it someday. It gathered dust. Then grandchildren began to arrive in my world, including my two adorable little girls, Eloise and Lily,  who found the house, and desperately wanted it to be fixed NOW.

My obsession returned. I began to nag my husband to rewire it. It took the abnormally large electrician  and a helper in town six years, but it is almost finished. Meanwhile I have been carpentrying, wallpapering, painting, making curtains and small accessories, and running up large bills at a couple of miniature stores. The Little family has been "writing" to my granddaughters reporting on the progress of the house, and even though much more work needs to be done on the outside, and a basement has to be built to house the electrical transformers. Last week they moved in.

Come take a look! Remember, this is 1928, in Vermont. I am trying to give my granddaughters a bit of history as this house evolves, and may open it to children from my little village to come and see at some point, complete with a written history of the era, and information on the family in a booklet. 

 The Little's  house was badly damaged in the 1927 Vermont flood, and it has taken them a long time to make the repairs, but finally they are home again. Come on up to the porch, watch out for the baby carriage, and come on in.

The bay window below is in (Mrs.) Lily Little's music room, and above one of the nursery rooms.        

   
Come warm yourself by the fire. (It took me forever to find a sofa that felt right for the era). 

Below photo shows the phone nook. The Littles are very fortunate to have two telephones, when many people had none. (This is also where a Cathedral style radio is going to go, and where the family will gather to "listen in" to news, music and other radio shows. I needlepointed  the small rug, made the curtains, and the tiny pack of Camels on the coffee table. The other railing still has to be constructed.) Note the period Morris Chair, (which has been pushed aside to accommodate the Christmas tree this week.)

The door to the right of the fireplace goes into Nathaniel Little's study. He is a music professor at the nearby college. When he comes home, he goes in here, puts on the gramophone or plays his violin, seen in case upper right, and reads the paper.

 

He is still waiting for the carpenter to finish the paneling on one of his walls. He has a Stickley desk.

Maybe you can stay for dinner. If you want to help, come in the dining room, and set the table. The cloth and dishes are in the cabinet. 

You can see Lily Little's music room beyond the end of the dining room where she gives piano lessons, takes care of her scorrespondence, and steals a minute to herself to read. (See below)

 

Note the William Morris wallpaper border in dining room. The rug for this room just arrived, but is not in photo.

Lily Little is in the kitchen cooking dinner -- a turkey (which is a bit tired and scarred, since I have had it for 60 odd years!) is in the oven because when these photos were taken, it was Thanksgiving time.  She is hoping to modernize this farmhouse kitchen someday, but meanwhile, it suffices. She has ordered a kitchen worktable. (The stove was a salesman sample of my husband's grandfather who sold stoves in the NC hills. His mother played with it as a child. I built the cupboards in 1981, and made the curtains.) It looks like a chocolate cake is being made on the Hoosier.

 

 

(There are a lot of items in the kitchen that were part of my childhood dollhouse--- the garbage can, the crackers box, the catsup, the chocolate cake, the rolling pin! I made Lily's dress out of an old handkerchief of my mother's. Old hankies are the BEST source of fabric for dollhouses.)

The last room on the first floor is the family breakfast room. The table is too big for it, and Lily has ordered a smaller one.The sun comes in the bay window at breakfast time. Somebody has left a game of Chinese Checkers on the table, and the remains of little Bitty's supper is there.

 

We will give you a tour of the upper floors next time, to see the bedrooms of Minnie, Bitty, Dolly, Tad and Mr. and Mrs. Little. And also a glimpse into the children's grandparents' house, the Petits, who live just across the street. They are in the process of getting some electricity in their home, where they live with Mr. Petit's elderly Mother Grandmere, and their youngest child Connie, a flapper about to get married.      Thanks for stopping by.

 So this is where my creative side has been working this month. But there are paintings strumming in my head. Will I find time this holiday month to paint? I hope so: I have to take some new work to the Lyme (NH) gallery because they have sold the two I had there, which is nice. I also took two pieces over to the Chaffee Art Center for their Winter member's Show of Smallworks. Busy busy time of year.