Not sure if this is true for you
but as time marches on
I struggle less for independence
and tug more on the threads
that pull us all together…
Travel safe this weekend my friends…
so much depends
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
William Carlos Williams
Ted and Pete have made quite a splash in their Cover debut on the American Art Collector Magazine this month, and I thought you would like to see some of their other inspirations as Muses.
Over the years, they each gave me the great gift of seeing the island of Martha’s Vineyard through their eyes. Both had DNA spread liberally across generations and rolling fields and they had an eager student of island history in my eager ears.
Ted and his wife Polly sent me wandering down many a sandy trail through brambles and over rocky rutted roads in pursuit of hidden landmarks and relics of island lore. After Polly left us, Ted rode shotgun on those adventures and navigated us to some seriously back-of-the-beyond treasures.
One such romp was to find the elusive Gay Head Lily. We ended up announcing ourselves in this lovely woman’s yard at the end of a long lane and out Ted, the celebrated head of the island garden club, waltzed to her dock along the pond to show me the flowers. Stunning. As I look back today, his hand seems far more delicate than those petals, but oh the wonders, that magician that he was, our Ted, could pull out of his hat.
Here’s a link to the original blog entry describing this painting…Click Here.
Another fine day found Ted and PG Harris and I bouncing along an old carriage path in my truck in search of The Brickyard. Ted thought it would be sorta fun to see it, and introduced me to PG whose family owned the property, and, after a couple hours of historical lecture on the area…off we three drove…I mean there we were in the middle of three glorious old fields surrounded by ancient stone walls and PG points to a small break in the stone and says, “Just drive over and through there and we’ll see.”
The Painter’s Notes give the rest of the story…click here… but suffice it to say, now that they are both floating somewhere high above that island…that adventure was one of my all time favorite memories.
Now, Peter Darling, well…he was just Pete. We called him the Admiral because he always had binoculars around his neck and was ever watchful from his deck. Not nothing, not no one, got past his old farm house on Greenhouse Lane without Pete knowin’ about it. Many a stranded sailor was rescued by the coast guard that Pete had hailed after spying their distress from his perch on top of those bluff steps. And every feather of the nesting osprey was monitored by their stalwart steward of a neighbor.
There is a tiny knoll in the long lane, right by his house, and I took to honking my horn with each passage so as to let oncoming traffic be wary, (and just between you and me…to keep the Admiral on his toes !). The very last time I heard from Pete, he had brought out a great big foghorn to his porch and answered my heralding call with his own. I really loved that.
These two views of Pete’s house give you an idea of the depth of beauty that surrounds the Darling’s farmhouse. His wife Della is there now and I’m eager to see her next week to give her a big hug and hear how life on the lane is faring this season. Della is a great fisherman and a lover of walks. In her travels, she has worn a path all along the perimeter of those old stone walls. I hear that some daisies grow there to welcome her in the late spring. She has earned them.
A couple of years ago…the year of the Apple Series, I spent the winter listening to the double trouble musings of Ted and Pete.
Pete was a tremendous trove of knowledge of Up Island lore and indeed history of all flavors. He loaned me a couple old tin coffee pots, the kind that were used over campfires by campers and travelers to cook up the early morning brew. The dear little one that made it into the Skillet Apple Pie painting was my favorite. Looking back, I should have blown some smoke out of that thing. Pete woulda loved that.
The core of this series, (written before the pun hit me, sorry), was the modeling session with Ted in the Magnuson’s Tiasquin Orchard…which all started with Chris’s suggestion…and the rest of that story is in these Painter’s Notes…click here.
And the man himself…
who sits in this chair across from my easel
and reminds me, every day,
that I am all the better
for knowing that twinkle
in his mishcievous
and loving eye.
Never trust a man,
who when left alone
in a room with a teacozy,
does’t try it on.
Billy Connolly
I was framing up the paintings from the Reclamation Series .
There was a catalog to get to the printers, a flurry to ship a piece or two up to the Museum for their annual fundraiser, and, as I recall…a general air of that flurry, nay panic, about getting everything done in time to make our ferry reservations.
This year…I somehow went from being a month behind schedule in May…to being waaay ahead of that same schedule here in the month of June.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not in search of things to fill this time. There are small craft warning options, and bags of tools, and tempting books, in piles in every single room in both studio and log cabin. But for the first time in a decade I am, shall we say, relaxing into these early summer days.
Entire pots of coffee are slowly consumed in the morning sky chair. Weeds, which are historically allowed to cycle into full tilt trees, are being yanked in their youth. Many small, and a couple of large, projects have been crossed off the home improvement list. Parts of the studio can actually be called cleaned up. Ok small parts but hey.
And I have spent hours at a time, with tiny needle in hand, in a different corner of the studio, peacefully quilting.
My working theory is the brutal winter. It shifted something. Hard to the left. Can’t even write about it except to say that warm sun and blue skies are to be bathed in.
So, finding myself with this breath of extra time I am actually going back to the easel. The large panel, which was the last ptg finished for the Granary show, had to remain on the easel until it was time to varnish and then haul up to the photographers. We hooked up the trailer and I took it up to John Corcoran yesterday so it feels like a dance hall in here.
John recently confessed that he, like myself and so many other artists, is often anxious after a hiatus from the work. The ever present doubts that we’ve still “got it” sometimes make it hard to pick up a brush, or camera in his case, and crawl out on that creative limb again. The break which happens every year at this time, between pre and post MV show, always throws me that curve ball.
But today, in my newly granted, and oh so profoundly appreciated, stay of anxiety…I’ve got an idea for a teacup composition that has been teasing the muses and I’m going to squeeze out some fresh paint and open the windows and let the solstice inspired breezes play with the brushes.
How fun is that.
John O’Hern has kindly sent me a PDF file of his article which can be opened and read by clicking on the highlighted name/link below…
Here’s to kindness
and the summer solstice
oceans waving
loafers leaning
and winding pathways to the beach
Blog readers will remember the recent entry about my pals Ted and Pete leaving the planet this winter. Being left here without them was not an option, so I took a couple days off from the gallery work I was producing to do a painting of them, on the bluff, looking out over the ocean, on a distant afternoon, when we all shared some sweet simple time together.
Thanks to gallery owner Micheal Sugarman (Sugarman Peterson Gallery in Santa Fe), the magazine tasked John O’Hern to write an article on my work. In talking with Micheal, and then John, interesting questions arose about what an artist paints “just for themselves”.
I have been working up to taking the challenge of figurative paintings, and when I looked around the studio it turns out that I have already begun that process. The ones which John features in the article are all very personal studies. My Captains leans just to the left of my easel where those two can continue to keep me on my toes.
I’m still shaking my head at the certainty that Ted and Pete had everything to do with nudging the painting on to the cover. It’s a very big deal for any artist and I am completely humbled, but oh how I shake my head in wonder each time I walk by the mag (which I have perched on a weaver’s chair in front of the other painting I did of Ted, The Teacozy)…just shake my head and smile from ear to ear at the folly of those pals working their magic from beyond.
The magazine should hit the newsstands soon. Here’s a link to their website, AAC Magazine.
Here’s an excerpt of John’s writing for the piece,
Neill’s paintings of props, fishermen’s
shacks and the landscape are finely
rendered and often full of humor and
subtle associations that enrich the viewer’s
experience. She paint’s her emotional
response to her subjects.
Full figures and portraits, however, have
only appeared recently in paintings that
she painted “just for me,” paintings that are
“very personal and straight from the heart.”
Her partner Pat Lackey has been urging
her to show the paintings. When her Santa
Fe dealer Michael Sugarman asked her
about the paintings she is most proud of
she replied, “I have rarely taken the time to
do work that is just for me. It is interesting
because if I had to answer honestly, these
portraits are the ones I am most proud
of because they are all about love at the
deepest part of my soul.”
Aren’t we aging well is a carefully
composed double portrait of the artist and
her partner. They vacation on Martha’s
Vineyard every summer. The bluff
overlooking the ocean has always been
a favorite spot. It has eroded away but
remains significant in their memories.
John O’Hern
We will be up there soon. And I know it won’t be the same. There are many friends from that island who have gone on to other shores of late. But holding them close is part of growing up and growing old and we are doing both.
Be well.
Grab a cup of coffee, I’m on my third, this one is a catch up long in coming…
After a week of storms, and a Friday the 13th wherein another storm featured prominently…especially, but not exclusively, the part wherein Anita, the wonderful helper at Snyder’s Sew and Vac, exclaimed that the torrential deluge, which we were all marveling at through the shop window, was POURING in to some poor fools’ open truck windows…yep, that’d be me…
anyway back to the point of entry…the stormy week…
has passed and this morning dawns cool and clear and absolutely blissful. An early walk around the garden reveals that the infant veggies have pulled off their raincoats and are quite ready to get back to the business of growing. Snow peas didn’t need no stinking slickers…they just kept right on and the first real batch was plucked into my t-shirt.
Then I walked under the arbor and was thrilled to see that we actually, after five or six years of waiting, have something resembling a real concord grape ! You will notice the avian anti-theft devices twirling in the background which seem to work just dandy to have kept the hungry spring beaks from plucking away the all important, and yes probably tasty, buds. Look hard, there are grapes there, dozens of clusters.
But seriously, the main event, for which I interrupted Herself’s bowl of cereal to insist she run to see…
MIMA’s Sour Cherry tree, “Sweet Lorraine”, has…or make that had…the first crop of sour cherries to bless this garden. Last time I had looked, there were some tiny green bobbles and the other tree, which was loaded with blossoms had none…so I wasn’t keeping close watch. I love those kind of surprises and they happen every day here in June.
So…if my garden is producing ripe cherries, the orchard just over the hill should ? Some Ritz ready made and rolled pie crusts were added to Pat’s grocery list…just in case. And a very tiny scrap of dough will be ceremonially wrapped around the tinier handful of Mima’s sour cherries for the inaugural bake. Maybe I’ll freeze them so Zoe can taste. These trees are for her after all.
OK – do you remember me mentioning Anita ? I’ll swing back around to her in a minute.
First, if we can focus on the day job…painting…
The long season of longer days and well into the late nights, as I worked to put together the paintings for the Granary Gallery Show…which opens July 20th…was wrapped up this week with the last brush strokes, on the last painting. It felt like months of straight on brush lifting but when I looked back in my daily journal it was exactly one month to the day, of 12-16 hour daily sessions, begun on May 9th and completed on the 9th of June.
Just a couple glimpses here as I wait for Mr. Corcoran to do his photographic magic for the big reveal…
The curve balls which were hurled at the studio over the winter do have me running about three weeks behind where I would like to be coming into the show season, and I have added an exciting adventure to the schedule …a real live show out in Santa Fe in October complete with the artiste in residence for the opening. More on that later…but keep your head up…that’s just the beginning.
The resulting creative intensity has correspondingly been escalating around here. And I have promised Herself and Myself to slow down enough to enjoy each other and every garden grace, and all the other mischief that my hands enjoy getting up to while they still can.
After watching the latest episode of PBS’s Craft in America, speaking of treasures, I have been studying the quilts made by the women of Gee’s Bend.( Here’s quick link, Quilts of Gee’s Bend but you can all do your own googling and I encourage you to dip away.) They are glorious, spectacular, and humbling works of art and the works by Joe Cunningham, who was featured on the show…mind blowing.
Like that…I have to quilt. No, I didn’t drag out any of the three or four projects “in progress”. Those bags are for later. I am too suggestible and, after seeing a tiny photo of some new fabric which Kaffe Fassett has produced, I ordered a fat bundle. You can see it in the background here but stop and smell my garden roses along the way.
Quick trip to Intercourse…no, the village in Amish country north of Lancaster, to the quilt mecca shop, somewhat disappointing as they had none of the notions I was there to collect. It’s just not the same when you have to order a tiny thimble online…but nothing, not even those storms…can stand in the way of this, my latest, obsession, which was held frothing in the starting gates until…the last brush stroke…AND my beloved and I had a wonderful day together, which is after all at the top of the list.
As Joe C. describes in the show, most of the time he has no idea where his quilt compositions will end up. That artistic license is essential to the creative process and it was important, for me, to be reminded of that. Seeing the free form quilts that he and the ladies have sewn, has passed down the “permission” to let loose.
No need for tedious marking and measuring and fussing over precision corners. The stitches should come from the heart. The color should pour from the soul.
My studio loft is the perfect nest for fiber arts and I was happily flying through the piecing stage..
until…the machine froze up.
And this brings us back…again…to Anita ! And Edith !
My newest angels, who are standing behind the fancy new machine which I went home with …in the middle of that storm. I googled “help my sewing machine is broken” and found Snyder’s Sew and Vac.
They all provided me with the best shopping experience I’ve had in this town in years, complete with plastic bags to cover those soaking truck seats (thank you John for that and all your good advice !). I love working with humans who know their stuff and when you thrown kindness and a good sense of humor in the mix…customer for life !
Now a new morning has dawned. The gremlins who taunted me yesterday are dismissed. The skies are clear, the cherries are ripe, the paint is drying, I’m one lucky woman and…your coffee is probably cold.
It’s time to get to work and every which way I turn there is something fun to get my hands into. I hope that is true for you as well.
And that big news… yep it’s coming. Stay tuned, stay frosty and live it large.
When I sit down to start work at the easel each day, one of the things I do to center myself is to check email and facebook before I PUT-DOWN-THE-PHONE .
Today the Granary Gallery had a post with this painting shining back at me…
Her Smalls –
from the painter’s notes…
I believe the origin is British
but that doesn’t matter.
Smalls…it’s just a matter of undergarments.
And the dearness of intimacy.
And the gift of props.
Like the hat box which belonged to John’s grandmother.
The tiny gloves that I wore to the White House.
The delicates which used to live on the shelves in the Muddy Creek General Store.
The leather purse and traveling iron which used to live on the shelf in Jane’s shop.
The coin silver spoon that Ted gave.
The teacup that Sue had to remind me was from her grandmother.
And that whimsical handkerchief of Polly’s which I pulled from the drawer
because of it’s red stripe, and only discovered half way through setting up the still life,
that it’s little girl was, Herself, doing the ironing.
Some of my most favorite paintings come from a single word.
And the gathering round of favorite things.
And the gift of quiet leisure in which to cherish them both.
A nod of thanks to the Granary staff for keeping the work alive and fresh and for all their support…which is no “small” thing.
From the MV Gazette…(photo credit, Albert O. Fisher)
New Harbor Master Shack Arrives in Menemsha
A new harbor master shack arrived in Menemsha on Monday afternoon, replacing the 35-year-old building perched above the commercial dock. The shack was built by students at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and transported via trailer. Voters approved spending $24,000 on the project late last year.”They did a nice job,” harbor master Dennis Jason Jr. said at a recent board of selectmen meeting. “The building was nicely put together.” – See more at:
http://mvgazette.com/news/2014/04/01/new-harbor-master-shack-arrives-menemsha?k=vg5246eee864179#sthash.tZMH95pO.dpuf
So, if I read this correctly, this newly delivered building will replace…
this old building…
Harbor Master – 2002
Just part of the many new changes in store for this old fishing village…stay tuned.
How, on this first day of spring,
I would love to be there again…
a step or two behind on the path
just out of earshot,
though I suspect there were few words to overhear,
and light years away from their memories…
but there, at least, to offer a wing, and a grin,
and to listen to these two old crones
telling their tales
to the sea.
Ted and Pete,
Against the odds,
they both weathered this winter
but neither is here today to welcome the spring.
Or, maybe I’m wrong about that.
Think I’ll grab my hat
and my stick
and strut the old pegs
and see what they have left along the trail
to brighten my sad eyes.
Pete Darling
March 19, 2014
Just for a few hours
I’d really like to sit on the porch
with my feet up
and almost all of the 15 layers of thermal woolen wear
laying in a pile to my right
and my snow shovel tossed into the weeds nearby
and feel the sun on my face
and have every joint in my hands be…not cold
and just listen to the birds
and the water lapping
on this shore…
pretty please.