Studio and Garden

Ardent Pagan: The Poems of Fernando Pessoa's Alberto Caeiro

2012-01-26T16:43:00.000-05:00

I feel that I am being born each moment
Into the eternal newness of the World . . .

For Alberto Caeiro, the world is not a place of mystery or of meaning, but is simply itself, to be absorbed with all one's senses. He was one of the heteronyms, the alter-egos, of the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935). Pessoa's prose writings have moved me, and I wrote a blog post, Memory: Constructing a Life, inspired by one of his sentences. But I was unaware of his poetry until a Facebook friend, Martyn Ravensdale, introduced me to his long poem "The Keeper of Sheep", lyrical and revelatory; I feel that it's close to being a guide to appreciating life. Pessoa wrote his poetry in the guise of several different characters; he described the appearance of Alberto Caeiro in him as "In me there appeared my Master." Caeiro wrote of meeting Jesus Christ come down to earth as an innocent small child

And enjoying our common secret
Which is knowing through and through
There is no mystery in the world
And that all things are worth our while.

The doings of mankind, the commerce and wars and kings make him smile

Because he knows it all lacks that truth
A flower has in bloom
Which moves with the light of the sun
Changing mountains and valleys
And making eyes ache at whitewashed walls.

Caeiro argues against intellect and for pure sensation:

I'm a keeper of sheep.
The sheep are my thoughts
And my thoughts are all sensations.
I think with my eyes and ears
And with my hands and feet
And with my nose and mouth.

To think a flower is to see it and smell it
And to eat a fruit is to taste its meaning.

As he argues against anthropomorphizing nature:

To talk about the soul of flower, stones, and rivers,
Is to talk about yourself, about your delusions.
Thank God stones are just stones,
And rivers nothing but rivers,
And flowers just flowers.

Being that I am now over 60 years old, perhaps with two thirds of my life done (much of my family is long-lived), I occasionally wonder what it means, this being a human on earth. There are many possible answers, but lines from another poem by Pessoa's Alberto Caeiro gives one that feels true and deep and full of grace:

The startling reality of things
Is my discovery every single day
Every thing is what it is,
And it's hard to explain to anyone how much this delights me
And suffices me.

. . . . . . .

Occasionally I hear the wind blow,
And I find that just hearing the wind blow makes it worth
having been born.

The Glitter of Hoarfrost

2012-01-25T16:45:00.000-05:00

The most beautiful of winter phenomena is hoarfrost, which turns every twig and branch and weed into a sparkling presence. According to Wikipedia, these ice crystals are formed "on cold clear nights when heat losses into the open skies cause objects to become colder than the surrounding air." I awoke to everything outdoors aglitter on Sunday morning.

The branches of the Nannybush are brilliantly lit,

as are the tangled stems of weeds and grasses, turning them into something more than themselves, into a poetry of light,

and the world becomes a dazzling place.

"Microcosmos": The Hidden World of Insects

2012-01-24T16:32:00.000-05:00

The camera is high above a pleasant, bright meadow, then swoops down lower and lower until we are in grass, towering above us as in a fecund tropical jungle. An insect climbs a stem with gravity-defying grace, and we are now in a microcosm of our everyday world. The 1996 French film
Microcosmos: The Grass People shows us usually unseen miniature life, full of color and beauty, and sheer strangeness; the technical prowess of the macro photography is awe inspiring.

This marvel of a caterpillar looks like it was put together by a very hip, inventive fashion designer, with vivid pink on its head repeated in the tips of a kind of double tail. This should have been the design for the Alice in Wonderland caterpillar.

Another caterpillar has colors that mimic leaf and stem, part of nature's protective mechanism.

The film presented insects that are familiar to us, along with the surprises. This sequence showed a bee entering a flower, and as it pushed inwards, the pollen bearing anther dips downward to deposit pollen on the bee.

Not only plant fertilization is filmed, but also a remarkable view of a pair of snails (mollusks, not insects) mating to swelling music, with all the romance and passion of any steamy sex scene. There is a marvelous wit in this film, with all the drama we expect from a nature film featuring much larger species.

We see sinuous mating, and we see a vigorous battle between two beetles.

A creature is born, emerges from a delicate egg and then turns around and eats it.

There is the terror of death, as an insect is entrapped by a carnivorous plant...

or is amazingly wrapped by a spider, whose silk comes pouring out of its body.

There is the storage of food, with ants dragging seeds many times larger than themselves into an underground chamber. Here is the true to life illustration of the La Fontaine fable of the grasshopper and the ant.

And there are tales of endurance, as insects survive floods and drought. In a display of clever perseverance, a beetle whose ball of dung was caught up on a stick manages to dig out around it, giving itself leverage to push the ball free. There were quite a few tense moments as I rooted for the beetle's success.

At the end of the film, an embodiment of light emerges from a dark watery background. It rises higher and begins to spread its fine legs. I feel as though I am watching an apotheosis, an exalted moment in insect life as something emerges from primordial ooze and takes shape. In a film with many moments of stunning beauty, this caused me to sit with mouth agape. It wasn't until I researched the film later (the cast of characters was in French, and not translated) that I discovered that this was a mosquito hatching! I think I will carry the images of the mosquito as goddess the next time the pesky little things are biting. This film reminded me that the diversity and ingenuity of life is greater than I realize, and even more full of wonder.

A New Painting: "Blue Circle"

2012-01-23T07:53:00.000-05:00

Blue Circle, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 7 x 5 1/4 inches.

The painting gods were angry with me when I began work on this painting, just as they were with White Behind Red. After working on the painting for 2 or 3 days, suffering with dust and lifting paint leaving white spots, I calmly wiped the entire painting off, down to the bare parchment. My second attempt was a success as far as achieving the color and form I wanted, without any dust whatsoever. A mystery to be unraveled.

This underpainting from my first attempt gives me a clue. I tend to want to load the paint on when I begin (as much as one can with the thin egg tempera), as I search for the correct color balance. Here, I'd put a light layer of color over a darker one, because white mixed with a color will make it more opaque; the blues are quite transparent pigments. But I went too light, so had a very hard time, using many layers of paint, trying to get to the colors I wanted. The more layers, especially if the paint is thicker, the more they seem to attract dust. The winter dust from my wood stove probably doesn't help matters.

In my second attempt, I decided to begin with darker, more saturated color, so that the transparent pigments I was using––ultramarine blue, cobalt blue light, and cerulean blue––weren't fighting the light underpainting. I worked with more thin layers, building them slowly, using the quality of the paint, its transparency, as a positive force rather than something to argue with. Yesterday I started a new painting, and noticed right away that I wanted to quickly layer color, one atop the other––warmer, cooler, lighter, darker––as I searched for my color ideas. I saw that the loaded brush brought dust with it, so began to work more slowly, in more transparent layers. Now I have to remember that lesson going forward, as it seems to keep slipping away from me.

This is a detail of the painting that gives some sense of the different hues of blue, and of the painting surface. For the darks which look close to black, I simply painted many thin layers of ultramarine blue and cadmium red deep, mixing the colors and alternating them. I put a teeny bit of cadmium yellow medium in there to warm it a little. You can see some of the layering in the process image above.

This composition uses a flat, frontal grouping of overlapping forms, an idea I work with occasionally (see for instance Red Construction). I think of cubism and of artists such as Liubov Popova, and of minimalist abstraction, in making this painting and in all my work. My challenge is to transform a group of abstract forms so that they have presence, and feeling, with or without the lurking metaphors.

Ice

2012-01-20T16:52:00.000-05:00

Mid-January, mid-winter: the season of snow and ice. Snow brings happy thoughts for us northern dwellers; it means snow shoeing and skiing and snowmobiling. It brightens indoor light as sun reflects from its white surface. Ice is another matter: it is treacherous for walking and driving, causing many a fall and automobile accident. But it can also be very beautiful, as when a glittering mass surrounds the stems of honeysuckle...

or when the freezing overnight temperatures leave a complex pattern on a window, which catches the glow of early sun....

as do the icicles flowing from the roof, pushed from their vertical fall by the strong west winds.

Even on my car, whose windshield I have to clear of ice, there is a beautiful gathering of ice crystals, which have captured a seed blown from the woods.

Driving on icy roads is dangerous, but this glistening relief sculpture of tire tracks is a small thing of beauty.

A New Textile: "Empty Center: Blue/Brown", the First in a Series

2012-01-19T17:06:00.002-05:00

Empty Center: Blue/Brown, hand dyed wool on linen, 9 x 9 inches.

This small piece is very different from my last textile, Wave, which had a curved volume moving forward and back in space, with light catching its surfaces. My initial impulse to make the hooked wool "ruglets" a few years ago was to explore minimalist abstraction, and this piece returns to that form. Two shapes, which seem cut off by edges, separated by an expanse of texture, push toward each other? converse (maybe shout across)? yearn?

(As I wrote this what amazingly just came to my mind was the old tv show, The Goldbergs, with Molly shouting from her window)

How I came to the idea of an empty center, with shapes hugging edges, is an interesting story. After writing a blog post on Tantric painting, I started to paint on a few scrap pieces of parchment, which I described here, and which helped my painting process. I had many tiny scraps, about one inch square, left from stretching parchment panels; I began to paint on them. The piece on the lower left had a tiny cut in the surface, so I followed it with yellow paint, adding a stroke of blue at the bottom; then I did others with the same idea of leaving the center empty, except for that one stroke of yellow.

Of course it's not empty, really, because the wool has an engaging texture, and a subtle shift of color. I achieved the color by scrunching the wool in a flat pan and dropping very diluted dyes, the two colors of the shapes, onto the wool by the spoonful. There's an austerity in form such as this, but I hope also some interest and some humor.

Winter Light: Folds

2012-01-18T16:56:00.000-05:00

The brilliant light of January sun has been rare this winter, but when it does appear, I go on a treasure hunt for images. This year my eye is drawn to austere compositions, emphasizing geometries, sometimes softened by a complexity of detail as in this piece of lace, whose folded circles are broken by patterns of light and dark.

A piece of brown paper draped over a table has a slice of light reminding me of an Ellsworth Kelly painting.

The repeated forms of knitting and braiding catch light as would the elements of a landscape: the small rounds of hills or trees; the interlocking shapes of fields.

Light finds its way through textured cloth, the softness of its folds crossed by shadow.

Another kind of texture, a floured cloth that I use for baking bread, appears something like the surface variations of lichens seen in the woods: a bright curve against the darkness.

Some other Winter Light posts:

Winter Light: On the Floor, Abstract Compositions
Winter Light: Through Windows
Winter Light: Teacups
Winter Light: Creatures in the House
Winter Light: Knobs and Handles
Winter Light: Rounds

At The Met: The Surface of Things

2012-01-16T17:07:00.000-05:00

Gerard David, The Nativity with Donors and Saints Jerome and Leonard (Detail), ca. 1510 -15; oil on canvas. To see the entire image in high resolution, go the museum website.

We often think of "surface" as a word that demeans; it is the opposite of depth. But an intense focus on things can be a way to explore their form and meaning: it can be a celebration of life. When I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art last month, I first spent time in the amazing exhibition of Indian painting, which I wrote about here, looking at those small, marvelously detailed paintings, full of careful attention to the smallest things of the world. So when I did my usual tour of the permanent collection of Northern European paintings, what caught my notice was the intense focus of those painters on the surfaces and textures of ordinary things, leading me to this photo essay. In his complex nativity, David of course made the figures of paramount importance, but he did not neglect the humble: the grain on the ground alongside the basket filled with cloth, the small plants growing between the stones of the walls. To me these details seem prayerful.

Hans Memling, Virgin and Child with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Barbara (Detail), early 1480s; oil on wood. To see the entire image in high resolution, go to the museum website.

The Netherlandish painters did not only look at the ordinary objects of life; here Memling has painted a shimmery fabric with an elaborate pattern. Every part of his painting is seen with a uncanny clarity.

North Netherlandish Painter, Christ Bearing the Cross (Detail), ca. 1470; oil on wood. To see the entire image in high resolution, go to the museum website .

In this very complex painting, what I decided to photograph was this delicately rendered round headdress, with a braid, tied in red, emerging from it; touching small tendrils of hair escape. When I look at these paintings, I can't help but think that to these artists, at this time, the careful rendering of every small thing is their way of praising God's creation.

Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (Detail), ca. 1662; oil on canvas. To see the entire image in high resolution, go to the museum website.

Two hundred years later, there is a great deal of secular painting, made for bourgeois households. Vermeer is an artist who transcends his ordinary subjects through an all enveloping light and a sense of form that is weighty and eternal. A brass basin and pitcher are perfect in light and color, giving us a sense of their objectness without being fussy. Two years ago I wrote a blog post after seeing the small exhibition at the Met surrounding Vermeer's The Milkmaid, which you can read here; at the time I was most thrilled with the way he painted the wall in that painting; it had such physical presence that I felt my body react to it.

Sebastian Stoskopff, Still Life with a Nautilus, Panther Shell and Chip-Wood Box (Detail), ca. 1630; oil on canvas. To see the entire image in high resolution, go to the museum website.

Other northern painters (Stoskopff is French) approached still life with precisely rendered surfaces, so that we can feel their differences: the smoothness of a glistening shell next to a very different kind of smooth surface of a wooden box. I love the small details of metal, which I assume are holding the box together.

Pieter Claesz, Still Life with a Skull and Writing Quill (Detail), 1628; oil on wood. To see the entire image in high resolution, go to the museum website.

A vanitas still life points to life's brief span. But how carefully Claesz paints each different texture, so we can look into the glass' refection and feel a wisp of feather about to drift off from the bony skull.

Georg Flegel, Still Life (Detail); oil on wood. To see the entire image in high resolution, go to the museum website.

Flegel's still life delicately renders some good things in life (not an image for my vegetarian friends). I marvel at the lemon. Its bright juiciness alongside the reflective glass and clay pitcher makes me happy. I come close to thinking of some of these paintings as magic, as they transform paint into a visually graspable thing.

Gerard ter Borch, Curiosity (Detail), ca. 1660-62; oil on canvas. To see the entire image in high resolution, go to the museum website.

I couldn't write a blog post on surface and not include ter Borch, whose female figures are usually clothed in sparkling satin gowns; they shine from the dark interiors with an internal light.

Jean Simeon Chardin, The Silver Tureen (Detail), 1728; oil on canvas. To see the entire image in high resolution, go to the museum website.

Finally, Chardin, a very different painter, who opened up his brush stroke, softening edges, giving tremendous life to his objects, while being true to the surface of each. I love this juxtaposition of the hard refective shine of the silver tureen behind the soft fur and hairs of a rabbit. An approach to the world that is attentive and deep can come by looking very closely at things.

From the Freezer, With a Recipe for Eggplant Sauce with Tomato

2012-01-15T10:28:00.001-05:00

Last month, when I headed down to the root cellar to get some cabbage for dinner, it inspired me to write a blog post about my storage room in the cellar, which you can see here. The vegetables that keep in a cool cellar – potatoes, carrots, beets, cabbage – are only a portion of my winter eating. Onions, garlic, and winter squash are stored in an unheated spare bedroom. The largest variety of fruits and vegetables from my garden are stored in my small chest freezer, kept in the mudroom. There are the bags of greens – kale, spinach, and swiss chard – the peas, beans, broccoli, peppers, tomatoes, corn, zucchini, tomato sauce, pesto. And fruit: raspberries, blueberries, rhubarb. A frozen cornucopia, which takes a lot of work, to be sure: the picking and blanching and tray freezing and packing into bags (never mind the tending the garden). But to me it's worth it, so that I can have my own organically grown food all year long.

I also have fried eggplant in the freezer, ready for use in sauce and eggplant parmesan. I learned from my mother how to preserve eggplants this way. I fry the slices, drain them on paper towels, then pack them in a plastic box layered on sheets of waxed paper. Since eggplant is one of my favorite foods, it's a treat to have it on hand to make this delicious pasta sauce, from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. The broccoli is from my garden, as are the tomato and eggplant, even the red chili pepper (I grow Early Jalapeno). I cook the broccoli by braising it with garlic in a frying pan.

I love gobs of sauce on my pasta, so use more than Hazan recommends. The recipe is very flexible as to amounts of tomato and eggplant, so feel free to emphasize what you like most.

About 1 pound eggplant
salt
vegetable oil for frying the eggplant (I use olive oil; I love the flavor of it)
3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 teas. chopped garlic
2 Tbs chopped parsley (in winter I leave this out)
1 3/4 cups canned tomatoes, cut up, with their juice
chopped hot red chili pepper, to taste
1 pound pasta (thin spaghetti is recommended)

Slice the eggplant, salt it and let it stand for 1/2 hour. Then drain, pat dry with paper towels, and fry in 1/2 inch hot oil until browned on both sides.
Put the olive oil and garlic in a saucepan and turn on heat to medium. Cook and stir garlic until it gets lightly colored.
Add tomatoes, parsley, chili pepper, and a little salt and stir. Lower heat to a gentle simmer and cook for about 20 minutes, until the oil separates.
Cut the eggplant into 3/4 inch strips and add to the sauce. Cook for another 2 or 3 minutes, stirring once or twice.
Taste for salt and pepper. Enjoy!

A New Textile: "Wave"

2012-01-13T15:51:00.003-05:00

Wave, hand dyed wool on linen, 10 x 13 inches.

Most of my textile work has been inspired by the minimalist strain of modernist painting, so the images are usually made up of flat shapes. Recently though, I made a work that had illusionistic form, a piece I called Draped, which you can see here. I enjoyed working on it and liked the result, so did a few sketches for future projects using volumetric forms. Instead of focusing and refining my ideas in my textiles, I seem to be expanding them, which is fun for me. I have a varied stream of themes, little rivulets each adding their droplets: drawings, figure/ground explorations, pattern, shapes, multi-part work, and now form. In Wave, I wanted to emphasize the sinuous movement, so I used the dark blue of the background to "draw" a line along the top of the flowing form. I dip dyed the wool, which I explained in the link above, to get a range of color.

As you can see in this detail, the shift from one hue to another isn't smooth, but it is still effective, I think. If I was much fussier and more precise in the dyeing process I could have made smoother transitions; for instance, by dyeing small swatches of fabric in jars that have had gradated amounts of color added to each. But I like the rougher result; I hope it has a certain energy to it.

A Walk in the Woods: The Character of Bark

2012-01-12T15:49:00.004-05:00

Without the complex distraction of green leafy layers, the physical facts of the trunks of trees attract my eye in winter. They stand, resolute, tall, expressing in their patterns their species and their individual history. A large sugar maple is embraced by a plastic tube, ready to collect sap in the spring, and wrapped by old barbed wire, long since overwhelmed by the sturdy growth of bark.

Some trees have their inner layers exposed in an animal's search for sustenance.

And some have patterns that might be created by disease.

The natural peeling of birch bark catches the sun in shiny curlicues, smooth and glossy alongside rough striations.

A close look at some tree trunks is like a satellite view of a vast landscape, with mountain ranges sinking into valleys.

Yesterday, when I walked through the woods, I had a sudden rush of tender feeling for the grays of winter trees; as I passed them, their spacial relationships changed, yet each remained itself, young or old, thick or thin, damaged or whole: a crowd of life, dormant. Today I was dipping in Thoreau's Journals and found this entry from January 11th, 1857, in which he eloquently describes his reasons for rambling, which touch a chord with me, (although I don't subscribe to his tendency to belittle his fellow men):

I was describing the other day my success in solitary and distant woodland walking outside the town. I do not go there to get my dinner, but to get that sustenance which dinners only preserve me to enjoy, without which dinners are a vain repetition. but how little men can help me in this! only by having a kindred experience. Of what use to tell them of my happiness?

A New Painting: "Blades"

2012-01-10T15:55:00.007-05:00

Blades, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 6 x 7 inches.

This painting went through more changes, more uncertainty, than is usual in my painting process, and I'm still not completely sure if it works. I usually follow the composition of my originating photograph fairly closely, but in this case I discovered that I had to leave out a couple of elements, and change the value structure of the image. When I came close to finishing the painting, I thought to myself that it would have been a good idea to take photographs at each stage so that I could illustrate my thinking, but: when I make a change it's often impulsive and I don't stop to think, "gee, I should get my camera and shoot this before I wipe it out". Zoom, it's gone, and I'm on to the next thought. So because I don't have step-by-step photos, I thought I'd show you my reference photo, something I usually hate to do because the photograph is at home on the screen, while a painting is not; a photo of a painting seen onscreen is dimished, while a photo is as fresh as the day it was shot. Also, I am not trying to reproduce a photograph; I am not a photorealist.

Here is my source material. I think you'll notice at once that I left out the sweep of rust moving down the blue-green blade; I left out the fitting on the red one. Here's something of a timeline of my decisions:

When I began the painting, the value of red and blue-green were much lighter. I put in the rust sweep, took it out, put it back in. The composition felt pretty uncomfortable to me.
I then had the thought to darken the red to the color you see now. Which meant I had to darken the blue-green for balance. That immediately gave the light area at the top left more presence and the whole composition felt more dynamic.
I worked for a long time on the curved area of orange rust but never felt quite comfortable with it. There was also a light band of shiny metal that I had painted along the bottom of the upper blade. When I began to work more carefully on it I started to have that oh-no feeling, that it just wasn't right.
I had one of my impulses and painted out the light band by painting the orange to the the edge of the blade. I breathed a sigh of relief; it looked much better.
But then, it looked like I didn't need the orange curve in the middle of that blue-green, so I painted it out.
Okay, it looks like that works. (maybe)

"Make it New": What is Originality?

2012-01-09T07:13:00.001-05:00

Pablo Picasso, Still Life with a Bottle of Rum, 1911; oil on canvas; 24 1/8 x 19 7/8; from the Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

Is Ezra Pound's modernist injunction to "Make it new" useful? I've long wondered if the push from art school/art world to make work that is unique, original, and avant-garde, doesn't sometimes edge us toward The New at the expense of something deeper. These thoughts came to mind recently because I've been reading an excellent book on aspects of poetry – Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, by the poet Jane Hirshfield – which is beautiful and thoughtful and deep, and whose ideas readily translate into the visual arts. I am grateful to two friends for recommending it: Deborah Barlow, painter and blogger, and Susan Jane Walp, painter. In her chapter "The Question of Originality", Hirshfield points to the origins of the word and how they express its two aspects: the idea of something innovative and of something authentic. How important are each of its aspects, and how do we get there? In a letter attributed to Mozart he writes:

When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer – say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not; nor can I force them...
When I proceed to write, the committing to paper is done quickly enough.....but why my productions take from my hand that particular form and style that makes them Mozartish, and different from the works of other composers, is probably owing to the same cause which renders my nose so large or so aquiline, or, in short, makes it Mozart's, and different from those of other people. For I really do not study or aim at originality. (my emphasis added)

Picasso, who certainly can be said to be one of the most innovative artists of the 20th century had this to say:

The artist is a receptacle of emotions come from no matter where; from the sky, the earth, a piece of paper, a passing figure, a cobweb. This is why one must not discriminate between things. There is no rank among them. One must take one's good where one finds it....
When we invented cubism, we had no intention of inventing cubism, but simply of expressing what was in us. Nobody drew up a program of action, and though our friends the poets followed our efforts attentively, they never dictated to us. The young painters of today often outline a program for themselves to follow and try to do their assignments correctly like well-behaved schoolboys.
The painter passes through states of fullness and of emptying. That is the whole secret of art. (my emphasis added)

I believe that time to be alone, time to work, and to think, time to be open to the world, are necessary in order to find our true selves in the cacophony of influences. Finding that self, the one that leads to original and unique thought, is what is so difficult: I remember being told in graduate school that it would take 10 years to find a personal expression, free from our teachers and our peers. It takes more than that; it's an ongoing project if we want to stay alive and alert and fresh in our work. Time, so that the process is natural, and not rushed, so that we don't press ourselves into a preconceived mold of newness.

Balthus, Therese Dreaming, 1938; oil on canvas; 59 x 51 inches; from the Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

If Picasso was a great innovator, the same cannot be said for Balthus, although his paintings are certainly very personal, and very unique. His work shows another aspect of originality: finding something new within a tradition; it is not at all necessary to be an iconoclast in order to express yourself. Hirshfield, who is very influenced in her writing by Buddhism, has this beautiful paragraph on finding originality, on necessary doubt, in words that touch me deeply:

Originality lives at the crossroads, at the point where world and self open to each other in transparence in the night rain. There, the plenitude of being comes and goes. Originality summons originality: a work of art that contains the mind of freedom will call forth freedom in others. But originality also asks presence – the willingness to inhabit ourselves amid the uncertain transports and sufferings that are our fate. To feel, and to question feeling; to know, and to agree to wander utterly lost in the dark, where every journey of the soul starts over.

Winter Light: On the Floor, Abstract Compositions

2012-01-06T16:10:00.005-05:00

During winter the sun reaches into rooms, illuminating objects and stretches of floor. The depth of winter shadow alongside the bright light creates drama, ordered by the lines of wooden planks or linoleum tiles. The cast shape of a plant adds a sense of the random, while the rug plays with a soft geometry.

This hooked rug by a friend, Andy Drummond, swells against the crisp lines flowing from a chair, the whole composition a bit like the tumbled and tilted planes of cubism.

A minimal composition, as floor meets baseboard; the slight diagonals of light and shadow make the static horizontal and vertical more dynamic.

The grid of old linoleum tiles in my kitchen is a minimalist/expressionist hybrid, with bounding squares containing color variations, along with the random spots of dirt to liven things up. The curved form of a chair back adds further changes to the rigor of the composition.

A heart, straight lines, and curves; light catching on a shiny surface, reflected back in the darkness, small imperfections of dust and wear: a nice metaphor for life during these short days of winter.

Some other Winter Light posts:
Winter Light: Through Windows
Winter Light: Teacups
Winter Light: Creatures in the House
Winter Light: Knobs and Handles
Winter Light: Rounds

Pattern in Native American Art

2012-01-05T12:44:00.002-05:00

Artist unknown, Chilkat Tlingit; Chilkat robe (naaxein), ca. 1850-80; mountain goat wool, cedar bark, native dyes.

I recently spent an inspiring afternoon at the Hood Museum of Dartmouth College; they have a very large collection of Native American art and highlights from their collection are now on view. A year ago I saw another aspect of the collection, a very fine group of ledger drawings, which I wrote about here. The show, which was guest curated by George Horse Capture, Joe Horse Capture, and Joseph Sanchez, is arranged by geographic region; the wall labels are often fascinating. Although the Hood is a small museum, this show is expansive; after seeing all the work I gave myself a more focused assignment for this blog post: the use of pattern.

The Chilkat robe, from the Northwest Coast, was the most powerful object in the show. Its repeated dramatic patterns derived from Tlingit origin legends, with depictions of animals that were important to the culture. This particular robe has a human face at center surrounded by images of a diving whale. The robes were highly prized works of art. Curator Joe Horse Capture explains:

Woven robes of this type were created by women from a pattern that was painted on a board by a man. These pattern boards were passed down through the family. This garment would have been worn by high-ranking tribal members during important events such as ceremonies and feasts....This type of technique, known as Chilkat weaving, is one of the most complex weaving techniques in the world. It might take a woman over a year to create this type of garment. Like other forms of Northwest Coast art, this weaving features a three-dimensional animal on a two-dimensional object.

Artist unknown, Woodlands/Great Lakes, Wisconsin; Container depicting the cosmological universe and, on the underside, two Thunderbirds, ca. 1800; birch bark, wood, spruce root, twine (added later).

Like the Chilkat robe above, this box has imagery that symbolizes origin legends. What looks like simple, decorative, repeating patterns of triangles and lines is actually a very complex story, handed down for centuries. The vertical triangles represent the Above World, the lower rectangles the Underwater World. From the wall label:

The two realms portrayed on this container represent a cosmic universe of immeasurable consequence, in which two powerful supernaturals, or manitous––the Thunderbird of the Above World and the Great Horned Underwater Panther of the Underwater World––hold power. They are forever engaged in a cosmic clash for dominance, a war of no retreat and no advance in a place of eternal time, space, and energy. The Thunderbird and the Underwater Panther rule over environments that are beyond the perception and immediate access of humans. As such, both maitous are sources of power for hunters, warriors, and healers, who seek their assistance through fasting and prayer.

Artist unknown, Seneca, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), New York; Bag, ca. 1830; glass beads, velvet, cotton cloth, ribbon, thread.

In another surprise for me, the design of this charmingly beaded bag has more meaning than is readily apparent to a casual viewer. Many Haudenosaunee were devout Roman Catholics, so the heart imagery, in addition to being traditional, drew inspiration from the Sacred Heart. Here the hearts are surrounded by sun symbols, a Native American spiritual expression. It is a beautifully shaped and designed piece, with refined and delicate beadwork.

Artist unknown, Apsaalooke (Crow/Absaroke); Cradle, ca. 1880; native-tanned deer or bison hide, wood, glass beads, sinew, paint, thread.

I love the way the patterns and colors at the top of this cradle are repeated in the ties below, the shapes of triangles echoed in the triangular shapes of the ties. It is a sophisticated design in a material––beads––that hadn't become a major Crow art form until after 1850. Before that, porcupine quills were used for decoration.

Artist unknown, Siksika (Blackfoot) or Assiniboine (Nakota [Yankton Sioux]); Gun case, ca 1890; native-tanned hide, glass beads, wool cloth, clay wash, thread.

In this gun case we can see similar colors and use of the triangle to the cradle above. It interested me that such a beautiful case would have been made for a gun, but of course they became very important in the survival of a tribal group. This somewhat upsetting short history of the gun and Native Americans was on the wall label, by George Horse Capture:

Long ago, when a small tribal group had a conflict with another for some reason, casualties were minimal because they were equally armed with bows and arrows, spears, and large shields. Their encounters usually consisted of shouting insults at each other, throwing rocks, and other non-lethal activities. In the early 1700s, when guns came from the east, the entire world of the Indian people changed. The weapons of the Indian people were mostly ineffectual against the gun, whose bullets could penetrate the hide shields. The tribes who established relationships with the Anglos soon had the gun and would rule the Plains. Whether on horseback or on foot, one had to carry the guns, and the Indian people soon decorated their scabbards or gun cases with their colors and tribal designs.

Artist unknown, Tsistsistas/Suhtai (Cheyenne); Girl's Dress, ca. 1930; native-tanned hide, glass beads, bone, string, sinew, thread.

It is wonderful to think of the tribal culture lasting into the 20th century, long enough to produce this hide dress decorated with elk teeth and beadwork.

Artist unknown, Lakota (Teton/Western Sioux); Child's Dress, ca. 1890; wool cloth, ribbon, dentalium shell, metal sequins, cotton cloth, thread.

This dress has the same type of design as the one above, using decorative elements to create a repeat pattern on the yoke. But this small object shows the power of trade, as the wool, ribbons, and sequins came from Europe, while the shells came from the Northwest Coast, a trade item since prehistoric times.

Artist unknown, Santo Domingo Pueblo, Dough Bowl depicting diagonally quartered paneled design with ovoids, ca. 1890; earthenware, painted with colored slips and burnished.

One of the great art forms of America are the ceramics produced by Native Americans in the Southwest. This bowl, with its unevenly rounded forms held in by the geometry of triangles, seems to express the fullness of life.

Artists Unknown, Kiowa and Apache; "Strike-a-light" pouches, ca. 1870 and 1880; leather, hide, glass beads, tin cones, tin, metal, cotton cloth, ochre, thread.

These pouches were originally made to carry tools necessary to make a fire, and when matches became widespread, they held ration cards. They both have very lively designs, and I love the use of the small tin cones as dangling elements.

Artist unknown, Mescalero Apache; Saddle Bag, ca. 1900; rawhide, native-tanned hide, wool cloth, glass beads, sinew, ink.

This patterns reminds me of paper doll cutouts, since the hide was cut away to make the design, which looks like a row of figures.

Artist unknown, Pomo; Basket, ca. 1905; sedge root, willow, bracken fern root, California valley quail crests, clamshell disc beads, string.

These final two objects are beautiful examples of basketry, made in California. The shifting patterns articulate the volumes, and make me aware of the flow of form as I follow their movement across the surface. The decorative elements of shells and feathers add a lightness to the design above, as does the handle form rising from the lid below. The abstract pattern of these works, and others in this exhibition, is strong and sure and aesthetically deeply satisfying.

Elizabeth Conrad Hickox, Karuk/Wiyot, 1872-1947, or Louise Hickox, Karuk, 1896-1967.
Basket, ca. 1925; wild grape root, myrtle sticks, hazel, maidenhair fern, yellow-dyed porcupine quills, staghorn lichen.

A New Hooked Wool Drawing

2012-01-03T16:06:00.003-05:00

2012 #1, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen; 2 pieces, each ca. 20 x 8 inches.

My first drawing of the new year is a diptych, based on the idea of hanging scrolls. A couple of years ago I did a hooked textile of the same dimensions (I just now discovered this) which you can see here, so this is a thought that has stayed with me. I wanted to keep the design repetitive and simple. I stole an idea from myself, of a curved line overlapping a form (you can see another use of this here), but I believe I stole it from Sonia Delaunay, although it wasn't in my catalog from the show Color Moves at the Cooper Hewitt. I paired the tilted rectangles with circles, evenly spaced, although the lines between them confuse the intervals.

I must have been going through late year muddles, because just like with my last painting, this piece gave me some trouble. I first made a right panel that had larger circles than this one, which looked much too large alongside the rectangles. So I made another, with smaller circles, which turned out a little too small...but that's easy to fix. What wasn't so easy to fix was that the cross at the bottom was too low. You probably think: what's the problem? just pull it out and move it up. The problem is that I draw it in pencil first, in soft, dark pencil, which doesn't come off by erasing. I decided to take a chance and try washing the pencil off, gently, which worked. But the linen shrank a little, of course, even with my pulling and tugging as it dried. So the work isn't perfect, but then it never really is; there is never a straight and true edge, or precise form, which is one reason I love doing these textiles along with my much more rigorous paintings.

A Walk in the Woods: The Line Dances of Turkey Tracks

2012-01-02T16:19:00.004-05:00

It is thought that Benjamin Franklin had wished that our national bird was the wild turkey and not the bald eagle. I too wish this were the case; the wild turkeys of my neighborhood are beautiful and silly, rotund and elegant; they are very social, hanging out in groups of young and old. They seem lumbering, pecking their way across the fields, but can take flight in a quick whirr when they feel threatened. An eagle inspires awe, a turkey smiles and laughter, at least for me, and which is better? I photographed this tom turkey a couple of winters ago, on my front lawn.

Another benefit of wild turkeys are the tracks they leave as they walk about, their three long toes marking distinctive patterns in the snow. They make beautiful sinuous lines, one footstep in front of the next.

Deer tracks, like small hearts, are shapes, while the turkey draws with line.

Here the lines curve at the top edge, a compositional decision necessitated by the turkey running into a bank.

And here the all-over dance of several turkeys, random and exuberant, contrasts with the heavy certainty of a truck tire, lightened by its graceful, symmetrical treads. It's a perfect image of human manufacture and wild life.

Happy New Year! in Masereel's "The City"

2011-12-30T12:44:00.008-05:00

When I walked into the studio to find inspiration in my art books for a New Year's post, I noticed my copy of Frans Masereel's The City, a dramatic wordless novel in 100 woodcut images, published in 1925. What a glorious image of fireworks to start the new year!

Masereel's portrait of the city is one we would recognize today, with the intense bustle of rush hour...

to the long lines of workers laboring at their desks...

the hard physical labor to build the city's structures...

and the manual labor to make its factory goods.

The city that Masereel so vividly depicted was one of work and play, drudgery and debauchery, love and violence. And, like today, the rich strongly contrasted with the poor.

There was intimacy; there were large crowds celebrating or protesting; there was lonely despair.

I wish all of you a year full of peace and prosperity and the beauty of the world around us, from the grandeur of starry skies to the tiny things that touch us. And I also hope, as Masereel did, that the world becomes a better place.

A New Painting: "White Behind Red"

2011-12-29T15:27:00.008-05:00

White Behind Red, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 6 1/4 x 7 1/2 inches.

I had a terrible time with this painting. It looks calm and rational, but its lower third fought me tooth and nail, forcing me to wipe off a full day's work twice. The upper part of the painting went fine, with me trying to work slowly and attentively, as I described with my last painting, Gray Cross. I mainly used a very small brush, a #2 round, and built the subtle variations in the surface color bit by bit. The wonderful thing about egg tempera is that because it's translucent, I can make color changes very easily, by lightly glazing or scumbling one color on top of another. I shifted the shadow blues many times until I was satisfied with their hue and value.

It was the red rectangle at the bottom of the painting that gave me all the trouble; it wasn't because of color, but because of lowly dust: for some reason the paint attracted every stray bit of dust, every tiny hair floating about. I began working on this section of the painting as I did on the upper part: after laying down a couple of layers of paint with a larger brush, as you see in the photo above, I worked carefully and slowly with a small brush to build a wall of color. My aim was for it to have weight and presence, with a slightly varied color surface. I don't know if it's because these earth colors are fairly transparent, but I needed many layers of paint to get the effect and color that I wanted. I would work for a while, then go downstairs and do something else for a few minutes in order to see what I'd done with a fresh eye. Over and over again it looked off; over and over again I picked out pieces of dust with a sewing needle I keep on hand for this purpose. Finally, after 5 hours, I looked at the painting and said "ah good, it looks velvety". But but, there was the dust, which mucked up the surface and lifted the paint when I tried to brush it off. So...trying to maintain my sense of calm, I wiped all the red off, down to the parchment, and began again the next day.

White Behind Red, detail

The second day of working on the red went much the same as the first: many layers, finally being happy with what I'd done, realizing it was too dusty and wiping it all off. (I wish I'd taken a photo of the dusty surface to show you, but documenting it wasn't on my mind at the time.) By the third day I felt I had to try a different approach; it was almost as though the painting was insisting I try a different approach. Instead of the small brush, I used a larger one, and went back to a tried and true technique of building a solid surface: cross hatching, layers and layers of it. When the shape looked opaque, I then went in and worked some varied color on the surface, with a larger, #5, brush and a light touch. And that, finally, worked. The lesson in this for me is that I must not have a fixed idea as to how to proceed, but adjust my technique as needed, and as the painting seems to ask.

It's Time for the Seed Order

2011-12-28T15:22:00.002-05:00

This morning I put my seed order in the mail. It might seem a little early since winter is only just getting going, but I've made it a ritual to fill out the order during the week between Christmas and New Years. Being an early bird has its benefits: I get my onion and leek seeds in time to start them indoors by early February, and I'm less likely to lose out on fast selling varieties. I try to be very organized about the whole thing, keeping a list of the seeds I need in a notebook as I see myself running low during the gardening season. Then I go through the catalog, circling each seed packet that I want with a red pen, double checking it on my list. I absolutely hate when I forget something, because so many of my most loved vegetable varieties aren't available at the local garden store.

My very favorite seed catalog, from which I do most of my ordering, is a co-op based in Waterville, Maine, Fedco Seeds. In a world of glossy, full color catalogs, this one stands out for being on newsprint. It is full of the most delightful illustrations; how can you resist buying corn seeds seeing the images of little critters eating their fill, or melons and cucumbers on this two page spread? The illustrations are both contemporary and vintage, and are as much fun to look at as the vegetable descriptions are to read (take a look at that guy sprinting with a cuke under his arm). I know I can rely on the very complete and honest appraisals, and on Fedco's support of varieties for northern growing and for organic agriculture.

I store my plastic box full of seed packets in the freezer, which helps keep the seed viable longer. I'm organized here too: everything in alphabetical order. The seeds are now tucked away in their cold storage, biding their time, waiting for spring.

At the Met: The Wondrous Color of Indian Painting

2011-12-27T12:06:00.006-05:00

Sahibdin, Malavini Ragini: folio from a Ragamala series; Udaipur, Mewar, Rajasthan, 1628; opaque watercolor and ink on paper, 9 13/16 x 7 inches.

I love the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The permanent collections are a marvel, which I never tire of exploring; there is always something new to discover. They also mount remarkable temporary exhibitions, that take me to new worlds, or expand and deepen my understanding of old ones. "Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India, 1100-1900" is one of these enlightening and thrilling shows; on view until January 8th, I hope all of you who are able get to see it. The title of the show comes from its curatorial premise, that many of the works we had assumed were painted by anonymous artists were in fact by well known masters, who were "wonders of the age". This is a very large show, some 220 paintings, and there is so much to think about – narrative strategies, compositional and spacial structures, revelatory details, refined form, sheer beauty – that I decided to focus on color for this post. The museum website has some images online, but it is so limited that I decided to buy the catalog for the exhibition, and I photographed these paintings from it. The color is twice removed from the actual paintings, but I hope you can get some idea of it.

I look at the early 17th century painting by Sahibdin and feel elated, buoyed by the vibrant colors and mellifluous shapes. Even white takes on a sparkle and presence and weight. Each color stands on its own, unmodulated, rich and sensuous.

detail, Malavi Ragini

These two pots are wonderfully alive, bright white forms against the vivid red, as though symbolizing the passion of the two lovers above. I had always loved the more detailed work of Mughal-style painting, but after seeing this show, the energy of bright flat colors totally engaged me.

Farrukh Beg, Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II riding his prized elephant, Atash Khan; Bijapur, Deccan, ca. 1600; opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 5 5/8 x 4 1/16 inches.

There are different styles in Indian painting, and this portrait is more refined and delicate than the Rajasthani painting above. The accumulation of detail is delightful, within a gold and green landscape. The sprays of pink flowers and the orange elephant's trunk are surprising jewel-like elements.

Payag, Shah Jahan riding a stallion; Mughal court at Agra, ca. 1628; opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 11 1/8 x 8 3/16 inches.

A black and white horse dramatically prances in a field of green. This beautiful cool green appears often in Indian painting. At the end of the exhibition there's a case with various pigments and tools used to make these paintings. I wish I'd taken notes, but I remember that a green pigment used was copper carbonate, also known as verdigris. If you're interested in learning more about ancient pigments, the book Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting by Daniel V. Thompson, is a good guide.

Early Master at the Court of Mandi, The gopis pleading with Krishna to return their clothes; Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, ca. 1635-50; opaque watercolor on paper; 11 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches.

The same beautiful green appears here, in hills undulating upwards and backed by a distant gray-green, balanced by the gray of water in the foreground. The delicately warm colors of women's flesh and of cattle engage my eye and remind me of the story.

Devidasa, Shiva and Parvati playing chaupar; Basohli, Jammu, 1694-95; opaque watercolor, ink, silver, gold on paper; 6 1/2 x 10 7/8 inches.

In this painting, color seems so much a part of the narrative: the golden orange overlapped by nodding green trees glows, as in a heavenly place. The warm browny-red of the border accentuates the scene. What colors! orange-yellow, warm and cooler dark greens, the yellow of tiger skin, the red of game board and clothing and the dark red surround. Delicious.

Golu, The lover prepares to depart; Nurpur, Himachal Pradesh, ca. 1710-20; opaque watercolor on paper; 6 7/8 x 10 5/8 inches.

This is my favorite painting in the show, which I saw twice. The colors seem perfectly balanced and each is so beautifully rich. The division into lit interior and mysterious dark heightens the feeling of each space.

detail, The lover prepares to depart.

This detail makes me swoon: the deep purply brown with the very simple overlays of golden oval trees, held up by arcs of green; the band of greenish blue, marked by small details; the gorgeous deep red. And all painted with precision of a fresh and open sort. Oh my.

Manaku, South wind cools in the Himalayas; Guler, Himalchal Pradesh, 1730; opaque watercolor on paper; 8 3/8 x 12 1/16 inches.

There were several paintings in the show of extravagantly colored mountains, the artists not being content with the grays and browns of rocky reaches.

Bagta, Kunvar Anop Singh hawking; Devgarh, Mewar, Rajasthan, ca. 1777; opaque watercolor on paper; 14 3/16 x 10 7/16 inches.

Both man and beast are gorgeously arrayed in this fairly large portrait. There are sumptuous details of jewels and patterned cloth, but they are subordinate to the overall color design of blue, orange-brown, and green, with red as punctuation. And of course the swelling form of prince and horse are elegantly and simply drawn; it is interesting to compare this painting to the ones above, of princes on horseback and on an elephant.

Nainsukh, Portable Vishnu shrine; Guler, Himachal Pradesh, 1763; opaque watercolor and gold on paper; 5 29/32 x 7 1/2 inches.

To end, I am showing a painting in which color is quiet, minimal, subtle. White is the mourning color in India, and scholars think that under the cloth at center are the ashes of Nainsukh's patron, Balwant Singh. The white, the gray, the green, the small stretch of blue at the top, with other small bits of color, make of a solemn moment a harmonious one; a painting perfect in its expression. I feel that I have a great deal to learn from these master painters of India.

From the Root Cellar

2011-12-26T16:04:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, at Christmas dinner, a friend told me about a small but wonderful vegetable store in White River Junction, which has low prices and a surprising variety of produce. "But", I said, "I don't buy vegetables". Aside from buying some onions and potatoes in spring, I eat only what I grow, from the garden during the season, and from storage during the cold months. I freeze and can and store in the root cellar, a walled-off portion of my cellar, stone walled and dirt floored. To see more photos of it, go to this post from last year. The vegetables in my diet are restricted to what I have, but I never feel that I'm missing anything. On the contrary, I get a tremendous sense of satisfaction in feeding myself. The photo above shows my cabbage crop, wrapped in brown paper to keep it moist. The storage-variety cabbages usually keep until May.

After yesterday's big meal, I thought I'd like to have a simple vegetarian dinner tonight: sweet and sour red cabbage with boiled potatoes. When I unwrapped the cabbage, I could see that the first wrappings of leaves were spoiled, but under them was a bright, fresh vegetable. The potatoes are a variety that is my favorite for boiling, with a smooth, creamy texture and superb flavor: French Fingerling. My cabbage recipe comes from Deborah Madison, is very simple and delicious, and you can see it on this blog post. It's a perfect meal for a winter evening, cooked on the roaring woodstove, comforting and warming.

Snow, Winter Mosses, and Merry Christmas

2011-12-23T15:53:00.002-05:00

The ground has been bare and the temperatures quite mild for the past couple of weeks, so I was very happy to wake to snow this morning. Winter seems very bleak without the brightening effect of snow on the ground, even if only two or three inches, like today. Now it looks like Christmas day will be white.

But yesterday the ground was bare, and as I walked through the woods and saw the brilliantly green mosses, shining with fresh emerald color, I thought of the saying that snow was the "poor man's fertilizer". Although that usually refers to spring snows, I don't see why it wouldn't work in the fall, when the ground is still soft. The mosses seemed to have soaked up the moisture and nutrients of early winter snows, and were glowing with health. They will be covered with a soft blanket today, biding their time until they emerge again. Along with the white of Christmas snow, I wish you joy, and peace, and love.

A New Textile: "Chevrons"

2011-12-22T16:20:00.003-05:00

Chevrons, hand dyed wool on linen, 11 x 10 inches.

With this piece I've gone back to playing with pattern, as I've done with two previous textiles, which you can see here and here. For years my primary inspiration for my hooked wool work has been minimalist abstraction, but now I am drawn to other kinds of visual expression. With pattern I am going back to the decorative arts, back to the design of everyday things. There is a beauty and energy in repetition that is very engaging. Thirty or so years ago there was a loose group of painters in a "Pattern and Decoration" movement, which also looked beyond the history of painting for ideas.

When I was thinking about the color I'd use for the angled bands of color, I went to this photo of a shelf mushroom that I took during the fall. I love its deep purples, along with the oranges and greens melting together into a purply brown. I did not even try to get close to those colors, instead using them as a jumping off point, keeping my colors dark and fairly close in value. As you can see in the detail below, the purple is of a reddish hue, so I think it holds its own alongside the warm earthy red; the green is more vibrant than the other colors so its movement across the surface is noted, shining dimly amid the deep hues of autumn.

A Family Hanukah Meal, and a Potato Latkes Recipe

2011-12-21T14:43:00.006-05:00

Sambousak, a cheese filled pastry

My family got together a few days before Hanukah to celebrate. Aside from the pleasure of seeing my family – brothers and sisters and parents, nephews and niece, and the growing number of little ones – is the delicious food spread out on the table by my sister-in-law. My mother taught us well and I can say we are all good cooks, but the great treat for me is the Syrian Jewish food that I grew up with and rarely prepare for myself. The beautiful sesame-dotted pastries filled with a cheese and egg mixture are one of my favorites. I have yet to attempt these in my own kitchen, although I've made a variation using filo dough, which is quite simple to prepare.

Ka'ak, savory biscuits

I think of these crisp, flavorful rings as a signature food of my family and culture; they are eaten with afternoon coffee, at a maza, as part of a laden table. It's not easy to get the correct balance of dry crispness that is also light; I know because I've tried. They are flavored with anise seed, coriander, and nigella, a unique and enticing flavor.

Syrian string cheese, with nigella seeds

This cheese, which comes in a tightly braided package, was a staple of my childhood. It is mild, and delicious when melted in a pita bread sandwich. It is generally served with the strands of cheese pulled apart into thinner threads. Recipes for the three foods above can be found in my cousin Poopa Dweck's cookbook Aromas of Aleppo.

Potato latkes, or pancakes

The most traditional of Jewish dishes for Hanukah, in both Ashkenaz and Sephardic homes are potato latkes. The fact that they are fried in oil commemorates the miracle in the Temple. I treat myself to these several times during winter, topping them with my homemade applesauce. I use the recipe from The Art of Jewish Cooking, by Jennie Grossinger. These are a lovely meal to celebrate Hanukah or the Winter Solstice. Happy Holidays to you all!!

2 eggs
3 cups grated, drained potatoes (I like the crisper quality that comes from grating in a food processor rather than by hand)
4 Tbs grated onion
1 teas salt
1/4 teas pepper
2 Tbs flour
1/2 cup vegetable oil for frying

Beat eggs and add potatoes, onions, salt, pepper, and flour.
Heat oil on a medium flame and drop the potato mixture by spoonsful (whatever size you prefer) into the oil. Fry until brown and then turn and brown the other side. Add more oil if needed.
Let drain on paper towels.
Serve with applesauce or sour cream.

At the Met: Ancient Chinese Jades

2011-12-20T15:59:00.005-05:00

Ritual Object (Bi); Neolithic period, late 3rd - 2nd millenium B.C.; jade (nephrite)

Ritual Object (Bi); Neolithic period, ca. 3200 - 2000 B.C.; jade (nephrite)

There is a small case just at the entrance to the Chinese galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that I always stop and visit when I am in that part of the museum. It contains a group of ancient objects that are simple and perfect in form, so invite contemplative looking. Theirs is a pure beauty.

Ritual Object (Bi); Neolithic period, late 3rd - 2nd millenium B.C.; jade (nephrite)

From the wall label I learned that jade was in use as early as the 5th millenium B.C. These small pieces (the works above are around 5 or 6 inches across) were, of course, objects for those high in social status, and used as ornaments, or for ritual purposes: offerings, gifts, tomb objects for the afterlife. Jade was more than a lovely stone, it had a cultural meaning. Confucius wrote:

The wise have likened jade to virtue. For them, its polish and brilliancy represent the whole of purity; its perfect compactness and extreme hardness represent the sureness of intelligence; its angles, which do not cut, although they seem sharp, represent justice...Its color represents loyalty; its interior flaws, always showing themselves through the transparency, call to mind sincerity; its iridescent brightness represents heaven; its admirable substance, born of mountain and of water, represents the earth.

Perforated Ax; Neolithic period, 3200 - 2000 B.C.; stone.

Although this piece is not of jade, it has the same sense of a form slowly developed until it is perfect; each line, straight or curved, is balanced and sure.

Ceremonial Blade; Neolithic period, ca. 1600 - 1046 B.C.; jade (nephrite).
Ceremonial Dagger-Ax (Ge); Shang dynasty, ca. 1600 - 1046 B.C.; jade (nephrite)

Ceremonial Blade; Neolithic period, ca. 1600 - 1046 B.C.; jade (nephrite).

Ceremonial Dagger-Ax; Shang Dynasty, ca. 1600 - 1046 B.C.; jade (nephrite)

The shape of each of these blades is so refined and beautiful. According to the museum's wall label, Chinese jades were made of nephrite, a mineral composed of oxides of calcium, magnesium, and silicon. This mineral was extremely hard and could only be shaped by grinding with abrasives such as quartz sand. Because of this, making a jade object was a very laborious and time consuming practice. I like to think of the ancient makers working with slow and close attention to every aspect of surface and form.

Ornament with Mask; Neolithic period, 3200 - 2000 B.C.; jade (nephrite)

This small, three inch, jade is the only one with an image, a low relief of a charmingly stylized face; two upward tilting eyes are connected by a bridge of nose, keeping them anchored to each other, and a small, slightly smiling mouth is an elongated oval below. All is contained within an elegant curved dome. Each of these ancient works speaks quietly, serenely, of time and patience and grace.

Splendor from the Sea

2011-12-19T16:41:00.004-05:00

The small wonders of the natural world with which I'm familiar here in northern Vermont are mosses and lichen and fungi, with an occasional charming little snail. The shells of land snails are very plain and workaday, though, compared with their mollusc cousins from the sea.

This vivid collection of seashells looked like a treasure chest that had been emptied on a Brooklyn dining room table. My sister and her husband had been to Sanibel Island, famous for the mounds of shells found on its beaches, shells of all different types, colors and shapes.

I love seeing the geometry of the spiral forms of what I believe are whelk shells. Bands of color flow down and across the shells, according to the mathematical Fibonacci Spiral.

Conch shells also display the spiral construction. It's a marvelous mystery to me that nature has an underlying rational order.

Cockle shells come in a beautiful array of colors, with patterns that look as though they were carefully painted in order to heighten the effect of the crisp corrugation.

I never knew that seashells came in plaid. What a delight these coquinas shells are!

Finally, some very delicate shells, irregular in form, glistening like mother of pearl, with pools of yellow or pink. Looking at all these shells, noticing each variation in color and shape, was like going on a surprising trip to a new and unknown world, full of delight.

Winter Light: Through Windows

2011-12-14T13:48:00.004-05:00

The short days and low sun of winter have their blessings: the sun rises luxuriously late, allowing me to enjoy the rich intensity of color emerging from the dark; and the sunlight pours into the house, reaching far into rooms untouched in summer. This change of light has encouraged me to take still life photographs during the past two winters, a time I am more focused inwards. I thought that this season I would begin with a transitional idea, of the winter landscape seen through windows. This bedroom window faces east, to the sunrise, and to the White Mountains of New Hampshire draped by clouds in the distance. This is a scene to encourage rising...

and walking to the window to observe the landscape more closely. A narrow band of moisture gathers beads of light, rivaling the luminous sky. My only regret about double glazed windows is the loss of Jack Frost on the old storms, those beautiful and varied patterns of ice that coated them. But now I can see out of the windows all winter, instead of looking through coats of frost.

A few days before that clear sunrise there had been snow; blown snow made a lacy pattern on windows that carried into the room. The sun picked out the edges of things, the lines of cobweb and string.

And from the kitchen window, the soft shimmer and glitter of snow, a gentleness framed by strict geometry, reminding me of nature/culture, inside/out, warm/cold and many other interesting contrasts and contradictions.

A couple of other Winter Light posts:
Winter Light: Teacups
Winter Light: Knobs and Handles
Winter Light: Rounds

***Note: I'll be away for a few days, to celebrate an early Hanukah with my family, and to see friends and art. See you next week.

A New Painting: "Gray Cross", With a Lesson Learned

2011-12-12T15:35:00.004-05:00

Gray Cross, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 6 x 7 inches.

In between my last painting, which I wasn't happy with and you can see here, and this one, I rediscovered my love of Tantric painting, and it has changed the way I am approaching putting paint to surface. I had received the new book Tantra Song as a gift and spent many hours poring over the images, and then writing a blog post on them: "The Quiet Depth of Tantric Paintings". Just like the first time I saw these works, at the Drawing Center in 2004, I was inspired to try to somehow make them my own, copy them in some way. Back then they were what encouraged me to begin making small textiles for the wall, when all I'd done before were rugs for my house.

Last week, I wanted to actually paint those paintings; I wanted to possess them, to understand their making; I wanted to capture the deep calm, the quality of the essential, that I found in them. I took out a couple of pieces of parchment and sat there looking at them for a while, conscious that the Tantric artists took advantage of irregularities of surface. I tried to breath quietly, to become calm and quiet, to get close to the best of how I feel when I meditate. And I began to paint a blue circle, being as attentive to brush, the paint, the mark, as I could be. Then I felt the circle needed a companion square, so painted that. I approached the dark green rectangle with the same intense level of concentration, balancing it with a soft haze of red.

I then decided that I was going to paint on scraps of parchment left over from the stretching process; it would be like doing musical scales, practicing a little each day, reminding me of the feeling of quietly contemplating each shape.

After my little homages, I began this painting with a very different attitude. I felt that I'd become a little lazy, a little impatient, a little rushed. So now I slowed down, worked with smaller brushes, attempted to get more subtle shifts of form and color. None of this is for the sake of "realism" but in order to have a deeper relationship with each shape and each color that I paint. It is so that I pay attention.

A Walk in the Woods: The Artistry of Snow

2011-12-11T08:14:00.001-05:00

The snow that fell on Thursday is still clinging to limb and twig. When I walked through the woods on Friday, the world was transformed: every dark branch was outlined in white, as though to emphasize its movement through space.

The snow was a thoughtful artist, adding a thick line here, a thinner one there, in order to balance the drawing in its lights and darks. And like all good art, it made me more aware, more alert to the shifts of overlapping lines, to their subtle changes in direction, to their relationships.

At times the style changed, from a more classical rendering of ordered space to an all-over pattern, like the work of Jackson Pollock or Milton Resnick.

Or there was an emphasis on graceful flowing lines, as beautiful and fresh and simple as any line drawing by Matisse.

Looking closer, I saw the crystalline snow delicately balanced on an arching branch, catching droplets of light,

and patches of white clung expressively to the only warm color left in the white and gray and brown woods.

The Quiet Depth of Tantric Paintings

2011-12-08T14:00:00.008-05:00

How is it that paintings made by anonymous artists half a world away, as objects for meditation in a centuries old tradition, resonate so intensely in a contemporary mind, eye, and heart? Of course, one reason is that they look so modern; although they are copies of Hindu Tantric images dating back to the 17th century, they fit right in to modernist high art in its minimalist form. I first encountered these works at an exhibition at the Drawing Center in 2004 and was immediately enthralled.

Their simplicity, their modesty, their small size (most are around 12 inches in length), belied the power of their presence. So, when I received as a gift a new book on these works, Tantra Song, from my sister-in-law, the designer Sandy Chilewich, I couldn't have been happier. Thinking about these works in the past week has already profoundly influenced and inspired me; the anonymity of the artists, the fact that making the paintings is a religious practice, as is contemplating them, has reminded me that the quality of attention brought to the act of painting is of prime importance.

The collector of these quietly masterful works is the French writer Franck André Jamme, who has written marvelously poetic texts for the book. He explains that the images have been repeated through the centuries in northern India, that there are a certain number of them, that their "vocabulary...is somewhat similar to that of ragas in Indian classical music". It is rare that a new image emerges. Jamme states that "in such an ego-centered world as ours, I find this anonymity extraordinarily delightful and touching".

Jamme explains that there is no precise symbolism for all these images, although he offers a guide. Above is Shakti in the manifestation of Kali, The Black One, the goddess of time. The three spots, which appear on several paintings symbolize the three gunas: matter, energy, essence. Blue is consciousness, spirals and arrows are energy.

Although I know nothing about Tantrism, I can't help but think that the spiritual origins of these paintings carries a depth of meaning, mysterious but potent, that I feel in looking at them.

I see a tension in the red connected circles, pushing apart or being held together. Jamme calls this a "meditation of the possible and necessary balance of things". I don't see it as quite so calm. The little bit of red at the bottom of the page creates more jump in the image.

The paper used for the paintings is found and worn, but it seems clear that the artists were very conscious of the properties of each sheet – its colors, repairs, tears – and used them to balance the compositions. In the two paintings above you see again the three gunas.

Most of the Tantric images are very simple forms, revealing essences. Here there are multitudinous small arrows, "the endless dance of energy". It is like looking into a sparkling night sky and having a wondrous sense of the enormity of the universe and our tiny place within it.

Fire around the sacred principle, the Shiva Linga. As a secular Westerner the black form doesn't tell me a story, but it is a power; it has both a tremendous solid presence with its uneven paint, and is a deep deep void, containing the compressed energy and matter of a black hole. I love seeing how simple shapes, basic colors, are transformed in these small paintings into the essences of life and spirit. Looking at them, I become more still, I give more pure attention to the world inside of me and out.

Quarrying Granite

2011-12-07T15:31:00.003-05:00

Much of the bedrock of Vermont is granite, an igneous rock formed from volcanic magma. There are granite outcrops around my land, granite boulders form the stone walls, and my house is built on granite ledge, with half the cellar taken up by its intrusion into the space. Not far from my home, in Barre, Vermont, are enormous veins of granite that have been quarried for 200 years. The Rock of Ages quarry is reputed to be the world's largest, and has been photographed by Edward Burtynsky, (click "quarries" then "Vermont") a great photographer of industrial sites. I made a trip with friends to see a nearby abandoned quarry last week, guided by the journalist and photographer Terry J. Allen; they thought I'd enjoy seeing the site and photographing there, and they certainly were right. It was thrilling.

I caught my breath as I got my first glimpse of the huge walls of granite, dropping to a still body of greenish water, the gray stone streaked with dramatic bands of black, possibly from mineral deposits. The complex interlocking angles of the stones make the whole thing look like a giant sculptural installation.

In other areas, red streaks, and rock walls topped by long-abandoned fences.

Upon our arrival in the area, the quarries had announced themselves in the village nearby: giant mounds of discarded stones are everywhere.

Trees grow up between these rocks and on top of them, the grays of stone and bark in subtle harmony.

Climbing past those rocky piles and across granite ground was when the drama of the black and gray walls unfolded. Here you can see the old ladders still in place that enabled the workers to climb from ledge to ledge.

And when I looked toward the west, there was a beautiful lake formed by water seeping into the abandoned quarry, the angled rocks looking like an architectural ruin.

Turning back toward the east, I could see the cranes of the working quarry, used to lift the blocks of granite.

There was a large array of discarded tools and equipment, which of course caught my eye, including an entire building filled with old machinery. The relationships of color and form were beautiful, and the huge size (the cables two or three inches thick) astounding.

I loved this group of enormous versions of simple bolts and screw eyes, bits of hardware we usually can hold in the palm of the hand. Here they were made for giant tasks, the heroic endeavor of cutting stone from the earth. It does seem heroic to me, thinking of the men, many from Italy, who worked these quarries a hundred years or more ago, when it was more difficult and dangerous. I see here some grandeur in our industrial past.

A New Textile: "Draped"

2011-12-05T15:43:00.005-05:00

Draped, hand dyed wool on linen, 12 1/2 x 9 inches.

A couple of months ago I had a powerful visual experience upon opening my eyes after my brief meditation practice, which I describe in this blog post. I felt as though I was seeing clearly, deeply, and tenderly, and what my eye fell on was my terry cloth bathrobe. I did some thumbnail sketches of it and put them away in my folder of textile ideas; they came out last week. Most of my body of textiles uses flat shapes in homage to the tradition of reductive painting which I dearly love, but in this case, I wanted to have an illusion of form. It is simple, to be sure, and I used a black outline which pushes the image back towards flatness.

To dye the wool in a range of values and colors I dipped it into the dye pot; first I dipped the darker end into red, raising it up and down, up and down, putting a little more of the fabric in the pot with each dip. I then turned the length of fabric around (it was 12 inches wide by around 3 feet long) and dipped the other end into a yellow; this would ensure that the lighter value would be warmer in hue. I then added some darker red to the pot and immersed the end in that until the dye was taken up. Finally, I added a little more red and submerged the entire piece of fabric so that the yellow end would be a reddish hue and all the hues would be related. It sounds complicated, but it's not, and it's fun.

In this detail you can see the slight variations in color and how they make an illusion of folds. I hooked the black background, which I chose for drama, in a random pattern in order to have it read more as background behind the regular vertical rows of folds. I so enjoyed working with this little bit of illusionism that I've done more sketches for possible projects like it, balancing form and abstraction, somewhat like my painting, but much closer to the abstract end of the scale.

At the Met: Metalwork in the New Islamic Wing

2011-12-04T15:24:00.009-05:00

Base for a Water Pipe with Poetry and Flowers; India, early 18th century; cast, engraved, inlaid with silver and brass.

The glory of pattern, refined, elegant, and complex, is the essence of so many of the metal objects in the new wing at the Met, the "New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia". The full round form of this water pipe base is so satisfying, inviting me to cup my hands around it, but it is the pattern that astounds.

Base for a Water Pipe, detail.

In columns that curve around the form, enhancing its bulbous grandeur, are marvelously wrought flowers and leaves and words (there is unfortunately no translation of the text).

Basin with Figural Imagery; probably Iran, early 14th century; brass, raised, engraved, and inlaid with silver and gold.

Looking at this work, I am in awe of the detailed craftsmanship, the intense quality of attention that had to be called up in order to complete these complex tasks. The pillowed curves of the rim of this basin are perfectly matched, and create a sensuous rhythm around its edge.

Basin, detail.

Every curve has a figure or animal at its center. Each line, each shape, whether flower or fruit or figure, is beautifully wrought, inviting close looking.

Dragon Handled Jug with Inscription; present day Afghanistan, late 15th - early 16th century; brass, cast and turned, engraved, and inlaid with silver, gold, and black organic compound.

This wonderful jug has repeated medallions of twining gold and silver lines which repeat its rounded shape.

Dragon Handled Jug, detail.

The inscription around the neck is an invocation to 'Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammud.

Inkwell with Floral and Animal Imagery; Iran, 16th century; brass, lid cast, body worked, engraved and chased, inlaid with silver.

There are delightful animals cavorting amid flowers and foliage on this charming small object. Who wouldn't be pleased to be writing if they could dip their ink into this lively and perfect little world.

Helmets; from the left: Helmet with the Name of Sultan Ya'qub; Iran, 15th century; iron, silver.
Helmet; Turkey, early 17th century; copper, embossed, engraved, stippled, and gilded.
Helmet; Turkey, late 16th century; steel, forged and engraved.

Lastly, some accoutrements of war, or of military parades, because they too are gorgeously shaped objects. I am showing them together because I am fascinated by the variety of form, topped with an ending sphere (click on the image to see them enlarged). Each piece is a sculptural object, a variation on a theme; each is inventive and graceful. I am looking forward to exploring more of this new installation, and discovering new treasures.

The previous post on the new Islamic wing:
At the Met: Ceramics in the New Islamic Wing

A Walk in the Woods: In the Distance and Close at Hand

2011-12-02T16:23:00.003-05:00

There are some newly expansive views on my woods walk: my neighbor has done some logging. In an area that was once covered with young trees, obscuring the surrounding hills, now I can see them ringing my town, and peer far off to the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

It's made me think of the changes this landscape has gone through, from heavily wooded to almost cleared at the beginning of the 20th century. I have read that Vermont, in the late 19th century, was only thirty percent wooded to seventy percent cleared and now it's the opposite; much of that clearing was done slowly, acre by acre, with hand labor along with oxen or horses. Now, that hard fought cleared land is mostly back to woods, and stone walls that once fenced in pastures and fields wind between trees. I enjoy the feeling of my body moving from enclosed space to an expansive one, and back again.

There is much to see in the wide open world, but what I love about my walks in the woods are the small things that I have to keep my eyes alert to see. A few days ago I passed this tree stump, less than two feet high, that jumped out at me as a magical sprite, horned, long-nosed, ready to jump about at the touch of a magic wand.

Looking even closer, I found a small broken branch, 5/8 of an inch at its narrow point, that held some beautiful red fungus, a red jelly, that because it is in its winter state of dryness confused me into thinking it was a lichen. When I saw it on the ground I was only aware of a mass of deep red; it wasn't until I saw it through the macro lens that I noticed its complex folds, like masses of brain tissue. The world has small treasures along with its grand dramas.

A New Painting: "Three Cylinders", with Thoughts on Light and Touch

2011-12-01T16:17:00.009-05:00

Three Cylinders, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 6 1/4 x 7 1/4 inches.

I have spent a few days with this painting, looking at it in different locations, alongside other work, and still have the feeling that I had when I just finished it: I don't care for it. There are a couple of reasons, which I'll try to make clear. You may wonder why I even bother to show work on this blog that I don't think is successful; I do so because I find it helpful to my own thinking to articulate what is bothering me, and the discussion that sometimes follows with my readers, here and on Facebook, is often elucidating.

This image immediately offered a challenge in how to balance the abstract and realist elements. Most of my images are closely cropped so that there is nothing to place them in a real space; sometimes there's a bit of flat blue for a background sky which usually isn't problematic. Here, there's a space at right that might read too realistically as sky and green earth, so I tried painting the entire shape blue, thinking it would seem more abstract, which is where I'd like the painting to be. But that didn't work; the composition needed a horizontal to balance all the verticals. So then I tried mixing a blue that was more an idea of blue, without the light that a sky would have. You see the result of that above. That didn't work either.

Fra Angelico, The Apostle Saint James the Greater Freeing the Magician Hermogenes, ca late 1420s; tempera and gold on panel; 10 x 8 7/8 inches.

I believe that the reason it didn't work for me is that I was mixing two different ideas of light; the blue was a conceptual color, color simplified. In the early Renaissance, as in Fra Angelico's paintings, color is beautifully conceived, but the rendering of light uses only value: lighter and darker red, blue, etc.

Camille Pissarro, L'Hermitage a Pointoise, 59 x 79 inches, 1867

While when we get to the Impressionists, we see warm and cool colors used to render sparkling light effects, for a more naturalistic sense of landscape. For many years, I've attempted to convey a vivid quality of light, more in line with Impressionist color, along with a sense of solid form. So...my attempt at a conceptual sky did not mesh with the naturalistic light of the cylinders; one or the other would have to change, so I changed the sky. I wanted to keep the fresh light in the cylinders since it is part of the tension between real and abstract that I love. But I remain uneasy in the relationships of cylinders to background. (and oh! my painting looks dead next to the Pissaro and the Fra Angelico.)

The other thing that makes me uncomfortable is the way I handled the paint. My brush marks are labored, without life, clunky. I had one of those hard times that occur from time to time, when I feel as though I can't paint: every mark is a struggle, I keep getting spots of dust lifting the paint, it looks clumsy instead of graceful. I always hope there's a sense of magic in a painting, even for me who made it, as though it transcends the nuts and bolts of its making; this painting does not come close to succeeding in that. Feel free to differ, or agree...

The Colors of Gray November

2011-11-29T16:20:00.003-05:00

This year, November hasn't been quite like itself; instead of gray, we've had blue skies and mild temperatures. But today I awoke to a perfect November day, with overcast skies and clouds come down to earth in drifting billows of fog. The contrast of dark with white moisture and the lack of sun and shadow heightens the minimal colors left in the landscape.

The broad view from my bedroom window shows layers of space: trees overlapping trees, hills fading in distance until the farthest White Mountains are seen, partially hidden by banks of clouds. Only broken edges of snowbanks remaine from last week's snow, after days of mild weather.

The dried grasses seem brilliantly golden alongside the whites of icy pond and birch.

Looking back toward the barn, there is still some rich green in the lawn. A dark mass of weeds looks somehow vibrant, repeating the shape of barn and tree.

In my backyard, the leaves of rugosa roses still hold the colors of rust, shouting them loudly enough for me to enjoy from my office window.

Turning and looking back east I see red branches in the gray stone wall and a few russet leaves bravely clinging. This is certainly a melancholy season, as the world quiets and closes in on itself, but it has its own particular beauty. I'd like to offer a perfect poem for November, sad and lyrical, shared this morning by an artist friend from the Netherlands, Martin Scholte. It is by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) and translated by Milan Kundera:

On all hilltops
There is peace,
In all treetops
You will hear
Hardly a breath.
Birds in the woods are silent.
Just wait, soon
You too will rest.

New Hooked Wool Drawings

2011-11-28T16:23:00.006-05:00

2011 #39, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 13 x 11 inches.

This new group of drawings all have central images, although they relate to the space around them differently. #39 is balanced, a white square held up by the lines of circle and triangle, its color wryly patriotic.

2011 #40, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 15 x 12 1/2 inches.

The swooping purple lines of #40 tickle the space around them, humoring the stolid green squares.

2011 #41, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 15 x 11 3/4 inches.

An open rectangle allows space to enter, as does the deep blue shape. I was inspired to use these colors by a beautiful pastel by Arthur Dove at the Met (unfortunately no good reproductions exist).

2011 #42, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 12 1/4 x 15 inches.

Lime green circles animate the space as they follow a curved line through a pink semi-circle. The lively colors made me think of old cartoons, like I thought of cartoons in my last group of drawings; then it was Wile E Coyote and Road Runner, now it's the bouncing ball sing-alongs of Betty Boop cartoons. There's something lighthearted in these these works for me; even when the composition is geometric and minimal, the materials seem casual and carefree, the slightly rumpled linen ready to float breezily away. .

At the Met: Ceramics in the New Islamic Wing

2011-11-27T13:21:00.004-05:00

Bowl with Green Splashes; Iraq, 9th century; earthenware, splash painted on opaque white glaze.

Walking through the new wing at the Met, officially titled "New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia" is as overwhelming an experience as the name sounds. I arrived at the entrance to the galleries feeling full of excitement after weeks of beautiful teases. I had my camera out, ready to start photographing, but there was too too much to look at and too many beautiful objects to think of singling any one of them out. So I walked slowly through the galleries, trying to absorb some of what I saw – architectural elements, pottery, textiles, paintings, metalwork – all bright and fresh and demanding attention. Then I decided that for this visit I would concentrate on photographing ceramics, which are some of my favorite objects at the Met, and on metalwork (for a second blog post), which I found very compelling in their shape and intricate design.

I love the very simple, modern looking, design of the ancient bowl above, with wide green lines dripping from its edge toward the central calligraphy, which states "Blessing and good fortune".

Bowl with Arabic Inscription; Iran, 10th century; earthenware, white slip with black slip decoration under transparent glaze.

The elegantly footed lines reaching into the center of this bowl descend from lines drawn about the top, pattern so abstract that it is difficult to see as language. I wonder how this appears to a reader of Arabic: do they see the words or the design first? The words say "Planning before work protects you from regret; prosperity and peace."

Jar; Syria, late 12th-early 13th century; stonepaste, underglaze painted under transparent turquoise glaze.

The shape of this jar, from straight narrow neck into a wide shoulder and narrowing again at the base, has a sensuality asking for a flowing caress. But it's the color that heightens this feeling, the rich deep turquoise glowing like a jewel behind the black teardrops.

Rooster-headed Ewer; Iran, 13th century; stonepaste, molded and applied decoration, underglaze painted under transparent glaze.

Topped by a open-mouthed rooster, a form popular in Islamic art, this vessel has great charm. It's bulging shape is emphasized by the pattern of cobalt blue lines, narrowing and widening.

Turquoise bowl with Carved Rim; Iran, 12th century; stonepaste, monochrome glazed.

The edge of this simple bowl is carved in a pattern that seems like the rising and falling of letters in Arabic calligraphy. It is another of several turquoise colored objects that I fell in love with. I don't know if the color turquoise has any particular meaning in Islamic culture or if it was just prized for its beauty, but there was a a good deal of it in the objects in this new installation.

Architectural Tile with Partial Inscription; present day Uzbekistan, 14th century; stonepaste, carved and glazed.

This tile was part of a decorative facade on a building, possibly over a window because of the curving top. One of the great joys of art of the Arab lands, seen in this and the pieces below, is the intricate weaving of pattern on objects and on walls. It is pattern that comes from calligraphy, .....

Tile from a Squinch; present day Uzbekistan, 14th century; stonepaste, carved and glazed.

or from natural forms; here interlacing leaves or blossoms and vining branches decorate a deeply carved tile. If you were wondering what a squinch is, as I was, it's an architectural element forming a base for a dome.

Ceramic Mosaic Panel; Spain, 14th century; earthenware, glazed.

Sometimes the pattern comes from geometry, as in this complexly woven lines bending and moving in an almost impossible to follow way, leaving stars and other shapes in their wake.

Carved Wall Tile; Iran, 13th century; stonepaste, carved and partially glazed.

Finally, another beautiful architectural element, organized geometrically, inspired by the shapes of nature. The lovely sky blue lines curve and point as they join and flow over one another, arms entwined in a graceful circle dance. In his article in the NY Review of Books on the new wing at the Met, history professor Peter Brown points out the ideas on ornament of Islamic expert Professor Oleg Grabar: "Grabar showed that ornament was not trivial. It was never a mere mechanical patterning of the surface of things. Rather, he pointed out, ornament brings us back, with subliminal power, to the force of life itself."

A Thanksgiving Snow

2011-11-25T07:05:00.006-05:00

The snow began on Tuesday night and I woke up Wednesday to a world covered in white. It drifted down softly, in large and small flakes, throughout the morning. When I went outdoors to shovel a path, the air was cool but not frigid, the wind was still, the sky was covered with clouds, ten inches of snow had fallen; it was a beautiful day.

On Thanksgiving morning, snow still clung to every branch and remaining leaf, each dried fruit, their dark shapes creating a drama on a white stage.

The stems of the honeysuckle vine by the front door are encased in a glistening gift package of ice.

Annabelle, with her bronzed dried heads, bows to the weight of snow, her stems writing bright lines with weathered wood as backdrop.

A more delicate profusion of gathered lines, interrupted by dollops of soft snow, is formed by dried grasses at the side of the pond.

And in the vegetable garden, a few remaining leaves of kale, dressed for a ball with an elegant headdress of snow. The garden season is over: I've taken down the fence and left these last bits for the deer to eat. This morning, Friday, the tracks of several deer crisscross the field; stems are all that remain.

Happy Thanksgiving! with Pumpkin Soup

2011-11-23T13:04:00.005-05:00

What vegetable is more associated with the fall harvest and the Thanksgiving holiday than the pumpkin? They were probably a New World crop, and may have been served at the first Thanksgiving. Now we generally use them for a delicious pie; they're also good stuffed and baked. One of my favorite recipes with pumpkin is a soup, light and gently flavored, from The New York Times International Cookbook by Craig Claiborne. Eating it is a perfect way to celebrate the season; I send you, along with this recipe, my best wishes for a wonderful holiday with friends and family.

7 Tbs butter
6 green onions, chopped (I don't have these around, so leave them out)
1 onion, sliced
2 1/2 lbs diced pumpkin, or 3 cups puree. (I always use fresh pumpkin for texture and flavor. I roast it, halved, seeds removed, cut sides oiled and placed down on a cookie sheet; bake at 400 till tender and scoop out the flesh)
6 cups chicken stock (I use water, but it will be much more flavorful with stock.)
1/2 teas salt
3 Tbs all purpose flour
1 cup light cream
croutons

Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a large saucepan; sauté the green onions and onion until golden.
Add pumpkin, stock, and salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer until tender, or for 10 minutes if using the puree. Strain the soup, or blend in a food processor, or do what I do, which is simply mash the contents of the saucepan with a potato masher; I like some texture in the soup.
Knead the flour with 2 tablespoons of butter and gradually add to the soup, whisking it to blend smoothly until it thickens. Add the light cream and remaining tablespoon of butter (I leave out this last bit of butter because I think it's rich enough.)
Serve garnished with croutons.

Enjoy!

At The Cloisters: In Two Dimensions

2011-11-22T14:43:00.006-05:00

Wall Painting of a Camel; Spain, first half of 12th century; fresco transferred to canvas.

When I visit a museum with my camera, I am most drawn to photographing three dimensional objects; there is excitement in capturing something that exists in space, its volumes and shadows, and reducing it to the two dimensions of photography. But I did take photos of some of the marvelous two dimensional objects at the Cloisters, which I am showing you in this last post on the museum. I was most thrilled to see this fresco of the wonderfully goofy camel. A postcard of it has been on my refrigerator for a couple of years (here's a blog post about the "paintings on my refrigerator") and I had no idea how big it was: it is 8 feet high, a strong presence in a large room.

The Miracle of Christ Raising Lazarus from the Dead; Spain, ca. 1120-1140; fresco transferred to canvas.

Near the camel are two other large frescoes from the same period. I love the flat, simplified forms, the limited color moving across the surface, the patterns of cloth and architecture, the intensity of the faces with their boldly outlined features.

The Virgin and Child and the Adoration; Spain, ca. 1175-1200; fresco.

A slightly later fresco, also from Spain, has the same features that I love in the one above, with even more dramatic patterning around the enthroned Virgin and in the wings of the saints.

Saint Michael (detail); Spain, ca. 1450-1500; tempera and oil with gold and silver leaf on wood.

Saint Michael is skewering a fantastical creature named as the Anti-Christ in the wall label about the painting. It is reminiscent of the monsters of Hieronymus Bosch, who painted around the same time. I love the profusion of detail: of his body, the floor tiles, the elegant armor of Saint Michael.

Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece); workshop of Robert Campin, Netherlandish, ca. 1375-1444; oil on oak. From the Metropolitan Museum website.

The Merode Altarpiece is one of the great treasures of the Cloisters. It is complex, yet intimate and tender; every detail, from faces to a key in a lock, is carefully rendered. In the left panel we move from its distant view out to the street into the grassy courtyard, then into the room with the Archangel and Virgin, and to Joseph's workshop where an open window gives us another view out onto the busy street.

Merode Altarpiece detail.

The website link under the photo above takes you to a wonderful high resolution image which enables you to look at all the fine details in this painting, including the tools on Joseph's workbench, down to the nails, along with slivers of wood left from his woodworking chore. The painters who worked on this altarpiece were in love with the objects of this world.

Two Border sections; France ca. 1200; pot-metal glass and vitreous paint.

In addition to painting, other arts are represented in the Cloisters collections, including some vivid stained glass. I was particularly interested in the patterned pieces that acted as borders to the main events; they look joyously colorful, and the repetitions, which are never exactly the same, add to the pleasure.

Embroidery with the Annunciation; South Lowlands, late 15th century; silk and metallic threads on linen.

This very fine embroidery, only about 8 inches high, is delicately made and rich with silk and metallic threads. In its composition and form it is similar to paintings done at the time, but the physical presence and glitter of the richly stitched thread adds a different kind of charm.

The Unicorn in Captivity (detail); South Netherlandish, 1495-1505; wool warp with wool, silk, silver, and gilt wefts. From the Metropolitan Museum website.

The great cycle of Unicorn tapestries are a marvel, and you can see them all at the link above, in high resolution, so you can wander through them, entranced by the figures – all looking like specific portraits, clothed in elegantly patterned garments – and the sensitively rendered animals, and most wonderfully for me, the profusion of flowers and leaves and trees; a magical forest to house the mythical creature.

Previous posts on the Cloisters:
At the Cloisters: the Medieval Garden
At the Cloisters: Sculpture
At the Cloisters: Architecture

A New Painting: "Grin"

2011-11-21T16:13:00.003-05:00

Grin, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 5 x 6 1/4 inches.

The third and final painting in my series of handles is another amusing one (at least to me) and I couldn't resist calling it Grin for the curved opening ready for the grip of a hand. The straight horizontal at top is crossed by the green vertical, both pierced by holes, and backed by swelling gray bands broken by light and shadow. A little wacky?

In this detail you can see the texture of paint and parchment; the fine indented lines are veining in the calfskin.

Here are the three paintings in this series hanging together in the studio: from the left Partnered, Handle and Holes, and Grin. I think they make an interesting group, even though Partnered is more serious in tone than the other two works. Now I'm ready to work on a more minimalist composition...

The Fierce Lyricism of Joan Mitchell

2011-11-20T12:23:00.005-05:00

Beauvais 1986; oil on canvas diptych, 110 1/4 x 157 1/2 inches.

I have loved Joan Mitchell's paintings for many years; twenty years ago when I tried my hand at a series of painterly abstractions, mainly based on landscape, Mitchell was a main influence, along with de Kooning and a soupçon of Howard Hodgkin. So I was very happy to be able to see the exhibition now at Cheim & Read in Chelsea of her late paintings; although these were difficult years for her, the paintings are full of extraordinary energy.

Beauvais 1986 (detail)

Her marks – vigorously moving, paint dripping, thickly layered in places, open to the white of canvas in others – show the natural world in a splendor of color but with a fierce tenacity of purpose; yes it is beautiful, but it is not simple or easy.

Untitled, 1992; oil on canvas diptych, 102 3/8 x 157 1/2 inches.

The diptych format, originally adopted to allow for large paintings in a small studio, allows for a conversation between the two parts of the painting, the same yet different; the hard line of separation makes us leap from one to the other of the two canvases, noticing more, repeating the quickness of the brushstroke with our eye.

Untitled 1992 (detail)

Seeing this detail, this seemingly casual welter of fast lines, makes me realize yet again that what seems easy is not. Like Japanese calligraphy with its free and fluid letters, what looks like innocently fresh painting comes from years of study. We have to know something deeply in order to have freedom.

Tondo 1991; oil on canvas, 59 x 59 inches.

Tondo, 59 x 59 inches.

The tondo form compresses the gesture, pushing it inward, making a more self contained world.

Then, Last Time IV 1985; oil on canvas 102 x 78 3/4 inches.

A dense mass of churning blue strokes rises up to meet a watery green, like the reflection of trees in a turbulent pond.

Trees 1990-91; oil on canvas diptych; 86 3/4 x 157 1/2 inches.

In Trees the brush moves vertically, a forest of marks creating the physical sensation of wandering between trunks, space fluid and uncertain, density giving way to openness.

Sunflowers 1990-91; oil on canvas diptych, 110 1/4 x 157 1/2 inches.

Sunflowers, symbols of light and life, explode with exuberance, not with the usual yellows but with red and green and brown, all caught together in a last exhalation of breath. In the gallery press release Mitchell is quoted as saying that she wanted to “convey the feeling of a dying sunflower.” In this ode to life's transience resides a continuing belief in its beauty and strength.

A Walk in the Woods: Green Amid Brown

2011-11-18T15:12:00.002-05:00

The brilliant colors of fall are gone and the fallen leaves spread over the ground have faded to subtle variations of brown: reddish and yellowish and in some places gray. I love the word "dun", for its description of a dull grayish brown, although even its present diminished state, there is enough variation in leaf litter to catch the eye. But this subtlety is overwhelmed by the intensely vivid greens scattered throughout the woods. This moss covered rock, shining out brightly from its surroundings almost as though it was lit from within, stopped me in my tracks during my walk yesterday.

Then I began noticing other greens displayed against the browns: life, and its expiring. This fern's fronds point to the four directions, a neat geometry atop the random pattern of leaves.

Although its leaves are beginning to brown at their tips, the plaintain-leaved sedge is still vibrant, arcing its corrugated green above the littered ground. Soon all will be covered with snow, but for now it is heartening to see these still-green plants gracing the dun woods.

At The Cloisters: the Medieval Garden

2011-11-17T15:36:00.006-05:00

The Cloisters is a magical place, not only for its art and architecture, but also for its plants. The horticulturalists there have established beautiful medieval gardens, the largest of which is in the cloister which came from the Cistercian abbey at Bonnefont-en-Comminges in France. Although the height of the gardening season was past, this garden was still a lovely place, with plants creating lively interactions with the architecture. The museum has a blog for its gardens, full of interesting information on medieval plants and their uses, which you can see here. The plants were used for food and medicine and for dyes.

The ivy presents a soft geometry on the hard stone. The tree is a cornelian cherry (Cornus mas).

In the garden you can see traditional ways of training plants, such as this espalier, now almost leafless, leaving the structure clearly visible. This is a pear tree, and has been in the garden since the 1940s. I learned from the blog that this technique dates from the Renaissance, not earlier.

Behind some sturdy cabbages is a tuteur, a pyramidal structure to support plants. I don't know what was growing on this, or why it is full of small branches, but it is a gorgeously textured object.

One of the garden beds was labeled as "Plants used by Medieval artists", though from a little research, I think they were mostly used for textile dyes rather than pigments. The three plants above are Woad, Our-Lady's-Bedstraw, and Weld. Woad yields a blue dye similar to that of indigo, but not as strong; the tops of Our-Lady's-Bedstraw give a yellow dye, the roots red; weld is also yellow and when overdyed with woad produces a deep green.

I have a special fondness for thistle-type plants, whose form I find very rich with its geometrically ordered parts. This is Fuller's teasel, which interestingly was used in processing textiles, combing wool and raising its nap. Some weavers still use this plant although it was mainly replaced by metal combs.

And lastly, a look from the garden out over the Hudson River to the Palisades of New Jersey. I was so lucky to visit on such a perfect day at such a beautiful time of year.

Previous posts on the Cloisters:
At the Cloisters: Sculpture
At the Cloisters: Architecture

A New Textile: "Deep Purple/Yellow Ground"

2011-11-16T15:59:00.003-05:00

Deep Purple/Yellow Ground, hand dyed wool on linen, 11 x 10 inches.

This piece is another in my series of figure/ground images, but I don't think a terribly successful one in my aim, which is to have shapes which are balanced so that none seem to be the primary "figure" of the composition. I liked the idea of using a deep warm purple along with a darkish warm yellow. At first I considered making the center shape dark and the surrounding quarter-circles yellow, but thought a dark center would recede, never holding the surface. What I didn't take into account when choosing the colors was that yellow would insistently say "star", which wouldn't happen with another color, let's say green. I was hoping your eye would bounce back and forth from central shape to surrounding curved corners, but I think the yellow takes precedence. Oh well... If you'd like to see some of the other works in this series, go to this blog post.

This detail shows how I put an edge around each form so one doesn't seem to slip behind the other. I keep the hooking direction simple and flat: horizontal and vertical. But even the simplest of ideas can switch gears on you without you realizing it; I don't mind the shift from time to time.

At The Cloisters: Sculpture

2011-11-15T14:40:00.007-05:00

Nativity of the Virgin, detail; Germany, around 1480; Limewood with paint and appliqués.

I was enthralled, entranced, captivated, by the sculpture collection at the Cloisters. The same qualities that I love in Quattrocento painting – the simplicity and directness of form, the world of faith that existed before the humanism of the Renaissance – is here in the medieval collections. This sculpture of Saint Anne on the birthing bed is so sensitive, so full of revery and gentleness.

Nativity of the Virgin, detail of Saint Anne's head.

The head of Saint Anne touches me deeply; it is a portrait of womanhood, but the details – the rounded chin, the soft fleshy cheeks and throat, the elegant nose – become those of a real, thoughtful, person.

Enthroned Virgin and Child; central France, late 12th century; walnut with paint, gesso, and linen.

In this earlier sculpture, the forms are more stylized, with drapery creating large looping rhythms. There is tremendous power in the direct gaze and simply sculpted form of the two figures.

Seated Bishop, detail; Tilman Riemenschneider; Germany, ca. 1495-1500; Limewood and gray-black stain.

Riemenschneider was a great sculptor of the period that spanned the Gothic into the Renaissance. This portrait is a beautiful, sympathetic rendering of an aged cleric, one that expresses love and compassion.

Torso of Christ; France, Auvergne, late 12th century; poplar, gesso, paint, and gilding.

The stylized drapery makes the more naturalistically rendered torso seem all the more vulnerable.

Tomb Effigy of a Boy; Spain, ca. 1300-1350; Limestone and traces of polychromy.

I love this tomb sculpture for its details: the tassels and pattern on the pillow, the forms on the shoulder strap, and tiny buttons along the arm. They enliven the quiet, generalized portrait of a boy who may have been the Count of Urgell.

Relief with Saint Lawrence Presenting the Poor; Austria, about 1490; White or stone pine, paint, and gilding.

The photograph of this sculpture does not do it justice; I thought the piece was astonishing with its specific faces, and bodies huddled together in a compact mass; their humanity is so strongly expressed. The wall label describes the scene: "Saint Lawrence is shown presenting the poor as the true wealth of the Church". An ongoing lesson for us all.

Pieta, detail; Bohemia, ca. 1400; Limestone.

As in the Saint Anne above, I kept noticing details of sculpture that were so very beautiful, where the feeling was concentrated in a gesture. The Virgin's hand holds that of Christ so lightly, so tenderly, with restrained yet deep emotion.

Palmesel (Palm Donkey), detail; Germany, 15th century; limewood with paint.

This long fingered, thin hand, a fleshed skeleton, emerging from the mass of folds is very touching. The label for the sculpture tells me that the fingers on the hands were restored, so I don't know how original they are, but they are beautiful in any case.

Aquamanile in the Form of a Dragon; northern Germany, about 1200; copper alloy.

An aquamanile is a vessel with human or animal figures, sometimes used in religious ceremonies. I thought this piece was wonderful, with the figure emerging from the dragon's mouth. The fanciful patterns make the dragon into a bird, which made me think of the relationship between dinosaurs and birds.

Mirror Case or Box Cover with the Attack on the Castle of Love; France, ca. 1320-40; Elephant Ivory.

Not all the art objects produced during this period were religious in nature. I thought I'd end with two pieces with secular subjects. This small round relief delightfully shows knights being held off by women armed with roses, but the god of love is ready to loose his arrows.

Base for a Statuette; North France or South Lowlands, early 16th century; Ivory.

This piece has amusing scenes which likely allude to stories of love and infidelity. The small details are all marvelous: the fencing, the clothing, the stick with a head that the jester-like figure is carrying. There is such a fascinating range of sculpture to be seen at the Cloisters; within this limited time period is a wealth of artistic expression.

A previous post on the Cloisters:
At the Cloisters: Architecture

At The Cloisters: Architecture

2011-11-14T14:27:00.005-05:00

Pontaut Chapter House, France, 12th century; from the Cistercian abbey of Notre-Dame at Pontaut, south of Bordeaux.

Standing in this beautiful room, with its arching vaults and curved windows, quiet and solemn feeling, made me intensely aware of the attraction of living apart from the world in a monastery.

Pontaut Chapter House

In this meeting place, the monks would sit on stone benches that ran against the walls, doubtless not very comfortable in winter; but certainly the simple yet soaring space was an aid to contemplation. How lucky we are to have a public museum in upper Manhattan in which we can experience actual medieval architecture as though we were visiting Europe, and also see a remarkable collection of objects.

The Cloisters Museum, a photo from the museum's website.

I hadn't been to the Cloisters in many years; I was inspired to visit by images of the collection posted by the artist Carol Heft on Facebook, and I'm so glad I went; I'll be writing several blog posts on the museum. The Cloisters, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is located on a spectacular site high over the Hudson River. When you drive up to it, you pass under an enormous stone archway, setting the scene for the building above. It looks like a place out of time, an ancient monastery or church lifted from a French mountainside. It was designed by Charles Collens, the architect of Riverside Church, and incorporates elements of five medieval cloisters; John D. Rockefeller was its patron saint.

Fuentidueña Apse, Spain, ca. 1175-1200; from the church of San Martin at Fuentidueña, near Segovia.

As much as we might feel awed and hushed visiting a museum, the experience of the Cloisters is different; I felt as though I was in sacred spaces. The barrel vault and dome of this apse, with windows echoing the shapes above, gave me a sense of serene grandeur, a place for the spirit to expand.

Langon Chapel, France, after 1126; from the choir of the church of Notre-Dame-du-Bourg, at Langon near Bordeaux.

This chapel is another example of the beauty of the curved arches of Romanesque architecture; it is thick and heavy compared to the Gothic with its pointed arches and flying buttresses allowing for more light, but its calm masses are very pleasing to me.

Trie Cloister, France, Pyrenees, late 15th century;.

This lovely cloister incorporates elements from a convent, abbey and monastery in southwestern France. The original double columns are made of different marbles; the modern arches are pointed since the cloister is of a later date.

Cuxa Cloister, capitals, France, ca. 1130-40; from the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Michele-de-Cuxa, near Perpignan.

These fantastically carved capitals, with marvelous beasts and dramatically inventive designs, all come from Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa. From the explanatory text I learned that the monastery was sacked in the 17th century and had fallen into ruin by the 19th. I am so glad that some of this architecture was saved and transported to this great museum. The experience of architectural spaces goes beyond the visual, into deep bodily sensations.

Curried Lentil Soup with Tomatoes and Sorrel

2011-11-08T14:53:00.003-05:00

The days have turned cool so my thoughts have turned to soup. This is a hearty recipe that I make while the sorrel is still green before hard frost and first thing in the spring when the sorrel emerges. It is spicy and flavorful, with the intense tastes of curry and ginger and lemon. The recipe comes from good friends in California, the artist Karen L. Haas and philosopher Tom Leddy.

1/2 cup chopped onion
2 Tbs vegetable oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 inch peeled, grated fresh ginger
1 Tbs curry powder (I used a hot curry powder which adds extra pizzazz)
1 teas ground cumin
1 cup lentils
1 quart chicken broth (I use water)
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 cup firmly packed coarsely chopped sorrel leaves (I used two cups)
fresh lemon juice to taste.

Cook onion in oil until lightly golden
Add garlic and ginger, cook for 1 minute
Add curry and cumin, cook and stir 30 seconds
Add lentils and 1 1/4 cup water. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, 5 minutes
Add broth and simmer, covered 25 minutes, until lentils are tender
Add tomatoes and sorrel and cook a few more minutes
Season with lemon, salt, and pepper to taste. (I found that with the larger amount of sorrel I didn't need any lemon juice. I also think the sorrel was extra flavorful this late in the season.)

**I'll be heading to NYC for a few days of family, friends and art. See you next week!

A New Painting: "Handle and Holes"

2011-11-07T15:05:00.003-05:00

Handle and Holes, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 5 3/8 x 6 inches.

Here is the second of three paintings that I'm doing on the theme of handles; you can see the previous painting, titled Partnered here. I realize you might not believe me, but until I began working on this image I didn't see how amusingly sexual it was. It's perfectly fine for you all to laugh, because I think humor is welcome in this case. I also felt that I was painting something very cartoonish, with those googly eyes at bottom. So, a cartoonish sexy picture, painted in solemn dark reds (though red of course is the color of blood and passion). I wonder how this would have looked in perky yellow or bouncy blue; a little silly?

In this detail you can see some of the subtle variation in color in the reds that I painted in order to make the surface more lively; not too much to call attention to it, but enough so that the shapes have a sense of weight and presence. When I look at this picture, I begin to accept that I'm not yet a minimalist painter; I've got too many other pictorial notions bubbling up.

Our Pets and Other Animals

2011-11-06T06:33:00.003-05:00

Poppy and Blinky when they were kittens, three years ago.

I've been thinking recently about our relationship to animals; we love our companions and are fascinated by untamed creatures. There are endless posts on Facebook of pets, of nature videos; there are numerous television shows dedicated to telling us the stories of wild animals. I remember being in Central Park one day, wondering what all those people with telescopes and zoom lenses were looking at; they were following the lives of the red tailed hawks living on Fifth Avenue. An essay that I'd read years ago by John Berger, the French artist and writer, came to mind; I remembered him writing about the intertwined lives that humans and animals used to have and how that had changed with modern life. The influential essay is called "Why Look at Animals" and was written in 1977 (which you can read here). I was happy to reread it; it's full of interesting insights, but is ultimately a bleak assessment of our modern human/animal relationships.

Blinky watching me work, sitting up on a speaker.

Berger writes that the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century began a process "by which every tradition which has previously mediated between man and nature was broken.". Before then, animals and humans were together, leading parallel lives; animals offered metaphor and magic; the human and the animal regarded each other across an "abyss of non-comprehension". How often do we feel when we return the look of an animal that we are encountering another kind of consciousness? but we can't know what this other is thinking. Berger writes that "Such an unspeaking companionship was felt to be so equal that often one finds the conviction that it was man who lacked the capacity to speak with animals..."

It was when animals became marginalized in the 19th century that zoos became popular, as did realistic animal toys and then pets. Berger sees this as a relentless removal of animals from human lives: "That look between animal and man, which may have played a crucial role in the development of human society, and with which, in any case, all men had always lived until less than a century ago, had been extinguished."

Ginger (1995-2008)

Berger has no sympathy for the contemporary pet owner, those of us who feel that we have a close connection, a deep look into the eyes of another species, so I was pleased to read an opinion piece, "Pet Lovers, Pathologized" in the NY Times last Sunday by the philosopher Kelly Oliver. In it she complains that "to love animals is to be soft, childlike, or pathological. To admit dependence on animals – particularly emotional and psychological dependence, as pet owners often do – is seen as a type of neurosis." She asks that society, philosophy, culture, take seriously our love of animals. When my dog Ginger – the charming, overly exuberant big dog who I could never train not to jump up on visitors, with one perked ear and one flopped – was alive, I often spoke of her as my best friend. When she died, I, who am not sentimental, buried her ashes under the spot by the house where she most loved to sit and survey the world.

Holstein heifers on a farm in northern Vermont.

I believe that even though we are far removed from John Berger's ideal world of the peasant, we are greatly enlarged by our encounters with animals, with these other spirits, whether in intimate relationships with pets, or with seeing animals on the farm or in the zoo, or if we're very lucky, in the wild; I vividly remember my two encounters with local bears, and my moose visitors. It is always good to remember that humans are not alone on this earth; we share it with all manner of creatures, all beautiful, all trying to survive.

A New Textile: "Three, Two, One"

2011-11-03T13:43:00.009-04:00

Three, Two, One, hand dyed wool on linen; 3 pieces: 4 1/2 x 9, 7 1/4 x 9, 11 x 9 inches.

I've had an idea for a wall-to-floor piece for a long time, and have finally executed it, a very minimal design; I did another piece last year that touches the floor (see below), but never one that utilizes it. I remember years ago seeing a painting that was in two parts, one on the wall meeting one on the floor. I thought it might have been an Ellsworth Kelly, but I've never been able to find an image like that. My big decision with this piece was what colors to use, and there were many choices. I began by thinking of a gradual shift of color from top to bottom, using intense bright color; then I contemplated three different yet related colors, also saturated, or three primaries. In the end I realized that I wanted to use subtle, grayed color that wouldn't pop off the wall and floor, but rest inconspicuously there.

These are the two dye colors I used to mix my final colors. I added a little of the yellow to the blue and blue to the yellow, then mixed a middle tone between the two. I was surprised at the colors that resulted, a lot grayer than I'd expected, but I was happy with them.

To make the lines, which I also wanted to be subtle, I cut the tops of the loops.

Here is the piece installed in my studio alongside some drawings, the "hooked rug" creeping back to its origins as floor covering. Do you think my choice of subdued color was the correct one?

Up Down, 2010, hand dyed wool on linen; 4 pieces: 4 x 4, 4 x 10, 4 x 15, 4 x 14 inches.

This is the other floor piece that I did last year, with elements going up and down, needing the floor as an anchor, a spot of stability and repose.

The November Garden

2011-11-02T15:46:00.004-04:00

We've had frosts, and snow (just 3 inches), the days are getting short; the garden should be finished by now. But the honeysuckle by the south facing front door still has a few perky blooms, and all its leaves.

The remarkably persistent Johnny Jump Ups that have seeded themselves in the vegetable garden are flowering in profusion.

I've been gradually cutting back the perennials, but there are plants like this amsonia whose leaves are so lovely in color that I will wait until they brown.

The mass of siberian iris in front of my shed is looking quite disheveled, but their greens and golds are too much alive for me to want to cut them away.

I am still eating vegetables fresh from the garden, the ones that love frosts, become more delicious in the cold. Brussels sprouts and leeks...

turnips (tonight I'm having caramelized turnips for supper)...

fennel, and of course kale.

Soon the entire garden will look like my peony bed, covered with the weekend's snow, in the northern shadow of the house. For now though, the grass is green and a few flowers bloom, easing me gently into the thought of winter.

Cold Stuffed Grape Leaves

2011-11-01T16:08:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite dishes growing up was Yebra, grape leaves stuffed with meat and rice and cooked with apricots and tamarind. So I was very happy to find another wonderful recipe for grape leaves, this time stuffed with just flavored rice and served cold. It is in Claudia Roden's great book The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York. In it she states that Muslims liked their grape leaves hot and stuffed with ground meat while Jews liked them cold with rice; this certainly wasn't true in my Syrian Jewish family, but I must say I love them cooked with lemon and served cold. The recipe looks like it might be difficult, but aside from the time it takes to roll the leaves, it's fairly simple, and definitely delicious. I made this last weekend for a potluck and it was a great success, with friends eagerly awaiting this recipe.

8 oz grape leaves preserved in brine
1 cup long grained rice
2 medium tomatoes, chopped fine
1 medium onion
2 Tbs chopped mint leaves
2 Tbs chopped parsley
2 Tbs chopped dill or fennel
1/2 teas cinnamon
1/4 teas allspice
salt and pepper
2 Tbs pine nuts (optional)
lettuce leaves or potatoes to line the bottom of the pot
3 or 4 garlic cloves, slivered
2/3 cup olive oil
1 teas sugar
juice of 1 lemon

Remove the salt from the grape leaves by rinsing them in cool water.
For the stuffing, mix rice with the tomatoes, onion, herbs and spices; add salt and pepper to taste and pine nuts, if using.
Line a heavy bottomed saucepan with lettuce leaves or potatoes (that day I used cabbage leaves because I had a cabbage in the fridge). This will keep the stuffed grape leaves from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning.
Put a vine leaf on a flat surface, stem end up. Put a heaping teaspoon of rice – more if the leaf is large – at the top of the leaf. Fold the top parts over the stuffing, then fold the sides over toward the middle. Roll the leaf toward you, not too tight because the rice will swell as it cooks.

Place the leaves tightly together in layers in the lined pot, with the ends of the leaves facing down. Put some garlic here and there between them.
Mix the olive oil, lemon juice, and sugar with 2 cups of water (Roden says just 2/3 cup water, but I find that's not enough to cook the rice). Put a small plate on top of the leaves so they won't unravel during cooking.
Simmer over very low heat, adding more water if necessary. Roden suggests 1 hour cooking time; my mother always cooks grape leaves a very very long time and I like the flavor that comes from long cooking, so I suggest 2 hours, always checking from time to time to be sure there's enough water in the pot. I would check one stuffed leaf after an hour to be sure the rice is cooking. Add more water if it's still hard.
Let the grape leaves cool in the pot before turning them onto a platter.
Serve cold with lemon wedges.

makes about 25 larger leaves, 40 small ones.

A New Painting: "Partnered"

2011-10-31T15:17:00.003-04:00

Partnered, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 4 1/2 x 5 5/8 inches.

Partnered, dark and dramatic, is very different from the bright simplicity of my last painting White Triangle. It is not a flat image, as are many of my paintings, but is seen from below and has a form thrusting out toward the picture plane. I like working on very different kinds of compositions, so as to constantly challenge myself, and in order to explore a range of moods and feelings. It might seem strange to think of paintings of farm implements as having feeling, but I certainly hope that they do, just as non-objective painting does.

In this detail you can get a sense of the surface of the parchment and of the paint. Matter of fact, I had a hard time photographing without glare; I have a new camera which wants to pick up every teeny surface imperfection. The background color that you see is darker than I'd originally painted; I wanted to heighten the drama, the sense of lighted forms emerging from gloom. This painting is the first in a series of three that picture handles of some sort, a theme that appeared, unbidden, among my photographs.

Machine Tools: for War, for a New Middle Class

2011-10-29T15:19:00.009-04:00

Engine Lathe, 1825, unknown maker.

I love machines, the way they look, each part shaped for a purpose different from those of everyday life, and often very beautiful in design. I don't know what purpose the small curved opening serves in the lathe above, but it is lovely with its three surrounding bolts. And of course my paintings are based on agricultural machines. So when my friend, the artist Ravenna Taylor, reminded me of a marvelous small museum in Windsor, Vermont, The American Precision Museum, with its collection of machine tools, I looked forward to visiting. A machine tool is a machine that makes the components of other machines. Right in the building that now houses the museum was the Robbins & Lawrence Armory Company which began as a manufacturer of weapons.

Gunstock Lathe

Robbins & Lawrence developed machine tools for the manufacture of fully interchangeable parts, in fulfilling an order for 25,000 rifles for the US army. As a plaque outside the museum states about the precision now possible in these machines: "the social implications of this technological revolution have been universal."

Robbins & Lawrence Milling Machine, 1850.

This milling machine was developed by Frederick Howe right in the same building that now houses the museum. It was used to shape the lock plate of rifles, which now could be so precise that they no longer had to be filed to fit them together. It is difficult to think of war-making machinery as having a good purpose, but I suppose we have to admit that the exigencies of war have led to many innovations. I of course think that wonderfully fluted shape is elegant, an art work in itself...

Drill Press, Phoenix Iron Works, George S. Lincoln & Co., Hartford, CT, 1840s.

as is this detail of interlocking brass gears; the shapes of forms both painted and brass look as though they were not only purposefully designed, but that aesthetics played a part. Dieter Rams, an important 20th century German industrial designer, wrote ten principles of good design, and one is "Good design is aesthetic".

Van Horn Planer, Springfield, MA, 1857.

I love the repeating green curves and circles of this planer, accompanied by a brass band of gears and levers and large ball handles. And the reverse curve of the handle arm is so full of imaginative fun.

Shaper, Warner & Whitney, Nashua, NH, 1860.

Another wonderful collection of shapes, more austere with the grand verticals backed by circles, emphasized with bolts. This is such a machine age image, looking like it could come out of a Charles Sheeler painting.

Wood Shelf Clock Movement, Eli Terry, CT, ca. 1830s.

When reading a wall label at the museum, I learned that clocks were a luxury item before the mid nineteenth century. Eli Terry figured out how to make wooden parts that could be assembled to make a clock, and they sold for $15. Clock makers began to use early machine tools to make clocks which by the 1840s sold for just $1, two days wages for an unskilled worker.

High-Wheel Bicycle

Bicycles were another consumer item that became affordable and widespread thanks to machine tools. The first bicycles, the high-wheeled variety, like clocks, were only for the wealthy. But later, new techniques and the idea of using two wheels of the same size and chain driven gears made bicycles very affordable and a reliable mode of transportation.

Willcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine, made by Brown & Sharp, Providence, RI, 1870s.

Another beautiful machine, the swooping curve looking like a graceful swan's neck, ending in the beak of the needle. An interesting story was on the label for this sewing machine, telling of the interconnections of the machine tool industry: Henry B. Leland, who headed the sewing machine division at Brown & Sharp, later went on to found the Cadillac company. The automobile has made the United States what it is, for better or worse; machine tools and the assembly line made them affordable and then a necessary part of life, making the suburbs possible, and trips on the open road...

"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

2011-10-27T16:27:00.003-04:00

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

This is the perfect time of year, when the last yellows in the landscape drop away, to think of the clear simplicity of Robert Frost's marvelous poem, which belies a rich complexity; just as "dawn goes down to day", the golden promise gives way to a light of different character; life more ordinary, but still a green leaf; life that includes death.

Vivid Pattern: the Textile Designs of Sonia Delaunay

2011-10-24T11:43:00.005-04:00

Skirt, Tissu simultané no. 186, France, ca. 1926; block printed wool jersey.

For me, there was no gap between my painting and what is called my "decorative" work...I never considered the "minor arts" to be artistically frustrating; on the contrary, it was an extension of my art, it showed me new ways, while using the same method.
Sonia Delaunay, Paris, 1979.

It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I became aware of Sonia Delaunay's textile work; I knew of her as a painter of brightly colored abstractions, which she and her husband Robert Delaunay called Orphism. I wrote about discovering her design work, along with others, in a blog post on textile design, which you can see here. Then last spring, I was lucky enough to be able to see the very exciting show of Delaunay's textile work at the Cooper-Hewitt museum.

Scarf, Tissu simultané no. 14, France 1924-5; block printed cotton.
Project de tissu simultané no. 33, France 1924; watercolor on paper.

I saw rooms full of vibrant color and marvelously inventive designs– geometries, swirls, squiggles, florals – an unending run of ideas. The title "simultaneous" comes from Robert Delaunay's theory of color relationships, which he called Simultaneism. I later ordered the catalog for the show, Color Moves: Art & Fashion by Sonia Delaunay, from which I photographed all the images in this post, and it was quite difficult to choose just a few.

Design C53, France, 1924; gouache and pencil.

Because I've been interested in pattern lately – see a recent textile of mine here, and a post on pattern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art here – I thought I'd do this post on Delaunay's design work. In a design such as C53 we can see Delaunay's close relationship with modernism; this could stand equally well as a pure painting.

Design 1189, fabric samples, France 1929, printed silk.

This pattern is actually a good deal more complicated than it looks. I tried copying it, thinking I might use it for one of my own hooked wool works, but oh my! it was difficult to follow. I love seeing how different the mood is in each of the color combinations.

Design 945: textile design, design card, France 1929; gouache, ink, and pencil on paper.

A pattern like overlapping seashells, where different heights of line make up the shape, has a fresh openness to it. In the design card we can see the color thinking, the change of hue and value for each of the color ranges.

Design 1177, France 1933; gouache on paper.

I love this design, its syncopated rhythm, and am quite sure I'll steal it one day for one of my own works.

Design 951bis, fabric samples, France, 1929; printed silk.

This is a very witty pattern, the overlapping lines looking to me like frayed fabric.

Design 1317, working drawing, France, 1934; colorprint, pencil, and ink on paper.

This pattern is so exuberant it makes me smile, as does so much of Delaunay's work. There is seriousness in the fact that these patterns are all for use, for printing on fabric; but the effect is incredibly joyous throughout.

Scarf, produced by Liberty's of London, France, ca. 1967; printed silk voile.

Later in her life, Delaunay became successful as a painter, so did not do many textile designs after the mid 1950s. This is one of the few scarf designs she did during that time, and it is very close to her painting in its form, with a beautiful array of colors, moving from subtle at bottom to more intensely contrasted at top. The work of Delaunay is a great lesson in the leveling of different fields of art, and in how foolish it is to assign hierarchies.

A New Painting: "White Triangle"

2011-10-22T16:20:00.004-04:00

White Triangle, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 6 5/8 x 8 inches.

This is a very simple image, which nonetheless required a lot of decisions along the way, beginning with how large to make the painting. At first I had the horizontal dimension at 7 1/2 inches, but thought a slightly larger size would work better; it's surprising how a small change – in this case only 1/2 inch – can make a big difference in the scale of pictured objects. The second big decision was how much texture to include in the painting: in my reference photo the upper part of the blue was a rust red color, variegated reds with some blue mixed in, which was also the case with the blue vertical bar. There was also a good deal of texture in the white; it was torn and uneven.

I kept some variation in color and value, but it's pretty subtle compared to the original; I chose to have a strong blue/white image. To achieve an opaque white I had to paint many layers of color, using a large round brush and freely mixing slight hue and value shifts on the surface. My aim is to have a lively surface enhance the minimal composition, to give a sense of weight and presence to the forms, with the two bolts holding it all down.

This photo, shot with the light at an angle, shows the uneven surface of the parchment. Because my calfskin painting surface came from a living being it sometimes is not completely smooth. I bought one skin that had a "natural" finish and more obvious veining than other skins I've used. So I am using it in paintings where the surface irregularities will add to the painting and not be a distraction; I think that this surface works for this painting, and its silken feel is very luscious to work on.

In the Studio: Once a Hedgehog, Now I'm a Fox

2011-10-20T15:57:00.005-04:00

"the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing" is a fragment from the Greek lyric poet Archilocus that became the theme of a famous essay "The Hedgehog and the Fox" by the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin. Berlin uses the fox/hedgehog idea to divide writers and philosophers into two categories: those who expanded on a single idea and those whose thoughts ranged widely. He labeled as foxes Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Balzac, and as hedgehogs Plato, Dante, and Dostoevsky. My studio definitely looks like a fox's lair these days.

Paintings share the walls with textiles, salon style, all bumping up against each other, conversing, vying for attention.

Ten years ago, this studio did not look like this at all. At the time, I was painting large landscapes with strong foreground elements – farm implements – and there would have been a big painting on a big crank wooden easel; I completed only a few each year. For thirty years my focus was narrowly fixed on painting and some print making. My subject matter was architecture, then agricultural landscape, with a bit of still life thrown in during the 80s, and a little figure painting before that.

In 2006 I began making small hooked rugs, which allowed me to explore an entirely different aspect of my aesthetic sensibility: my deep interest in minimalist abstraction. And the textiles in turn influenced my paintings. In addition to these two mediums, I now write and photograph for this blog, which in the past two years has been a spur to thinking and become an important part of my creative life. (Thank you, readers!)

For me, this opening up of my artistic output has been nothing but positive; I love doing all the different things I am working on. But I sometimes wonder if out in the larger world a varied output makes it harder for people to understand what you're about; they find it hard to cross categories; or maybe it dilutes energy and focus. So...what do you think? Are you a fox or a hedgehog? do you feel that one or the other way of approaching work is best for you? for anyone else?

Festive Fall

2011-10-19T15:34:00.005-04:00

Even in Vermont, many people do not raise vegetables or garden seriously, but in the fall they decorate their homes and businesses with the bright colors of the season. It seems to me to be a remnant of the past, a celebration of the harvest, with something as simple as placing a pumpkin in a flower border, here in front of a neighboring town's post office.

The intense colors of fall mums are everywhere, if just in a pot on a stoop. This gorgeous collection, along with an ornamental kale is in front of, believe it or not, the local Dunkin Donuts. I appreciate that they make an effort to have a lovely little flower border at their store.

Another favorite harvest symbol are corn stalks; in my town during its Fall Foliage Festival, they are tied to every post on the main street; here they add verve to a plain gray mailbox.

Some displays include stuffed figures, some of which look forward, as this one's face does, to Halloween. I have seen figures that don't seem related to Halloween though, and I wonder if this is a custom that goes back to something like scarecrows. If anyone knows about this, I'd appreciate any information.

And here, in front of my friend and neighbor Deborah's house, a pair of doggy sentinels stand guard with their baskets loaded with pumpkin. This cheerful front door is in keeping with her whimsical sensibility, which is in great evidence in her garden, which you can see here. As we get closer to Halloween, I'll enjoy seeing the homemade ghosts, ghouls and goblins, but now I'm happy with the pumpkins and corn and autumn chrysanthemums.

New Hooked Wool Drawings

2011-10-17T16:30:00.001-04:00

2011 #35, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 16 x 14 inches.

I've just completed a new batch of drawings, trying several ideas which are quite different from one another. I was thinking recently that something that I really like about using the medium of hooked wool is that my imagery can be wildly different in each piece, either with these drawings, or with the completely hooked works, and still have some unity because of the material I'm using...at least I think that's the case. In the piece above, the idea was to have a warm side of the rectangle and a cool side – red/orange, violet/cool gray – separated by lines. It took me some time to decide what color and value to use for the line; I'm happy with the choice. Fun things happen when I change mediums: the straight pencil lines of the sketch for #35 turn wobbly in wool, and become more active, more organic.

2011 #36, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 13 x 15 inches.

I don't know where the idea for this came from, but it does remind me of old cartoons, and the big eyes of characters like the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Beep, Beep!

2011 #37, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 13 3/4 x 13 1/2 inches.

This is a more minimal, restrained image, the circle caught, floating, in the arms of a semi-circle. I had at first thought I'd make the small circle out of hooked wool, but then decided to paint it in order the keep the image lighter in visual weight.

2011 #38, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 10 x 14 3/4 inches.

When I'm sitting on the subway in NYC, I sometimes sketch things I see in the subway car or passing stations whose shapes interest me. This piece comes from one of those sketches. My idea was to activate the space between the shape by the repeat of the dark red diamond. I think I made the space between the shapes a little too wide, so the piece isn't as successful as I'd like. Thirteen inches might have worked better. If you have an opinion, I'd be happy to hear it.