the cassandra pages

A Bronze-Age Path to Self-Discovery

The "Warrior Vase", 12th c. BC, is so famous that the building in which it was discovered at Mycenae is called "The House of the Warrior Vase." I was completely crazy about this object when I first studied it: it felt to me like a sketch of Agamemnon's actual warriors going off from Mycenae to fight at Troy, while a woman, at far left, raises her hand in farewell. Agamemnon and the Trojan War are considered legendary, but the archaeological evidence from both Mycenae and Troy indicate beyond a doubt that advanced societies lived there in the Bronze Age, at least 400 years before the Homeric epics were composed, ruled by kings of great wealth and power, who traded and were in contact with other city-states and cultures in the Aegean, Egypt and North Africa, and the Middle and Near East.

I had just turned nineteen when I took my first course in Greek art: it was called "Greece in the Bronze Age", and was taught by John Coleman at Cornell University. Since childhood, I had been captivated by the Iliad and Odyssey, the Greek gods and the myths: this felt like a way to get closer. I still remember the day when John brought shards of impossibly ancient pottery into the classroom, and the first one was passed into my hands. How do we describe those moments of wonder that quickly move into some sort of inexplicable connection, and a passionate longing to plunge in deeply? By the end of that semester, after being immersed in the early cultures of Mycenae and Tiryns, the Cyclades, and the Minoan civilization in Crete, I knew for sure that this was what I wanted to study, and changed my major from biology to classics, with a focus on archaeology and ancient Greek art.

Head from a marble statue from the Cyclades, 2800-2300 BC. This sculpture originally had painted eyes and red striations on the cheek. You can see where Brancusi found inspiration. I've always loved Cycladic art because of its elemental simplicity: this particular head was chosen by the museum as one of its featured objects.

It wasn't easy; I was already a semester behind the students who had declared their decision earlier, so I had to catch up in the Greek language classes, as well as qualifying in French and German, and fit the required courses and my chosen electives into the remaining two-and-a-half years. Nevertheless, it was of the best decisions I ever made. Even though, at the end, I didn't want to pursue the academic route and become a professor, what I learned during those years studying with John, his colleagues Will Cummer, Will Provine, and Andrew Ramage, and brilliant Greek professors like Pierro Pucci, Fred Ahl, and Michael Stokes, completely changed my life. I learned how to be a scholar and my writing improved a great deal; I gained confidence in my ability to think and to express those thoughts with clarity; my interest in history, literature, and human culture deepened; I became more disciplined, and more confident about my own ability as an artist, because John encouraged me to illustrate my papers and honors thesis. I discovered, through the Greeks, my own passion for graphic design, and the use of positive and negative space, that formed the basis for my own eventual career in that field.

Flying fish swimming among fish-eggs and sea sponges, 16th century BC -- a fresco from Phylakopi on the Cycladic island of Melos. I had never seen this fragment before, and was delighted by it.

A tiny Mycenaean hedgehog.

And a huge Mycenaean octopus, amid fragments of seaweed, clearly showing the influence of Minoan art, which this vase-artist must have seen. 16th c. BC.

Through a series of unfortunate political events, my own lack of experience in traveling alone, and limited money, I never made it to Greece when I was young, even though I won a scholarship for a summer of archaeology there. Though I was considering studying the conservation of antiquities, my life took a different turn. Over the years, I would visit the famous Greek and Roman art collections in New York, Boston, London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin, including the Greek vases I loved, but many of the Bronze Age treasures that had first captivated me remained as pictures in books, or memories from classroom slideshows. Unlike the Parthenon sculptures and many of the finest Greek vases and sculptures, which had been taken from Greece long before by wealthy collectors or government-sanctioned archaeology expeditions -- stolen is the correct word -- many of the primary Bronze Age objects had stayed there, some because they were discovered later, or perhaps because fewer people prized them, and partly because some of the archaeologists who discovered them, like Heinrich Schliemann, had insisted that they remain in Greece.

The so-called "mask of Agamemnon" - a lifesize gold death mask of an unidentified Mycenaean king discovered by Heinrich Schliemann; this is one of several such gold death masks that he found.

Just one of many cases of Mycenaean gold of astonishing workmanship and detail.

A few weeks ago, I finally got to see these objects and visit some of the places where they were found. As I stood in front of the cases of Mycenaean and Cycladic art in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, I felt the years collapse: once again I was that young woman, seeing these things for the first time, feeling my heart leap with delight and fascination. How grateful, and how fortunate I felt, to be there at last!

Late in that long day of museum-looking, I went back through the galleries and made the two drawings shown here. It wasn't because I thought that my drawings would have any more value or beauty than my photographs of the objects, nor because I wasn't sure if I'd ever come back to Athens -- I certainly hope to, but one never knows about the future. All drawings aren't done for the same reasons. In this case I wanted to take the time to do this, because choosing these particular objects out of so many, and standing in front of them with the intent focus that a drawing requires, felt like a ritual act imbued with personal significance. It was a testament to relationship: not only with the objects and their anonymous makers, but with myself over time. I wanted to honor that, and so I drew.

The Navel of the World

Some of you may remember that last winter I was working on a series of sketches of the landscape at Delphi, Greece. The one above remains my favorite - I even made it the screen image on my phone.

A few weeks ago I did another one, this time in oil pastel, following up on the oil pastels of Sicily. I thought maybe that medium would lend itself to this subject. Here's the full painting:

There's a lot that I like about it, and a lot I don't. My handling of the medium has gotten more confident. The color palette here works well, even though it's mostly imaginary. What doesn't work for me is the composition. It's fine for a "pretty painting" of a scene, but that's not what I'm after -- I've got photographs that serve that purpose. The circular, central lawn-like area is boring, and it makes the entire left side of the painting boring too, even though there are some interesting passages in the trees. Furthermore, the ruins in the foreground feel too literal and too prominent, even though I tried to subdue them. The result is that there are too many places for the eye to look, and this distracts from what drew me to this view in the first place. Why is it so hard to remember that, I wonder?

The picture is in this area:

Which is, not surprisingly, much like the gouache. Here it is again:

What makes this compositions work is the combination of strong simple shapes with intersecting angles that create tension and interest. In the gouache, which is really pared down to essentials, both in shape and in color, these elements create a locked-together composition of dark, slightly-triangular verticals held within the picture frame by the intersecting diagonals. Because the viewer isn't overwhelmed with details, and because the palette is so limited, the more abstract picture is able to create an emotional response that, for me anyway, is much closer to what I actually "felt" when standing there, and what I hoped to take away.

With the oil pastels and the picture cropped this way, I really like the strong cobalt blue with the lavender and dull green of the mountain. The foreground is missing in this crop, but the gouache helps me see better what to do with it. In addition to the beautiful, iconic trees, one of the most striking aspects of this landscape was the circular pattern of rocks and scrubby growth of the mountain behind the cedars. I like how the oil pastels have worked to capture that -- it's subtle, not detailed, but effective. Now I'm thinking about making a larger painting, in oils, based on what I've discovered by analyzing these pictures. The main message is simplify.

--

While I was working on this piece, I found a suite of poems by Seamus Heaney that he had written in Greece. One of them is set in Delphi, and it speaks of Heaney's desire to drink from the spring where all visitors to Delphi who came to consult the oracle stopped to wash and drink; the same spring was used by the Pythia and the priests for a ritual cleansing before giving an oracular pronouncement or interpreting an oracle.

The Greeks believed that the spring was located at the center of the earth. Zeus, king of the gods, had loosed two eagles from opposite ends of the world, and, flying at the same speed, they crossed paths above Delphi. Zeus let a stone fall from the air where they crossed, and where it fell became the sacred site, marked by a stone called the omphalos, or navel of the world. Under the omphalos was buried the mythological monster called Python, which had guarded the sacred spring, until it was killed by the god Apollo, to whom Delphi and the Oracle became sacred. We saw a Roman copy of this large carved stone in the museum in Delphi. The carved pattern represents a woolen net that was once thought to cover the stone.

If you've been to Delphi, you would have thought, as I did, what a long, difficult journey it must have been to get there from any of the major city-states of Greece, and then to have to add the arduous climb up the side of Mt Parnassus. I wish I had known that the spring still exists, and that there's a modern fountain by the side of the road for modern travelers, but I had no idea! Heaney, visiting in the 1960s, did know this, and of course -- as a poet who had been steeped in the Greek classics, translated some, and used so many references and stories in his own poems and plays -- he was determined to drink from it himself. The poem speaks of his frustration and its resolution, and it's an image that has now been added to my own thoughts about Delphi.

Castalian Spring

Thunderface. Not Zeus’s ire, but hers
Refusing entry, and mine mounting from it.
This one thing I had vowed: to drink the waters
Of the Castalian Spring, to arrogate
That much to myself and be the poet
Under the god Apollo’s giddy cliff—
But the inner water sanctum was roped off
When we arrived. Well then, to hell with that,
And to hell with all who’d stop me, thunderface!
So up the steps then, into the sandstone grottoes,
The seeps and dreeps, the shallow pools, the mosses,
Come from beyond, and come far, with this useless
Anger draining away, on terraces
Where I bowed and mouthed in sweetness and defiance.

--Seamus Heaney

The Book of the Red King

I hope that readers of this blog will want to know about this beautiful new book of poems, written by Marly Youmans, illustrated by Clive Hicks-Jenkins, and designed and published by me. It's available as a hardcover with linen covered covers and a printed dust-jacket, and a paperback, and the pre-order pricing extends until this Friday, July 19th. All the ordering information and full book information is on the Phoenicia website.

"For those who love well-formed poems and for those who love fantasy, this is a must-read and a distinctive, evocative voice. There is no one like Marly Youmans." --Kim Bridgford 

"The reader will be spellbound." --Kelly Cherry

"It is the territory of Yeats and Tolkien." -- A.M. Juster

A short book description:

From Marly Youmans, author of the epic poem Thaliad (Phoenicia, 2012) comes the story of the mysterious Red King, the metamorphosing Fool, and the ethereal Precious Wentletrap, told in a series of connected poems of rare beauty. Whether read as fantasy, symbolic story, or simply poetry, the world Marly has created is a spellbinding place where we can glimpse truths about our own lives, and the world. The Book of the Red King is illustrated with drawings by the acclaimed Welsh artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins.

 

A book and its cover

This week at Phoenicia Publishing we've announced the pre-orders for this new book of poems by Luisa A. Igloria. As I wrote the posts for social media and the Phoenicia newsletter and blog, I thought back to when I first "met" Luisa, ten years ago -- she had submitted a poem to qarrtsiluni, which Dave Bonta and I were editing at the time, that blew us both away. Later Luisa edited an issue for us, and in November of 2010 she began writing a poem every day for Dave's Via Negativa site -- a practice she's continued to this day. It's an amazing and inspiring achievement, and I'm proud to consider her a friend, and to have published not one but two of her books at Phoenicia. The other, Night Willow, came out in 2009 and the title poem was inspired by an essay and watercolor that appeared on this blog.

The "Buddha poems" collected in this edition appeared in earlier forms on Via Negativa in 2016. They're humorous, poignant, down-to-earth, and both startling and revealing just as the best Buddhist stories are: they make us see our everyday world and our everyday selves in new ways. I've happy that Ivy Alvarez and Satya Robyn, both also longtime blog-friends of mine and Luisa's, are among the writers who have written blurbs for this book. I hope you'll buy a copy and support Luisa, but you can also enter to win one of two copies we'll be giving away on publication day in mid-March, by signing up for the Phoenicia email newsletter.

As part of the design process, I've been working hard on the cover art, using hand-painted paper, cut and glued onto a painted background as collage. I used a combination of gouache and acrylic for the color, and tried several papers before I was satisfied -- the background needs to be heavy enough not to curl, and the painted papers need to be substantial enough to hold the paint, but thin enough so that there is no shadow from their edges when they are pasted. It's a great technique closely related to some of my expressive calligraphies -- I love the rather enchanted feeling that results -- but it's very time-consuming and picky. Probably good for a Virgo like myself! Here's an earlier version that led, eventually, to the final one.

Making art is sometimes a lonely process, filled with doubts, but at other times, there's inspiration and collaboration. This design was my favorite of four I presented to Luisa, but at first she chose a different one. We took some time, and the next day she wrote to talk about this one with the brambles. Luisa told me what she liked here (the brambles and the ladyslipper) and said she'd like to see a bird rather than an eye. I also knew from her previous responses that she liked bright colors. Putting all of that together, and looking at some photographs of lady-slippers in their natural habitat filled with ferns and grasses in a woodland clearing, I was able to make the adjustments and changes that led to the final cover, which took several days of painting and cutting and gluing to complete because this is a new technique for me.

On Selling Art Online

After eight years, today I've closed my shop on Etsy.

Selling my artwork there has been a mixed experience. Originally, I liked having an online shop where people could see my linocut prints, small watercolors, and larger pastels -- it was a simple solution that gave me control over my own sales with a commission much smaller than a gallery, and allowed me to offer custom paintings. I rather enjoyed the process of setting up and maintaining the shop itself. I've been delighted when friends or people unknown to me have purchased a print or painting - but some of them would have done that anyway. I have received several large pastel painting commissions that came to me through Etsy, and I appreciate that. But I've decided that, with rare exceptions, I'd rather not work on commission; I think my days of doing commercial design and art to a client's specifications are pretty much over. As I enter a phase of my life where I have more time for my own artwork, I find I am taking the process itself more seriously, and am gradually loosening those professional-designer ties to a lifetime of commissioned work=financial reward. That's not a particularly easy transition for someone like me who has been fairly successful in business, but it's necessary. I want to follow my own heart, and do the work that comes from myself, for itself. If others find that work beautiful, interesting, or desirable, I will be very gratified, but pleasing others has to change from being the primary goal to something extra. The client, in fact, is now myself.

While I've been pondering these issues for a while, the impetus to actually bail out came from a policy change at Etsy: the online craft site has recently required all of its sellers to switch from PayPal-only payments to allowing credit card payments tied to the seller's bank. PayPal is still allowed, but only if this "Direct Payment" method is also enabled. PayPal has been an extremely secure and professional online "bank" that I've used for many years, both for Phoenicia Publishing and my art sales. I don't think the same is true for Etsy, which is reportedly in some trouble. They've recently extended this deadline from May 17 to the end of May, presumably because not enough of their sellers have made the required changes. When I saw this, I became doubly concerned. Why, in today's climate of internet fraud and hacking attacks, should I give bank account information to Etsy? I could open a single account at a different bank, specifically for this purpose, and keep a small balance there, to protect myself - but is it worth the trouble? I decided it wasn't.

But that's not the only reason. Etsy has become a place where, in my opinion, people look for handmade items that cost less than fifty dollars. I do it myself - I've bought handmade jewelry there, some ceramics and clothing, some craft and textile supplies, and it has been a good source for gifts. But I've increasingly felt that while it is good for crafts, particularly on the "cute" side, it isn't appropriate for serious artists. Etsy does function as a search engine for people who are looking for art with, for example, an Icelandic or Vermont theme - and these people may reach my shop. The stats indicate that they do. But while they might buy a set of cards for $10 or $15, if I offered them, few buy a painting or even a print.

It is difficult enough to be paid for art of any kind now; the internet has convinced people that art and music are free. Is the choice, however, to devalue one's work, or to fit oneself to the market? At this point in life, I don't want to do that; it's really that simple. On the other hand, I feel like I need to do more to help educate people about how to buy art, because for so many people it can be intimidating, as well as why it's good value to spend the cost of a couple of restaurant lunches-with-wine for a print you can live with and enjoy for years, or the price of three lattes on a beautiful edition of a book you can hold in your hands.

It's likely that I'll set up a gallery or some other online presence to show my recent work, but as in blogging/website domains vs. social media, I want to be in control of my own online presence and not follow someone else's rules, or be used for their business plan or data harvesting purposes, and I certainly don't want to put myself at financial risk -- we all need to be extremely vigilant about our passwords and exposure online.

But the bottom line is that I will always love it when people want to live with a piece of my art, which is why I sometimes give work away, too -- it is not, primarily, about the money, but about what feels right and good to me, and how I feel about art in general -- and right now it feels like time for a change. Thank you to everyone here who has supported and encouraged my artwork, as well as the books I publish; they're not going away!

Professional Affiliations, Artist-Style

Current painting in progress: A view of the St. Lawrence River from Cap-a-l'aigle, Quebec. Pastel, 16" x 12".

When I moved to Quebec from the U.S., one of the differences I gradually noticed was that many people seemed to append a series of letters to their professional signatures. When I inquired about this, I learned that these are the acronyms for professional organizations - a kind of accreditation that is sought after, confers legitimacy, and seems to matter here. For example, in my field of graphic design, the professional association is the Société des designers graphiques du Québec (SDGQ), founded in 1972 to advance the profession, lobby, and help with professional development. In order to become an accredited member, a designer must have at least seven years of practice, and to submit work to a panel of jurists for professional review. Once accepted, the designer can use the letters DGA after his or her name. The same is true for many other types of work here.

As an American, used to competing for design work solely on the basis of the merit of our proposals, I found this odd, and I must admit it never occurred to me to either want or try for such a designation; in fact it felt to me sort of offensive, or exclusionary. I had no idea if the designation helped people get work or not. Was it an ego-thing, I wondered? Was it just "what you do" as a professional here?

Later I noticed that fine artists also join societies, and hope to achieve the status of "master", with the permission to add designations such as "RWCS" (Royal Watercolor Society) to their name. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to how these organizations started - I know there is a long tradition of them in Britain and probably also in English Canada, but how about in Quebec? Is this a venerable tradition that came from France, or did it have something to do with protecting French Canadians in the professions at the time of the Quiet Revolution? Did Quebec historically have a Guild system?

I've been a member of PEN Canada for years -- and I had to have a book published by a recognized press to qualify -- but the main reason for that is that I believe in the lobbying that organization does on behalf of free speech, and imprisoned and oppressed international writers. I rarely mention it. The point of today's post is to say that, twelve years on, I've joined one of these groups as an experiment - the Pastel Society of Eastern Canada. I'm not sure why; it certainly isn't characteristic. I'm planning to try to participate in their exhibitions and meet other regional artists; it's a way of connecting in real time and space, as opposed to the internet, and here -- in a country where things move a little more slowly, and galleries and exhibition opportunities are few -- that seems potentially worthwhile. However, when reading the information, I saw that after a certain number of acceptances into juried exhibitions, one can become a "signature member;" the highest level is "master pastellist", which requires a certain number of years of successful submissions and then evaluation by a jury (for whose consideration you pay a $300 fee, whether successful or not); then one can append the initials "MPSEC" to one's name. How, I ask myself, do I feel about this? I tend to be dismissive and disinterested. Yet a very high level of professional achievement indeed is required to become a member of, say, the Royal Canadian College of Organists; it's a real mark of recognition, and I was very happy when an organist I know well finally received this honor. My own attitudes are, apparently, somewhat conflicted.

Personally, as artists I feel we are all searching for our best means of expression - something that is elusive and by definition unattainable. I'm bothered by titles, awards, accreditation, degrees and honors which seem to indicate and enshrine some sort of "arrival;" I feel these are irrelevant and unnecessary among real artists because the point of doing art is that we are always in process: we know that we have never "arrived," that each piece is merely a bridge to the next, and that our life in art involves risk, failures and many brand new starting points. So, in that sense, we are all perpetual beginners, necessarily so -- and recognizing this for oneself is actually far more important than achieving levels conferred by some sort of authority. No one would be quicker to point that out than the musician I just mentioned.

But is it ever so simple and idealistic? Taking my own case in point -- I have a liberal arts degree, never went to art school, never had formal training, am essentially self-taught as a designer, artist, calligrapher -- and this was never a drawback for me in the U.S. because no one ever asked for my artistic credentials or professional associations; they just considered my present work, my personality in an interview, my client list, and my ability to do business professionally. But did it make a subtle difference to some of those clients, in New England, that I had graduated from to an Ivy League school? If I'm honest, the answer is probably yes. To others, it may have been a point against me (or they may have liked and accepted me in spite of the fact.) Is it ever possible for merit alone to succeed, or are we all subject to some extent to the rules of our own culture, to the tribes and societies to which we belong, to the secret hierarchy of "who we know" or "where we came from?" Do any of us refrain from using connections (or lines on our resumes) that we think might give us a leg up?

Here, in a quite different society, then, a number of questions come to mind: are these professional associations/titles actually necessary or helpful for one's work? How much of it has to do with ego-gratification? Why do certain cultures ascribe to these behaviors more than others, and why do titles and credentials matter more to certain people? Are these societies/titles a particular feature of Commonwealth countries?

While professional societies may do very good work in helping set standards and educating both practitioners and consumers about best business practices and pricing guidelines -- that's true in America too -- it seems to me that we shouldn't need titles and letters beside our names; this smacks to me of old European systems that came out of the Guilds and later became a way of distinguishing certain artists above others in a way that I find difficult to accept, because I dislike and distrust hierarchies. But I'm willing to hear the arguments for or against, both from North Americans and Europeans. Do you have any experience with this?

Rome VI: St. Valentine

The Tiber Island, looking east: Trastevere would be on the right, and Rome on the left.

We often crossed the Tiber from Trastevere to Rome at the eastern end of its island via the Ponte Fabricio, the oldest surviving Roman bridge across the river, which was constructed in the year 62, when Cicero was consul of Rome. A Latin inscription on the bridge still reads "Lucius Fabricius, Son of Gaius, Superintendent of the roads, took care and likewise approved that it be built." From this bridge I always noticed the umbrella pines crowning the top of the Palatine Hill, in the distance, and closer, a tall medieval bell tower.

There are two Roman temples just beyond the end of the bridge, and beyond them on the corner, an old church beneath that bell tower. Every time we walked past, there was a line of tourists waiting to take a picture of themselves with their hand inside the mouth of a giant, circular, stone face in the church's portico - the Bocca della Verita, or Mouth of Truth - which, according to legend, will snap shut on the hand of a liar. Because of our aversion to the hoards of selfie-stick-toting tourists, we were well into our second week before we entered the church, at a time when the portico was closed.

There are so many churches in Rome, and almost all are so Baroque, that we became used to bracing ourselves for a visual onslaught. So it was impossible not to sigh when we entered the utterly simple interior of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, a Byzantine church built in the 8th century on top of an ancient temple of Hercules and decorated by Greek monks who were escaping the iconoclastic persecutions that were prevalent in the Eastern Church at that time. The church was badly damaged by the Norman invasion in 1084 and the medieval bell tower - the tallest in Rome - was added when restorations were made.

This is a portion of Santa Maria in Cosmedin's Cosmati pavement, a mosaic technique named after the Cosmati family who pioneered this style of work in Rome in the 12th century; it is similar to some kinds of Byzantine mosaic, but instead of using stones all the same size, Cosmati work uses varying sizes framed by white marble. This sort of inlay spread in Europe; the most northern example is the Cosmatesque pavement of the high altar at Westminster Abbey, unusual because the stones are set into a dark surrounding substrate. My quilter's eyes were dazzled by the variety of patterns here, and the colors of the stones, which art historians think were mostly sliced-up bits of broken, ruined Roman monuments scattered around the city, recycled into these floors during the middle ages.

 

Although the church is no longer used by a congregation, it felt holier than many of the others we visited. We returned several times to absorb its quiet atmosphere and sit for a while in the beauty of the plaster walls and astonishing floor.

 

There are few visitors: most of the tourists have followed their guidebook's list of Romans "must-see"s to the Bocca della Verite, and afterwards merely stick their heads in the church door, see nothing of interest, and then leave.

A recording of Orthodox chants plays at all times, contributing to the calm and quiet. The music carries faintly into the stone crypt below the main altar, hollowed out from volcanic blocks that formed the central podium of the much earlier Roman temple. In this crypt are a small marble altar and candle-lit niches that once held the relics of early Christians, removed from the catacombs by Pope Hadrian in the 8th century.

Inlaid wall decorations above the entrance to the crypt.

I was wandering around upstairs when I found myself in front of a chapel where a flower-crowned skull rested on the altar, and was rather shocked to see that it was labeled "St. Valentine."

Reliquary with St. Valentine's skull (Wikipedia)

There are conflicting hagiographies and several different martyrs by the name "Valentine," but the story I like best says that he was a Roman priest in the 3rd century; this Valentine secretly married couples, in defiance of Emperor Claudius, so that the husbands would be able to escape military service and going off to war. The priest was arrested. The Emperor met the prisoner and came to like him, but when Valentine tried to convert him to Christianity -- or, alternately, when Valentine refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods - Claudius changed his mind and had him beaten with clubs and then beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate, and buried in an unmarked grave, from which his followers later removed his body. Churches as widely separated as Dublin, Madrid, and Prague claim to house St. Valentine's burial site or relics, but I think I will just decide to believe that the skull of the patron saint of lovers, whose Feast Day is February 14, is this one.

Inspired by the Springtime Table

Finally, spring has arrived in Montreal. Not all our trees have leaves yet, but many do. The magnolias are on bloom, and flowering pears, and there are daffodils and tulips. I picked the first from my garden a few days ago, and they've found their way onto our table along with a basil plant left by friends who've gone on vacation. I'd been drawing the tulips alone, before (see below) but the addition of the basil set up a more complex still life that begged to be put on paper. I like the tilted perspective of the tabletop here, and the flatness of the picture plane. I'm glad I added the background of books and sideboard. In the end, it isn't a drawing of tulips but an arrangement of shapes and positive/negative space that creates tension and release, with the many types of curves leading the eye through the picture, balanced by the verticality of the books and vase handle. It doesn't matter a bit to me whether the objects are identifiable or "realistic."

Here's a fast sketch that was an earlier version from a few days before - not nearly as interesting as a finished drawing, with the two blooms so symmetrically arranged on either side of the vase, but making it served to instill the shapes in my brain, so that when I looked at the objects again, in conjunction with other things, it was easier to see what I wanted to emphasize and how to work with the shapes.

I put some color on this drawing afterwards, but liked a cropped version of the right-hand side better than the whole image. It helps to photograph the image and play around with it in a photo editor, but I used to do the same thing with a couple of cropping covers cut from mat board. I always ask myself, where is the liveliness in this picture? What cropping makes it the most dynamic? What do I like the most in it? What sings? Sometimes there's not much! But it really helps to zoom in, move around, crop different areas, copy it and cut it up: artists are fortunate now to have tools that allow us to do this non-destructively.

I've almost finished this sketchbook! Looking through it last night, I was contented and grateful to see it as a journey and journal through the year, rather than being critical of the drawings.

Happy Easter

et Joyeuses Pâques!

Stitching my way toward spring

I like to think that my great-grandmother's thimble made her finger as sweaty as it does mine. I like to think about the quilts she and my grandmother made together, and sometimes I sleep beneath them. We were all named Elizabeth... Not long before she died, in 1992 at age 92, my grandmother asked me, "You have Libby's thimble, don't you?"

"Yes," I said, "would you like it back now?"

"No," she said, sitting back in her chair, satisfied. "I just wanted to make sure where it was."

Each stitch is a tiny step closer to clarity, to restoration, to the spring that is inching its way north. Across the city, a friend writes that she's just bought a balloon for a friend in hospital. The morning's snow flurries have given way to bright skies, and the afternoon sun butters the walls of the carpentry school, where students brush off sawdust and look forward to the weekend, a few beers, some music with friends. I'll see an old dear friend tomorrow, and sing a mass by Delibes on Sunday. Another line of stitches, another pocket to hold our warmth next winter. Such inconsistency in these stitches, these steps! I've been doing this my whole life and I'm still a beginner.