the cassandra pages

Former Workspaces

Today I was going through old picture archives, looking for something else, when I came across a set of photographs I took of my studio spaces back in Vermont, six years ago. I must have taken them because we were starting to think about moving from that house, where we had lived for 30 years. I haven't looked at pictures of our old house very much since we moved; maybe I didn't want to, maybe I knew I needed time to replace old familiar images with new ones. Now, though, looking at these spaces again, I was surprised by my reactions.

I worked in several different rooms in that old house. The picture at the top is of a wall in what J. always called my "anti-room." It was indeed an anteroom that had been added onto the main house, over a crawl space - the pipes froze here regularly - but the pun J. was making had to do with the fact that it was a very analog space, devoid of the computers in the rest of our work area -- in this one a lot of handwork took place! This was a wall of formal calligraphy practice sheets and several experimental calligraphy pieces, created in mixed-media with multi-layered lettering, and printing, in acrylic, Chinese inks, and gouache.

This is the same room, further to the right, showing the book press and some early linocuts, and a general mess; looking at the pictures now, all I can remember is how impossible it was for me to work in such a small space with so little table space and completely inadequate storage. The calligraphic inscription on the wall is a quote from St. Francis: "Preach the Gospel always -- if necessary use words."

Below is another corner of the room, moving clockwise to the right. The sketches on the wall eventually became a large pastel that I gave to my parents. I still like that red Conté sketch, though, now that I see it here; it must be in my flat file still.

On the fourth wall I had a revolving gallery of drawings - the large portrait of my mother is on the wall of my present studio, too.

We had another building -- a garage with a large open space above that J. used for photography. On the ground floor were two other small rooms, one a woodworking shop, and the other, my painting studio and meditation room, shown below. When I saw this photograph today, I felt again the peacefulness I always enjoyed in that room. It was very much my own, and the desk looked out over the garden. The bookcase is right in front of me as I write this, and the easel and desk are here in my present studio as well. The rocking chair, which was my mother-in-law's, was sold; the Japanese cloth is folded up somewhere, as is that pretty lace curtain. The antique lamps and brackets are in a box; I haven't had a good place to put them. The Cezanne poster, faded and rolled up now, is from an extraordinary retrospective at MOMA that I saw way back in 1978 or so and still remember vividly.

I don't feel nostalgic -- our workspaces now are so much more functional, with wonderful light and much more space -- I simply remember the many hours I spent in this particular room, above, pondering life and trying to grow, feeling supported by objects that reminded me of the best parts of life, and people who were and still are dear to me. It all comes back very swiftly when I look at these photographs.

 

 

Sunflowers in a Blue Vase

Sunflowers in a blue vase, 199x?  14"x 20"

It feels just like back-to-school here: September began, and all of a sudden everything and everybody ramped up. So since I haven't had time to write anything, I thought I'd post a watercolor from almost twenty years ago. These are sunflowers I grew in my Vermont garden, where in late August and September I always had a big group of them nodding outside my studio window. Except for the ones that made their way into the house or the studio, we left them in the garden for the goldfinches and purple finches to feast on, and enjoyed watching the birds as much as the flowers.

I'm also remembering my great-aunt Inez today; this is the week of her birthday (she would have been about 115!) and she was a very good watercolorist who loved to paint flowers too.

I really like this expressive, free style of watercolor; I was just starting to get comfortable and free with it when I stopped painting very much and began writing more. Right now, I don't know quite how I'm going to keep working at either my art and writing this fall; it certainly won't be with the same focus as this summer. We've got a bunch of professional work to do, Phoenicia has more books coming out before Christmas, choir has begun again, I'm teaching/leading monthly meditation at the cathedral, and there's company coming for various visits starting tomorrow, and a couple of short trips out of town for us as well.

However, in the spirit of last night's first meditation session: deep breaths, calmness, and a reminder-to-self, via the sunflowers, that everything is fine, just as it is, right this moment.

 

Vermont Summer Fields and Mountains

Summer Fields and Mountains, near Ascutney, Vermont. Pastel on paper, 26" x 16", (c) 2011.  (click for larger view)

This morning I was photographing this large pastel prior to listing it for sale. That process really makes you look closely, especially since I was including some detail shots.

But what it really did was take back to Vermont itself. I felt myself standing on the rise looking down into this valley; I felt the slight breeze on my skin that was also moving the cumulus clouds along, saw the first touches of color in the red maples on the slopes, saw the ripples on the river, heard a hawk crying overhead. And then I felt myself standing over the work itself, a year or so ago, trying to play back the emotional content of those original impressions as I worked on the pastel, making decisions, trying to keep the handling loose because there of the motion and energy I felt in the landscape.

There are an infinite number of ways to go about it; this is just one choice. We think we "see" a scene, but in a quite different way from a photograph, a painting or a drawing ends up being just as much about us.

And it occured to me that time of year depicted is only a few weeks from now. I've noticed that the cycle of plants and flowering has been accelerated this year by as much as two weeks -- a somewhat troubling phenomenon. I wonder if the leaves will turn earlier too. Whatever happens, those summer days are precious, and while I'm very happy living in Montreal, it's nice to be transported back to Vermont for a little while. All the places I've lived or visited have their special qualities -- just like people!

Night Willow

A while ago, I promised my friend V. that I'd post a painting that was related to an essay I wrote about the loss of a huge, mature willow near our Vermont house. The other day I came across it in my flat file, and here it is.

This is kind of a "dream painting;" it came out of my imagination and memory during a period of time when I was doing very large watercolors and trying to loosen up both my technique and my head. I was aiming for the motion of the willow branches tossing in the wind, and the stars appearing through the branches, but more than that to convey a particular emotional temperature. I don't know if it's a "successful" painting or not, I that depends on what criteria you're using to judge it, but seeing it again brought back exactly the feeling of standing there at night, looking at the tree, even though it's been gone for many years. I like it because it does what expressive painting can do, and photography, most of the time, cannot.

Here's the essay:

Requiem for a Tree (1998)

While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
Wordsworth, "Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey"

The big willow is being cut. I'm upset about it, know it has to be done, but it's such a great and beautiful tree, worthy of being mourned. I've looked up into its branches for twenty years now, especially on summer evenings, when the only light was from the moon, to see stars shining through the leaves so far above my head, and fireflies dancing among them. It always felt like its own world, up there, in the bowls formed by those great dark branches, populated by things of the air and heights. A pair of orioles nested in the tree each spring, serenading me as I turned over the first soil in the garden; later their purse-like nest swayed above me. And it was home to many smaller birds: chickadees, nuthatches, warblers, feeding no doubt on a vast colony of insects. Kneeling next to the garden beds I'd feel drips of water raining down on me all summer, even during dry weather, and wonder whether willows really wept, if that was how they got their name.

Branches fell continually, especially in spring storms, and I used the long supple tender ones to make woven fences and supports for herbs and other plants. It was a high-maintenance tree for us, and we didn't even own it, but I never minded. I drew it many times, painted a watercolor, wrote a poem --trying unsuccessfully to capture that mysterious, secret world suspended in the sky.

When this hill was a pasture, a stream flowed between our property and the neighbors', and along its banks a line of willows grew up. Ours was the first house cut out of the farm proper, near the turn of the century. Over the last twenty years, the hillside, divided and subdivided, became house lots. The willows -- streambank trees, never intended for shade -- were left in one back yard or another, sending their shallow roots into basement walls and dropping branches each spring. Homeowners, sympathetic at first, grew tired of taking care of the trees and worried when major damage occurred in thunderstorms. It's understandable. But as is always the case, it doesn't matter that the trees were here first, that we are, in fact, the ones who have encroached on them.

Last night, after dinner, the chain saws in the neighbors' yard were finally silent. I went out on the back porch and looked over at the willow. The tree stood there still, its great wide crown shorn, one main trunk remaining with all its branches and leaves, the others amputated into huge logs that lay around the base. It was a horrible sight but heroic in a way; the tree, still alive, retaining something of its nobility and the strength emanating from that huge solid trunk, easily five feet in diameter at chest height. Yet it was doomed; this would be its final night, the last time those branches reached toward sunlight, leaves stretching a few new millimeters in length. I came back upstairs, drew a basin of water for the dishes, and started to cry, filled with sorrow for mankind, for being alive at a time and in a culture which values the safe, the cheap, the fast solution: whatever fits easily into our lives and causes the least inconvenience. I cried rueful tears for myself, made so sad by a tree -- how out of step I am, and how painful it is to stubbornly refuse the cries of a culture that would gladly give up Bach for the sitcom-of-the-moment; where artists, musicians and poets eek out a living and developers get rich.

I'll remember the willow best on those nights, years ago, when I was trying to figure out if God existed. After I'd meditated for an hour, the incense burned down to ash, candle extinguished, I'd come out into the night, and to my polished mind, open, newly innocent, every sensation appeared fresh, important, astonishing. The Milky Way had never seemed so vast, the air so exhilarating, the snow under my feet so white. And there the willow loomed: hugely alive, pulsating with being-ness and a quality of home that strangely did not feel closed to me. I stopped trying to paint it or write about it, but just stood there, night after night, as if it were part of the meditation ritual; looking up, not thinking, I let it tell me whatever it had to say.

Garden Forms

After doing a quick drawing today, of a corner of my studio, I leafed through the pages of the rather old sketchbook. This drawing caught my eye. It was obviously done years ago in my Vermont garden, which was full of ferns, and I guess at the time I didn't think it was very successful. But today I loved the energy of the lines, the interplay of the forms, and could see all kinds of possibilities lurking in that foliage for a relief print. (Note to self: search out your forms with blunt, chunky objects, not those sharply pointed ones you seem to prefer...)

It's odd, isn't it, how we change, and how it's sometimes so hard to see the potential of a creative idea or expression at the time. A good argument for keeping sketchbooks and notebooks of poetry and writing, and actually going back through them once in a while!

 

Yay, Bernie!

Proud to still be a Vermonter at heart, who helped elect Bernie Sanders, subject of a recent Guardian profile. It would be oddly ironic if this Senate outlier finally got famous. I'm glad he's calling on the Wall Street protesters to organize and get an articulated agenda, because Bernie knows talk ultimately doesn't get anything done, and doesn't get anyone elected. He should know - he's had a long track record of backing up his words with action, in a state known for its practicality and low tolerance for b.s.!

White River Ice

White River Ice. Linocut, approximately 7 x 7". You can click on the image for a close-to-lifesize view.

The (black and) White River

All the recent images and footage of Vermont's rivers made me think a lot about the one I know the best, the White River. Here's a composite photo of the way it looked one winter morning when I was out for my usual walk; this is from the same bridge as in the first video a few days ago, right near our former house. I thought the black and white shapes of ice and water were especially beautiful, and have always been meaning to do an oil painting of this scene, sort of like this one, of an uphill scene a couple of miles away:

Jericho, Vermont, oil, (c) 1985 E.  Adams

The trouble is, as beautiful as that river scene is -- the subtlety of the sky and island contrasted with the starkness of ice and dark water --  I'm no longer very interested in doing a realistic treatment of it. After thinking about potential landscapes for another semi-abstract relief print, I got out these photographs and began doing some exploratory drawings a couple of days ago.

Here's a first sketch, in pencil:

And here's one of several pen-and-ink studies:

That wasn't making it, but the ink drawings showed me what needed to be simplified and through them I could begin to see how the essential shapes related. I went home and thought about it last night, and today did the charcoal sketch below. I think it's a lot closer to where we're headed, but I don't know yet how I'm going to translate it into a print. I like the drawing though!

What an agonizing process, for an impatient person like me! But I'm starting to settle into it; this seems to be what's required! I appreciated Marly's thoughtful comment about how far certain types of art have moved from this sort of mind--and--handwork process, and how some artists are now moving back. Frankly, I think a lot of serious artists have always done a lot of preliminary work, and returned to certain subjects and motifs again and again.

Irene in Vermont

Here in Montreal, I watched and worried as branches grown to withstand the prevailing northwestern winds of Quebec were lifted backwards, tossed in circles, like helpless arms wrenched by an unseen giant. At ‎7:22 pm, there was a brown-out. J asked, are we about to become a data point?

But that was nothing. Back in Vermont,  there was devastation. The White River, a few hundred yards from our former house, flooded into the basements of buildings, and covered low-lying roads with mud and debris; trees sprouted from the truss-work just below the bridge deck after the waters finally receded. It's very hard for me to believe the river could attain that height; this was the worst flood in Vermont in a hundred years. Here's some video footage from the exact area where I used to live; I crossed the bridge at the beginning of this footage every day.

 

Many roads and bridges washed out, including some of the historic and picturesque covered bridges that are so iconic of the state. Friends in Strafford and Sharon wrote yesterday to say they not only had lost power, but had no way to get anywhere by car or truck. One of them, fortunately, has a horse. This is footage of the covered bridge in Quechee, Vermont, near the Simon Pearce blown-glass factory and restauraunt that some of you may have visited, also very near our former home:

On the evening before the storm, I was talking to a friend about our love for nature, about how when we're in the country we prefer rustic living because we crave porosity between the indoors and outdoors, and between our own bodies and nature itself: that is the point of being there. And how so many people - both because of nature's violent potential, and because we now live at such remove from it - are afraid of nature, even in its more benign states.

Vermonters are not that way, for the most part, and will get on with it. This is what we all dealt with every spring (footage from the same general area, this is the Ottaquechee River near Woodstock, Vt):

But this flood has been devastating; I hope there will be sufficient assistance of the kind that is really needed. So much of the media coverage about Vermont has been brain-dead; the reporters and do-gooders seem to know absolutely nothing about the place they're standing in. Jim Cantore, of the Weather Channel, was a welcome exception: but he grew up there.

 

Time Travel

E. and H.'s backyard, 2006

For the past couple of days we've been in our former haunts of Vermont and New Hampshire, visiting friends and family. Very nice, the visiting part. Strange, the being-there-again part. Everything completely familiar, and yet...I am not the same person who used to live there. I moved through the old places with all the familiarity of a longtime resident, but felt somehow unreal -- like a ghost -- watching a place, people, and activities I was once part of, but am no longer. There was no wistfulness at all; I live elsewhere now. It was a relief to feel this, but it was decidedly strange.

The unreality was compounded by the fact that we were staying in a motel, only a few miles from our former house. One of the people we visited was my sister-in-law, now living alone in the house she shared with her now-deceased husband; during most of those years my in-laws were also still alive, and often with us when we gathered for a family meal. There we were, together, talking about her study of Arabic and what her father would have thought of it, and eating olives and lamb and baklava, with nearly everything else about our small family entirely changed. 

We had come down particularly to see a close friend and former neighbor who has moved back to her native Iceland. She was also staying in a motel, and having some memory lapses about what used to be where, so we were called upon to give directions when in the car; in the hotel suite we cooked and ate together as we often had, but not, of course, in our houses that had been next door to each other. And her child, watching tv in the next room, now eight years old and competently bilingual, was herself the stuff of many memories beginning when she herself was only a wish; when they left for Iceland she had been only two.

It felt, therefore, like several different layers of reality and removal were operating at once, and without the ground itself to touch -- my garden, the woods I used to roam in -- we passed through the few days as if in a dream, and now, back in my own home and studio, I feel a slight doubt that we were there at all.