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

April

I wish winter and snow would just take a final bow and get off the stage. After the April Fool snowstorm, we had yet another day of the white wet stuff on April 5th. Fortunately, it was mixed off and on with rain, so the end result was probably less snow on the ground than when it started. This will make Amy Huyffer happy, who with her husband runs the organic creamery up here in Strafford. She says her cows (with the new calves coming in one by one) are longing to get out and eat some grass. I think there is more snow in our little village than anywhere else in the Upper Valley.


Across the street, which is south facing, I begin to see patches of bare ground dotting the hills, bigger every day. Not so for us, but the snow is starting to shrink away from the tree trunks and the pond egress, and the driveway is bare for the first time since before Christmas. The pile by the front door is down to about 6 feet high. Soon I will hear the waterfall which runs with runoff until mid summer. Being born and bred in New Jersey, traditionally April is when I expect to see crocus and daffodils, when lawns and gardens get raked out and fertilized, and color graces the yards with forsythia and other early blooming shrubs. Not so here. I wrote a poem for this time of year back in 2003 when we invaded Iraq, which is appropriate for this spring as well.

  March 20, 2003

The earth turns under winter-weary snow,

thrusts off its white, wind-carved quilts

and stretches

to the warmth of lengthened days.

Welcomed home

by still sleepy voices of brooks and ponds,

winter’s watery leftovers serpentine down

through snow on softened hills.

The season shifts,

as the world trembles,

and I stand in wonder

that at such a time

Spring can come again.

At least the discouraging weather (and my delightful lack of commitments this week) gives me lots of time to paint. I have three pieces going -- one is probably the last winter piece I will do this year, a  winter farm scene of hay bales in a barn, which I think is working out well. I am laying on layer after layer of color, and concentrating on composition and lights and darks. I wish it would dry faster--- if it did this is one I think I could have done alla prima, because I painted over an old painting, so there was a good base already there. This is an argument for switching to water-based oils, but the financial outlay in paints would be enormous. I cannot seem to get good photos of the work I am doing (for instance the snow is not flat white, but variated), but here it is, best as I can do.

Still Smelling of Dusty Summer   30 x 24  oil on canvas with tissue underlay 

I was also reworking a seascape, but it is still not working and may go to the paint over pile. And I started my first spring piece of the year-- forsythias!  If I can't see them here in April, I can at least paint them. I did a whole series of forsythia paintings some years back, such as this one which was framed later as a triptych. They have all sold except for one tiny one of which I have no photo.

"Forsythia x Three"  18 1/2 x 6  framed, oil on canvas with tissue underlay 

Now that I am painting regularly again, I decided I better get working on having a show or two. I just contracted to have another show at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center Rubin Glass Hallway, my most favorite alternative place to show up here. The woman in charge dispensed with the application since I was already vetted when I had a show there back in 2006, right after my mother died. I do not know when it will be, probably not until 2013. I would like to get something else lined up for early next year if possible, but not sure where yet.  

Like Grass Under the Wind

I received a Facebook friend request this week from a retired teacher in York, ME where the writer May Sarton spent her last 20 years, thanking me for starting the May Sarton page on FB. There is going to be a big celebration for what would have been her 100th birthday up there in 2012, and I intend to go. As well as working in the studio, I have been dipping into her poetry recently. Her journals, for which she is arguably best known, have nourished and sustained me over the years, but her poetry, for which she most wanted to be remembered, can also at times be well worth a read. Her poetry is uneven -- she is no Mary Oliver: I think one of the problems I have is that I do not really like contemporary poetry that rhymes. But she weaves nature, art and love into her work, and this one spoke to me today. I am sure she was thinking in terms of writing, but to me, it applies to painting as well:


Composition
by May Sarton 


Here is the pond, here sky, and the long grasses
That lean over the water, a slow ripple
Under the slightest wandering air that passes
To shift the scene, translating flat to stipple
On still blue water and troubling green masses.


Three elements are spaced and subtly joined
To rest the restless mind and lift us where
Nothing in us is baffled or constrained,
Who wake and sleep as casual as they are,
And contain earth, and water, and the wind.


Take blue; take green; take pale gold sand;
Take the slow changing shimmer of the air;
Take a huge sky above a steadfast land;
Take love, the tiger ocean in its lair,
and gentle it like grass under the wind. 

It reminded me of a number of paintings I have done of grasses over water, with a blue and ochre palette, such as this one, sold a few years back. 

"Salt Marsh"  12" x  12" oil on canvas

 And this one is  is just as it is here now. She lived in Maine, and thus had the same lack of traditional spring as do we here in Vermont. But we treasure the changes that do appear about this time of year, tantalizing little promises . . .  the returning songbirds, the activity in the hives, the whisper of spring on the forsythia and willow bushes, the seasonal shift in light and the longer days ... 

March Mad
by May Sarton 


The strangely radiant skies have come
to lift us out of our winter's gloom,
A paler, more transparent blue,
A softer gold light on fresh snow.
It is a naked time that bares
Our slightly worn-down hopes and cares,
And sets us listening for frogs,
And sends us to seed catalogues
To bury our starved eyes and noses
In an extravagance of roses.
And order madly at this season 
When we have had enough of reason. 

Daughters

The portrait is finished, and the mother of the girl seems very happy with it. What else can I ask for: who knows better whether what I have created captures the essence, the joy, of this daughter, than her mother. Below is the finished piece, not looking just like the photo, because apparently the photo had somehow elongated and narrowed her face.  

Lily

Someday I would like to do a serious painting of my own lovely daughter. Here is a poem I came across this week, about daughters, that resonated with me. 


Prayer for Our Daughters

by Mark Jarman

May they never be lonely at parties
Or wait for mail from people they haven't written
Or still in middle age ask God for favors
Or forbid their children things they were never forbidden.

May hatred be like a habit they never developed
And can't see the point of, like gambling or heavy drinking.
If they forget themselves, may it be in music
Or the kind of prayer that makes a garden of thinking.

May they enter the coming century
Like swans under a bridge into enchantment
And take with them enough of this century
To assure their grandchildren it really happened.

May they find a place to love, without nostalgia
For some place else that they can never go back to.
And may they find themselves, as we have found them,
Complete at each stage of their lives, each part they add to.

May they be themselves, long after we've stopped watching.
May they return from every kind of suffering
(Except the last, which doesn't bear repeating)
And be themselves again, both blessed and blessing.

___________________ 

I had a call from CMS, the arts showroom in New Jersey where I just took my work, telling me they think they have sold the giclee I brought them, "White on White." That was fast, hope it is a good omen.


And I have had conversations this week with an artist friend (who happens to be Nelson Rockefeller's daughter and is a lovely woman) who is involved with the Vermont Studio Center. Founded by artists in 1984, the Studio Center is the largest international artists' and writers' Residency Program in the United States, hosting 50 visual artists and writers each month from across the country and around the world. If accepted to receive a studio residency, you go for two to 12 weeks to the  historic 30-building campus along the Gihon River in Johnson, Vermont, a village in the heart of the northern Green Mountains up here. You live in one of many farmhouses on the campus in a private room, get all your meals, and are given a private studio in which to work. There are often writers and artists who come to lecture, and much give and take between the artists in the program when you are. I think it sounds like heaven. I told her I would be interested in doing it in November, or January-March of next year, times when I am just as happy not to be here. She seemed to think I would have no problem getting in the program, especially if I do not apply for a scholarship, which I would not. I am seriously thinking about it. Of course when I would REALLY have liked to do this would have been back in the day when I was juggling home, family and job, with NEVER any time to paint. But even now, the thought of that block of time with no meals to plan or cook, no one to think about except myself, no TV, no noise, no obligations, no responsibilities except to myself, and with my own studio, wow. I wish my son in law could come with me. (But I don;t wish that upon my daughter!)


Meanwhile, with the portrait completed, I am free to work stress free in my studio, and cannot wait to begin! I plan to get about three pieces going at once. Tomorrow!! 

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.

Perfection

Something we need to think about whenever we create.
 
Perfection 
by Kilian McDonnell

("I will walk the way of perfection." Psalm 101:2)

I have had it with perfection.
I have packed my bags,
I am out of here.
Gone.

As certain as rain
will make you wet,
perfection will do you
in.

It droppeth not as dew
upon the summer grass
to give liberty and green
joy.

Perfection straineth out
the quality of mercy,
withers rapture at its
birth.

Before the battle is half begun,
cold probity thinks
it can't be won, concedes the
war.

I've handed in my notice,
given back my keys,
signed my severance check, I
quit.

Hints I could have taken:
Even the perfect chiseled form of
Michelangelo's radiant David
squints,

the Venus de Milo
has no arms,
the Liberty Bell is
cracked.

Art Sanctuary, a Poem

Art Sanctuary

by Nikki Giovanni

I would always choose to be the person running
rather than the mob chasing
I would prefer to be the person laughed at
rather than the teenagers laughing
I always admired the men and women who sat down
for their rights
And held in disdain the men and women who spat
on them
Everyone deserves Sanctuary a place to go where you are
safe
Art offers Sanctuary to everyone willing
to open their hearts as well as their eyes

Portrait Problems and a Poem

I used to do a lot of portrait commissions, but have backed away from them in recent years in favor of less detailed work, and a looser painting style.

Sara

I sat in my studio this afternoon looking at a portrait I started several years ago and never finished. The problems I had with it and guilt I had over not completing it are part of the reason I stopped painting for a while: every time I would enter my studio, there it would be, reminding me of my failure. Normally I do not find portraits such a challenge at all --  I have had quite a bit of success with them, a few examples are shown here. 

Greta 

Why does the one I am revisiting in my studio, of a young girl at that beautiful time of life, just entering her teen years, cause so much trouble for me? The answer is simple--- the photographs. Without good photographs, a portrait artist can do nothing but fail. And in spite of repeated requests from the formal photographer who refused to give me anything but minute, non-enlargeable copies of the images I needed, and from the family who just did not have the right photos, I ended up with nothing that really worked. What is needed for a portrait are photos which 1) even if for a full length portrait, include head shots that are not too small and are very clear images; 2) reflect the accurate color of eyes, hair, skin tone; 3) include clear distinction between pupil and iris in eyes; 4) be correctly lighted, in sharp focus, and not be washed out; 5) for head portraits, not be straight head-on shots with no shadows on the face –some shadow is needed for definition.

I have procrastinated all I can by cleaning my studio, deciding I needed to order more supplies, and working on some other incomplete paintings. But now, it is time for the portrait. I really need to complete this very overdue, cold and paint-dry painting, and NOW. The painting is dead-ended, and I need to bring it to life, but I am finding it an overwhelmingly difficult job.  I first covered it with a thin layer of medium, just to bring back the original colors. Then I begin work on the easy parts--- hair, background, etc. but  eventually, the artist takes over, and I have rebegun work on the face. It is still terrible, but I think maybe I will get it this time around if I use a looser, more impressionistic style. I hope this will be acceptable to the family.

I am in the midst of some preliminary discussions with a high-end gallery in New Jersey which caters to the interior design trade. The owner seems to be interested in handling some of my buildingscapes and landscapes. Wish me luck on both endeavors.

And here is a poem I came upon today in another artist's blog which I liked a lot. if you change desk to studio in the final line, it is a  very fitting poem for an artist. 

What to Remember  When Waking
by David Whyte © 1999 Many Rivers Press 

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the waiting desk? 

Somewhere in the World

Sometimes I will print a poem that catches my eye or ear here, to share.


Somewhere in the World

by Linda Pastan

Somewhere in the world
something is happening
which will make its slow way here.

A cold front will come to destroy
the camellias, or perhaps it will be
a heat wave to scorch them.

A virus will move without passport
or papers to find me as I shake
a hand or kiss a cheek.

Somewhere a small quarrel
has begun, a few overheated words
ignite a conflagration,

and the smell of smoke
is on its way;
the smell of war.

Wherever I go I knock on wood—
on tabletops or tree trunks.
I rinse my hands over and over again;

I scan the newspapers
and invent alarm codes which are not
my husband's birthdate or my own.

But somewhere something is happening
against which there is no planning, only
those two aging conspirators, Hope and Luck.