the cassandra pages

A Beautiful Ending for the Summer

Our friend G. lives on a remote hillside in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, where he has a garden of breathtaking beauty. Once every summer we drive out to spend the afternoon and evening with him. This year it was a perfect day - sunny, and still warm enough to eat outside, though by the end of our meal we were all bundled up in jackets and shawls. Here's J. on the deck overlooking the garden and the hills beyond, under the grape arbor. We spent some time trying and failing to find G.'s new glasses which had fallen or gotten snagged somewhere in the garden when he was picking the bouquet for the table-- he found them himself a couple of days later -- and I sat on a rock overlooking the pond for a while, watching frogs floating lazily on the surface, legs splayed. Aren't they wonderful, G. said, and I told him I aspired to the zazen of a frog. Then we had snacks and wine, and later, a cooperative dinner of salmon, corn picked that morning, fresh green beans, salad, strawberries.

G. gave me the flowers to take home, and of course I had to sketch them the next day.

What is it about certain landscapes that gives them their particular emotional resonance and feeling? G.'s place always feels the same to me, regardless of the weather or time of year: it's one of the calmest, most quiet and peaceful places I know, and I always feel restored after being there.  Some of that comes from the person who lives there, in an almost monastic lifestyle. It also comes from the way he has laid out the garden, with its stream and ponds, in the middle field, between the house and the distant mountains. Wherever you are, the garden beckons, and it is always present, like a symbolic home to which you can return but which also stays in one's memory, between the near and the far of our lives. It also contains a number of large standing rocks, and because I am tremendously fond of rocks, I revisit them each year almost like people with remembered individual personalities; I like laying my hand on them and feeling the retained warmth of the sun.

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Last week I also returned to the Sicilian landscapes that have gotten so far under my skin, and did this drawing of hills and a patchwork of orchards and fields, seen from the top of the hill near the Greek theater at Segesta:

Olive trees and fields from Segesta. Charcoal on toned paper, 8.5" x 5".

I've planned to paint this scene but wanted to draw it first. The pastoral landscape of olive trees and planted fields remind me of the subjects of some of Van Gogh's late drawings. As I work toward refining a style of my own for this sort of drawing, I look for the subject's internal rhythms and the ways the shapes interact. This is partly about finding patterns in the ways things grow or are arranged in the landscape, and partly --again -- something about the emotional temperature of the scene itself. I've always been astounded at how Van Gogh was able to convey these qualities of "IS-ness" as well as how he felt about particular places on particular days. Without imitating him, I hope to continue to work on my own language for doing something similar, because landscapes and the individual elements in them -- like trees or the pattern of an orchard -- do speak to me almost as people do. The drawing or painting thus becomes a portrait of the subject, and secondarily a portrait of the artist at a particular time of their life...

Vincent Van Gogh, Olive Trees, Montmajour, 1888.

 

In Memoriam

Photographer Robert Frank died yesterday at the age of 94.

Jennifer Lewis, artist, photographer, ceramicist, and one of our closest lifelong friends, died a year ago this week, at the age of 68; the day the photograph above was taken, we were together at the 2008 Robert Frank show at MoMA, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication of Franks' masterpiece, The Americans.

Aaron Moore, historian, professor, and husband of my dear friend Nilanjana Bhattacharjya, died on Sunday at the age of 47 -- just half that of Robert Frank.

I have no way to make sense of the unfairness of life, the time we're each allotted, or the way each of us meets our fate. What I do know is that each of these people used the time they had to be creative, to be productive and engaged, to connect with others, to try to make a difference, and to be courageous. Each of them touched me, in quite different ways, and I will always be aware of them and remember them.

Jonathan and Jenny looking at Robert Frank's contact sheets, New York City, 2008.

--

It's September 11th, a day of remembrance that goes beyond any one person. That morning, Jennifer called us in Vermont, from her roof in lower Manhattan: we were on the phone with her when the second plane hit the tower.

And on this day, I think, too, of what Robert Frank photographed in his iconic book, The Americans. Like Dave Heath, whose photographs we saw earlier this summer at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, like Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg, all of whom knew each other, Frank was trying to express something tragic and destructive that he sensed at the heart of American life in the 1950s and early 60s -- something that would explode into violence later in the 1960s, and has never been resolved. Frank showed us America's racism, economic inequality and insensitivity, its feel-good culture, and above all, its denial. Now, much of the divisive toxicity that became an undercurrent after the 60s has been allowed, and encouraged, to boil over and come to the surface. So I think a post entitled In Memoriam today is also a requiem for an idea of America that is dying, and must die eventually -- but how long that will take, and at what cost, none of us can predict.

 

When black-and-white doesn't make it.

Here's a charcoal sketch of the view at Segesta, Sicily, that you see if you turn 90 degrees to the right from the angle in the previous post, the picture with the Artemesia bush. This direction looks into a deep gully, with areas of exposed rock that may have been a source for some of Segesta's ancient buildings. After two attempts, one in pencil and one in charcoal, I still felt that it was almost impossible to capture the essence of this landscape in black and white, so I thought I'd try a quick sketch in oil pastel. It ended up being more than a sketch, and I rather like the feeling of it. Here, the mountains came alive with both rocks and trees, the fields sparkled with color, and the abyss of the gully fell down and away.

View at Segesta. Oil pastel on paper, 9" x 6.5 ".

Here's a detail, close to life-size on my monitor, that shows a little better what the surface is like. 

Oil pastels are an interesting medium. Using them is more like painting in oils, I think, than drawing in dry pastels, but with some of the qualities of both. They're also very messy - I was covered with sticky pigment by the end of this and so was my work surface. Fortunately, all Rembrandt oil pastels are non-toxic. They never really dry, though, so an oil pastel painting has to be presented behind glass.

The good thing for me is that it's almost impossible to get fussy or tight with them, because the sticks are soft, large, and blunt. You can layer and mix colors on the surface, and scratch through the paint to add some detail or texture, as I've done here, but you can't draw like you would with a small pointed tool. The palette I have is limited - about 45 colors - but that's OK for these purposes. And it's a good change from the demanding tension of watercolor.

--

Choir started again this Sunday, and it would be hard to express how glad I was to be singing again. During the summer, I'm glad of the break, but eventually I miss the music and the challenge of trying to do my best, and I miss my community of friends there. At our first rehearsal last Thursday, we sounded almost tentative to begin with, but quickly found our voices again. Yesterday's two services were very good, and it always feels like a miracle to me that with only fifteen or sixteen singers we can make as much sound as we do, or sing as subtly. This past weekend, Montreal celebrated "Les Journées du patrimoine religieux" so we had a steady stream of visitors through the doors, displays of historical photos and memorabilia, and volunteers on hand to give tours and answer questions. It also meant that we had quite a crowd of people for Evensong, which gives us a lift. This year we'll be experimenting with singing from the chancel steps so that we're not so far from the congregation as when we're up in the choir stalls or in the organ loft at the back of the church. The tricky thing is that this makes a physical separation from the organ when we do accompanied works, and there's a slight delay in the sound, so the organist has to watch the director in his monitor and play with the tempo he or she sees, which will be slightly ahead of the beat that is heard. Most listeners would not know this is going on, but it's a musical reality in many of the large cathedrals of the world.

The point of connection with painting is that in any art form, there are challenges, but also ways to overcome them!

--

This week I'm also remembering our friend Jenny, who died a year ago, and thinking of another friend whose husband died yesterday, while we were singing. He had been in difficult health for a long while, and in a crisis situation for two days, so it was not entirely unexpected, but it was still too sudden, and far too young. Suffering and death seem, at first, to be black and white, but in fact they aren't at all, because human lives are not monochromatic. We need to look at the difficult parts of life in all of their shades, not just in black and white, but in color too. Even an abyss has color and form in it, if we have the courage to look. Art, however, fixes a moment in time, while music always moves.

With its capacity to express such a wide range of human emotions, music is one of the best and only ways I can deal with death; I'm grateful for it always, but especially now.

More Sicilian Explorations, and a Watercolor Disaster

An Olive Orchard, central Sicily. Transparent watercolor on Arches cold press, 13" x 9".

Thank you to everyone who commented on the last post. I appreciated what you wrote very much, and it made me feel better to hear your solidarity and shared sorrow.  One commenter, Robbie, said that he felt it was important to be informed and not turn away from the unpleasant facts -- and I agree with that very much. He also wrote: "I worry too about the exaltation I find as I delve into singing; might I be using music as a temporary insulation against a distinctly non-musical world?" My own answer is that we all need places of exaltation, because this is where we find the solace, strength, and --yes-- reasons for going on and continuing the fight for what matters. It's not insulation to spend time doing the things that make us feel the most human and join us with some of the best aspects of the human spirit throughout time, it's only insulation when that's ALL that we do. If I didn't make that clear before, I want to emphatically do so now.

One thing I try to remember is that there have always been stubborn people who have continued to do art, read and write books, make music, love and protect nature, cherish and guard all aspects of human culture, and take care of one another even when life felt the most hopeless. Often they have also been the same people who quietly sheltered refugees or the persecuted, visited prisoners, wrote underground tracts, participated in protests, smuggled food for people in need...the list goes on. These are not the people who get written about in history books, but let's try for a moment to imagine what would have happened if they had not existed. Where would we be? That's what is meant by action and contemplation as two sides of one coin. People who have found their own sources of strength and renewal -- what I like to call "wells" that we are able to go back to drink from again and again -- have more ability to see what needs to be done, and help others. So no, I don't think we need to feel guilty for spending time doing these things, not at all. We just need to try to see the whole picture, and move back and forth between the active and contemplative parts of our lives, keenly aware of what each is, and how they complement each other. As for me: our choir season starts this coming week, and I can't wait to be singing again -- for the joy and challenge it presents to me, for the community of other musicians, and for what it gives to the listeners who hear us each week. That music during the Sunday services seems more important than ever.

 

The painting of the olive orchard was done over two working sessions on two separate days. I'm trying for a more expressive use of color and brushwork, and it's not easy for me. Here, my original idea was to make the field (actually a very dull, uninteresting brown) a beautiful pinkish color, complementing the intense chartreuse of the grass in the orchard beyond. The shadows would be dark blue, violet, and dark green, with the painting unified by burnt orange and burnt sienna, as well as the silvery grey of the olive leaves. For a first attempt, I'm not unhappy with it, though I'd like it to be looser still. But I'm learning and progressing by pushing myself in this direction and thinking a lot about it. It would be easier in a different medium, too. A different approach might be to make the bare field violet or lavender, still complementary but toward the cool side of the spectrum rather than the warm. The feeling would be quite different -- less exuberant, but more harmonious with the silvery greens. Van Gogh and Gauguin are both great sources of inspiration for color ideas.

--

The painting at the top is the most recent. Earlier in the week I went back to the charcoal sketch from the previous post...

and made a color version of the same scene.

Artemisia bush at Segesta. Transparent watercolor on Arches cold press, 9.5 x 6.5".

I subsequently ruined this painting by running the top of it under the tap to tone down the contrast a bit, and then overworking it -- so this is my only record of it. But that's OK. If you're lucky, each watercolor painting has passages that are especially successful, or where something unexpectedly interesting (or disastrous!) happens. We can learn from these for the next one. I quite like the artemisia bush in the foreground - it retains some of the freedom of the original charcoal sketch. In hindsight, more problematic here were the brown hill and dark green vegetation at center right -- too much detail that competes with the foreground. You can see what I mean if you cover up that area with your hand. Before the rest got ruined, I washed over the brown with green, and it was much better. The strong color of the fields and the purple hill at the top, though, are important, and when I rinsed the paper, I lost that brilliance.

It was simply an error in judgement, and sometimes that can be the result of a mood, or an impulsive idea that isn't well-considered. In watercolor, unfortunately, those errors are usually fatal. I think it's important to share some of these problems here so you know they happen all the time!

 

Here's my studio working method for stretching watercolor paper. This is the traditional way that my mother taught me when I was young, using gummed, water-activated kraft tape that you must moisten and then attach to the sides of high-quality paper (in this case, Arches or Fabriano 140# cold press paper) that's been soaked for at least 15 minutes, and then laid on a block of plywood. It's fussy but really works to keep that paper from buckling no matter how wet it gets, and is so much cheaper than buying pre-made watercolor blocks, or extra-heavy watercolor sheets. To remove the tape when the painting is finished, you need to carefully moisten the kraft paper backing, without getting any water on the painting itself (I use a small sea sponge soaked in water and then partially wrung out) and then the tape will release. Sometimes it's necessary to use a single-edged razor blade to remove bits of tape residue from the margins. For working outdoors or when traveling, watercolor blocks are indispensable, and I always have several of different sizes on hand, as well as sketchbooks. For the moment, it's helping me a lot to work in a larger format, mostly 22" x 30" sheets cut in quarters and then stretched with 3/4" margins.