I’m looking forward to reading it over my lunch hour. It’s hot dog day.
Secondly,
Someone requested the recipe for that fabulous looking loaf of bread featured in part A of this blog post.
I don’t remember where I got it but I tweaked the original so I get to rename it…
Quarantine Potato Bread
1 med Starchy Potato
1/2 cup potato water (twice…twice… I have dumped the water out while draining the cooked spuds so I’m giving this helpful hint…save that water)
3/4 cup warm water
2 Tablespoons Honey
2 1/4 tsp. Yeast
3 1/2 cup Bread Flour (best of luck finding that)
Cut that potato into small chunks and cook for 15 minutes or so then mash fine…
Drizzle the honey into the bottom of your grandmother’s pyrex measuring cup, then add the warm water up to the red 3/4 cup line and sprinkle the yeast on top. Set aside for 10 minutes until foamy.
Combine all ingredients and knead for 10 minutes. That’s my favorite part.
Proof in a lightly greased bowl covered with a damp tea towel and set up on some high warm surface like on the top of your old mustard colored double oven…1-2 hours. This is a good time to weed one bed or do two crossword puzzles or play 12 Maj-Jong games on your ipad.
Return to that bowl and marvel at the rise you got from all that kneading. Knock it down and roll it up into a buttered loaf pan. Cover with that damp towel and proof for 45 minutes.
Bake (with the towel off obviously) 30-35 minutes @ 375 degrees.
Another helpful note, I found that placing it on the bottom rack in my top oven gave a more even bake …and 30 minutes is the exact right time for same oven.
If you buttered that pan like my Mima would have then your own fabulous loaf will fall gently out…let it cool on a wire rack as long as you can stand before cutting it open and slathering it with butter.
In the original recipe it was said that the addition of the potato somehow helps the bread to last longer. I can attest only that the previous two loaves I made each lasted one week. On the last day save two of those older pieces per person in the household to make french toast. It’s quarantine bread after all…you need your strength and maple syrup is well known to stabilize one’s sanity.
You are welcome.
And as a bonus…here’s a look at that wonderful stove…
Hot Flash – 2007
If you need to ask… you won’t get it .
A list of thank yous is in order though.
To Julie, for the long term loan of her grandmother’s fan and for recognizing in the first place that I “needed” to have it in the prop room.
To Susan, for the gift of her magnificent old stove and for recognizing that I “needed” to have it in the new studio.
To Mima, for the hours spent in her Uniontown kitchen and recognizing that I would someday go out of my way replicate it in the hopes of channeling her love.
And, to my dearest Pat, for paving the way before me…and for smiling as she recognizes, with such affection and that ever so tender hint of knowing sarcasm, that the battle has only begun to rage inside my hormonally challenged almost fifty self.
The last few days have been grim.
The siren calls from hospital workers,
the mounting numbers of casualties,
the criminally incompetent leadership from the oval office,
the crippling anxiety that washes over us…
wave after unrelenting wave.
The last few days have been sparkling.
The return of the indigo bunting outside my window,
flats of winter seedlings getting their first feel of wind,
Finnegan laying peacefully in the sunshine,
lazy conversations over the morning kitchen table with my love,
and the glorious unrelenting waves…
of that brilliant new green.
While I admit to finding myself frozen in my easel chair,
not able to summon the creative energy to pick up even the tiniest of brushes,
I am showing up every day.
I know the Muses are here and I’m listening,
but it sounds like static now…loudly buzzing and confusing.
And what I know about that
is to get up outta that chair and go outside.
The glorious gift of having Herself by our sides
during these stay at home days
means Finn and I are at our happiest in our happy place…
wallowing in the brightening colors of the studio garden…
My organizer using her superpower…
Anyone who needs or wants some of this plastic just holler…
While she sorted…I planted…
Two rows of peas planted in Ruth…which is a bit spicy to read back…
And…at the end of that glorious day…a bit of well earned sky chair rest…
So today’s painting will be a very early work which honors another of my love’s superpowers…
The Folder – 2000
This is quite simply inspired by my friend Rex. He is a poet. Our histories have walked side by side for over forty years. Our paths have criss-crossed over most of them. Our souls have always been as one.
And it is for Pat, my folder.
The Folder
Folded things speak well of you
when you’re out of the room.
They hold the near future captive,
like children about to go on recess
or sexual pleasure at the brim of control.
I think of the pressure of your hand
smoothing over the cloth napkin,
the bedsheet, the piece of clothing
that signals the meal to come,
the lovemaking, the spent day —
and how you stack the bath towels
as high as they’ll go, as a driver
well keep the fuel tank near full
during times of shortage. I step out
of the shower looking to the center
of my life, where you have folded it.
Creases will have nothing to do
with edges: It’s no accident
that ledges are ledges and valleys,
so far removed from any real
horizon, where people most often
choose to put down roots and grow.
I like to imagine that God, who,
faced with formlessness, folded
the world into manageable corners,
sent me you to repeat the gesture.
Rex Wilder
From the “Nature finds a way” division of the Ledge…
When, way back in January, or was that February,
we, meaning Kory… with me directing from without,
frantically threw everything in the studio kitchen
out onto the studio porch
after finding yet another round of rodential invasion…
the bench filled up with things that were destined to live in the garage…
but needed to be sorted…
so that never happened.
Herself has been wanting to clear it off so guests could have a place to sit.
But we don’t get many guests,
and now…well…
we have had to implement a staging area
for decontamination of deliveries from the big bad world.
You may be able to imagine my surprise when
upon reaching for the blue bag
our resident wren flew up and at me and, with a powerful
shrillness, bade me to step away from her nest.
Twice in the days since I have impulsively reached for that bag.
And both times I swore at my forgetfulness…
almost as solemnly as she
swore at me.
So yesterday I decided a tactile barricade was needed.
Not for her, but for me.
A quarantine
within
the quarantine.
It takes a village.
Take care of each other out there.
Here’s a very early piece, so early that I was still painting in my old studio…
and it was Gulliver by my side.
A Dissembling Breeze – 2002
My studio is on stilts. Telephone polls really. Sixteen feet in the air.
We live in a flood zone by this gently flowing creek.
During hurricane Agnes in the early 70’s the entire cabin was under water.
The single foot of it’s chimney remaining above water gaining mythological proportions.
So when they rebuilt the washed away garage it had to be above the highest flood level.
The supporting beams and joists underneath my tree top studio are exposed.
For the last two seasons an industrious couple of sparrows
have been constructing a condo under there.
Massive in scale I suspect them to be former hippies ever redesigning the commune.
Celebrating diversity, they have woven in feathers from every visiting species and a
generous helping of wool from Pat’s grandmother’s hooked rug
which rests on the steps beneath.
The other day,
on our fifty foot commute to work,
Gully and I found the nest fallen to the pavement below.
A treasure for me… at some cost to the dear ones.
For months thereafter we heard them busily knocking about below our painting feet.
The subsequent structures lacked some vital element
because they lasted only an average of a few days.
It has been a dry hot summer.
I don’t expect them back until spring now.
In the meantime I am collecting a pile of feathers and pine needles and dog hair
at the base of the studio steps.
We are not expecting rain.
The apprentice patiently awaits our next delivery…
I’m a bit behind.
Been putting out insurance fires,
medication issues,
juggling tax documents,
cooking perishables,
and monitoring the stock market.
No, are you kidding
I don’t know squat about the stock market
but apparently I like to watch disasters in the making
or the ticking
I actually gave over dozens of minutes of my precious life
to watching those numbers bounce around in free fall this week.
Mesmerizing, I was interested to learn about the internal brake thing
which automatically stops trading. That stopped my heart when it happened in real time.
And, because we have a tiny little bit of our savings tied up in those numbers some how…
I quickly took the advice of experts…
and snapped right on out of that window.
And went outside.
The distractions and emergency shut downs that have shaken our worlds
have also put me a bit behind in the gardening department.
I keep a running journal to help me remember what to plant and when.
Last year I dug deep, as it were, and invested, with Kory’s help, in building new beds and starting my Ruth Stout Garden, and now I have a journal full of useful information to be going on with.
As we saw in the first ledge post, there was good news to report about the soil under all that hay. Some pics from last season show how I used boxes filled with compost to provide some fertile growing medium while the ground beneath, which had been lawn, was slowly being converted, by the creatures within, to something more conducive to garden ready soil.
Made me happy in this lock downed moment to see all that green again…
At the end of the season we raked all of the remaining organic matter flatish, and made a footpath of wood chips then covered it all with a fresh foot or so of hay.
Where we had compost, roughly chopped up plant material and cardboard…the soil is now beautifully decomposed. There was one area in the back where I only had hay on top of last year’s soil and that is still anaerobic, sticky mud. We’ll see if the potatoes object because I planted some of them in that muck.
Yesterday Herself and Finn and myself enjoyed the ridiculously hot weather…76 degrees…and planted the Greens Bed.
This is what remained from the winter under cover. Beets in the back are probably not going to form but I’ll give them another week. Carrots are in great shape. Spinach which I’ve been enjoying all winter looks better after a heavy cleaning but I’ve got new seeds starting in other beds so this batch, which is very leggy, may be retired.
With 6 typed of lettuce seeds planted and some radishes as well, the whole thing got a blanket thrown over it.
Because…squirrels.
They are just fine as painting models… but seem to be unsatisfied with the sunflower seeds I have been providing them all winter. They found the pea seeds which we had planted on St. Pat’s day and ripped that bed up. So…I threw more seeds in and put up the dreaded tunnel.
Hopefully they will get the message.
In October I noticed they were spending some time in the herb bed. I thought it was to bury nuts but no, they were eating the Chard. Since I had planted that for winter harvest I decided to cover it over. The plants didn’t produce much so I lifted the fleece and let the sun rain down.
The squirrels rejoiced and this is what is left. Eh, it’s time to start new plants anyway.
In that same bed, on the farside, is a magnificent crop of Cress.
It grew uncovered all through our mild winter-that-wasn’t and now it’s feisty and fiery flavor of pepper and spice is a brilliant addition to every dish. Somewhere I read it is one of the most densely vitamin and mineral rich plants. Double the benefits. This is a land cress variety which likes shade. It loves hanging out behind the grape arbor. I’ve got extra seeds if anyone wants to try some.
And so far, the squirrels don’t seem to have cottoned on to this delicacy.
Later on today we will start another flat of the seeds I need to catch up on and some of the hot weather lovers like tomatoes and peppers.
But as for my day job.
Making Art…
I guess it is appropriate to pay homage to some of my more squirrely Muses…
Stay frosty out there everyone…and be kind.
Squirreled Away – 2016
Last year it was the Cardinal,
His Holiness Wolsey
the basher of windows.
This winter,
it was Sir Squirrel,
the chomper of walnuts.
He who kept me company,
through the snowy storms,
perched on the air-conditioning unit,
just outside my easel window,
flaunting his propitious,
hoarding prowess,
and watching.
We watched each other actually.
Watched out for each other may be more accurate.
When we got that Nor’easter,
which dumped 4 feet of fresh snow,
on the already whitened studio yard,
it took me three days to dig out a path
for Finnegan to get to her privy.
I noticed that Sir Sq. had been a no show
and made a wee annex to Finn’s run
from the arbor vitae to his window perch.
The mere work of a teaspoon,
but it sufficed for him to re-surface
and check back in
to make sure I was ok,
and able to lift those tiny brushes
after all that shoveling.
Sitting there,
sporting new pairs
of both snow shoes
and sunglasses,
and chewing
on a particularly prodigious nut,
he must have noticed
I was looking ever so slightly famished, because,
after devouring a full three quarters thereof,
he reached out to offer me a nibble…
See,
that’s what I’m talking about…
it takes a village.
AND…
A Little Night Knitting – 2018
On those long winter nights
alone on an island
pining for her captain
the rhythmic click click clicking
of the long metal needles is heard
as they catch the moon beams
dancing over waves
that somewhere
oceans away
have lapped along the starboard side
of a weathered wooden ship.
As she knits
and purls
and knits
and purls
the tips of those needles
wave a tiny patter of light
a private message
in a language of their own
sweet and sacred semaphore.
Living with six feet of separation…
in the hopes of staying on this side of the garden…
which as you can see has just begun…
And potatoes newly nestled in Ruth’s bed…
I’ve been thinking a lot about how lucky I am, as an artist,
to actually enjoy working at home. Social distancing is my norm.
The creative life is not always lived in isolation, but art often begins there.
Making art is about making sense
of the world around us
and within.
The irony is not lost on me in these early days
when artists of all types
are filling the airwaves
with song
and words
and paintings…
Spontaneous acts of generosity
offering touchstones to beauty
portals of peace
that simply reach out to remind us
of the importance
and precious value
of our common human existance…
for free.
When, for the price of a presidential golf trip,
how many schools could bring back the stolen art and music
education to teach new generations
to make that art.
Maybe that will be one new thing that we change
after so much tearing down that is to come.
So, yeah, I feel very lucky to still be able to walk over
from the log cabin each day
and walk around the studio yard with Finn
as the sun rises over the hill
and know that my easel awaits
and the brushes are ready…
I am very scared.
Anxiety and raw fear
blend with the persistent vulnerability of aging
so that those familiar edges
have now become ledges.
But, so far,
the Muses have not wavered.
They greet me at the door.
Remind me of our new family motto…
Tits UP.
So I’m going to join the chorus
and start sending out little postcards
from the studio.
To share some of what is still
so good in our world
some paintings that speak to me of that
and the constant reminder
that the garden gives me
that grace abides.
I begin with Skip…Swan Song – An abstract Chilmark Aria
This is Skip.
One of this world’s truly authentic selves.
A person for whom the esthetics of beauty
is the fundamental element of existence.
Someone deeply connected to nature’s expressions,
who finds art and music and dance
vibrating between all living things,
and whose joyful spirit,
when unleashed,
can fill an island with song.
Over a year ago I asked Skip to model for me.
I had some ideas.
Skip had other ideas.
We met and shared some croissants and coffee,
listened to each others’ stories,
talked about art, and Findhorn, and philosophy,
and listened some more.
Then we set out to seek the muses.
Skip pointed me down up-island roads that were hidden from maps,
we stopped for stone walls,
and wildlife,
wildflowers,
and whispers.
There were stories behind every corner,
pebbles on the road, on Skips’ journey,
and a few on mine, and new ones we were creating together.
Skip is a painter.
And one of the things we talked about was
including one of those paintings …in my painting.
We brought it along, and let the muses decide.
We ended up at the bluff, Camp Sunrise.
A melding of sacred spaces.
The morning sun had risen to clear October skies,
and the meadow was just waking up to the light.
This is the part where I get emotional.
Because the morning sessions I spent working with Skip
studying and working,
in that profoundly familiar space,
was the last time I saw the house,
perched on the edge of the planet,
in all her grace and glory,
before they demolished it.
We all knew it was coming.
The time when nature’s pounding would erode the bluff,
wearing away at the land,
until there was no where else for the houses to rest.
In my island time…
which began as the great gift of knowing Lynn Langmuir,
whose generous heart was deeper than the ocean,
and steadier than her beloved stone wall,
that very wall which wanders through this painting…
over the thirty plus years I have been coming to this bluff,
the chicken coop of a farm house,
had twice been moved back from that threatening edge.
It is hard to imagine,
in this painting,
that there is a 40 foot drop from bluff to beach,
just a mere five feet from the edge of her front porch.
And, still, this old Yankee stalwart ship-of-a-shack,
she stood proud,
holding her own,
and by that I mean generations of the Langmuir family,
and the many who were welcomed by them,
into the embrace of this enchanted space.
But the land…ran out.
And so, while the other, more modern structures
of garage and bunkhouse, were able to be moved
out back and beyond the wetlands,
to the farthest section of the parcel,
the bones of this old gal had been deemed too fragile for the move.
You couldn’t tell, from our distant vantage point,
that while Skip and I gamboled among the stones,
and communed with the muses,
the house had been emptied of all its touchstones.
The old wicker woven lounging chair was gone…
the daybeds stripped of their sleep-softened pillows,
kitchen shelves bare of the pastel colored fiesta ware,
paperback mysteries of Riggs and Craig,
no longer insulating the cubby-holed shelves.
Puzzles and kite string, checkers and cribbage…
amber eyed owls who lit up the hearth,
journals of writings from visiting friends,
with new chapters each year for us all to catch up.
New nicks, and old,
from bumps on the bedroom lintel,
where a hundred layers on the yellow painted symbol of a duck…reminding us to.
The tears in each sink from the iron and rust,
the old brown barn coat ever-hanging
on the white wooden hooks behind the green door.
All these objects, and a hundred more …
they have been the keeper of our memories.
The sunny days, the stormy nights,
we grew up in that house,
on the bluff,
as she grew old,
and, in her weathered-shingled way,
became…
the things we are made of.
This painting then,
for the house,
is her swan song.
Skip sings it for us all,
an aria as abstract
as the tapestry of souls
who have ducked to cross her threshold,
and sought refuge in her wings.
As squalls of snow flurries surround the studio, the artist within is happily ensconced in her hermitage and the brushes are flying. Had a bookend of visits with Peter Follansbee last week so his painting gets the pride of place here today.
I’ve been away from this portal for so many months that there is a towering pile of posts waiting to be written. Look for me to promise a regular flow of entries, but I’d hedge those bets. My energies and attention span tends to be hyper focused at the easel when I return from weeks away.
While the weather freezed me out of the garden, and the darkness deepens into the solstice, the dust collects on every other corner of the studio except where I and my brushes are at work.
But I’ve taken a quick break to visit the office today because I need to give you a heads up about the prints offered here on my site.
Due to the increased costs of paper and ink the price of prints will be following suit.
Figure I would return the kindness of your years of support by giving you all a heads up…so I’ll wait another month or so and make the price changes take effect on January 31, 2020.
The small prints will go from $95 to $125
The large prints will go from $195 to $225
And I will be charging a flat shipping rate of $12 for all tubes, multiple prints can be shipped in one tube and will only be charged once.
The Menemsha Basin and Strider Prints will remain at their current prices for now.
OK, that’s done.
Now back to my snuggly spot by the heater in the corner with my Muses.
Stay frosty out there and thank you all for being there.
H
It’s beginning to look a lot like fall around here. We have been home a month since our Vineyard visit and Granary Gallery show. A great time and very successful show was surrounded by a warm and positive energy which has been riding in my back pocket ever since.
And we needed that to get through some stressful weeks with a string of those unwelcome but generally benign hiccups that lurch your well laid plans into a different gear…or reverse in this case. Extreme heat kept me out of the garden, silly germs kept us all sick and snotty for Zoe’s camp Gran and Mima, the blue screen of death on the studio computer meant a week of tech gurus replacing one motherboard after another, and then there is…( and here I will allude to, but not elaborate on because I have a strict “NO politics in the studio rule”… the mother of all shit storms that is the current state of the nation and the planet )…but worst of all our dear Finn has been plagued with one infection after another.
None of the usual anti-depressants were working.
Putting all the bags of yarn on the daybed to plan out the coming winter of knitting…didn’t help.
Getting out all the spoon carving tools and making pile after pile of shavings on the porch…wasn’t helping.
Planting flats of seedlings for the fall garden and weeding out the old for the new…was hampered by the summer’s sauna.
I just couldn’t shake the blues.
As of today, most of those bumps in the road have been worked out but they wore this artist down and sent some old dragons a’ knocking at the door.
Alas, I caught them on the whisper…
and realized that in spite of all the things I was trying to do to pull myself up and out of that negative space…what I really needed to do was to get myself back to my day job.
The second I sat down at the easel I felt better…lighter…centered and safe.
I have come to understand that this work that I do, the art that I create, the focus that is demanded of the process of bringing a painting to life…it is all of me. It has become what I am not just what I do. And it has an intense and powerful connection to something that is much bigger and vitally more important than Mercury going retrograde and blowing up the schedule.
It is no longer quiet listening, but a fierce reckoning with truth, and finding where it lives at the core of my soul, and then looking hard for where it lives in others. The closest I’ve come to labeling it is that “common ground”. I catch glimpses of it now and then, like a pixie winking from behind a garden shed. And more often when I stand behind someone studying one of my paintings and watch as they step closer. The noise in the gallery shuts off, and they are pulled in to a very private place. Sometimes, when they step back and notice me, they will take me where they went. Sometimes there are no words. But the recognition is there, between us, that there is some common ground.
I can think of it as a portal.
Through which there is a tapestry of threads, more like live wires, and we, the artist and the patron, have found one or two that we recognize as familiar, that are alive in our own paintings as it were, and we come to see that we are not alone.
Well that is starting to get a bit tingly…like I said…the universe..or is it those muses… is shifting things around here in a most unpredictable and frustrating way…which is when I know to step out of the stream and go to a safe place.
OK I’m back now. This started out as a quick peek at the burgeoning fall garden, which is plugging along all on its own tingly threads in spite of the heat and my profound neglect.
And since, I have already articulated that the best place for me to be right now…with a tiny brush in my hand…and not playing in the dirt…I shall simply throw out these pics of this morning’s garden.
Beginning with a before shot of the Ruth Stout Memorial Arch to compare with the opening photo of today’s vining mess. You will see that the black eyed susan vines are finally thriving but the morning glory (mostly on the right) are insane…with nary a blossom.
Here it is again…before
and after…
In general I am very pleased with the RS bed experiment so far. I will elaborate in future posts but here are some random updates…
WE HAVE A LUFFA !!!
Finally. You can see how showy this vine has become. It has smothered the tunnel and begun to invade the lower forty…
looking back it is on the right
Here it frames the now almost cleared potato run…as it waddles on over to make an annex out of the old pea trellis.
Back at the far end of the bed you get a whole lot of rotting tomatoes and a fair supply of peppers showered by Pat’s zinnias…
A row of bags and boxes are mostly cleared of the failed onions with some lingering leeks…
Walking outside and into the raised bed area it’s the sweet potatoes that have taken the lead…
Three bags full, they hold some promise but it will be a month or more before I peek.
The second planting of cucumbers are fighting off the squash bugs and going strong…
The beans have only now begun to provide enough for a meal for two…
Underneath that tunnel are some newly planted carrots and broccoli …
And the brussel sprouts and parsnips are roaring in the back bed…
On the backside of this very large array is the sad state of the strawberry beds, I am flummoxed at the heavy invasion of grasses and weeds which have taken over every single bed. I’ve weeded this bed intensely 4 times this summer !!! and look at the mess.
Back in civilization…
the new herb beds are doing well…
and the salad bed is once again producing lettuces and spinach…
After taking this pic I pulled a couple of those radishes, and then I yanked them all because I found cabbage worms on each one and a heavy infestation of baby aphids. They all went to the bucket of death. Now Herself can come and pick her lunch in peace.
And that leaves the best part of the garden for last…
Miss Finnegan is starting to feel better. These cooler mornings are just the ticket for a Bernese Mt. Dog. She lays here on the shaded cement and supervises my ramblings while she waits for her buddy to come over and take her for a ride around the neighborhood. Her favorite thing is to turn left out of that gate and jump into the car.
As I write this she and her buddy are getting ready for the tennis finals. Finn lays in front of the TV and as soon as the ball is hit she follows it. She got bored with all those double faults in the match last night but has a special fondness for Nadal, so she’s looking forward to his forehand.
And there we have it.
A winding look into the labyrinth that,
for my sins,
is my world this month.
Now I’m headed to the kitchen for some lunch,
and then up for one more cone at Reeser’s,
and then back to the easel…
ahhhh.
Yours in brilliant blazes of Mexican sunflowers, hovering hummingbirds…
and finally flying brushes,
If you peer in closely
through the blue doorway
and into the pantry
you will see shelves
lined with artifacts.
Treasures unearthed
and discovered behind walls
an old clay pipe
horseshoes and coins
bottles and bricks.
What you won’t see
that I can
is Katie in there
studying them.
She was the navigator
on the day I first saw this place.
I mentioned before
about our wild adventure
on the bouncy bouncy dirt lane
as we searched the wilderness
getting closer and closer
to the isolated homestead.
At one point
I think it was seeing giant spider webs
glistening with heavy dew
under that medieval forest
of low branching oaks
at a moment
when we were particularly lost
that we both looked at each other
to gauge the fear factor.
Yep it was creepy.
But, as ever with Katie,
so much fun.
Her young strong legs
climbed the stairs before me
to test if they would hold
and her brave confident self
looked behind
the darkest of dusty corners
to spare my heart.
She’s the one
who opened the lid
on the oval roaster
and found the shells
then played apprentice
moving them in and out
of the crawling sunlight.
It’s going to be harder now
to coordinate our Ted Trips
because she went
and grew all up and graduated
and is going to step right on out
into the big wide world any day now
all by herself.
I have a feeling though
that there will be a few more adventures
a painted cormorant now and then
a little bit of knitting together
and listening
and the occasional snapshot
of that dimply smile.
The most exciting artifacts discovered in this house are on…and in…the walls.
Tucked into planking and stairwell are all kinds of hand carved symbols and signatures and…ships.
I knew that. Adam Moore had pointed out a few of them on his tour and the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation site explores this in their literature…
Inside the house, one finds plastered walls and various kinds of decorations. The plaster was made from a mixture of crushed oyster shells and horse hair. Some walls,such as those in the Borning Room, are inscribed with intricate carvings of ships. Other walls, such as those in the attic, bear drawings of lotus-flowers, drawings which a child might have made with a compass. In the Pantry,old bottles and canning jars line the curving shelves. Some jars, still sealed after many years, contain perfectly preserved tomatoes and peaches.
And when I was working on this composition it was all about the pantry light for me.
And the magnificent blue paint. And the way the newly shored up timbers had shifted the old baseboard to reveal the startlingly bright original color of that blue and a mystery slice of yellow.
After a bit of sketching and watching how the light was changing with the moving sun, I got up to stretch and moved the door, which had been opened wide against the wall, and this is what was hiding behind it…
I know. Under how many generations of paint, and at either a child’s height or a seated adult’s, was this little gem of a carving.
There were many ship’s captains who owned and occupied this house over its hundreds of years so they and the loved ones watching the horizon for their returns would have had a vivid understanding of ship design.
As does my pal Captain Morse so I queried him about the type of vessel we might have here. His best guess has become the title… mostly because I love the word itself.
There will be many many more Captains at the Granary Gallery opening for this show and I guarantee I’m gonna hear just as many theories as to what manner of ship this be.
I can only say that I have remained steadfastly true to the verisimilitude of this particular hand carved vessel…and leaned heavily on the more romantic essences of the rich and dreamy maritime for my title.
