the cassandra pages

A Quiet Spot in the Woods

We've been away, visiting friends. Our first stop was a cabin in a rural part of southern New England: a dwelling, a garden, a hillside in the forest, a sparkling brook.

After arriving in mid-afternoon, we went for a walk. Our host knows mushrooms, and as we walked he spotted small orange chanterelles. We picked several handfuls, and he sauteed them in butter, and served them on his homemade bread as our first course. I can't even tell you how delicious this was!

 

We ate and drank like royalty, and the dinner ended with a beautiful tarte studded with fresh-picked red, black, and yellow raspberries from their garden.

After much conversation and catching-up, we slept in a calm room with a faded patchwork quilt and old New England furniture. Outside: stone walls, moose antlers, the call of wood thrushes.

In the morning we ate fresh eggs from a nearby farm, and more of that delicious bread, and jam, and coffee, on the outdoor table.

Our hosts had to leave for work, but we stayed for a few more quiet hours, reading and drawing. What a peaceful and beautiful way to begin a short vacation, and such a happiness to catch up with old friends.

 

A Haiku Series to Beat the Heat

A sore back demands
gin and tonic, a handful
of potato chips.

--

The lime slice floating
in its carbonated sea
--a drowning green moon.

--

While sun-like peaches
lie in pleated purple ruffs
ready to bleed gold.

 

--

I've been away; back in Montreal now, with a report on the travels coming soon. My back is better, it's been a little cooler here, and I hope everyone is coping with the heat and humidity.

Black

The Slave Coast, watercolor, 7" x 10"

 

Roadworks slowed us. The iron-rich earth was a brilliant red.
The red was apt. On these lands people had warred and sold people to people.

 

On the long narrow track to the beach we passed a field of
decapitated palms, the stumps in serried ranks. A sadness fell.

 

To travel is to look and fail to understand what one is looking at.
We went to the Door of No Return.

--Teju Cole

 

I'm deeply moved by Teju Cole's unfolding series of tweets and photographs, in real time, of the journey he is taking today from Lagos to Ouidah along the Slave Coast.

More than anything I have read in this sad week, these restrained, short sentences, each word carefully chosen, speak powerfully to me about the origins of racism in America. Can we -- so many of us white and privileged -- stop and try to put ourselves in the place of our African brothers and sisters, sold into slavery, held in chains in coastal slave forts, and eventually packed into ships bound for the western hemisphere? Can we allow ourselves to consider our parallel but enormously different subsequent histories, as well as the many ways in which we continue to deny and turn away from the truths of persistent, endemic injustice and inequality?

 

Alex Colville

Alex Colville, the Canadian painter, died peacefully on Tuesday at his home in Nova Scotia, at the age of 92. Many of us recognize his most iconic images without, perhaps, even knowing the painter's name. He was an official war artist during WWII who later became an easel painter with a painstaking technique of laying down his pigment in tiny dots. His paintings, with their deceptively mundane subjects that also express feelings of anxiety, tension, and foreboding, say a great deal about life in the later half of the 20th century. An obituary and appreciation published by the CBC remarks that the artist became quite popular in Germany, where he did a residency. Colville is quoted as saying, "Germans know how bad things can (and did) get...Everything in my paintings that frightens Canadians seems to appeal to Germans." In his work I find echoes of the melancholy loneliness of realists such as Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, and the British painter Eric Ravilious -- but Colville is uniquely himself.

I became more aware of Colville through my friend Vivian Lewin, who wrote a series of poems about his paintings. Today I asked her to share one with you, and to say a few words about why Alex Colville mattered to her, and also what, if anything, was particularly Canadian about him. Here is her answer, followed by her poem, "Dog and Priest."

 

Beth, you asked me about Colville. I have always judged myself harshly for not being brilliantly productive, for brooding over unhatched plans and vague intentions, for collecting bits of raw material and feeling incapable or at best unready to use them in any conclusive way. In 1984, the year my marriage ended, I wandered into the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and saw an astonishing exhibit of work by Alex Colville.  It included not only a good sample of his paintings, drawings, and prints, but also many excerpts from his notebooks and drawings and sketches collected over many years.  I could see how he was patient but not pushy with himself--it seemed to me that he was both relentlessly persistent and resolutely patient, allowing the images that moved him to gather themselves--ripen, as it were--and in good time to find their places in finished work.  

If there is anything inherently Canadian about this, I think it is the fundamental refusal to be flashy for the sake of flashiness, but instead to invite time as a partner in the solving of problems. Not to think first of turning a quick profit on a short-term solution to a hard question. And to be unafraid of hard questions--even, at best, humble in the face of them, and in the face of life's real difficulties. I am grateful for his example and his work.

--Vivian

 

Dog and Priest, Alex Colville, 1978. Acrylic on hardboard, 52 x 90 cm. 

DOG AND PRIEST

 “...there is no limbo, purgatory,

 or hell for animals.”

--Alex Colville

 

Like a present still wrapped up

the man in full clericals reclines

on a bleached wooden dock while past his shoulder

lichen-covered rock

drops down towards the water, a textbook

picture of symbiosis,

 

scratchy firs rising from it

in northern, diffuse light. The far shore

is delectable. By his side a Black Lab

levels its muzzle

to inhale the horizon and this profile

serves to eclipse the priest's face.

 

Ripples cover the water

like souls hastening towards a cure,

attracted the more by his ability

to love another best,

and they crowd at the pilings, swirling against

his vow. His inertia

 

is an achievement. He looks

calmly out and might not see it all –

this body might be only one part of what

opens to the sea

just around that point. For now, sun-warmed dry wood

holds him up. He's in no rush

 

to put on a simpler suit

like his companion's shinier coat,

this retriever whose heavy collar has worn

quite comfortable:

who knows no need to dress up or strip down,

just water and plunging in.

 

--Vivian Lewin (1989)

 

Poem (c) 2013 by Vivian Lewin; please do not reproduce without permission

 

 

Fire and Ice

When we got home last night we were both beat. I was telling J. about my last blog post, and he suggested that we should go to a Dairy Queen after dinner and try one of these Blizzard concoctions. OK, I said, where is the nearest one? Out came the smartphones. Ave. du Parc, he said, looking at the map... Hmm.

I saw lightbulbs going on in his head, and then he spoke into the phone: Romados Portuguese chicken Montreal. Up popped the reference, with a phone number, and when he clicked his phone automatically went into call mode, with the Romados number at the top. A glance in my direction: We could order the chicken so it's ready when we get there, then hop on our bikes and go up the rue Rachel path, pick up the food, then ride up to Mont Royal park, and then we'd be right next to the Dairy Queen on Parc.

I'm on a diet, I said, lamely, and grinned at him.

So in 20 minutes we headed off on our bikes, up the hill. "See, we're burning calories, said a voice behind me. I'm sure we'll have worked off all the fries by the time we get to the park.

Rotisserie Ramados, the king of Montreal Portuguese charcoal-grilled chicken, just reopened this past weekend after a terrible fire last year, and last night the lines of people waiting to order were incredible. However, there's a separate line for phone orders. I stayed with the bikes and took some photos while J. went in; we didn't have to wait long.

The restaurant is located in the heart of the Portuguese neighborhood, just above Eglise St-Jean Baptiste.Those are the Romados windows on the left. There are a few more tables for people who want to eat inside than there used to be; there's also the bread and pastry counter with wonderful things like little custard pies. Most people buy their food to go.

So we ended up at Parc Mont Royal, which encompasses the entire eastern side of the mountain. The park was designed by Frederick Olmstead, and it's beautiful, huge, and varied, with meadows, lakes, wooded areas, paths, overlooks. This is just one little section.

This graceful winged lady presided over a beautiful evening.

And the chicken didn't last long. I was good: I didn't eat very many fries, and I didn't eat the chicken skin, which with this particular meal is almost a sacrilege.

We enjoyed the view and the people-watching, and lay back and watched the clouds.

Then it was time for dessert: our first-ever Blizzard. I let J. choose, and he got mint oreo cookies as the mix-in. They put the ice cream and the cookies in a big machine and whip it all up, and hand you a large paper cup filled with the stuff. It was cold, and minty-chocolatey, and quite delicious, even for people like me who think ice cream should be creamy and not, well, gritty.

A very Canadian night, then; a very Montreal summer night too. And then we rode home: downhill all the way.

Too Damn Hot

The heat-and-humidity wave up here has drained the energy out of most of us, at least those who don't exist in air-conditioned environments. Saturday wasn't too bad, but Sunday was sweltering, and I had to go to a work bee at the community garden between 10 and 12. That just about did me in, though I had a pretty good time talking to people and chopping up weeds for compost. At one point I just sprayed myself with the hose. I'm glad I wasn't at church singing up in the organ loft, it must have been unbearable.

We always teeter between installing our bedroom air conditioner or not; usually these heat waves don't last too long, and we manage to sleep with a fan blowing on us. At the studio we just have fans, no matter what. Right now it's 3:30 pm and we're ready to call it a day. Yesterday one of my FB friends posted that her dinners had really taken a nose dive: she was having a gin-and-tonic and a Blizzard. I didn't know what the latter was: turns out it's a Dairy Queen treat of soft ice cream with mix-ins like Oreo cookies. Whatever: cold and wet and anesthetizing sounds pretty good to me!

Early Morning Backlight

Oxalis on the terrace. Watercolor on Arches hot-press, 10 1/2" x 5."

The light filtering through the leaves this morning was so beautiful that I had to try to express it. All I had at home was this scrap of Arches hot-press watercolor paper, wonderful for detailed illustrations but not what I normally use for looser paintings. The paper has very little texture and quite a lot of sizing, so the paint stays in place, sitting on the surface, and doesn't run around or blend very much; you can glaze with further coats of color with less danger of muddiness. On the other hand, it's harder to make lovely washes or spontaneous marks and confluences of color, and you don't have the little nubs of a more highly textured paper that add highlights and sparkle to the image. Nevertheless, it was interesting to experiment with it, and there are parts of this painting that I like a lot.

Doing art teaches me a lot of things, one of which is patience. I used to be so impatient! But I've noticed that something has changed, whether I'm sewing or painting or playing the piano -- I'm just more willing to stay with it, even when it's not going well; more accepting of the outcome, more willing to trust in and enjoy the process for itself.

I think living in the city has helped me be more patient too. You have to wait for other people, wait for the traffic light to turn, wait for the train to arrive, wait in line at the bank or the check-out -- it's not like jumping in your car in the country and going where you want, when you want, even though that might take quite a while, but, dammit, you're moving. In the city you spend significant amounts of time every single day stopped somewhere, waiting. And you can either let it get to you, or learn to just be there in that minute, or five, or fifteen.

The Quebecois are not impatient or nudgy people, either. They don't honk, they don't get annoyed if they're in a line -- or if they do, they don't show it -- it's more important to them to be polite and have a decent social atmosphere. It makes such a huge difference in your own level of irritation and impatience not to be on the receiving end of other people's frustration! I wonder if this will change over time - some people worry that it already has - but this extra measure of patience and regard for the collective, rather than me-me-me, is something our visitors always notice too. By the same token, when we've taken our Quebecois friends to the U.S., they always remark on how hurried and impatient everyone seems to be, especially in traffic, but elsewhere too. It's not that way everywhere in America, but unfortunately it is in a lot of places -- and for all I know, may be more so in other big Canadian cities.

The environment you grow up in certainly shapes you, without you even being very aware of it. I went from a languid childhood in a small rural town to a big competitive university, and then became a business partner and very busy person in a college town. Now the pendulum of my life seems to be swinging back; even though this is one of the largest cities in North America, with well over 3 million people in the greater metropolitan area, there's a lot about living here that reminds me of my hometown in the 1950s and 60s. The ambition of my middle years is still with me, but it's softening, and I sure hope I'm easier on myself. And perhaps it seems paradoxical, but I notice that I actually get more done, and do it better, when I'm not pushing as hard. It was so nice this morning to spend time just looking at the light, and the trees, to drink some coffee and then paint, slowly and steadily, but completely absorbed in just that one thing.

Picasso and "le bain turc"

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Bibliotheque Nationale in-between services on a Sunday, and spent my time looking at art books. In a volume of Picasso's drawings I was captivated by several drawings from 1968 titled "A la piscine" - "At the Pool," and took a few not-very-good pictures with my phone -- all I had with me at the time.

Later, at home, I began looking for source material, because the arches in the background and languid poses of the women seemed much more like a Turkish bath than a swimming pool. Not at all to my surprise, I discovered that Picasso had a long obsession with this subject.

Here's a drawing from November 1, 1968. The source, of course, is Ingres' "Orientalist" painting, below: 

But Picasso, naturally, puts his own touch on it as he explores the subject and his own psyche. Eventually he did a whole series of drawings and etchings titled "Le Bain Turc."

This one is from February, 1968: I love the whispering women at the top, the standing woman (so much sexier half-undressed and looking out of the frame at the artist/us), the "odalisque" in the foreground - a clear nod to both Ingres' La Grande Odalisque and Manet's "Olympia"- (and what's she holding? a mirror? a fruit? and in her other hand, are those brushes?) and, as in the top drawing in this post, that earnest swimmer in the pool, wearing her bathing cap, oblivious to the others and determined to do her laps!

It's fascinating in all of these works (there are many more) to see the shorthand with which he indicates the structure and fittings of the hammam, and the casual poses of the bathers. As in many of his graphic works, one face or body may be worked in detail while others are barely indicated, and there is always a lot of distortion as well as multiple perspectives which our eyes somehow ignore, but which give great life to the complex scenes. Below, an etching from 1971: clearly he was still at it three years later. Look what's happened to the swimmers, and the lute player, and the woman with the mirror.

I sigh in admiration!

Autour du Bain Turc, Femmes a la piscine. Pablo Picasso, etching, 1971.

Manon's Latest Sewing Project

What can I say?

Hope you all are staying cool where you are. It's a little better here today, with rain forecast for the evening. No excuses for the Couturier Cat, however. Gotta keep those sweaty little paws busy!

This will be a close-fitting, cap-sleeve blouse with vertical princess darts, eventually. It's my third and final piece of Indian block-print cloth, and probably my favorite. However, I noticed it was getting orange dye on my hands as I worked. Does anyone know a good way to "set" dyes like this? Does white vinegar in the rinse water work?

Coquelicot: Patrick's Poppies

Poppies. Watercolor on 140 lb Arches cold pressed, 23 x 31 cm.

My friend Patrick told me he'd been reading a lot about WWI recently, and was so moved by how absolutely terrible that war was that he decided to plant some coquelicot this year. In his garden the poppies are both pink and red, but when it came to painting them I decided to make them all red. These aren't Oriental poppies, which bloom earlier, but the more delicate papery variety, Papaver rhoeas -- commonly called the wild corn poppy, field poppy, or Flanders poppy -- that grows wild in European fields.

It's a bit frustrating to show these watercolor paintings reduced; they look quite different than in real life. Here are a couple of details, closer to lifesize.

I love the small nodding heads of poppy buds. I also love that vernacular French word for these field flowers, which I never knew before: coquelicot.

My wish on this Fourth of July is that one day all nationalisms will devolve into peaceful celebrations of the positive aspects of different world cultures, and cease forever to be an excuse for hatred, fear, exclusion, and war.