the cassandra pages

Book List, 2022

The list of books I read in the past year is the shortest in memory, partly because of all the things that happened this year to disrupt my reading time, but also because it contains three very long titles. Most of my reading was connected with my zoom book group, and we began the year reading Tolstoy's War and Peace. That occupied us during most of the cold months last winter, appropriately enough. It was my third time through, and I feel like I got even more out of it, especially by virtue of the close reading with astute friends. Among us, we read several different translations, and this also added to the depth of our discussions. I was the one who had pushed us to read it, and so it was a delight to watch the group engage with and, at length, fall in love with the book and its characters, and appreciate Tolstoy's tremendous gifts as a novelist. The biggest gratification for all of us came at the end when several members who had been reluctant at first, or who had tried previously and never gotten through it, expressed their feeling of accomplishment and happiness at having met this monument of literature, which everybody agreed really does deserve its rating as one of the greatest novels of all time.

We then drew a deep breath, and decided to read a number of short works, of which the two by César Aira stand out particularly, along with Aristophanes' comic play The Birds.

During the summer and early fall, we read the three volumes of the Barrøy Chronicles by the Norwegian author Roy Jacobsen, and I cannot recommend them highly enough; the books follow a woman, Ingrid Barrøy, from her childhood to early middle age, as she grows up and then takes responsibility for a small island off the northwestern coast of Norway; the books spans the years from the early 1920s to around 1950. What may have originally started as a descriptive narrative of the extremely difficult life of the isolated islanders and their precarious existence due to extreme weather, poverty, and unpredictability, it becomes a human story of one astonishing woman whose remote life is intruded upon by world events. There is a fourth volume coming, and we await it anxiously!

In November I read Color Creates Light, a book that presents the teachings and life of Hans Hofmann, considered by many to be the father of abstract expressionism (one of his drawings, a view of Provincetown, is below). While this is not explicitly where I expect my art to go, the book was extremely helpful and eye-opening for me, and it's one I'll be going back to frequently for inspiration and insight. Hofmann carried on from Cezanne, who had moved on from impressionism to develop a new way of depicting nature by using planes of color that solidified the forms and locked the picture plane together.

Cubism developed out of this, along with the further innovations of Picasso and Matisse, which then gave rise to what we think of as 20th century modern art. Hofmann analyzed and understood exactly what Cezanne had done, but took it into the realm of pure color and abstraction. He is considered the most influential teacher of the new generation of painters who became known as abstract expressionists. I had always been curious about this lineage and how it came about, but found the bits of Hofmann's teaching I had read quite obscure and hard to follow (others, even his students, agree -- it was partly a problem of language issues between German and English.) So this book, by a former student, clarified a great deal and opened a lot of possibilities and challenges for me in my own work.

Finally, we've recently begun Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk's massive novel, The Books of Jacob, which immerses us in the Jewish world of eastern Poland (near Ukraine) in 1750, a time and place where many cultures collided through travel, trade, and migration, and where a young man, Jacob Frank, was hailed and followed as the Messiah. It's fascinating, often bizarre, written in a somewhat fragmentary style that (like the place itself, perhaps) presents different threads and seemingly-unrelated people until they begin to come together into the story of Jacob himself. We're only about 1/3 of the way through the 900-odd pages so far, so I can't say much more than that; this remarkable book will continue to occupy us for several months.

As always, I'm anxious to hear what you've read this year, what stood out for you, what disappointed you, and what you're looking forward to reading in 2023!

2022 Book List

The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk#  (in progress)

Enduring Love, Ian McEwan

Color Creates Light: Studies with Hans Hofmann, Tina Dickey

The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100 - 480 BC, Jeffrey M. Hurwit

The Eye of the Rigal, Roy Jacobsen (Barrøy Chronicles 3) #

White Shadow, Roy Jacobsen (Barrøy Chronicles 2)#

The Unseen, Roy Jacobsen (Barrøy Chronicles 1)#

A Time of Gifts: on Foot to Constantinople (Book 1 of a trilogy), Patrick Leigh Fermor

How I Became a Nun, Cesar Aira #

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, Cesar Aira (rereading) #

Several short stories, Borges #

The Reluctant Gaucho, Roberto Bolaño #

Babylon Revisited, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Recitatif, Toni Morrison #

The Birds, Aristophanes #

Intimacies, Katie Kitamura

Feline Philosophy, John Grey

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy (rereading with my book group) #

The Journey to the East, Hermann Hesse

Hamnet & Judith, Maggie O'Farrell

# indicates a book read with my book group

Back to Drawing

It's been a busy time, and I haven't been able to do much artwork. But, to be honest, I haven't really wanted to either -- I just didn't have the urge or the right spirit, and then, 12 days ago, I managed to sprain my ankle quite badly. Although I was able to put weight on it, I sure couldn't do much, and it was swollen and painful, but has been gradually healing up. I had accounting and other tasks to do on the computer, and there was holiday cooking and baking, cards to write and gifts to wrap and send, all of which felt strange because of my father's absence. When I had free time, it seemed like I was spending way too much of it (true confession) looking at knitting posts on Instagram, searching obsessively for the best BB creme or light foundation for older skin, or getting drawn in by 1) cat videos or 2) holiday paper-folding craft videos, which, of course, started clogging my feed as soon as I watched a few of them. But now that the Christmas preparations are mostly over, and I feel like I'm going to be able to get through it without falling apart, I've picked up the sketchbook again, and it feels like the ice is broken. Last weekend we went to two beautiful musical events at the cathedral: a concert by our choral scholars, and the traditional Lessons & Carols service. And in the past few days I've been able to go out by myself and do some grocery shopping and other errands.

Sometimes drawing is what grounds me, but sometimes I need to feel more grounded in order to be able to draw.

So...the drawing at the top of the page is of Dave Bonta's book Ice Mountain: An Elegy that I illustrated and published a few years ago; an animal vertebra, and a ceramic cup made by my late friend Jenny Lewis.

 

This is the first one I've done that shows any of the interior of our new apartment, with an indication of the rooftops we see out the window. It also shows the first artificial tree we've ever had, but we couldn't see any reasonable way to get a real tree up to the 11th floor and then down again without a big hassle for us, and potential needle-mess in the hall and elevator. To our surprise, we like it!

And here's the back of my studio door, drawn during a long zoom meeting when I was able to turn off my video. There's an old blue chambray workshirt, and a grey plaid wool shirt that was my paternal grandfather's, and has been my painting shirt ever since he died around 1980. I like that they've followed me here.

How are things going where you are? We're bracing for another winter storm tonight and tomorrow, but are happy that there's snow for a white Christmas. Best wishes for your holidays, if you are celebrating, and for the New Year - though I am sure I'll be back here before then. 

 

Of Studios, New and Old

When we finally finished cleaning out our old studio in the Usine Cadbury at the end of October, we sat down for a little while in the open space and remembered the day we moved into it -- the only other time it has been empty. That was fourteen years ago. As soon as our moving truck arrived from Vermont, the space filled up quickly with professional camera and graphics equipment, computers, tools, paper cutters and framing tools, file cabinets and storage cabinets, art supplies, a book press and bookbinding equipment, bookshelves and all the books we couldn't fit into our small apartment, my piano, a refrigerator and kitchen equipment, a couch, chairs, a coffee table, plants. In many ways it was our second home for the past decade and a half; we went there almost every day soon after rising, made our breakfast and lunch, and spent most of our daylight hours working there, only going home  -- usually on foot or by bicycle -- at 5:00 or 6:00 pm. The pandemic interrupted that routine, but by 2019 we were also retiring from our design and communications work, although I was continuing to publish books. The building changed hands, and the rent rose every year: it was clear our time there was coming to an end.

We had worked hard on selling and clearing things out last summer, but realized we simply couldn't finish by the time our lease would be up in the fall, so we signed one more lease, determined to be out this year. By the time we had finished this fall, we were too exhausted and sick of the process to feel very nostalgic. We took some pictures, including this final portrait of me by Jonathan to mark the occasion. Then we locked the door for the last time, and returned our keys.

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My new studio is very small, but efficient, and the north light in it is beautiful. I was really worried about fitting myself into it, and got rid of everything I could in order to make it work; that meant some steely decisions about equipment and studio furniture I've had all my working life, as well as weeding out a great many books, supplies I either didn't need or could easily replace, and even a good deal of artwork and project samples. I photographed things, and let the objects go. It wasn't easy, especially at first: I felt like I was giving up my identity and admitting to being much older than I feel. But as we found homes for our things with younger people who would use them, we both felt better.

The new space holds my writing desk (you can see it reflected in the mirror of the storage cabinet) as well as an L-shaped worktable. The left side of the table has a motor that raises or lowers the tabletop for standing or sitting. All the art, sewing, and textile supplies fit into two IKEA Pax cabinets, and my paper and archive of artwork are stored elsewhere in the apartment; there are boxes of cloth and yarn, archives of professional work, and some canvases and frames in our remote storage unit.

Thingvellir, Iceland. Charcoal on prepared Rising Line Stonehenge paper.

It seemed important to me to put some work up on the walls right away, so I did, and after doing a number of cloud and cityscape studies from the window, I decided to try to make something large just to prove to myself that I could still do that in this space. I want to complete the Iceland series of charcoal drawings that I began at the end of 2011; this large diptych, which was just roughed-out when I stopped working on the series, is 60" x 22". I worked on the two halves separately on the tabletop, and then together on the wall. Later, Jonathan made this portrait, again to mark the occasion of what we hope is a new beginning, and a new chapter in our lives.

 

Squalls

Squall line on autoroute 15, south of Montreal, Quebec.

Thursday, December 1: We had to cross the border into the U.S. this morning to do some errands. It was dry, windy, and quite cold when we left the city around 9:30 am, but no frazzle ice was yet to be seen on the St. Lawrence River. The sky looked like snow, though, and sure enough, as we got out into the flat countryside south of the city, we could see a definite squall line -- blue skies to the right, and a line of leaden snow-filled clouds to the left. Soon we were driving through pelting, blowing snow that was sometimes lighter than air and drifting fast across the already-white fields, and sometimes beating a staccato of tiny icy pellets against the windshield, which cautioned us to drive very carefully, because that kind of ice can act like ball bearings under the wheels. And then, suddenly, just before the border crossing at Champlain...nothing at all. Tan, bare fields with green hay still coming up in places; nonchalant geese pecking in dry cornfields, and no snow to be seen. 

Two hours later, on the way back, the day had turned to beautiful blue skies, and the roads were bare. Those of us who live in the north are quite familiar with this phenomenon of squalls: short-lived, intense bursts of rain or snow, often accompanied by gusting winds, that can feel like a blizzard when you're in the middle of them, but which -- unlike blizzards -- pass quickly, often bringing high-pressure and blue skies in their wake.

It made me think about how life has felt lately: unpredictable and buffeted. But then again, all the disturbances in my life have been mere squalls compared to the relentless and devastating storms of war, starvation, oppression, homelessness and displacement, illness, loss, and death that millions of people face. And yet -- no matter what, some of these remarkable people manage to adjust their attitude and still find joy in their daily existence. I try, but I still have much to learn.

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Angel-wing begonia with wooden angel. Fountain pen drawing in sketchbook, 6" x 9".

Friday: Late fall in the north: this is the stripped, dry, testing time at the end of the year. Short days, distant pale sun, bare trees, and an increasingly penetrating cold. Ironically, when there's more snow covering the ground, it often seems warmer, and easier to be outside: during these current weeks, though, the landscape feels like a bed without a blanket. We are all driven more and more into the interiors of our homes, and of ourselves. 

I swam, early this morning. Sleepy and not in the best of moods when I pushed myself into the elevator, into the locker room, on with the suit and cap and goggles and into the water, the rhythm quickly took over and after five laps I was already feeling better; after twenty-five I felt renewed, at home in my body in spite of its creaky and achy parts, ready to face the day.  A couple of afternoons ago, I rode down and walked back up the many flights of stairs to my apartment -- this is something I should, and could, do regularly. And while swimming does stretch and use most muscle groups, some yoga focused on balance and strength would be good this winter too.

For someone who tends to be pretty consumed with thoughts and words, I know that I can't live entirely in my head, or let myself become distracted and immobile for hours on end. I need to use my body to make music, make art, knit and sew, chop and cook, move from place to place. It helps to feel my lungs breathing and my heart pumping blood. I think that one of the problems of living in harsh winter climates, especially as we get older, is the feeling of enclosure and constriction which can lead to a lack of embodiment. I can't ski anymore, we no longer shovel snow, and I have to be careful not to have a bad fall on the ice; this is just being prudent. But being outside in winter has always been invigorating for me, and a joy, so I have crampons for my boots, and a ski pole for when the weather is really dicey, and we make a point of getting out. It requires effort and discipline to build movement into my schedule, but I know it's not optional. How do you deal with this, you who live in a place with definite seasons? And how is your mood these days?