Emotional Highs

I was driving back from SC yesterday, listening to new music, after an emotional couple of days at work out of town. The light was low - that rare illumination immediately after a late spring sunset, when the sun is gone, but the reflection from clouds is still casting a warm glow over everything. I was overwhelmed with a feeling of time slowing, the moment suspended, as the trees and hills slowly rolled by on each side. This was one of those moments when I felt completely present, when the emotions were all aligned and the inner voices stilled. They're rare for me. I'm usually a dervish of ideas, music, images, intentions, readings of others around me, and struggles with whatever I'm currently suppressing or postponing. Time normally roars past like a storm, sandblasting memories and scouring my past so only isolated images are left.

And during that moment of stillness and wholeness I realized how hungry I am for moments like that. I was reconnected to a chain of them flowing back into my past, like the intermittent peaks of other mountains, in a long line into the distance, in the clear light above the racing storm clouds that obscure everything below. I recalled the long savoring of melancholy and artistic awe during many afternoons in college, either in the studio or in the poetry stacks. I remember afternoon breaks in the deserted cafeteria at Wachovia, looking west into the late afternoon sun from the ninth floor, writing a poetic setting of Jorinda and Joringle. I reviewed moments when I was suddenly still like a huge ear or a huge eye waiting quietly, and some event would happen and joy would spring up like a torch in my soul and set every part of me ablaze. I thought of many times lying awake holding Dearest, feeling that if I contained one more atom of joy I would explode into hot white particles of angelic song and divine laughter.

Like the highest peaks, though, we can't stay there long, and an hour further on my drive the light had changed, I was tired, and my hands ached from hours of steering and from weeks of keyboard tasks. I was content, comfortable, happy with what I have ahead of me, interested in my life and my work, pleasantly spent. Invested in the right things.

When I got home I carried my luggage into the garage, and noticed all the space. I wondered what car was missing, then froze as I realized the car was right there on the other side. Oldest had cleaned up the entire garage, and had swept. It looked terrific. It had been one of many neglected chores that weigh me down. I was grinning and grateful as I entered the house. He did it particularly for me, and I got that message.

Today while I replaced the attic fan motor, a job that has taken two weeks of gradual work and careful study to get the right parts, to loosen fasteners that stubbornly refused to turn, and considering the wiring options, Youngest took advantage of the clear garage floor to disassemble another motor, from an old electric weed trimmer. He always carefully wears eye protection for these jobs, and resorts less to the balpene than he did when he was younger. Though he's only ten, some of his tools, chosen in many cases on trips with me to home improvement stores and lumber yards, are better than mine, and he uses them with care and precision. Today we discussed the electrical field magnets, and the interesting springs he discovered in their assemblies. There is always something interesting going on in this house. In a few moments I will work with Daughter to hang venetian blinds in her windows.

The abstract at the top of this post is just play on the way to something else - I have no idea what, yet, though I think it will be human. It was fun to lose control of this piece, then regain it again... only to bury it partially under something else.

Life is very rich right now. And layered. Like baklava or lasagna.

I'm hungry - I wonder what I'm making for dinner tonight.

Blinds first...

Whirl, whirl, whirl. Wheeeeee!

Permissive Gardening and Wind

If you check the back of my figure drawing ticket with the ideas written on it, one of the ideas just says "The Wind."

This is what I started with, after a lot of drawing, erasing, and redrawing (click for larger image). The hard part was getting the figures placed and drawn enough, but not too much, and it took me the longest time to get the central tree's branches the way I wanted them. I'm still not sure I won't change them further.

Then I laid in some light washes, not being as finicky as usual. I expect this to end up in acrylics, so I can go back and touch things up as needed, and that means I can be loose now that I have the contour drawing to contain any chaos. I'll probably put down a lot more color, experimenting with values, foreground and background, and then move to acrylics. I think I'll push it too far, and then bring it back under control with the acrylics. That's the idea right now, anyway.

Yesterday we gardened (Dearest and I did too much, and we've been paying for it today with soreness and a little dehydration). But it was a beautiful afternoon today, and I put out Debbie (she's a spitting hippo) and added some company from the garden animals we haven't set out yet: the frog, and the toad Globose.

And the chicken. The chicken that talks to them all continuously. The chicken that Grenouille watched one entire afternoon to see if she ever stopped and took a breath. He said he couldn't be certain. This photo of the same four fountain friends, is from last year.

The title of this post mentions permissive gardening. That's my name for letting plants act out. Plants show up where they will, and while we move some, usually to prevent conflicts, others we leave be. One example is the way I mow around plants that have escaped from the flower beds - like these ox-eye daisies. The stone wall on the left is the edge of the bed; so the daisies are a good two to three feet out into the front lawn, heading for the street. I'll mow them later, when they stop blooming. Next year they will have traveled a few more feet.

I'm encouraging their road trip dreams.

Gotta Get to It

I'm thinking about my next paintings and realizing how much the human figure is getting into my artistic future. More and more I'm moved as never before by the human face and the human body in paintings and sculptures. I was looking at the blog of Annie Bissett, a print maker and deeply thoughtful artist, and her latest post made me realize how much I want to dream this same way, over allegories and the human condition, and use the figure in the resulting artwork. The Pagan Sphinx's series called The Friday Evening Nudes (more examples here, here, and here) has something to do with it, too. And so do my self portraits, where I get lost for a while in the complexity of a human face.

And then I went back to our photos of a weekend trip to VA Beach (two weekends ago - it seems like months ago...) and I was knocked out all over again by two artworks we saw on that trip. One is this Tiffany stained glass window in Saint Paul's church in Norfolk (the only structure in the city that survived the Revolutionary War - the British destroyed every other building). The church community's symbol is the phoenix - up from the ashes - and this window is of the three women at the tomb - the ultimate phoenix story. The way the light is handled in this, and the women's faces, poses, the relative ages of them, all so poignant and beautifully rendered and in glass. I think it's hard to do this in paint! Click on the image to see it closer.

And up top is the huge and powerful bronze of Neptune on the VA Beach boardwalk. We stayed three hotels down from this, and it drew me like a magnet when we got down on the boardwalk. In late afternoon light it's magnificent. This is a recent work, 2005, by a VA Beach based artist, Paul DiPasquale. I'm so glad I got to see it. And there is plenty of humor and fun in the animals all around it. Octopi, in particular, feature prominently, and they are rendered with more care, to my eye, than anything else on the sculpture.

So I've got to quit my on-line stuff now and jump into my next paintings. One from that list on the back of my figure card, and one with something figurative.

Birthday in May

So I celebrated my birthday late. It was supposed to be in April, but that didn't turn out to be convenient. But since it's actually in December (week before Christmas - such a dark and stressful time of year) and I moved it to April several years ago, I figure can have it whenever I want. Not my birthday - just my family's celebration of it. Hot dogs on the grill, eating outside, flowers in the gardens... After 40+ years of celebrating within days of the shortest day, I went for something different. So here we are in our "front room" which looks west to the afternoon sun, up our cul-de-sac. The circle is so often full of kids on wheels of some kind - skates, scooters, skateboards, bikes (with and without training wheels). It's amazing. Our street (our neighbors) are amazing. Hotdogs are on the grill off to the right, and we're getting them off as we eat them.

Here is my stack of presents from Dearest. She knows what kind of paper I like - colorful. We all like the animal paper - sold to us as part of a scout or school fund raiser by the boy next door. We carefully cut it off presents and re-use it on other presents. It makes favorite paper last a long time, getting smaller and smaller until they end their usefulness on a CD or a small toy... Other paper we rip! Well, some of us do.

This is what was inside. The Complete Paintings of Vincent Van Gogh and the Guide to Drawing the Head... Sometimes I like to let loose and paint like a child - other times I want to use technique I don't possess. This is to try for more of the latter. We'll see what happens. I'm impressed with the details I see in this book. The CDs are some expected and some surprises. I will stash these, since I'm still enjoying the newness of my Edward McKay heap. The lamp, a design from Provence, was a complete surprise.

Here's the lamp lit inside later in the evening. We're going to enjoy this in several settings, I think - inside and outside. The candle holder comes out the bottom, making it easy to light the candle and put in into the lamp without getting soot on the glass. It's a lovely design, and a pleasant surprise - something quite unexpected and I loved getting it.

And since my children say they no longer know my age, because I've confused myself and everyone else about it, I got "whatever" for the number of candles. Actually this very fudgy brownie (I'm not usually a chocolate dessert guy - but I've been craving this brownie recipe lately) was still pretty warm from the oven, and it would have melted the candles. So I got the birthday train (yay!) and that means six candles no matter what age you are.

For those who need to know these things, I was 48 last December.

In the evening we watched X-Men III. I love Ian Mckellen as Magneto, and he gets to chew up a lot of scenery in this movie. My favorite moment might be when he smiles and turns away after the woman locks the car door...

Napkin Lists

I end up writing on whatever I have with me. I also draw on napkins to explain things to people at the table... ask my friends and family.

This shows the back of my life drawing ticket. I ended up with six or seven painting ideas on it (that walk mentioned in this previous post). Now that I've posted the one I didn't want to hint at before it was done (the moon and birds) I can show this. This is the earliest germ of paintings I've ever shared here on-line - I'm curious to see what happens, if anything.

>>>> Appendix de Grenouille <<<<

Etienne should be painting now. But it is hot, and he and his cheri played in the dirt of the gardens for several hours this morning, and he is tired and feeling relaxed and happy. This leads to a healthful langour. This is a time when you should let the flies come to you, instead of hopping about trying to go to them.

His cheri, his companion in the garden and the one who wisely keeps him engaged there, is a lady of great sensitivity and wisdom, and she feels things deeply. The passing of the pansies (oui, I am among them in this illustration) will be too quick this year, because of the sudden onset of the heat, and she mourns this. It is one petit example of the passion and power of her soul, and part of what makes her an eternal fascination to Etienne. He is prone to still his heart and feel nothing, because it is easier, makes less trouble... but this makes him feel dead. And so the heart of his cheri is his most precious possession, and he is happier when she holds his, because she knows better what to do with it. To him, hers seems to move like a bird of paradise, with deeply colored plumage and long graceful sweeps of feathers and plumes, everything made real and vital and felt fully. She does not let go of things in fear or to keep life neat and simple. He does. Or he would, but she is there to hang on, and he cannot let go either if he wants to stay beside her... and there is nothing he wants more, so his courage is pressed into action, and he must feel what he must feel. This is difficult for him, but he much prefers it and knows he would not do it alone.

She makes him tres rich - while Etienne alone would be impoverished by his fears of life, of feelings, of loss, of change, of risk.

Moi, of course, I do not need this sort of help. I feel everything as it comes, preserve it for several slow amphibian beats, and then it rolls off my rounded back. My heart is very small, but it works well, merci. I never installed an off switch like Etienne says he has on his. So I am independent and resolute without a lady frog to help. Etienne says I do not know what I am missing, but, voila, my blood is cold while his is hot. It cannot be the same for grenouilles. And while I also mourn the passing of the pansies, it is mostly because they attract the most delicious, tres petit bees.

Birds

This is one of the images that came to me on that walk a few weeks ago, ideas for which I wrote on the back of my figure drawing ticket. This idea has been in my head a while, but it came back louder on that walk. It's simple, but it wasn't easy to paint and get what I wanted. I'm pretty happy with this.

19x19 watercolor. It's softer and a little more pink/violet in real life. Branches were all left white, then painted dark, leaving the highlights where I wanted them. Painting between the branches and leaving the soft influence of the glowing birds was the hard part, but it also led to the irregularities I like in this kind of painting. Some parts of this got seven or more layers of pigment, before I reached the color or value I wanted. The birds were assembled from dozens of photos, to get the different poses. I drew them all in a few hours a week ago. They're trickier than they look, too - we read so much into the figures, and the smallest mistakes on contour or angles make them look pretty terrible. I probably drew twice this many, but had to erase a lot and keep adding more until I got the number and movement I wanted.

Maybe tomorrow I can start on one of the other images from that walk. I did this one as a warm-up for the one I REALLY want to do. I might be ready to tackle that one next...

Tiny Still Lifes

When we were in the mountains last October we had one hike that Dearest and Oldest son wanted to take, but Daughter and Youngest son wanted to skip (quite tired already). So I hung around the parking area for the trail head, and the younger two stayed in the car and read books. While I hung around I took my camera and searched the ground for these little compositions in the fallen acorns. All of these are not cropped and not arranged- they're just how I found, framed and shot them at the time.

The oak leaves in this part of the Blue Ridge Parkway were oddly full of holes. It seemed only to affect the white oak group - white oak and chestnut oak, in particular.

Looking at these more than six months later, I'm not sure why I liked them so much. And I have the strong feeling that these could be turned into paintings, but I would sharpen up the compositions and motion in each. It's some measure of where I've traveled internally in those six months. Then I got an itch from these as I saw them - now I have a feeling how I could scratch that itch if I chose.

And I have a feeling that another six months would find me somewhere else. While the differences probably seem subtle to others, and my work might seem pretty similar in style to observers, to me the changes are larger, feeling like some kind of drift in taste or in internal fashion.