Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Bear Island revisited
I thought I'd follow up yesterday's post with a few of the paintings I made last week on Bear Island. The first is a small view of the very end of a point I love, looking toward the neighboring island, which I also love, on the only day any blue was to be seen either in ocean or sky:
Next, the island boathouse with the very edge of the dock showing over on the left, and the beachstone road heading off to the rest of the island on the right:
One dripping foggy day so I took refuge on a porch, and painted the view out the screen door. The fog was brightening, and the green outside was very soft and vivid:
Once the morning rain was so heavy that I was stranded inside for several hours, and ended up painting the interior of my rental cottage. The woodstove, for which I was very thankful, and the view down a step into the tiny camp kitchen:
One more, a pocket beach at low tide (inaccessible at high tide, although you can look into it from above). This is part of the beach that used to be one of the island dumps, so the sea glass here is often magnificent. And the blue mussel shells always are. I think of this as treasure beach:
That's it, for now. Before I went to Bear, I finally purchased a digital camera - a nice little refurbished Nikon - it's a gem and is making it much easier to photograph my paintings as I make them. So I'll be adding more folders of work, and rearranging things in general, on my painting website soon.
I photographed a lot of work today, but really, this day was all about weeding the garden. I mean to say, where did those three-foot-high thistles come from? Well, at least the onion tops are also three feet high. I read more Constable, too, as a reward for all the hard work outside. He offers good advice about presenting oneself to the world (p.160):
"Take care that you launch your boat at the appointed time, and fearlessly appear before the world in a tangible shape. It is the only way to be cured of idle vapours and useless fastidiousness."
No fussing allowed, in other words. Be who you are. Advice I've been trying to follow all my life.
Next, the island boathouse with the very edge of the dock showing over on the left, and the beachstone road heading off to the rest of the island on the right:
One dripping foggy day so I took refuge on a porch, and painted the view out the screen door. The fog was brightening, and the green outside was very soft and vivid:
Once the morning rain was so heavy that I was stranded inside for several hours, and ended up painting the interior of my rental cottage. The woodstove, for which I was very thankful, and the view down a step into the tiny camp kitchen:
One more, a pocket beach at low tide (inaccessible at high tide, although you can look into it from above). This is part of the beach that used to be one of the island dumps, so the sea glass here is often magnificent. And the blue mussel shells always are. I think of this as treasure beach:
That's it, for now. Before I went to Bear, I finally purchased a digital camera - a nice little refurbished Nikon - it's a gem and is making it much easier to photograph my paintings as I make them. So I'll be adding more folders of work, and rearranging things in general, on my painting website soon.I photographed a lot of work today, but really, this day was all about weeding the garden. I mean to say, where did those three-foot-high thistles come from? Well, at least the onion tops are also three feet high. I read more Constable, too, as a reward for all the hard work outside. He offers good advice about presenting oneself to the world (p.160):
"Take care that you launch your boat at the appointed time, and fearlessly appear before the world in a tangible shape. It is the only way to be cured of idle vapours and useless fastidiousness."
No fussing allowed, in other words. Be who you are. Advice I've been trying to follow all my life.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
What I did on my summer vacation
I can't let an entire month slip past in the fog without writing something here; old habits die hard, it seems. I just returned from a week on Bear Island - from one of my now-annual painting trips. This island is small, remote, rustic, quiet, terribly beautiful, and extrememly low-tech. As in, no running water, not much electricity (a few of the houses have some solar capabilities), outhouses, etc. No distractions, in other words, except for the tremendous natural scene which leaves me looking and looking and looking at every turn, and which serves as the ultimate distraction. Everything else falls away before it. I painted through the rain and fog which enshrouded the island for much of the week. I made use of covered porches on a few buildings, and open doorways, but mostly I was able to work outside between periods of precipitation. Here's a painting just barely sketched out - this is the harbor house, from my seat on the island dock:
I have my guerrilla painting kit there - just a palette loaded with paint, in a plastic case, and a waterproof bag with brushes and paint rags, and my raincoat to sit on. I also made some watercolors, again with a simple kit - enamel paint pan, water bottle, a favorite brush, a plastic bag to sit on or cover things up if necessary. After the relative intensity of oil painting, the watercolors are relaxing and fruitful - I love using them to feel out the contours of the land, and take note of the colors right in front of me. Pure color on white paper is a luxurious thing:
Weather aside - though I must mention that a friend asked me if I had moss growing on my north side, when I returned - I was truly happy in this environment. I sat and watched the fog come and go up and down the bay, for hours. Stunning. I mean, look at it:
By week's end I had completed thirteen oils and a handful of watercolors. I took a few books with me, also, just for some company (I was alone much of the week, both in my cabin and on the island in general). A dear 1950s British reprint of the Memoirs of the Life of John Constable continues to be a joy (thank you, Antony...), and I found reading it akin to reading a lost Jane Austen novel, what with his prolonged and beleaguered courtship, the moving love letters between himself and his betrothed, his struggles with the artistic status quo, his love of the natural landscape of his boyhood, and his determination to paint what he wanted to paint how he wanted to paint it. Much of the book is comprised of direct quotations from his letters, and letters from his friends to him. Fascinating and immediate stuff. On painting scenes he loves (p.86):
"As long as I do paint, I shall never cease to paint such places. They have always been my delight.... I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling..."
His feelings about nature and landscape painting ran deep at a time when the genre was practically nonexistent - other painters around him, in academic circles, were painting landscape by rote and imagination and sheer copying, not from direct observation in and of itself, as a complete subject. As a companion book to Constable, I also re-read much of Charles Hawthorne's Hawthorne on Painting (reprinted by Dover). Hawthorne conducted a plein air painting school in Provincetown for many years. This little book of instruction is a precious gem to me. Every time I revisit it, I find something relevant and new (p.19):
"Painting is a matter of impulse, it is a matter of getting out to nature and having some joy in registering it."
Which is just what I tried to do. I got out there. And the joy was surely present. I just hope it shows in my paintings, too.
I have my guerrilla painting kit there - just a palette loaded with paint, in a plastic case, and a waterproof bag with brushes and paint rags, and my raincoat to sit on. I also made some watercolors, again with a simple kit - enamel paint pan, water bottle, a favorite brush, a plastic bag to sit on or cover things up if necessary. After the relative intensity of oil painting, the watercolors are relaxing and fruitful - I love using them to feel out the contours of the land, and take note of the colors right in front of me. Pure color on white paper is a luxurious thing:
Weather aside - though I must mention that a friend asked me if I had moss growing on my north side, when I returned - I was truly happy in this environment. I sat and watched the fog come and go up and down the bay, for hours. Stunning. I mean, look at it:
By week's end I had completed thirteen oils and a handful of watercolors. I took a few books with me, also, just for some company (I was alone much of the week, both in my cabin and on the island in general). A dear 1950s British reprint of the Memoirs of the Life of John Constable continues to be a joy (thank you, Antony...), and I found reading it akin to reading a lost Jane Austen novel, what with his prolonged and beleaguered courtship, the moving love letters between himself and his betrothed, his struggles with the artistic status quo, his love of the natural landscape of his boyhood, and his determination to paint what he wanted to paint how he wanted to paint it. Much of the book is comprised of direct quotations from his letters, and letters from his friends to him. Fascinating and immediate stuff. On painting scenes he loves (p.86):"As long as I do paint, I shall never cease to paint such places. They have always been my delight.... I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling..."
His feelings about nature and landscape painting ran deep at a time when the genre was practically nonexistent - other painters around him, in academic circles, were painting landscape by rote and imagination and sheer copying, not from direct observation in and of itself, as a complete subject. As a companion book to Constable, I also re-read much of Charles Hawthorne's Hawthorne on Painting (reprinted by Dover). Hawthorne conducted a plein air painting school in Provincetown for many years. This little book of instruction is a precious gem to me. Every time I revisit it, I find something relevant and new (p.19):
"Painting is a matter of impulse, it is a matter of getting out to nature and having some joy in registering it."
Which is just what I tried to do. I got out there. And the joy was surely present. I just hope it shows in my paintings, too.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Island Artists exhibit
I just delivered two large (for me) paintings to the Courthouse Gallery Fine Art in Ellsworth, Maine, for a group exhibit opening on the 14th of June. The exhibit is entitled Island Artists: Fairfield Porter, Eliot Porter, the Porter Family, and the Great Spruce Head Island Art Week Artists and Poets. The Porters summered and still summer on this beautiful island in Penobscot Bay, and several years ago I was somehow lucky enough to attend their annual retreat for artists and writers. The experience was tremendous and still continues to resonate. This fine gallery has put together a curated retrospective about the island and its continuing influence on artists of all kinds.
So here are my two paintings - this first one is Double Beaches, Great Spruce Head Island, and measures 40" x 56". The view is of the west side of the double beaches, looking to the north at the other end of the island, and the mainland beyond:
The second is Path to the Double Beaches, measuring 38" x 48", and showing one of the many island pathways. Eliot Porter designed much of the trail system on the island, and it is still maintained by the family and checked on by the Nature Conservancy. In many places the spruce trees are encroaching and thick, and the feeling on some of these paths is of a decidedly eerie closeness:
So, there they are. I submitted smaller works too (most of my paintings are 18" x 24" or smaller), but these are the ones the curators chose. I made them this size because I wanted something I felt I could walk straight into. For me, they represent a bigness of feeling. Around sixty artists are in this exhibit - some I know well and many I've never met, so I'm looking forward to the opening, and to the accompanying poetry reading at the gallery in July. This island is a very special place (how special? read Eliot Porter's beautiful book Summer Island: Penobscot Country, Sierra Club Books 1966, one of my very favorite books about Maine, and find out for yourself), and I can't wait to see more representations of it.
So here are my two paintings - this first one is Double Beaches, Great Spruce Head Island, and measures 40" x 56". The view is of the west side of the double beaches, looking to the north at the other end of the island, and the mainland beyond:
The second is Path to the Double Beaches, measuring 38" x 48", and showing one of the many island pathways. Eliot Porter designed much of the trail system on the island, and it is still maintained by the family and checked on by the Nature Conservancy. In many places the spruce trees are encroaching and thick, and the feeling on some of these paths is of a decidedly eerie closeness:
So, there they are. I submitted smaller works too (most of my paintings are 18" x 24" or smaller), but these are the ones the curators chose. I made them this size because I wanted something I felt I could walk straight into. For me, they represent a bigness of feeling. Around sixty artists are in this exhibit - some I know well and many I've never met, so I'm looking forward to the opening, and to the accompanying poetry reading at the gallery in July. This island is a very special place (how special? read Eliot Porter's beautiful book Summer Island: Penobscot Country, Sierra Club Books 1966, one of my very favorite books about Maine, and find out for yourself), and I can't wait to see more representations of it.Thursday, May 28, 2009
Maine in May
Now that May is nearly over, I find I need to make a list of the things that have brought me a particular bright joy this month, and as I do so, I see that most of them are country pleasures, still not used to living outside the city as I am, even after nearly two years: rain-drenched lilacs, violets in the grass, carpets of wild strawberry blossoms, three lady's slippers that Ryan spotted near a place we walk often (creamy white with faint pink veins - I haven't seen one since I was a child, and here are three), on a later walk in the same place a red fox trotting along the verge, back at home a few tentative wild turkeys crossing the yard, robins nesting in the cedars outside our kitchen door, onions sprouting their long green tops in tidy grids in the garden, down the street at the beach harbor seals lolling on seaweed-covered rocks as the tide falls, on the way home a red cardinal singing on a gray gravel driveway.
It seems that spring has been slower coming and more lush and green this year than in the past. Probably because I'm outside noticing small changes every day, and now the leaves are in full leaf and we've mowed the lawn four times already, and most of the garden is planted. And I've been out looking hard at the details, painting some of them, and afterwards, sitting in the sun reading more Ronald Blythe books, and day-dreaming. I'm nearly through his third Wormingford collection, Borderland (Black Dog Books 2005), and I see that his thoughts about a certain kind of spring day run parallel to mine (p.181):
"Once outside it is virtually impossible to go in again. All I want to do is lie where the sun can touch me. It reminds me of sprawling above the Atlantic in Cornwall when I was a teenager and becoming mesmerised by the blue tumult below, the regular biff of the water on rock, the crying seabirds, the hot sward, the thinking, 'Why ever go home? Why go anywhere?'"
On this side of the Atlantic, I could say the same. Oh, wait - this is home. (**glee**)
It seems that spring has been slower coming and more lush and green this year than in the past. Probably because I'm outside noticing small changes every day, and now the leaves are in full leaf and we've mowed the lawn four times already, and most of the garden is planted. And I've been out looking hard at the details, painting some of them, and afterwards, sitting in the sun reading more Ronald Blythe books, and day-dreaming. I'm nearly through his third Wormingford collection, Borderland (Black Dog Books 2005), and I see that his thoughts about a certain kind of spring day run parallel to mine (p.181):
"Once outside it is virtually impossible to go in again. All I want to do is lie where the sun can touch me. It reminds me of sprawling above the Atlantic in Cornwall when I was a teenager and becoming mesmerised by the blue tumult below, the regular biff of the water on rock, the crying seabirds, the hot sward, the thinking, 'Why ever go home? Why go anywhere?'"
On this side of the Atlantic, I could say the same. Oh, wait - this is home. (**glee**)
Thursday, May 07, 2009
art, books, and bliss
I had a lovely day visiting in Brunswick with my sister Emily last week. She lives near Bowdoin College, and we spent some time walking around visiting her favorite spots on campus. The Bowdoin Museum of Art has an exhibit right now called New York Cool (an appropriate play on words re New York School artists and writers), and one of the best things there is a collaborative series by artist Norman Bluhm and poet Frank O'Hara - abstract gouaches with poem fragments written in to complement them. I also love the immense Helen Frankenthaler painting, a big target painting by Kenneth Noland (who I don't usually respond to in a positive way, particularly, but this one has real presence and even beauty in it), a vibrant abstract Robert Goodnough painting that reminds me of nothing as much as shelves of books, and a big black Louise Nevelson sculpture that gives me chills and makes me think of the phrase dark matter. Lots to see there, some great, some not so much - the show is up through mid-July.
Next we wandered over to Hubbard Hall, the original library building. Em wanted to show me a room there. Unfortunately the room was closed, but the good news is we could peek through portholes in the double doors and see inside anyway. And what a room it is! The Susan Dwight Bliss Room, which houses the Susan Dwight Bliss Collection of Fine Bindings, among other things. Including antique French walnut woodwork and a sixteenth-century ceiling from a Neapolitan palazzo. Sigh. Truly a booklover's fantasy library come to life, and come to rest in Maine.
That was all very nice, but what really stopped me in my tracks was what I saw and read upon first entering the building. We didn't then know Hubbard Hall was the old library (the books are now housed elsewhere except for a few special collections), but we surmised as much when we read a large stone plaque on the wall in the entryway, which states the following:
"Books are not absolutely dead things but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are. / Who reads and reads / and does not what / he knows / is one that ploughs / and ploughs / and never sows."
The accompanying plaque reads, in part:
"This hall dedicated to truth and to books as the depositaries and teachers of truth is a gift to Bowdoin College from Thomas H. Hubbard Class of 1857 and his Wife..."
Reminders of some things we love (books, truth...). Then we walked across the quad and looked up at the window of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's room, when he was a student here. A small plaque on the exterior wall identifies it. And next, the sunlight through the stained-glass windows in the chapel, and some magnolias in flower on the way home. A day of art and books and sympathetic conversation. Bliss-full.
Next we wandered over to Hubbard Hall, the original library building. Em wanted to show me a room there. Unfortunately the room was closed, but the good news is we could peek through portholes in the double doors and see inside anyway. And what a room it is! The Susan Dwight Bliss Room, which houses the Susan Dwight Bliss Collection of Fine Bindings, among other things. Including antique French walnut woodwork and a sixteenth-century ceiling from a Neapolitan palazzo. Sigh. Truly a booklover's fantasy library come to life, and come to rest in Maine.
That was all very nice, but what really stopped me in my tracks was what I saw and read upon first entering the building. We didn't then know Hubbard Hall was the old library (the books are now housed elsewhere except for a few special collections), but we surmised as much when we read a large stone plaque on the wall in the entryway, which states the following:
"Books are not absolutely dead things but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are. / Who reads and reads / and does not what / he knows / is one that ploughs / and ploughs / and never sows."
The accompanying plaque reads, in part:
"This hall dedicated to truth and to books as the depositaries and teachers of truth is a gift to Bowdoin College from Thomas H. Hubbard Class of 1857 and his Wife..."
Reminders of some things we love (books, truth...). Then we walked across the quad and looked up at the window of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's room, when he was a student here. A small plaque on the exterior wall identifies it. And next, the sunlight through the stained-glass windows in the chapel, and some magnolias in flower on the way home. A day of art and books and sympathetic conversation. Bliss-full.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
and now for something completely different
My pals Mike and Dan, otherwise known as the Flannery Brothers, have a children's media company and are currently finalists in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest - congratulations, guys! Their great children's song about collecting is called One Wasn't Enough (we can identify with this, can't we), and I encourage people to listen to it and then register and vote here, under the children's category. Warning - the song is very catchy and it will be stuck in your head for a while after you listen - especially as you look around at all your stuff. Voting continues for the next week only; people can cast one vote per day if so inclined. Good luck, guys - rock on!
Friday, April 17, 2009
why i am not a novelist
A lovely spring day here in Maine. In the morning I went outside to paint for a few hours and it was heaven. I've been struggling for the past few weeks while working indoors, so to be out painting from life again, looking out to sea, was just what I needed. What does this have to do with not writing novels? Nothing, except it had me thinking about creative endeavour in general, and I recently read, back-to-back, Housekeeping (Macmillan 1980) and Gilead (FSG 2004, 2005 Pulitzer-winner) by Marilynne Robinson. They both made me realize that I do not have what it takes to be the kind of novelist I would want to be, were I to be a novelist. (That is to say, the Marilynne Robinson kind.) Holy mackerel, her style and her stories are heartbreakingly wonderful. Beautiful sentences had me thinking, How...? How did she...? Who could think of that...? Of course I was happy to find bookish bits within each novel, too, such as this, from the main character in Gilead (p.39):
"...I've developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by far, than I learned anything useful from, except, of course, that some very tedious gentlemen have written books. This is not a new insight, but the truth of it is something you have to experience to fully grasp."
Interesting realization about Gilead, after I read it - it takes the same form as another novel I love, Mark Helprin's Memoir from Antproof Case - that of a relatively old man who became a father late in life, running out of time for one reason and another, hence writing down his life history and instructions to his young son, a boy he will certainly never see become a grown man. Thus the story unfolds as the main character decides how much to tell, and when to tell it. Of course there are differences: Helprin gives us a picaresque world-wide adventurer, and Robinson, a quiet home-town preacher. But still, a very interesting way to tell a story.
In Housekeeping, the ending is hard and sad and I'm not sure if I am relieved for the main character or not. Either way, her fate is difficult. But In Gilead, Robinson allows the black sheep character to turn out ok, mostly, and it's frankly a wonderful relief, because I was expecting disaster the entire time, for everybody involved. All in all, it was a pleasure to read a major-award-winning novel I actually love (the past few years I have been underwhelmed, to say the least, whenever I've attempted such a thing).
So there it is. I now know I am not a novelist because I cannot be Marilynne Robinson. Luckily, I am a painter instead. And a writer of - what - something other than near-perfect novels.
"...I've developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by far, than I learned anything useful from, except, of course, that some very tedious gentlemen have written books. This is not a new insight, but the truth of it is something you have to experience to fully grasp."
Interesting realization about Gilead, after I read it - it takes the same form as another novel I love, Mark Helprin's Memoir from Antproof Case - that of a relatively old man who became a father late in life, running out of time for one reason and another, hence writing down his life history and instructions to his young son, a boy he will certainly never see become a grown man. Thus the story unfolds as the main character decides how much to tell, and when to tell it. Of course there are differences: Helprin gives us a picaresque world-wide adventurer, and Robinson, a quiet home-town preacher. But still, a very interesting way to tell a story.
In Housekeeping, the ending is hard and sad and I'm not sure if I am relieved for the main character or not. Either way, her fate is difficult. But In Gilead, Robinson allows the black sheep character to turn out ok, mostly, and it's frankly a wonderful relief, because I was expecting disaster the entire time, for everybody involved. All in all, it was a pleasure to read a major-award-winning novel I actually love (the past few years I have been underwhelmed, to say the least, whenever I've attempted such a thing).
So there it is. I now know I am not a novelist because I cannot be Marilynne Robinson. Luckily, I am a painter instead. And a writer of - what - something other than near-perfect novels.
