Acer Campestre

My dear friend Peter, so wise in the ways of the seventeenth century, came for a visit last fall. He brought along a book of the writings of Albrecht Durer. Which lead to a review of an exhibition of the work of Jan Van Eyck. Which prompted hours of discussion on the Dutch painters and period furniture and techniques of joinery and his seminar in England to teach, to Irish woodworkers, the traditional methods of timber framing necessary to restore the long ago rotted or burned wooden roofs of the stone castles on that island.

Peter is a quiet man. Proud and strong. He is clear about what he does not like and is not afraid of good hard work. We spent some time toting firewood over to the front porch on his visit to this Pennsylvania version of a fall afternoon and I still smile to remember his familiar adage, “Heather, it doesn’t get any better than this.”

Some of my most comforting and sacred memories are of Sunday afternoons at his house in Weymouth where we taught ourselves the ways of handtools and wood in his basement. Those crisp New England falls we would hike through the woods with his dog Kazak and a couple of axes and saws and hunt for fresh timber on electric company property.

Hauling back some ridiculously heavy logs, we could smell from a distance the popovers his mom would make to go with the chicken that was my favorite. Crunching through the leaves and woodshavings there was the oaky smell of freshly shaved red oak and hickory smoke drifting along with the ocean breeze.

His workshop is behind a railing now at Plymouth Plantation, where thousands of visitors can watch him work and stop him to ask questions and hear stories about wood and tools they might never know about if it wasn’t for Peter. It was watching him there that gave me the idea to carve in the frames. A way to return to my own workbench, after abandoning it and the chairmaking for painting, and combine the pleasures of both.

These two simple paintings have an echo of his spirit in them. The strong light on common objects surrounded by deep darkness affords these leaves, which hazard has made elect, a chance to escape the compost pile. The carving in the frames, which comes from a Swedish Chip carving pattern, was one I used often when carving in chair slats. The frame copies one which Van Eyck used on a portrait centuries ago.

It is once again autumn. The yard is carpeted with the first leaves to let go and the squirrels are too busy to bother with the feeders. My traditional friend and I stay in touch these days on the high tech cyber waves. How bizarre. How wonderous.

It doesn’t get any better than this.