"New Year's Day is every man's birthday" (-Charles Lamb)

 It's hard to believe that this year is so rapidly drawing to a close: 

I always find it a bit poignant to realize that once again--

after all the stockings were hung, the toasts were made, the gifts were sorted and enjoyed, and the laughter rang out loud and often...

The visits with family, so anxiously anticipated, are all too soon over for now, 

and the dishes are once again ready to nestle into their boxes again for another year.  

The food is delegated to leftovers now,  lingering in the fridge, ready for sustenance in the days ahead...

(those diet resolutions can come in their own time...)

The magical lights, games that brought tears of laughter,

 and the hugs from loved ones near and far are but the stuff of memories now.

 

 A brand New Year is eager to burst upon us here in just a few days...

where DID the time go?  

I'll remember it all with fondness and nostalgia for years to come.

 I want to thank you all so very much for visiting my blog this past year!

Wishing A Very Happy 2012 to one and all...

(my favorite version of Auld Lang Syne...)

"Of all sound of all bells...most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year."  (-Charles Lamb)

"All cats love fish but fear to wet their paws." (--Chinese proverb)

I am finally home for a short weekend, and I'm most definitely feeling the urge to paint. 

As usual, Joe put pretty little floral arrangements all over the place, which gives me immediate sketching material. 

And I want to try to practice a million things, such as more wet-in-wet painting, more portraits, more variations in color, more experimenting with different pigments and their properties, as well as different papers and their different effects,...

...but for now, I'm just happy to be picking up a brush again.   

I always enjoy a beautiful wet-in-wet painting, if it's handled well, but I'm not very good at using this technique.   I'm a bit like that cat, who loves fish but fears getting his paws wet.  I've been reading Ewa Karpinska's book, Wet-on-wet watercolour painting,  and I'm inspired to learn how to better handle the papers and pigments at their various stages of wet-ness.   Wish I had weeks to just sit and play with it all.

Monday, I head back out on the road again.  This next trip will be Trip#8 out of 10 trips for the fall season.  I'll be traveling to Seattle, and then San Francisco.  I bring my paints along on every trip, but it's been difficult finding any time to actually use them.  

In the meantime, it's a brisk, colorful, Fall day, and tonight, after all, is Daylight Savings, so I even get to sleep an extra hour.  What could be better than that?  

Happy weekend!

"Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet"  (--Roger Miller)

"I haven't been anywhere, but it's on my list" (-Susan Sonntag)

I landed in Seattle last night at sunset, and this was taken from my seat on the plane while we were passing Mt. Rainier.

I've traveled many times to Seattle, but this trip will be very quick, so I won't get much time for exploration, unfortunately. This will have to suffice for my memory of a special moment this go-round, I suppose.

I haven't been able to figure out how to upload a recent painting I did, so that will just have to wait. Happy fall to everyone. The temps are changing, and I am definitely enjoying the brisk days.

"Stop worrying about the potholes in the road, and celebrate the journey.". (Fitzhugh Mullan).

Sage advice, that.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

"Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile". (--William Cullen Bryant)

It's definitely starting to feel like Fall here in Michigan this week. I collected some leaves that have not only begun to change color, but have fallen from trees already.








I'm still figuring out how to post on my blog from the iPad. it's not as easy as it seems it should be, but I'll get there!








Give me time, and at some point, maybe I'll know what the heck I'm doing!

posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Testing a post from iPad 2

Image from Top Camera, a photo by loveitaly on Flickr.

Guess who got a wonderful new ipad2 , but is having a hell of a time figuring out how to import, edit, and get photos to my blog! I finally got the photo here, but now I can't figure out how to get the verbiage attached with it! bear with me...


Not easy!

"Choosing Shoes" (--Frida Wolfe)

"New shoes, new shoes,

red and pink and blue shoes.

Tell me, what would you choose, 

If they'd let us buy?

Buckle shoes, bow shoes,

Pretty pointy-toe shoes,

Strappy, cappy low shoes;

Let's have some to try.

Bright shoes, white shoes,

Dandy-dance-by-night shoes,

Perhaps-a-little-tight shoes,

Like some?  So would I.

BUT

Flat shoes, fat shoes,

Stump-along-like-that shoes,

Wipe-them-on-the-mat shoes,

That's the sort they'll buy."

(--Frida Wolfe)

(Those last shoes are the ones I'm wearing today!  Nothing glamorous, but they sure are comfy.)

"Art is the proper task of life" (--Friedrich Nietzsche))

When my siblings and I were small, my parents went to great pains to expose us as often as possible to art, literature,  theatre, music and ballet.  They would frequently whisk us all off to Shakespeare in the Park, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or to the Nutcracker Suite ballet at Christmas time at Lincoln Center, or Radio City for the Big Holiday extravaganza,  etc, etc,  since we lived quite close to New York.  


When other families were off watching movies by Disney, my parents would get us spanking-clean, dress us up in our pajamas, and tell us that we were going on an outing.  If we wanted to know where we were going, we'd ask, and my dad would reply, in a mysterious tone,  "We're going to see Booksty-Hootery."    Booksty-Hootery was usually a good thing: like going for a chocolate derby ice cream, or maybe heading to the drive-in  movies.  But as I said, most kids would head off to a movie like..., say:  "Parent Trap," and we'd go to see something like  "Lord Jim," by Joseph Conrad.   What can I say... we were nerds from the get-go.


My parents were very smart, because by getting us into our pajamas early, and letting us take our pillows with us, we'd bundle into our station wagon, and we'd sit in "the way-way back."  We loooooved the way-way back.  Invariably, we'd all wind up crashing to sleep back there, and my parents could readily hoist us into our beds upon the return home.  But we were easily entertained, and happy to be out in our pj's at the drive-in theater.


Now, mind you, as little kids, we were not exactly thrilled at the prospect of heading off in search of CULTURE.  In fact, there were times when I dreaded it as a child.   I would think, "A-gain??"  Whereas today, I am highly likely to seek out all of the above on my own,   and I'm happy as a clam whenever I have such opportunities.


One of my favorite pastimes is to visit art museums, but aside from the art itself, I love observing the people as they, in turn,  are observing the art.   It fascinates me.  

"A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world."  (--Edmond de Goncourt)

(As usual, on the road, without a scanner, these images are awful!  I apologize.  Sketch of a photo I found on the internet.)

Onions

Onions

How easily happiness begins by

dicing onions.  A lump of sweet butter

slithers and swirls across the floor

of the saute pan, especially if its

errant path crosses a tiny slick

of olive oil.  Then a tumble of onions.

This could mean soup or risotto

or chutney (from the Sanskrit

chatni, to lick).  Slowly the onions

go limp and then nacreous

and then what cookbooks call clear,

though if they were eyes you could see

clearly the cataracts in them.

It's true it can make you weep

to peel them, to unfurl and to tease

from the taut ball first the brittle,

caramel-colored and decrepit

papery outside layer, the least

recent the reticent onion

wrapped around its growing body,

for there's nothing to an onion

but skin, and it's true you can go on

weeping as  you go on in, through

the moist middle skins, the sweetest

and thickest, you can go on

in to the core, to the bud-like,

acrid, fibrous skins densely

clustered there, stalky and in-

complete, and these are the most

pungent, like the nuggets of nightmare

and rage and murmury animal

comfort that human infants secrete.

This is the best domestic perfume.

You sit down to eat with a rumor

of onions still on your twice-washed

hands and lift to your mouth a hint

of a story about loam and usual

endurance.  It's there when you clean up

and rinse the wine glasses and make

a joke, and you leave the minutest

whiff of it on the light switch,

later, when you climb the stairs.

(--William Matthews)

(I sketched a few onions from Rookiepainter's image, using Yupo here.) 

10 Years...

 

Can it really be 10 years since those events that changed and shaped us all forever as a nation?

Each of us is individually more cautious, or perhaps more jaded.  We're all certainly more aware of our own fragility and vulnerability as humans as a result of those moments.   It's taken us 10 years to really let the lessons of our collective resilience and strength sink in.   

Life is about so much more than "what happens to us."    It's really about how we deal with what happens to us.    It's about whether or not we face life's difficulties with grace and dignity.  We've learned so much about the courage and bravery of so many people on that day 10 years ago.

Now, we're hearing about "credible threats," from people who mean to do us harm.   I don't want to dwell on that.  I don't want to feel angry and stressed and vengeful and bitter.  I want to revel in the mystery and beauty of each moment that I've been given in this Big Adventure.   

On this 10 year anniversary of 9/11, I want to remember those who weren't given another day.   I'll reflect on our troops, who are right now in harm's way, trying their best to keep the rest of us safe.  And most of all, I'm going to think about how fortunate I am to have the cherished gift of this very moment in time.  

Right now.

"One need not be a chamber to be haunted;

One need not be a house;

The brain has corridors surpassing

Material place."  

(-Emily Dickinson; "Time and Eternity")   

"Three for the Mona Lisa" (-John Stone)

This is an old post, but I'm hoping that maybe I can visit the Allen Art museum at Oberlin College again today, after I finish up at the school.  I thought I'd share a wonderful poem and some images from my last trip to this beautiful place.    Above, my sketch of two tiny Chinese Tang Dynasty figurines that were behind glass shelves in the museum.  (If you look closely at the third photo below, you'll find them posing there in the corner for you!)


Three for the Mona Lisa:


1
It is not what she did
at 10 o'clock
last evening
accounts for the smile
It is
that she plans
to do it again
tonight.


2
Only the mouth
all those years
ever
letting on.


3
It's not the mouth
exactly
it's not the eyes
exactly either
it's not even
exactly a smile
But, whatever,
I second the motion

"Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. " ( ~Twyla Tharp)

Have a wonderful, art-filled weekend, all!

"Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure." (-Alfred North Whitehead)

Cincinnati-bound today:

Just arrived at the airport in Atlanta.  It's the official first day of fall travels.  

I never quite know what adventures await me on these trips, so I'll try to post when I can.   I'm hoping to sketch some in hotels when I'm able to.   I honestly haven't had much time for painting, what with all the trip preparations lately, so I'll see if I can remedy that now,...well, when I'm not flying, or driving, or walking all over creation.  

C'mon along--we'll be visiting Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, NY, Illinois, California, Colorado,  Minnesota, Texas, New Jersey, Washington, Maine, Virginia, Massachusetts,  and who knows where else before the season's through!  

You know I'll take pictures when I can.  

(This little bird was from my friend Joanne years ago: it sits on my desk at home.  We picked up a few little vases at the flea market last week, and these are the last of our summer flowers that I'll see this year, I imagine, so they needed sketching!)

I like adventure...

   

"Paint the essential character of things" (-Camille Pissarro)

It's fun to see the differences that can be had with different papers, paints, and painting styles.  I painted these two images in the exact same paints, but I used watercolor paper in the first, (above,) and Yupo in the second (below.)  

I was sketching while the power was out during Irene yesterday, and had fun experimenting with the way paints play on different surfaces.  

The effects are quite different, aren't they?   Normally, I think the Yupo helps loosen me up, and I like the look of the oozy images I can conjure up using it, but this one seems kind of rigid to me.   I like the first painting here, on the traditional watercolor paper.    I'll have to do more of these; they're fun.

"Painting's not important.  The important thing is keeping busy."  (--Grandma Moses)

"What is elegance? Soap and water." (--Cecil Beaton)

Shadow Wash

I've never washed my shadow out

in all the time I've had it.

It was absolutely filthy, I supposed,

And so today I peeled it off

the wall where it was leaning

And stuck it in the washtub

With the clothes

I put in soap and bleach and stuff

I let it soak for hours

I wrung it out and hung it out to dry,

And whoever would have thunk 

That it would have gone and shrunk

For now it's so much

Littler than I.

(--Shel Silverstein)

"Persistence is to the character as carbon is to steel" (Napolean Hill)

If you've read my blog at all, you know that I become very fond of our students at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.    On any day of the week, they're full of compassion, energy, and determination, so how can I not pull for them?  

So many of our students are gone from the Duke campus at this time of year, but many of them travel world-wide, as they take on experiential learning opportunities through internships and summer jobs.  This past week, we heard from two of our students who've been spending their summer in Ecuador.  One has been working on a summer internship,  and the other has been helping out at organic farms in Ecuador.   At the end of the internship, they'd planned to do some traveling, and sight-seeing, before they had to head back to school in a few weeks.  But as John Lennon once said, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."  .  

They happened upon an elderly Ecuadorian man and his wife:  the man is not only blind, but he also has a terribly deformed leg from an injury sustained in a car accident some time ago.  His leg is broken so badly that there's literally a bend in his lower knee resembling another knee, just lower down on his leg.   These two students, alone in a foreign country,  mustered up all the drive and passion that they could, in their endeavors to make a difference in the lives of two other people.   They were determined to help this man however they could.

Who knows where the story will end.  They're running against time, money, bureaucratic red tape, and exhaustion on everyone's part.  They've tackled the medical establishment in a foreign country that's not as compassionate as our own country, learning all about patient advocacy, and they've traveled great distances under trying circumstances, and put in long, sweaty, tiring hours.   They've done it amidst incredible obstacles, not the least being the language barriers they've faced.

I've thought of them all day.  I thought of them when I watched the news last night and tonight: the wrenching photos of starving children in Somalia, and a whole nation struggling through drought.   All I can think of when I see those photos is that I remember being a small child in grammar school, years ago, when, you guessed it-- we were trying to raise money to send aid to another set of starving children in Africa.  

Sadly, suffering and deplorable situations are part of the human condition.  It's not possible for any of us to "fix" all the things that are sad or wrong in this world, but I must say, it does my heart good to know that these students were moved to take on such a project on their own, trying to help these people they didn't even know  from Adam.  

I hope they never lose that passion.  They're young and want to make the world a better place.    Maybe one of them should run for Congress.   Here's a link to the story of their ordeals:

http://joserosabolivar.blogspot.com/

FLEDGE

It's almost time for the babies in our bluebird house to fledge.   

We really have been like grandparents many times over to all the birds in our yard.

It's been a quiet weekend, and we got a good bit of RAIN!  Four inches of rain yesterday, and more this evening.  We really need it, so we're happy to have it.   Of course, nothing I'm painting lately pleases me a bit, but I'll keep at it.  

Much like the baby birds, it seems I'm back to fledgling status all over again.

It happens.  

"Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you" (-Robert Fulghum)

Child Development

As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs

and sauntered off the beaches into forests

working up some irregular verbs for their

first conversation, so three-year-old children

enter the phase of name-calling.

Every day a new one arrives and is added

to the repertoire.  You Dumb Goopyhead,

You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor

(a kind-of Navajo ring to that one)

they yell from knee-level, their little mugs

flushed with challenge.

Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out

in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying

to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack.

They are just tormenting their fellow squirts

or going after the attention of the giants

way up there with their cocktails and bad breath

talking baritone nonsense to other giants,

waiting to call them names after thanking

them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.

The mature save their hothead invective

for things: an errant hammer, tire chains,

or receding trains missed by seconds,

though they know in their adult hearts,

even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed

for his appalling behavior,

that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,

their wives are Dopey Dopeheads

and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants.

(--Billy Collins) 

(sketch after a photo image I found on the internet)

"My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece" (--Claude Monet)

Monet Refuses the Operation

Doctor, you say there are no haloes

around the streetlights in Paris

and what I see is an aberration

caused by old age, an affliction.

I tell you it has taken me all my life

to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,

to soften and blur and finally banish

the edges you regret I don't see,

to learn that the line I called the horizon

does not exist and sky and water,

so long apart, are the same state of being.

Fifty-four years before I could see

Rouen cathedral is built

of parallel shafts of sun,

and now you want to restore

my youthful errors: fixed

notions of top and bottom,

the illusion of three-dimentional space,

wisteria separate

from the bridge it covers.

What can I say to convince you

the Houses of Parliament dissolve

night after night to become

the fluid dream of the Thames?

I will not return to a universe

of objects that don't know each other,

as if islands were not the lost children

of one great continent.  The world

is flux, and light becomes what it touches,

becomes water, lilies on water,

above and below water,

becomes lilac and mauve and yellow

and white and cerulean lamps,

small fists passing sunlight

so quickly to one another

that it would take long, streaming hair

inside my brush to catch it.

To paint the speed of light!

Our weighted shapes, these verticals,

burn to mix with air

and changes our bones, skin, clothes

to gases.  Doctor,

if only you could see

how heaven pulls earth into its arms

and how infinitely the heart expands

to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

(--Lisel Mueller)

"A sister is both your mirror--and your opposite" (--Elizabeth Fishel)

I was cleaning out files last night and stumbled on this old family photo,  sitting loose in a box.  

I have to admit, I'm posting this one thinking of Claudia:   when I visited her last week, she pulled out a few old photo albums, and we spent the good part of one evening reminiscing over photos of her kids when they were tiny.    It was fun laughing at some of the moments we remembered clearly, and as usual, it was just amazing to realize how much they've grown.  

This one of my two sisters and me perfectly describes the difference in our ages:  Mary Kate is the oldest, I'm the middle child, and Claudia is the youngest.  As Joe would say, we're "stair-stepped" here.  Of course, this photo was taken before Eddie was even a glimmer, so he's missing from the mix.  

I'm not sure who took the photo, but whoever it was chopped off a bit of Mary Kate's head!  My mother was  notorious for doing that, but my father was normally the photographer documenting us on film.   I think you can tell a lot from body language in photos, and this is definitely how I remember us as kids together.

The three of us were pretty much inseparable.  It's sad that we don't see each other that often these days, but even though this was a looooong time ago, when I look at this, it seems like just yesterday...

Doesn't Claudia just look like a little ragamuffin?    She has such a mischievous look on her face.  Truth be told, that's kind of exactly how she always is!

Cracks me up.  

"Food is an important part of a balanced diet." (--Fran Lebowitz

It seems strange to me that we're still seeing so many fledgling birds this late in the summer; nevertheless, they seem to be here in droves. Our bluebirds are busy in their house with a new clutch of eggs to help along.   I'm back home in North Carolina, and on our deck, yesterday,  there was a mockingbird family visiting.  

The parents have been busy educating their young to the ways of visiting the never-ending food supply on our deck.  

It never ceases to make me smile that the babies sometimes appear even larger than their parents, and while they certainly seem large enough to be capable of getting their own food, they helplessly flutter their wings, begging to be fed.  

The doting parents, ever patient, comply without so much as a sound.

Before you know it, though, the little guys will be assisting their own little ones.  

Last night, my camera finally bit the dust!  I suppose it's safe to say that I worked it to death.  God knows, I take millions of photos, so it was sure to happen at some point.  I'll be off to get myself a new one in a day or so, because I simply can't do without a camera to document the world around me...

"A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in" (--Robert Orben)

Yesterday, my sister Claudia and I went exploring through the area where she lives.  While I love visiting cities and urban areas, (after all, I grew up on the outskirts of Manhattan,) I get my peace and sustenance from the rolling hills and beautiful landscapes that I enjoyed when I lived in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.   Her family is about an hour outside of NYC, and very close to the Pennsylvania border and Buck's County, which is a delightful area we used to enjoy,  growing up.  We crossed the bridge over the Delaware river, and drove all along the old canal route.  

Years ago, barges came along the canals, and they were helped along by mules.  Today, what you see are the colorfully-painted mule statues, standing guard near those old canal towpaths.

And today, you're more likely to see people in canoes and inner tubes, relaxing in the cool Delaware river water, in efforts to ward off the intense heat.  The little towns in the area are just so charming and quaint, and they're great about maintaining the historical remnants of the past: the old bric-a-brac buildings, the waterside, shops, and parks.

I always remind Claudia that she lives permanently in an area that many people drive miles to see.  There really isn't any industry in this area, so it stays rural and lovely.  New Jersey isn't that big a state, so people can commute to jobs elsewhere without much trouble.  Claudia's fortunate that she has her own consulting company and she works from home, but her husband travels a little distance to work in nearby towns.  

While it was scorching hot yesterday, I found myself thinking that it still wasn't as uncomfortable as it would have been in North Carolina, because it wasn't as muggy and humid as North Carolina gets. 

Here's Claudia indulging me as I ask her to pose for me with a flag, at a restaurant along a canal.   She's great--she never complains!  

There are tons of little artsy buildings, B&B's,  antique stores, beautiful consignment shops, galleries, ice cream shops, cafes, restaurants, and old-fashioned bookstores in the area.  

Many aeons ago, when I was in high school, I was president of our French club, and I organized a trip for us all to New Hope, PA, very close to this area, and we went to a little restaurant called "Chez Odette."  I remembered the name of it, because I also remember reading that that was where Jessica Savitch, the news anchor from years ago, was, for dinner,  the night that her companion drove her car in the pouring rain into one of the canals, killing her.   

We were also in the area where Pearl Buck, the author of  The Good Earth, lived for some years on a beautiful farm.  (See below)  After browsing in the heat, we had to head inside again, and we had ice cream (again!)  at a little shop in Lambertville, and then came back to her place to cool off.


We drove through the nearby town where Elizabeth Gilbert, (author of Eat, Pray, Love) lives as well.


Tucker didn't join us on our trip today, since it was so hot, and we wanted to be able to dodge into shops to cool off, so he cuddled up as soon as we returned, happy to see his family again.

I believe he's trying to tell me I'm in "his" favorite spot, here:

It's been great to be with my sister, just relaxing, talking, and eating.  (But hey--I'm being good--I'm on weight watchers, remember!)

Here is some information about Pearl Buck.  If you never read The Good Earth, you should!: