Last October,
on a perfect New England Autumn day,
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.
When I pulled the wobbly screen door open
and stepped into empty space it froze my soul.
The house had been emptied of all its touchstones.
All that remained,
perhaps all that would truly chronicle the human presence within,
was the patina of marks on the walls, the floorboards and the ceiling.
This painting looks from the main room,
back through the tiny sleeping nook,
through just a razor thin edge of the window,
onto the sun porch,
where beyond, lies the view of Squibnocket Beach.
New nicks, and old, adorn the lintel,
from generations of foreheads which bumped that coop-like low beam,
where a hundred layers of yellow paint,
outlined the symbol of a duck…reminding us to.
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.
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 is true of so many of my paintings,
the muses pulled on some pretty wild threads
to bring this not-so-still-life together.
I’ll say it started with Jane,
because of the teacups,
hidden among the many other artifacts
which she and her sword fishing husband, Herb purveyed
in their antique shop in Menemsha.
This is Jane’s 40th year,
in that treasure shack, Oversouth Willow,
and the last season of her tenure behind the desk.
And that is where we found her, last summer,
the film crew and I,
when we were parading our cameras, and mikes,
around the island, and we stopped to visit with Jane.
The team of David and Barbarella Fokos,
renowned artists/writers/film makers/Emmy winners,
were setting out to make a documentary film
to add to their growing collection for the new website,
While the crew set up and Pat and Jane chatted,
I searched around and found these three porcelain gems.
Jane told us the story of the “Blue Willow” pattern,
which I believe was captured on film,
but what I remember most clearly
was the sparkle in her eyes…and she in her element.
Fast forward a month or two and we are getting ready,
here in my Pennsylvania studio,
for the Fokos Team to arrive for another session of filming.
I needed to have a painting in progress so I brought out those blue vessels.
And then the muses stepped up.
They rifled through the linen prop drawer for something blue,
and the feather that Saren had brought me the day before
drifted down from the teacup shelf,
they fingered around in my back pocket
for the tiny shard of blue tile that I had found
in the pebbled lane the last time I walked up to Camp Sunrise,
and they sent me climbing up to the “old studio”,
the shed on stilts by the creek,
which is now the overflow prop room…
and I opened the door…
the blue door.
Bam, I’m in.
I had climbed those rickety stairs,
and opened that door every day for I don’t know how many years,
and inside was…my bliss.
My first real studio,
after 40 years of dreaming.
I remember when that paint was new.
Around here they were not sure how to mix Nantucket Blue.
There are a couple of paintings which feature the other side of this old door,
but if you stepped back far enough to get some perspective on the outside of it…
you would be swimming in the creek thirty feet below.
Opened to the inside,
with my hand on that wonderful doorknob,
and the light raking over the blue chips of paint…
well, that was interesting.
It was quick work to find something to use as a support,
and the red cover of the old faithful, “Iron Woman” book
was the perfect accent…think Jane.
When the Fokos’ arrived,
the painting was well underway,
but David wanted to recreate and film the set up part of the process.
You should have seen us cramming into the tiny space by that door
with cameras and crew…remember what I said about that one step backwards.
No one was harmed in the filming of this movie,
and now this painting has a great story to tell.
I still miss him every day.
The studio has a few precious touchstones,
that trigger the corners and pockets of my memory,
and light up an arc,
between this world and the next.
An impossibly thin teaspoon,
made of coin silver,
a crackled golden holiday ornament,
dangling from an old fishing rod,
a shiny little porcelain figurine,
from the Red Rose Teabag collection…
and this card,
the last we got from Polly,
to thank us for a dinner we hosted,
which features a print of a painting Ted did of their house in Chilmark.
Their spirits are free to roam now,
and while Polly visits her wind chime to keep me company in the garden,
Ted is right there on my shoulder, always,
tweaking the muses and directing the brushes.
On the island it is different.
I think it must be harder for their myriad island friends.
It’s a small place, and hard not to drive by their house,
to get almost anywhere.
Last year we all but drove off the road,
when we came around the bend and saw the old structure,
risen, like Lazarus, from it’s resting place,
and jacked up 10 feet off of the ground.
Renovations had begun,
and a skeleton remainedPeat black wooden ribs laid bare of their clapboard,
and scaffolded light pouring into the dark maw of a foundation…
the absolute void of the centuries of human life lived within.
Even my deep love of archeology and history,
and origin-of-the-species exploration that so enjoys a good treasure hunt…
was numbed, by the wave of grief and the smacked into realization,
that they were not, as I had comfortably come to fool myself…
still sitting, just there in the front room,
nodding in the wingchair,
beside the window,
with the light on.
That warm soft light
was a beacon for many a traveler.
I, for one, couldn’t bear that corner to be dark…
So, I painted it back on.
I will be rolling out the new paintings here on the blog beginning next week, but the one featured above is a sneak peak at one of my favorites…
I’m calling this, Swan Song – An Abstract Chilmark Aria
I’ve gotten the approval of the dear diva herself, Skip Peterson, to show this now to the world. She modeled for me last October. Among her many talents and gifts, Skip is a painter, and among her many requests and suggestions for how I should capture her portrait, she thought it would be sorta fun to have an actual painting of hers in it.
Locating it some place in Chilmark was a must… as it is for her, like so many others, a treasured place held dearly in her soul…and when I took her to my sacred place, Camp Sunrise, she fell in love instantly.
We knew, when I painted this that the house was slated for demolition. And I had been meaning to capture it from this angle because the meadow in the foreground is where they were planning, and now have built, the new home. When, back in my mid-winter studio, I needed something to carry the energy of Skip’s song, I chose those wonderful swans which were soaring on their way to nearby Squibnocket pond.
But it wasn’t until a few months later, when someone sent me a photo of the empty horizon…when it became sadly real to me that the house was finally gone…that the title came to me.
It usually takes me a while to look back and see the workings of the muses.
With this painting, on so many levels, they have been leading me here for a lifetime.
but I may soon have to brush the paparazzi out of my hair…
because we have a movie premiere to attend…
Tonight I painted the last brushstroke on the last painting for this summer’s Granary Gallery Show. And while I have been working hard here in my studio, all the way across the country, the famed infamous artists/film production team of David and Barbarella Fokos have been in their San Diego studio creating a documentary about my artwork.
You can view David’s spectacular photographs on his site, click here…and explore Barbarella’s world of wonders on her site, click here.
I’ve been teasing you here along the way, and now they have created a teaser of their own, a trailer for the upcoming movie, Visions of Home.
Pat and I have been singing the background music all week.
And hang on to your chiffon and your boas everybody, there is going to be an actual PREMIERE. Yes. The MV Film Society has information on their site, click here.
It will be at the Capawok Theater, in Vineyard HavenFriday July 29th
6PM
The tickets will be free but they tell me anyone interested in coming will need to check in with the theater to reserve seats. After the film there will be a Q and A with, the artiste, the film makers, and the director of TAO, The Artist Odyssey, Chris Fessenden.
Please take an extra minute to visit their website, where you can view some of the other artist profiles that David and Barb have done. Wonderful.
Forgive me in advance as the promotion department will need to use all available media to get the work out, so you may experience inundation.
It has been a long winter of hibernation, and as tired as I am tonight…
my spirits are lifted by the excitement swirling around the studio…
Three days of inquiries later…she’s back up and running.
Apologies to anyone out there,
at least one of you is out there,in case you were looking to for some artwork to browse through while sipping that steaming mug of tea.
Another snowstorm is collecting energy in the wings and poised to bounce around the east coast for the next couple days. They want a blizzard on the Vineyard, already see that high tides have flooded major roads there so stay home you islanders !
Around here they want a modest 8+ inches which, as I look out of the studio windows now almost three weeks after our blizzard, would just about double what is currently left and clinging to our little patch of the planet.
The muses have been particularly pushy this week and, after fighting and fussing and generally whining Herself’s ears off…I have given in and changed course.
I threw out days of work and dozens of sketches and notes and am following their lead. They are tapping into a deeper place in my soul and, now that I’ve stopped fighting, I feel the energy shifting.
Did I need this website glitch right now ?
Maybe I just needed to check in with my external guides…you all.
So, the spinach pie has cooled while I’ve been writing,
and after a quick lunch,
and a check to see where the snow shovels ended up after the last storm,
I get to head back to work.
Happily,
but holding on tight.
Be safe out there my friends.
Here’s the deal. I have made myself a vertical palette. This was inspired by David Kassan and all due credit will be given there when I have the time to do a more thorough post about his ideas. (He has developed and is currently selling his version of a vertical palette. I couldn’t wait for his production team so I experimented and made a couple of my own. The current one in use is pictured here…after two weeks of a particularly detailed painting.)
Below is a detail of the tray with two medium receptacles.
Since I use such small amounts of liquin, fine detail and impasto, and since they dry out very quickly, I have found that the disposable cap lid is great for the heavier blob, and the refined scallop shell works great for the thinner stuff.
Most nights I remember to wipe out the shell and it is ready for the next morning’s dollop. But a lot of nights I forget and so it is a sticky mess the next day. After a few months of this the shell has built up a thick coating and today it was no longer able to function up.
I searched around and have a couple more shells, doesn’t the nice new clean one look spiffy here ?
But I know it will not last the winter, I could probably use one a month…so…I’m throwing down a request to my island pals.
When next you take a walk on the beach, or along the shoals, or out behind Larsen’s,would you please pick up a few shells for me. I used to find the best stash at that turnout on the right at the entrance to Sengy pond, just after Harthaven.
The maximum width is 2 1/8″ to fit in my trough.
I suppose a clam shell would work as well.
It’s such a blessing to have island friends when you live in a landlocked state.
It takes a village,
What is the roll of creativity in an angry chaotic world.
To echo
to mirror
to distract
to remind
to transport
to speak truth
to provide haven
My response, when the tension tipping point is reached,
is to grab my cape, in a wild, Severus like fury,
and circle it as armor and take my soul to refuge in the studio,
there to tease apart the angers from the truths and sit with where they both intersect and where there might be something of meaning to be found.
I have a keen sense of the stairway that leads to that chamber of secrets in my artistic soul. It is a well traveled road and the passage way is woven deep into how I chose to live on the planet. As I walk that path now, the intensity of the emotions informs the process, and there are familiar touchstones left on the stair treads as I wind my way down and deep.
I am not afraid to go there, only fearful I won’t go far enough.
In carrying along this dialogue I am having with myself, and a few other artists, about what it means to be a Mature Artist, I am pondering this part of the creative process, where we go to understand the profound tragedies in our world, in ourselves. How do we, as artists, make some sense of the pain and loss and fear and find the balancing beauty… both in that darkness, and in the light. And how, as artists who have been swirling their capes for half a century or more, do we recognize that pathway differently than we did when the brushes were new.
What you focus on expands, and for me, at least for now, the channels are wide open.
It is my day job, my all consuming career, to push paint around on a panel until it sings. When I started this full time, 16 years ago, I was well into middle age, but I had been dabbling since high school and there are some scraps of drawings left to remind me of the innocence of those early strokes.
This week I have been looking back at the portfolio on my website, which begins in 2000. It surprises me how autobiographical the paintings have been. No viewer will ever see it, but I can remember when, and why each of those compositions were chosen, and, upon review, how much has evolved in the ensuing light years…both technically and personally.
With each painting I have insisted on raising the bar. Sometimes that is noticeable, sometimes I slid back in a heap. It was always a conscious decision to work harder at the craft of painting, but what strikes me today is the unconscious way that the depths of the narrative seemed to drag my wayward soul into a different place.
Some wise woman along the way said that, as we grow older, it was easier to recognize what one doesn’t want, or need, and after jettisoning that…there is more room for the mystery. I made that last part up, about the mystery, but, as the years creep up on me, I am so much better at letting go of the noise. I’m finding much more to satisfy my curiosity in the silent spaces. I crave silence. That is what I need of the swirling cape of escape now.
The subject came up this morning, Herself and I talked about the cliche of artists needing angst and turmoil to plum creative depths.She had read of some artists who go to great length to fabricate a self destructive atmosphere of a narrative in order to tap into their genius.
Now, this topic may have, in some way been tweaked into her consciousness after she had hurried across the icy path from cabin to studio…in her slippers… to see why I had not answered her phone calls, only to find me furiously wielding the vacuum in the kitchen seeking out and attacking the tiny evidence of a most unwanted creature who has chosen to do battle with me…now…in the middle of our already most challenging winter.
I was indeed awash in drama…albeit achingly justified.
But…
searching around to create some artificial angst…Not me.
Been there, got the T-shirt..s, and can tap into those dragons in a flash as needed.
But, as I was saying about the silence…that source is currently the cauldron of creative juices.
There now, I have gone on a ramble, again.
Among the slurry of emotions this season,
I’m working through my feelings about the loss of the Langmuir’s Camp Sunrise.
I received a photo taken from Squibnocket Beach, just a couple weeks ago, and the top of that dear sweet roof line no longer peeks above the horizon of cliffs.
Of course, I knew it was coming.
What I didn’t know is how the actuality of the void would choke my soul.
So, I’ve been reviewing my portfolio. Lining up all the paintings I have done of that camp. The count is well over fifty. Almost one for each of my “oh so mature” years.
My job now, the challenge I am setting before the easel, is to tell the last chapter of her story.
Sitting in the silence.
Listening,
for where the story of the life of that old chicken coop, intersects with the lives of her caretakers, and artist squatters, and with the island itself.
