Part of the Homescape

Party returns to Clover Slope

I was a little surprised by how joyful it was to receive Partofthelandscape home to Clover Slope once more.  He left about four years ago to help open the Doll & Toy Museum in Carlisle, KY and has served as a party animal ever since.  Party has modeled horse costumes (created by Shirley Gentry) at the Corner Studio (home of the Courthouse Square Arts Guild) and he has kept rockers company at the Neal Welcome Center.  He has even greeted guests to Derby Day festivities at Forest Retreat. 

Paris Pike just before her launch



        Party is my first Horse Mania horse.  I painted him in 2000 and had the opportunity to buy him  a few years later.  We trailered him to Clover Slope, where he fit right in because the windows and door has a certain stable-like quality.  In 2010, I painted Paris Pike. She was sponsored by Toyota Motor Manufacturing ,Kentucky, and they also bought her at the auction.  This is totally appropriate, as Paris celebrates the drive, especially along the beautifully expanded Paris Pike--perhaps one of the most beautiful roads in the country. Paris Pike now overlooks the goings on at Toyota's Georgetown, KY plant. Hmmm, I wonder if she had any input into the newly designed 2012 Camry?

        Meanwhile, back at the Clover Slope ranch, Party will be groomed a bit. He could have used a nice clear coat job like Paris enjoyed. It is good to have him home; part of the homescape.

Following Something Along



In the Floracliff woods, a year later

 I have a favorite book called Creative Autheniticity, by landscape painter Ian Roberts.  It could just as well be called To Thine Own Self be True. Roberts tells it like it is; that sooner or later we will know that we just have to be ourselves.  We can't help it.

     In the book, Roberts lays out 16 principles to clarify and deepen your artistic vision. My favorite principle at the moment is: Follow Something Along. Roberts makes the point that many of the great artists actually had one theme that they elaborated on for much of their career.  It is not necessary to take on the whole world to express yourself as an artist.

        I was thinking about this over the weekend when I returned to Floracliff for a walk in the autumn woods. A year ago, I was present at Floracliff for the 400th birthday of Woody, the chinquapin oak (please see my original post Into the Woods and later post Into the Woods, Part II.)  If there is a place that I am always at home, it is in the woods. Not only do I feel at home, but I feel elated, even though I am at the base of the trees and not in the heady upper branches.  It is very clear that this is my artistic theme. While I enjoy painting people, animals and all sorts of places, I'll always want to come back to the woods.  This is the vein to be mined, the bone to be gnawed.  Let me add this quote that Roberts includes:

Like to do your work as much as a dog likes to

gnaw a bone and go at it with equal interest and exclusion

of everything else.   ---- Robert Henry

       I highly recommend this book! 

    

Creative Authenticity: 16 Principles to Clarify and Deepen Your Artistic Vision

                                                           by Ian Roberts, published by the Atelier Saint-Luc Press

                                                            

Dancing Landscape  Floracliff 2010

It is Never Too Late to Learn...Naturally

This past week has been a joining of my past and my future.  A photographer came to photograph me in my studio. She is the fiancee of the son of a friend from my childhood, so I had the opportunity to talk about events of four + decades ago.  And there was a sale of an art collection gathered by this friend's mother over many decades and that presented the chance to see work by Lexington and Kentucky artists active in the sixties and seventies--the early visuals of my life!  Keeping with this theme, I went to figure drawing class and Tom, the teacher, had a well worn copy of Nicolaides' The Natural Way to Draw. When we students were called upon to introduce ourselves, I mentioned that I had used that book in a drawing class in the seventies.  You might notice that my copy looks fairly pristine, at least in comparison with Tom's duct-taped version.  This puts me to shame! 

       Never-the-less, I had recollection of the sorts of exercises Nicolaide's offers, such as gesture drawing, contour drawing and blind contour drawing.  In the photograph above, you can see blind contour drawing on the left, contour drawing on the right and gesture drawing in the photo to the right.  Looking back, I figure I have been drawing the figure for at least four decades.  Even so, it was clear there is always something to learn. During class, Tom pointed out one student's drawing, noting the focus on the tension in the arm and how that was the most dynamic aspect of that pose. I looked at my scribbly limb and saw the truth in Tom's observation.  We can always learn--that is what makes life so exciting!

    So now comes the invitation to you to join us for an Experimenting with Watercolor & Pastel class on Tuesday's in November, beginning November 8th from 7 - 9 pm.  In this class, we bring what we have to the art that we make: how we see the world and how our hands express that vision.  Students are encouraged to bring their own photographs for working on preferred subject matter. The use of watercolor and pastel gives us maximum flexibility for expression without painting ourselves in a corner.  Come check it out for yourself and learn something new!  Please visit the Lexington Art Academy website: lexingtonartacademy.com.

Ah...Autumn

The Autumn leaves...we have experienced a couple in just this last week.  Mary left last Sunday to be a teaching assistant in Brittany, France for the academic year. She arrived safely, with all her luggage in tow and has established herself in Queven. It is with a mixture of rapt excitement and mourning that I vicariously experience her new adventure.


Brothers, on the road together, post-trail



      This weekend, we say goodbye to our nephew, Private First Class Rees as he heads off to basic training.  The weather turned cold for the first morning of October and a brisk walk in the woods seemed like a good idea.  We went over to Blue Licks State Resort Park to indulge. The day was mostly overcast with sun shining sporadically through the just-barely changing leaves. I was filled with that bittersweet melancholy; where you experience something so lovely and simultaneously see it slip away. I knew in advance that there were a lot of paintings here. My photos never adequately express what I am seeing in this time on the cusp between summer and autumn.  Carly (the dog) set the pace on the Indian Run trail and so the ascent up the hill by the run warmed us up quite effectively. 



Fred with his good luck clover

  After our invigorating trek, we set out for a final, pre-basic training geo-cache hunt. This was also at Blue Licks. A black cat  (perhaps the same one we saw as we first set out on our hike?) was patrolling the area. Never-the-less, the cache was soundly found! Not only that, but as we were walking across the field to the car, I spotted a six-leaf clover, just in time to send Fred off with a good luck charm. My last chance--and my first October extra-leaf clover.


Here's to safe passage for our young people as they set out in the world. And here's to all us autumnal types, able to savor the sweetness of it all, even as we ourselves are drying on the vine (okay, I'm only speaking for myself!) What a glorious world!

Mary heads out, with her Susan Hoff bag!

Come, Creator Spirit

   

Yesterday, I received a telephone call from Conservative Majority (or Con Major, as it appeared on the caller ID). I was invited to listen to a "news item" and then take a survey. What followed was a histrionic rant, that was pretty much stuck with ideas that were thrown about before the 2008 presidential election. You have heard of these, Obama pals around with terrorists and believes in "God Damn America!" Obama is set on destroying America! And where did he get all that contributed money? Con Major is going to work tirelessly to get to the bottom of this! There was no mention of what the organization was actually for. After the "news", I suppose this was the "survey" part of the call, I thanked the Con Major person for reminding me to make that Obama 2012 contribution and pointed out helpfully that this would be one less contribution they would have to get to the bottom of, because I had told them about it upfront. 

Yesterday was also the day that I wrote up the text for our holiday cards this year. I am using the images pictured here.  They are my paintings from Mary's and Jacob's Alma Maters:  Rice University and the University of the South. At Mary's graduation from Rice in May, the Latin hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" was sung, as it has been sung at every Rice Commencement. Veni Creator Spiritus will be on the front of the card, along with the images. The translation of two verses of the hymn, which was in the program for the graduation is an antidote to today's destructive shouting.  The idea is that we can use our hearts and minds to work toward a better world.  The hymn says it best, so I'll include the translation  here for you:

Come, Creator Spirit
Visit the minds of your people,
Fill with supernal grace
The hearts which you have created.

Gives us the rewards of joy,

Give us the benefits of your favor,

Break the chains of strife,

Draw fast the bonds of peace.

May your mind be visited and your heart filled with grace!

The End of Peach Season



Vernon at Dawn

 I love peach season!  It starts out slowly, and we are impatient, enduring under ripe peaches. But then, before we know it, we are enjoying lovely, ripe peaches. Is there anything more appealing than a ripe peach -- the luscious smell, the cheeky color, the juicy flesh with a velvet skin? The season has grown longer and I can start the day with a fresh peach well into September.  Then comes the batch too far, when the peaches are bruised and have a sort of fermented nature. We can be hopeful and buy some more, but it is always a disappointment.  We have to let the peach season go.

      It looks like I have reached the end of peach season in my life.  My last blog post helped me understand this.  The dreams that I dreamed of thirty-four years ago have come true and now those dreamy beings are old enough to have their own peachy plans! I have to let them go. But not to worry. Autumn is my favorite time of the year and I have an autumnal pursuit to pour myself into.

Also this week is the Paris Art Walk. Stoner Creek Arts will be hosting Creative Harvest  at the Hopewell Museum, 800 Pleasant Street, Paris, KY.  I will have two paintings there, Red Fencerow and Goldenrod Gone By. (From 2011)

Leaving Home, Finding Home

In just a week, Mary leaves to be a teacher's assistant in Brittany, France for the academic year.  In the autumn of the year I graduated from college, I also made a significant trip to Europe. Recently, I found a notebook from that trip and I was struck by how much that I wrote then, still rings true today.  In fact, many of the dreams for my life that were developed and articulated during that time away from home, have come true and sound rather like this blog!
  
 Though the timing of this trip in Mary's life is similar to the timing of my trip to Murnau, Germany to learn German at the Goethe Institut; there is a huge difference between our preparation for such a trip.  Mary is a seasoned traveler and a very enthusiastic one.  She has already been to Europe earlier this summer! Mary was eight years old when we made a trip to Europe as a family. We visited Manchester, England where David and I spent five months in 1985. Mary and Jacob met children from around the world who were also staying in the university flats that summer.  Mary has also studied French since she was ten years old because we had the good fortune to have a lovely French woman move into our neighborhood and begin teaching French. Mary has made trips to Spain, and France with school/college groups and we took wonderful trips with the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestra to Italy and Central Europe. When Mary chose a college, it was four states and one-thousand miles away. She  drove herself.

   My situation back in 1977 was a little different.  I did not know any German. As a student of art history, it was a good idea to learn German, as the German's invented art history! So that was my purpose for the trip.  At that point in my life, I had not even traveled outside the state on my own, much less across the ocean.  I was terrified!  My brother Doug and sister-in-law Becky took the shuttle from Boston to New York to see me off.  I was so scared I could not fully appreciate this act of kindness. My flight was from New York to Frankfurt, but the only time I slept was when there was turbulence (I like flying!) This was right after the l976 Munich Olympics and the attacks on the Israeli team. Germany was on high alert.  For some reason, we were not able to go straight to Frankfurt and had to land in Cologne.  The flight then when on to Frankfurt.  The same plane was supposed to go on to Munich, but we had to switch planes for some reason and we had 20 minutes to get to this new flight with our luggage and go through customs. Some how I made it.  In Munich, I managed to make my way to the rail station and obtain a ticket to travel to Murnau, although the communication was not via spoken language! On the way to Murnau, a little town nestled up to the mighty Alps, we made a number of stops and the landscape was as foreign as the language to me. Trees were completely different. This was wonderful!  At Murnau, it was as if I were deposited in a cow pasture (which doesn't seem like such a bad thing now.)  I found a place to spend the night and I'll never forget the sound of the cars on the narrow roads bounded by buildings right along the main thoroughfare.  Now our cars in the US sound very much the same and the sound I hear on my street in Lexington is not unlike the sound on the Mainstrasse in Murnau. The next day, I registered at school and landed at my new home for the next two months.  In my little room with my Italian roommate who spoke no English (and I no Italian) accompanied only by the possessions that could fit in one modest suitcase, I learned what I wanted in life. I wrote that in my little book and when I re-read it just recently, thirty-four years later, it was still true! Perhaps, ironically, it was/is all about home.  Sometimes you have to travel far away to see home clearly.

     Mary has already had these experiences of traveling far, on her own and with just a few possessions.  Still, I hope that she makes some new discoveries about what she wants in life.  And I hope they come true, too!