End Of Summer I just had a delightful lunch with Steve Freitch. He and his family spend part of the summer in my old friend Edie's farm house. Edie had to sell it after many years of living there and writing copious books about life in the country and living in the old farmhouse called Mary's Farm. She also wrote for years for Yankee Magazine. Steve and I met several years ago at a Waldorf Music event at an old estate in Dublin. Steve and I connect through the love of the arts. He has been a practicing artist. He and Nancy live in Baltimore where he worked for years for an artist of some repute. Hence he gave up pursuing his own art though he is in the process of building a studio at the farm house. Now retired, he deals in other peoples' art making gobs of money. It was a great time over lunch. We talked art the entire time. That's so refreshing for me as I truly have so little of that around here. He seemed excited to see where my work had recently gone with the VL Series. While looking at the one with the Frozen Charlottes, he suggested turning the porcelain dolls around so they are facing away from the viewer. Bingo. It took the piece to a whole other level. Secretive and mysterious. I felt the same excitement as I did when I implanted the empty black box into the panel instead of another antique box. Much more evocative. I think Steve was so right that turning the dolls around made the piece so much less obvious. It makes one wonder what the piece is saying about people. Are they just representing the spirits of the people who lived in the landscapes long ago? Are they unable to communicate because they are long gone. Just reminders of who they were?

Summertime

Spring just flew by. I can barely remember it it seems so long ago. We had a tremendous amount of rain so there was little chance to garden. This week, the first week of August, I did my first gardening but it was mostly comprised of weeding. No vegetables as the deer eat them just as they are ready to harvest. Plus my Hostas just as they are about to bloom.
It has been a wonderful summer filled with long hours and days in the studio. I have nearly finished 6 pieces in the Vanishing Landscape Series. The 2 last ones are more white than the previous ones which are more of the Renaissance palette.  The subject matter is more about the stones and stone pillars of New England and other parts of the world that I love. LD and I spent hours creating a video about my process of painting and constructing paintings. My first video posted on YouTube.

I have almost finished the book, Chalk. A biography about Cy Twombly. His bravery to paint whatever he chose has been inspiring for me.The same with the Agnes Martin book I finished previously. Both artists absolutely followed their own path often with disdain from others. Their stories have encouraged me to return to the Vanishing Landscape paintings, drilling holes, inserting boxes along with spontaneous landscapes. Having finally separated myself from the chains of gold....the desire to sell...I am freed up to paint from the heart.  I always do my best work then.  Case in point....I sold the piece that got juried into the FAM Annual show in Fitchburg, MA. Very curious who purchased it.

Vanishing Landscape X, 60x48 inches

Oils, CWM, antique box inserted into panel.

Empty Boxes 2019

It's the end of May and cold, wet and dreary. Even the cat returned early from his morning border patrol duty of the property. Now he is lying in front of the fire cleaning the twigs and leaves from his wet fur. I retrieved my winter fur lined boots from the closet in order to warm up my feet. I felt it was a good day to stay out of the studio and let things 'gel' as I like to call it. I have so many large works in process that I can barely fit into the room. Hopefully some will go out soon to juried shows and then I can start two more even larger pieces. I guess reading the Agnes Martin Biography this winter had a large impact on me. After she abandoned NYC at the height of her career in the 60's and went to NM to live a solitary life on top of a mesa, she proceeded to rework canvases for several years.
When I returned from FL this spring, I went into the basement where I have my 'graveyard' of old paintings, and retrieved 5 half finished large panels. Using all the techniques I learned over the past few years studying with RC and LB, I proceeded to launch into the panels. Basically they were all part of my long ago series called 'Vanishing Landscapes'. Some of the panels were 16 years old. But now I have about 5 of them finished though I feel I could work on them forever. I think I  am finished  with one but then I seem to go further on the next one so the one before does not seem complete. After I finally do finish these 5, I will take the large painting off the wall of the living room and tear into that diptych which will become 2 separate paintings. I continue to use the old hardware and some collage of music and poetry.
One of the best advancements I feel I made was to remove all the objects that I had inserted in the boxes attached to the panels. They now remain empty, floating in the abstract landscape adding a haunting feeling to the works. Both of these are 60 x 42 inches.

Still Point

New Year's Day 2016

The other day I attended a memorial service for my neighbor of many years ago. She was a remarkable person even reaching 100 years. Another achievement in her favor! She was a brilliant English teacher, studied at Bryn Mawr, danced in the Isadora Duncan school of Dance. A better word is that it was a celebration of her life rather than a memorial.

I have been thinking over the title for my series of images from the trip to Ireland. Though they were inspired by the theology and mythology of 'Thin Places' I was not satisfied with the wording. At my friend's celebration of her life, a section of TS Elliot's poem was read. It was a title I had used years ago I think when I was still a sculptor.

                             From Burnt Norton, Four Quartets:


             At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
            Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
            But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
            Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
            Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
            There could be no dance, and there is only the dance.
            I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
            And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.

So, even in her passing, she had one more influence to instill in me. The title of my new series from Ireland will be called "The Still Point".

How strangely life works sometimes. Here it is a month since I got home from Ireland. I went on the trip somewhat reluctantly because I had had a difficult workshop in August trying to learn abstract painting with cold wax as there were elements of hot wax that were not satisfying. In time I calmed my fears and decided to just enjoy the fact that I was able to go to that beautiful island, read, walk and just enjoy myself. I did just that. I met wonderful people, saw Dublin with it's plethora of museums and followed RC's instructions. I also set aside my years of dissatisfaction with the contemporary art world and how I felt I was just making stuff like everyone else. I was in Ireland just to be in the moment and enjoy a new experience.

One day we took a small van with Seamus driving. Delightful amusing Seamus. It was about an hour's drive on winding roads through small villages....hardly villages...more like cross roads. The van parked at the end of the road where the cliffs meet the sea. The spot is called An Ben Buie. I stood for a matter of moments looking out over the sea and experienced a sensation that was thrilling, odd and a bit scary. I really could not put my finger on the sensations I was feeling. The next day in the studio, I started my drawings of people emerging from what I am not sure. But they were very amorphous, tall and thin like a Giacometti sculpture. That theme I pursued the entire time I was at Ballinglen Foundation. Now that I am home I am reproducing them in large scale on panels. I kept trying to think of a name for the series. Something about mankind, impermanence......

Last night driving home from a dinner I caught the tail end of of a woman's talk on The Moth. She was  talking about Thin Places in the world two of them being on the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland!! I have since read that 'thin places' are where the Celts thought Heaven and earth are the closest.....very little division between them. So that was the sensation that I felt standing on the cliffs of An Ben Buie.

December 2, 2016

It's been a month since I got home from Ireland. It was a memorable trip and I am still savoring thoughts of it. But I was hesitant to start new work based on the trip but finally took the plunge. With great trepidation, I started some relatively large pieces based on the sketches I did while at Ballinglen Art Foundation. I was so afraid that the hope I had acquired while there, would evaporate if I started to enlarge the drawings. Finally I tore into some older panels. The more layers the better, I always say. I have not yet come up with a title. It has to do with man kind, impermanence, cave drawings. This image is 60 x 25 inches. the first one almost completed. Some more layers needed so he is emerging from the flat plane.

Months have passed since I last posted a blog. All winter I worked away to CWM seeming to get no where. Discouraging but I kept hoping it was having some positive effect on my overall work. I came home late March as I had a large commission to do for WB Gallery. I started two 40 x 52 inch pieces both based on poppies. The client already owned one of my poppy small works. 3 weeks into I sent an image of one of the panels. it was too light for their liking. Fortunately I had the other panel done only so far so I was able to apply the layer of amber shellac on the wax and fire it up. That gave the overall tone of sienna they were looking for.Another 10 days and I delivered the piece to Hanover where my gallery director picked it up and delivered it to the client. Finally the deal was sealed. The entire event was stressful. All that time, work and effort not knowing if it will please the buyer. Not at all like the process of going into ones studio and just painting your heart out uninhibitedly.

That's all behind me and now I am preparing for my solo show at AVA gallery in W. Lebanon. This is a show I won last year  after being chosen as an artist deserving recognition in the states of NH and VT. I have a large room and can work as large as I like. I will show my older dress pieces, the two falling stone works that got me the show and newer works. I am doing some 60 x 30 inch ink drawings on yupo paper of stone walls and hope to have a couple stone walls in encaustic as well.