Frosty out there...

Cold outside again tonight...I just took a hot bath, and I'm finishing off my Guinness before taking Max for one more walk...I had hoped to do some writing, but not much has happened, it seemed the evening at home just slipped away from me...

There's more photos of the frosty window on my other artsy-fartsy blog Follow Your Bliss...

Thought I might post a little bit of what I've been working on lately, the latest labor of love, there's still much to do, but this little bit came out of this weekend's work...this is a bit from chapter 4 of Layers of Illusion...the story of Eleanor Dean and Howard Macrae...

Ten years. I’ve been such a hermit these days I rarely pay attention to anything beyond here and there, home and work, there and back again. Ten years ago is a long time. Ten is a magical number—a reckoning on the timeline—a milestone, the memories measured, leveled off, and poured into a sieve; happier times slip through with relative ease, and the heavy clumps of pain that remain are examined closely—what do they mean?

Why remember the things long past? Well, because on page one of The Post Standard there is a name that brings everything back with clarity. Howard Macrae.

Curiosity killed the cat, need I say more? It was much like that predictable feline curiosity that made me pick up the phone and buy a ticket—just one—I said to the voice on the other end, I got lucky—there was one left, well, more than one, there were several. Did I want Orchestra or Mezzanine, she wanted to know.

Mezzanine.

Just one?

Yes.

After I hung up, I guess that voice who asked thought it curious that I only wanted one ticket, I mean really, who in their right mind would go to a play alone? Did anyone ever say that I was in my right mind? I plead temporary insanity. But, of course, Howard Macrae would probably think I am perfectly sane. Sam Shephard’s The Tooth of Crime was one of his favorite plays—or so he said when I knew him and we went together along with a pack of our friends to see it way back when, and through his influence, I loved the play too. Tonight I will see him again, ten years older—has he changed?

Is he balding?

Has his firm, young man body started to turn into the plush, padding of a grown man?

I wonder.

When he appeared in the spotlight leather-clad on his throne as the main character ‘Hoss’, my eyes absorbed every inch of his being from my perch on the edge of seat AA 20 in the Mezzanine. I haven’t seen him since the day he knocked on my dorm room door—he’s still the same—heartbreakingly handsome and ridiculously arrogant, strutting around the stage with his chest puffed out, heavy biker boots clomping on the boards, perfectly on the mark with his lines, his voice in full throttle as he belted out song after song during the duel with Crow—in the end, Hoss is frantic—beaten.

I’m pulled and pushed around from one image to another—

Nothin’ takes a solid form.

Nothin’ sure and final.

Where do I stand! he cries out

I watched with horror as the end came in the lightning flash of strobe lights, the brief twinkle of the gun barrel, his eyes wide as he fit it into his mouth—the lights went out as the gun went off.

Heartbreaking.

Hoss is dead. Becky Lou’s loyalty quickly shifted to the very razor Crow. That bitch. I brushed a few tears from my cheeks.

The members of the cast came out to take their final bows, and as much as everyone seemed to love the tall, slender, young Crow, Howard Macrae as Hoss received a standing ovation when he stepped out from behind the curtain—he was magnificent in his sweaty glory.

When the lights came up in the small theater, the magic of the evening dissipated as everyone rose with a low murmur of voices, gathered their coats, hats, and gloves—the light felt oppressive after being in the dark for so long. In the light of reality, I hated him—well, I really wanted to hate him for what he did to me all those years ago, but looking back on it, it was really a small matter—a matter of the heart—our hearts, his and mine, both of us wanted something different. He didn’t want me, and I wanted to hate him, but I love him instead.

When I saw his name in the paper as the director and the leading man—Howard Macrae—I knew then that I had never stopped loving him—if I could even call it love—I barely knew him, I loved looking at him, I loved the image of him. Infatuation is maybe more like it—my racing heart doesn’t know the difference—pit-a-pat pit-a-pat pit-a-pat pit-a-pat pit-a-pat a mile a minute—Howard Macrae-Howard-Macrae-Howard Macrae-Howard-Macrae-Howard-Macrae-Howard Macrae. The two dark arches over each brown eye, the thick forelock of hair falling over his pale brow, the disarming toothy grin—always ready for a close up, a head shot—a pretty boy—now a handsome grown man. He once said that he wanted to be on Broadway—I thought he should’ve gone for Hollywood, but he’s not in either. Instead, he’s in a dinky theater in an Upstate New York college town, so far off Broadway the lights of the Great White Way aren’t even a glow on the eastern horizon.

That's it. Sigh.

Oh, Elly, Elly, Elly...Eleanor Dean. I do have my hands full writing this woman...Howard has been easy...almost too easy. Buck Orion is going to be a tough one when I get around to him...even tho' I've known him longer...writin' books takes years...especially a good one. This one will be a good one someday...

Here's more winter inspiration...Frost, 1995, watercolor on a scrap piece of BFK Rives...

Crows

My photo study of crows continues...I'm enjoying the black and white more than color, but here's one of them flying with the moon at twilight...there was a bit of snow in the air that night too...

Andrew Wyeth

What can be said? What shall I say here? I'll come up with something...

Andrew Wyeth was such a fine fellow in the art world, voted both the most overrated and the most underrated artist at the same time...the critics hated him, the public adored him...every article printed yesterday and today have said much the same things...so I need to make this more personal...

I grew up searching through the pages of a book full with his influential imagery of lonely hills and bare trees, and that crisp wintry quality of light, the egg tempera precision of grass and the essence of dry brush...and in the subdued hues, and then the fantastic pink of Christina's dress...gorgeous! Heartbreaking. I used to make up stories about this lone woman crawling in a field...I very often felt like her, especially during those impressionable adolescent years when everything felt 'just so', well, you know, nothing seemed settled, so much to look forward to, so much waiting for the future to come...I don't know exactly what I was searching for back then, but I looked the brushstrokes off the pages each time I flipped through the pictures...never daring to copy him...

I was a wee girl with a pony tail when I was introduced to this infamous painting...the Lyons elementary school art teacher would put up posters of famous artworks around the classroom, and we created a small book with white paper with a construction paper cover (I usually picked blue, sometimes purple) , we were to fill up this little book with the pertinent information about the artist and the painting researched at the library (or the Encyclopedia Britannica at home, we had an impressive set from 1967 or was it 1969? I loved reading them on rainy days!) When I think back on this...it was a pleasant time spent learning about art, and in a way, it prepared me for my professional position at the art collection where I am the Registrar...kinda funny how things are...how we turn out later...

I finally saw Christina's World in person at MOMA a couple of years ago when I happened to be in NYC for Christo's "Gates" project in Central Park. It was such a giant of a painting in my life, but in reality, so petite and lovely, complex, yet simple...mysterious and personal...how odd to come around the corner and there she is, it made my eyes misty seeing her there...yellow ochre, gray, and a shock of delicate pink...

The man who was the legendary painter of such melancholy scenes is gone from this world, he will be missed, but his generous legacy is with us, a treasure trove of mystery and beauty, right down to the last blade of grass...

Reading Virginia Woolf

One of my favorite books in the whole wide world is Night and Day...

This one bit in Chapter 12 is one of my favorites...we've all been in Ralph Denham's shoes, when faced with the reality of a person who we've fixated on for hours, days, weeks, only when we see them in the flesh again, we're struck by how different they are from the coveted dream...

His eyes were bright, and, indeed, he scarcely knew whether they beheld dreams or realities. All down the street and on the doorstep, and while he mounted the stairs, his dream of Katharine possessed him; on the threshold of the room he had dismissed it, in order to prevent too painful a collision between what he dreamt of her and what she was. And in five minutes she had filled the shell of the old dream with the flesh of life; looked with fire out of phantom eyes. He glanced about him with bewilderment at finding himself among her chairs and tables; they were solid, for he grasped the back of the chair in which Katharine had sat; and yet they were unreal; the atmosphere was that of a dream. He summoned all the faculties of his spirit to seize what the minutes had to give him; and from the depths of his mind there rose unchecked a joyful recognition of the truth that human nature surpasses, in its beauty, all that our wildest dreams bring us hints of.

Katharine came into the room a moment later. He stood watching her come towards him, and thought her more beautiful and strange than his dream of her; for the real Katharine could speak the words which seemed to crowd behind the forehead and in the depths of the eyes, and the commonest sentence would be flashed on by this immortal light. And she overflowed the edges of the dream; he remarked that her softness was like that of some vast snowy owl; she wore a ruby on her finger.

From Night and Day, Chapter 12

I find it to be a very funny book at the same time as beautiful...I've read it so many times, I'm going to need a new copy, my paperback is falling apart!

"Books are a school for character, she argues, because they change (like people) as we read them, and change us as we read. Books read us." Virginia Woolf, Hermione Lee, Chapter 23, Reading, p. 397

Going deep into winter...

A frosty morning in the tangle of sumac out behind my barn...


This seems appropriate, I found it in The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden

"Then came old January, wrapped well
In many weeds to keep the cold away
Yet did he quake and quiver like to quell
And blewe his nayles to warm them if he may;
For they were numbed with holding all the day,
An hatchet keene, with which he felled wood
And from the trees did lop the needlesse spray."
Faerie Queen, E. Spenser.

Unbelievable to me, but there were four bluebirds in my yard today (two males, two females), in spite of the knee deep snow and bitter cold, there they were, flitting about, chortling to one another, and dining with hearty appetites on stag horn sumac berries! (I know they're a nasty tree to keep around because they are so prolific, but there are so many birds and critter that rely on them to make it through our harsh winters.) There are times when I'm a superstitious creature, and immediately believed this to be a good omen for me to see such a thing, especially when in my life time, I can count on one hand how many I've actually seen (I've heard them, but they seem elusive).

While watching birds and writing, I've been keeping toasty by the fire...this is my good cast iron friend "Lopi"...

And making new art...

This has a white acrylic undercoat on Stonehenge paper, water soluble tinted graphite, and pencil...January Dawn, Epiphany, 1/9/09

There...a little bit of this, a little bit of that...that's been my day!

Of wind and snow, photos and drawings, writing and painting...

Windy and snowy, lake effect...tomorrow is supposed to be a wintery mix mess...lovely...
Here is my little crow friend...the initial picture wasn't that great, so I played around and made use of it's blurriness to make a more "painterly" or "sketchy" image of a black bird against the winter sky...

Joy! This is one of my most favorite drawings...it's a tiny thing, but it means the world to me...I think of Beethoven's 9th when I look at it...such a big symphony...sometimes it's hard to explain what I do when I make these images, I play around, make a mark, follow it to the next and so on...
This little watercolor the same thing...follow the water, the tide line, emphasis with a pencil to bring out this and that...this is Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata...
This photo of the woods out back at sunset reminds me of a Wolf Kahn painting...I love his work...
(Pastel by Wolf Kahn, Horizontal Study for "Vertical", 2007 14 x 17 inches, Thomas Segal Gallery)


I walked around the yard a lot yesterday with my little digital camera (Fuji Finepix A900, just a wee thing, it does what I want), then I dashed outside in my maryjanes at twilight to snag pictures of the sunset...but out of all of them, I love this blurry bit...it reminds me of Mark Rothko...








(Mark Rothko, Untitled,1969, Collection of Kate Rothko Prizel)

I've been writing about my new character Eleanor Dean...she's a painter, and having a bit of a struggle making sense of the attitudes about art...I will admit to some biographical borrowing for Elly's experience at art school...it's just been a fun chapter to write and I keep adding to it everyday...it's been an inspiring week...browsing through old sketchbooks, reading a great deal of art theory and aesthetics, studying Plato's Republic to confirm my memory of his objections about the arts and recalling Rudy Giuliani's over the top gripe with the Chris Ofili painting of the Virgin Mary at the Brooklyn Museum...I've seen worse things...




So much material to work with...here's a brief excerpt (I had posted a rougher version earlier today, and have since updated it):

The recipe for a foreshadow of things to come—a healthy, active imagination, a blank piece of paper, just add crayons, and my destiny to become an artist simmered quietly until the Second-Grade when I was the only kid who made the Easter Brontosaurus while the other good little children copied cute, brown construction paper bunnies with pink noses exactly as the teacher told them how to do it. Oh, yes, it was very perceptible that what I did was very wrong—a grave mistake in judgment. It was bad enough to be scolded by the teacher for not following directions, but to have everyone else laugh at me for being so weird made the day complete. What they really meant to say was Oh, that was so—creative—inventive—ingenious! Oh, how artistic! But no one wanted to apply such positive reinforcement on the Easter Brontosaurus because it was easier to say it was weird and be done with it. Anyway, there’s no such thing as the Easter Bunny either—so there.

Here I go again...so much to do...It's been fun writing a new book...it's going to be years in the making...new novels do take a very long time to come into being, this one is coming together after years of gathering bits and pieces, I'm just sorting them out, connecting the dots, and going with the flow...it just feels so good to start a new manuscript!