Gallery Wright

Beautiful Day

2012-03-04T15:58:00.000-05:00

Good Morning

The Price of a Pizza

2012-03-02T17:10:00.000-05:00

Maple Bark

Not very often did my father complain about the way of the world except when it came to 'The Price of a Pizza'. When his offspring and their offspring would wind up at his house near a mealtime, my parents ordered pizza instead of scaring up dinner for nine or twelve on a moments notice. My father often took that opportunity to start again with 'how much do you think it costs to make a pizza?' Various adult children regularly responded variously. "I am buying it, Dad" to "You are right, Dad, that is exactly what is wrong with America" or "Yes but add in labor costs..".

I am intrigued with some of the new brain science I know so little about. As I understand it, your brain thinks thoughts as an automatic muscle response just like scratching an itch, the more you think a thought the more your brain seeks to think that thought. Is that why my father didn't tire of the pizza conversation and why I forget the same things over and over again? Much of this winter I have thought about random patterns, such as on tree bark, in rock beds, in feelings and bird tracks in snow. In salamander season I astound my trail pal Jen with my ability to spot them. The salamander 'pattern' is wired in my brain therefore I see them, I might not see the tree I ran into, but salamanders, I see. Why? Twenty years ago my very young visiting nephew nearly kicked one. He'd only ever seen plastic ones, he thought the salamander was a toy.

Seems we are back to that, the world is what we think it is, but if we get a glimpse out of our regular pattern, maybe we'll see much more.

Bark and Barking

2012-03-02T13:28:00.000-05:00

Bark

and barking

before the big snow

Keeping Company

2012-02-25T13:47:00.001-05:00

Today's rock n' tree

Rosie started lifting her leg, not at home but on the trail in the company of all her boy dog friends. Chance lifts his leg higher than any dog I have ever seen. It's a wonder he doesn't wet himself with spray, so it's no wonder Rosie has decided a little leg lift is in order.

Trees that grow on the silted tops of rocks have my respect. They don't have much in the line of normal tree footing but they manage and sometimes they even manage to alter the rock. I have seen roots envelop a boulder, split a boulder and nearly rebury a boulder. I think of a tree altering a boulder like a slow motion magic trick. And I can't but think the trees and their rocks are keeping company across species much like my dog and I. Rosie's roots, thankfully tenacious.

And Mr Chance.

Raven

2012-02-24T17:48:00.000-05:00

Glory Hole

Last night I had a dream I was taking a serious test in serious group. The test was to correctly name your bird totem. Raven popped into my head but I had difficulty not saying 'ranger' instead. (Remember I was dreaming.) When it came to my turn I did indeed successfully say Raven. Everyone else named a bird, but then the 'Man' asked me to name my bird totem again. I looked the man in the eye and said 'morning glory' because I'd had it with this test. The Big Fellow said, 'definitely Raven'.

Ravens nest in the wall behind the glory hole. This morning as I drove out the parking lot one of the Ravens did what they occasionally do and flew the road with me, hanging right in front and above the windshield of the car, a sweet reminder about my funny feisty dream.

Rainy trek

2012-02-23T17:37:00.001-05:00

Birch Marks

Mr Big

In contrast but right near Mr Big, these two brave baby souls live precariously beside the trail.

At the end of the rainy trek, sunshine breaking through.

Crayons, pencil and wrapping paper today

2012-02-22T14:54:00.000-05:00

Starting out

building a form

maybe wrecked

enough for today

Lurking

2012-02-21T17:12:00.000-05:00

Lu on the move

Lu followed Rose and I into the field. Lu's a tricky girl. She knows she doesn't want to play 'chase me' outside with the dog where Rosie can get up some speed and cut and run. Inside Lu taunts Rosie, outside Lu lurks. Pretty smart for a pigeon toed bow-legged beauty.

Burly Morning

2012-02-19T12:03:00.000-05:00

Old Maple with a high healed amputation

A bunch of burls and scars caught my eye this morning. How do these hardy trees survive these bumps?

Big scar for a big tree

Younger maple with a big belly

Pale

2012-02-16T14:50:00.000-05:00

Pale Green Ice

Rose worries when we walk the trail without the other dogs. The same dog who bosses all the big boy dogs around doesn't like to walk alone. This morning she was teased by chipmunks. One chipmunk sat in the middle of the trail and dared her to chase. Rose looked at me as if to say you first.

Walking, I pale in comparison to her dog friends, but I lead the pack at back scratching, just a matter of knowing your strengths.

Sweetness

2012-02-14T09:56:00.002-05:00

A little beauty on the trail this morning

Busy,Busy,Busy Days

2012-02-12T16:16:00.000-05:00

but still beautiful mornings

and looking towards Readsboro

A New Resting Place

2012-02-05T11:55:00.000-05:00

I chatted with a jeweler friend /business associate yesterday. He lives a distance away and he hasn’t paid too much attention to Irene or the flood. I had to explain how it is that a flood from August is still very much part of my daily work. Once he grasped the magnitude of what is both different and uncertain here, Andrew was taken aback. How are you able to function in such uncertain circumstances, was his question.

Life is like that at times. I have had a solid three years of one thing after another. One big thing after another with very little rest between the buffeting waves. Sometimes though we prepare ourselves for our lives without even knowing it. Not so long ago, as much as I loved being in water, I did not feel comfortable in over my head. I worked on it. I swam everyday I could and talked myself through my worries, told myself, I can get to shore, I can. And now through all these changing seas, my most restorative respite; water as deep as I can find.

Dancing Burls

2012-02-03T13:00:00.002-05:00

Three good bumps.

I am taking a life drawing class. First time in decades I have been in a 'I want you to do it like this' situation. Oh boy. I am sometimes teased about getting into a tight spot and describing the difficult experience as great. Well, here comes another one.

Pearls

2012-02-01T16:57:00.001-05:00

I love these last chance barrels warning, presumably people, from falling into the intake shoot at the dam. When I see the big sign 500 yards before the barrels that says 'Danger, turn around', I feel immediate anxiety. How do you know when the sign is for you? For background, I have a hard time interpreting the orange signs on the back of trucks that says 'construction vehicle, do not follow'. When I am in traffic behind a truck with that signage, does that mean at any moment it could be not okay?

From a number of different perspectives I have been struggling today with black and white. Photographing white things, strong declarative statements, drawing with charcoal. I think that's why I like those barrels, like an orange pearl necklace, no confusing words, just wrong.

Pink Rose Morning

2012-01-29T16:29:00.002-05:00

Snowshoe Morning

2012-01-28T15:37:00.004-05:00

Glory all around, then I got home to popcorn clouds and turkey tracks all over the driveway.

Head in the sky, feet on the ground, not a bad job we have.

Lemonade

2012-01-27T15:56:00.000-05:00

My neighbor's Hawthorn

Lemonade from lemons, the ice is beautiful on this Hawthorn.

And again

2012-01-25T19:26:00.000-05:00

Today was another persevere word. The morning walk is quite slowed down and difficult, little, mincing, careful steps, not my style. It’s not exercise, it’s not a stretch and my muscles are sore from tight rope walking for miles because we are too stubborn to turn around or not to go. The dogs are wild show offs. They bound around, run ahead, slipping, sliding and all tumbled up, happy as anything, falling all over the icy place. Nowadays I only like to fall gently onto soft things, like down comforters and pillows. And I can see that the day will come when even that will be dangerous. We try to make good choices, but there is much that we don't get to choose, it just is, for the moment and then it is the next thing. Happy dogs, smart pups.

Winter Patterns

2012-01-22T12:43:00.000-05:00

Early color

Rocks and ice

Clouds

Trees

Wonderful

2012-01-21T16:17:00.000-05:00

The Hobby Horse has great form. Whoever made him had a great eye or a really good pattern as well as good woodworking skills and practices. The Hobby Horse has also been, well mauled. Someone cut off his mane and his ears. He's lost a stirrup and half his tail is missing. Plus he's quite tarnished and he has various nails driven into him in odd places. As I have been working on this section or that I have thought about who might have made him, when and why. And I have thought about a child altering him. The complex emotions someone goes through when they realize, 'Oops. I can't undo making Barbie bald'.

Last night I sanded the bottom rail where the horse has wood burned initials. Lo and behold, sanding revealed Mr Hobby Horse is dated. 11/18/1979. Day he was finished, day he was given to someone, someone's birthday?

It's not clear to me yet what story my initials on Mr Hobby Horse will tell, maybe still maiming but with the skills to put Barbie's hair back on. Wonderful.

Please Wait

2012-01-20T14:34:00.000-05:00

Dunderhead

Both my camera and my phone constantly give me a screen that says "Please Wait". Those were the words in my head when I came back from the walk this morning and I was adding antlers on the Hobby Horse.

Every morning, every single morning except for today, I wait for Jen to drive away first. This morning the walk ended early as the road had the surface of a bottle and I kept falling even with ice grippers on. When we got back to our cars Jen realized she had dropped her glove. I waited, she picked it up and headed for her car. We had parked just off 100 at the beginning of the Dam Road instead of driving all the way in, I hollered good bye, turned around and drove away as Jen was getting into her car.

Hardly does Jen call me at work but she did and yes, I should have waited. Jen had gotten stuck and after much ado, wound up using her windshield scrapper to mar the road to get enough traction to move the car. And yes from now on, I will wait.

Mr Hobby Horse

2012-01-18T17:18:00.000-05:00

He likes to eat browse

I took the hobby horse home. I couldn't help myself, he needs ears and a mane and one of his stirups is missing. It will be a miracle if he gets those practical assets from me, as you can see I lean more along the lines of making his thinking plain.

and he has apples on the brain.

Winter

2012-01-17T18:42:00.001-05:00


The lake froze over

Rose is a happy busy dog

and rocks are in their glory

Red Orange

2012-01-16T14:58:00.003-05:00

Here's a red orange sunrise from one day last week.

And more kindness

2012-01-13T14:33:00.003-05:00

There was a mean wind kicking up outside this afternoon when Lenny Chapman, Renee Galle and I headed out to install new paintings around the Village. This painting is by Sue Spengler and it is on the east side of the Cady and Dugan building on South Main St. It's a great painting and a great kindness on everyone's part to lend their hands and their skills to care for our Village in its time of need. Thank you artists, Joan Lovel, Jim McGrath, Sue Spengler and Renee Galle. And Lenny Chapman, helping every step of the way!

Kindness

2012-01-12T14:04:00.003-05:00

Window at Manyu's, dressed by Renee Galle

Last night I went outside with Rosie at midnight. The slightest little dusting of snow had started. Oh good I thought, it will be too slippery to drive to the Dam in the morning, I'll sleep in. And I did sleep in, I got up at 6. Getting up in the dark used to seem mean and uncivilized to me, now I'd have to be sick to willingly stay in bed through sunrise. Life changes everything. Renee is right, snow and kindness change everything too.

Worry {Joy Huckins}

2012-01-10T14:11:00.000-05:00

"Calais Field", Joy Huckins, oil, 24"x 30"

Worry is one of those words with multiple meanings implying both positive and negative characteristics. Dogs worry bones and people worry rugs. Some painters worry canvas. Artist Joy Huckins worries about the texture of light. Layer upon layer of paint reveals the spectrum of colors invovled in sunlight brushing a tree. Reds, yellows, blues, greens sit upon one another until we can’t tell them apart and yet somehow one sees the green trees brushed with the late afternoon purple light. And the worry of the paint has become pure beauty. New Joy Huckins paintings came in today!

Play

2012-01-09T12:56:00.000-05:00

My new chair has play in its legs. I go back and forth in my mind as to whether or not I should try to eradicate it. This a a typical artist type conundrum. Why wouldn't I fix the chair? Well, for one thing, the play in the chair is honest to the chair's age. And furthermore, it is a tad unnerving when you sit in it. Using chairs as my canvas has opened up a train of thought around sitting and seats and staying in your seat. Often since the flood, one thing or another has come up where I'd really like to whirl around and have things come out my way. But it has been just as obvious to me that I would achieve nothing but exhaustion for my thrashings. So for the most part, I have stayed put. True, sometimes nervously wiggling about but sometimes seated, patient and quiet. Waiting.

This Morning

2012-01-07T11:24:00.000-05:00

Bountiful

2012-01-06T16:29:00.001-05:00

Don't you love that hobby horse? I found him at Chapman's Antique Barn on New England Power Road. Over the course of this winter I am going to have a selection of items from the Chapman's bountiful barn in the gallery. Lenny and Diane brought the first batch over today. A sweet little love seat and a sofa, a sewing cabinet, a clerk's desk, the hobby horse and an amazing old tricycle. They look great in here with the paintings! Come check it out.

Security

2012-01-05T13:06:00.001-05:00

Most of my work was damaged or ruined in the flood. The sheer volume of my work combined with my tendency to continue working on a piece if I was in the same room with it led to a lack of photographic documentation. The other day as I was filling out an application to once again be a registered Teaching Artist with the Vermont Arts Council I realized oops, what do I have for documentation of my work?

Sure enough I immediately found a salvaged disc with the exact number of images on it that I need.

It is very easy to find worry these days, half a Village, no snow and an ongoing uneasy national economy. These little random kindnesses like finding the right documentation when I need it, I am betting on it.

Sedate

2012-01-04T10:00:00.002-05:00

Sedate with Ernie

This is my new chair. Ernie has been breaking it in almost nonstop since I brought the chair in the house yesterday afternoon. The chair’s sedate life is about to come to an abrupt end. For almost a year it’s been in the back of my mind that I wanted to do something to/with chairs. I have a wood burning tool kit, jewelry saws with sharp thin blades, paint, inks, nails, birch bark, who knows where this will go. For now, the chair is going to have to trust the processor.

Trusting the processor

2012-01-01T16:41:00.001-05:00

Early morning, looking for sunrise through the trees.

This week both customers and friends had to help me swipe with the new credit card "Square" processor and my iPad. Yesterday after more fumbling with the processor, the iPad and a cardiologist from Austria, I had a clear thought and decided I might not be the only slow learner with this new technology. I went to my "Square" account online and sure enough there was a four step tutorial on how to swipe a credit card. I did it 25 times minimum. I got it. I can swipe a credit card with that thing. I have to tell you, it is so cool. And I love how easy it is to use now that I know how. And no, my ridiculousness is not lost on me.

Quiet

2011-12-30T15:35:00.001-05:00

I am going to take a blogging break for a couple more days. Head cold. Head cold and thinking, not so much.

My Tidy Cat

2011-12-28T14:07:00.000-05:00

I digress today. Lu woke me up at 3:30 this morning trilling a happy long loud trill. To my ears, the proud trilling sounded like trouble. I got up, followed Lu to the kitchen and this is what had her so darn pleased with herself:

Yes I lock the trash cabinet, Lu works the lock off the knobs. And yes Lu can get things out without tipping the trash can over. Lu loves shredding, especially shredding onto the dog's blanket. Freaks Rosie out. Rose would not come into the kitchen until I cleaned it up. You can not tell me that Lu doesn't think this is all funny.

The Colors of Familiar

2011-12-27T16:13:00.000-05:00

"House and Barns", detail, Andy Newman, oil, 5"x 9"

It is commonly thought that we Americans always want the next new, new thing. From the flood I am learning a different lesson. While I might want the one new thing, many, many new things at once downright perplex me.

The celebration of backbone is central to my long standing connection to Andy Newman’s work. Andy isn’t interested in the new thing. Andy is interested in the long term relationship, specifically the long term relationship between a building and the landscape. Andy paints and reveres change and stability of some of our best old barns. The barns, like this historic Village, withstand.

Pratical Magic

2011-12-26T15:30:00.000-05:00

This morning the lake was inky black and the sky fully grey, as if the world was monochromatic. Today at work I am fussing with the gallery’s technology. In theory, it all seemed like a good idea to go for the newest technology than to recreate my old systems. All my equipment needed to be replaced, computer, printer, credit card processor, stereo (yes I still had a music system) and phone. Router. Now everything is new and differently wired but my brain is not. Case in point, I have this little flat 1” square thing that I plug into an ipad to swipe credit cards. Receipts are emailed to customers. Hmmm. I just took a picture of the 'Square' from my iPad, emailed it to me and loaded it onto this blog.

First a flood, now magic tricks.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T11:35:00.001-05:00

Early this morning, Tree with Halloween lights

end of day today

2011-12-23T20:07:00.002-05:00

The new digs

2011-12-22T16:56:00.000-05:00

Got the keys yesterday morning!

Celebrating {Tim Merrick}

2011-12-20T15:45:00.000-05:00

When I first trained as a printmaker, demonstrating absolute control over the the process was a primary goal. Like a lot of us in the last 25 years, printmaking has changed its mind. Nowadays you are both free and responsible to make up your own rules and goals in your printmaking work.

It’s sounds easier than following a strict rule set, doesn’t it? Set your own goals, decide on your yardstick, create away. And truly the first blush of freedom and creative juice is a gas, and then you realize you are on your own. You. The very person you know who maybe procrastinates, is forgetful, lazy, distracted, confused, undisciplined. And you think, wow, how is this jerk going to get this done?

That’s what I love about Tim Merrick’s work. Tim is technically a great printmaker and while his work is traditional his plate material is not. He uses pieces of his grandfather’s salvaged copper roof to etch or scratch images on. When Tim is drawing on a copper plate he doesn’t know how the image he draws and the dings and dangs of the old roofing material are going to work together once he inks the plate. He lets it happen, he trusts it will work out, that he will be able to work with what is inherent in the material and himself and make good. He trusts that the plate marks from the salvaged copper and his drawings will dance well together, celebrating both the material and the artist’s flaws.

All in good cheer {IPad}

2011-12-19T13:24:00.001-05:00

I’ll post real photos of Tim Merrick’s work and write the real blogpost about the work tomorrow. For today I want to talk about the ipad you see in the photo reflection. My old work computer flooded. I replaced it with an ipad to use as both almost a computer and the credit card machine. Everyone loves the ipad. I like it, sortof, sometimes. But intuitive? huh? I shut it off instead of taking a photo, the screen spins and then we can’t stop. I turn it, it turns itself in response to my turning it and on we go. Half the time I can’t get out of where ever I got to and when I shut the machine down to get back to square one it brings me right back to the lost place I was. Why does it seem to use up battery when I think it is off?

And then cloud and dropbox. One day I read about dropbox, downloaded it and uploaded my photos to it. Dropbox said the upload would take five days. If I knew where dropbox was I would have snail mailed the files faster.

Really what I think it boils down to is this, I have been in Vermont too long to re-up with the rest of the world now. But I do I need to get better at this ‘device’ and synching to the cloud and everything else before I go back to work, I know what I look like being so easily bested by these things.

HokeyPokeyists {Pam Murphy}

2011-12-17T13:29:00.001-05:00

"Heirloom", Murphy, oil, 32"x27"

This morning Jen and I got onto this old joke, what if the hokey pokey really is what’s it’s all about. We had been talking about how dogs think in pictures and we were talking about it as if we really know dogs think in pictures. Point of fact. And it struck me how often in our individual and collective minds we think we now know the truth. Now we know what the world is made of and all those other people who came before us well they tried and maybe even added in some critical information but now we Know. The hysterical thing is that daily we find out one hard fact or another isn’t quite right, often dead wrong.

Yet being mistaken almost all the time makes not so much impression on our fundamental belief that we know who we are, where we are, why we are here and what to do about it. Study history and it seems as if most all people who came before us knew everything too.

Children often question everything. In Pam Murphy paintings children figure prominently. The children are seriously going about the business of childhood. There is something about the paintings that open a narrative door for the viewer. The stories I hear are frequently compelling. In the paintings we gaze at the child facing their uncertain future with determination, bravery, welcome or worry. We see ourselves and our loved ones.

What I like best about Pam’s paintings is they help us see ourselves as we really are, doing our best. Maybe in the future we will find that we were mistaken, but for now, carry on, do the hokey-pokey.

"Girl V", Murphy, oil, 24"x23"

Persevere {Rich Gombar}

2011-12-16T14:09:00.001-05:00

"Winter Dressing", Gombar, oil, 14"x20"

Persevere is not my favorite word. I think of work with little indication of success. These are new Rich Gombar paintings. Rich paints atmosphere and light with maybe some building thrown in. Rich has been painting in this vein since college, quite a few moons ago. Sometimes I get a painting from Rich and the back has two or three dates on it, often spanning decades. A simple landscape with a barn and it took him twenty years to get it right.

Of my painters, Rich’s simple landscapes are the ones that prompt people to ask me how long did it take him to do that? The thought being that the simplicity of forms in the painting equals its ease of execution. What is harder to detect is the subtle working of the paint, how just the right light quality is rendered without much ado.

Painting like this is like watching a plant grow, without access to trick photography nothing much seems to be happening. Growth in many aspects of our lives is like that, persevere, endure, persevere. Gombar’s paintings mark the great beauty we sometimes glimpse for our efforts.

"Light in August", Gombar, oil, 24"x36"

Mapping {Eric Angeloch}

2011-12-14T11:12:00.000-05:00

"No. 4", Angeloch, oil, 30"x30"

I know you know what happened today. That’s right, I could not find where I pulled that mysterious shovel head out of the ground yesterday. It’s going on ten years that I have walked those 10 or 12 acres of woods, the shovel head was right in one of my usual paths. As surprised as I was yesterday to trip over something I walked by hundreds of times I am not so surprised that I couldn’t find the evidence today.

Mysteries are like that. Most of our lives are mysteries much as we try to fake ourselves into believing we are in charge and control. A flash flood destroying a Village has a certain way of ripping that consciousness to shreds. Art, the making and the viewing of it, has the same power though usually more gently wielded.

"No.10", Angeloch, oil, 30"x30"

These are new Eric Angeloch paintings. Eric paints his feelings. He uses his memories and impressions of cloud formations and storms to express his feeling state on canvas. I have shown Eric’s work for 10 years now. Over the years one person after another has looked at an Eric painting and named a specific place that is the painting. Yet Eric makes up his landscapes, it is not a specific place and Eric’s landscapes often defy our physical landscape by their characteristics.

Still I would say that Eric paints the truth. Things often seem to be pretty much as we feel them to be, whether great or good enough or lousy. Change how we feel and we have essentially changed how we are. Sounds simple enough. And it is and isn’t. Like a good painting somewhere embedded in the process of change and creativity is mystery. A painter like Eric works and stands there and looks and works and thinks and stands there some more, open and ready for something unexpected and enlivening to happen on the canvas. It’s a sweaty process and it doesn’t always work. I think of Eric’s paintings as compelling records of self change, maps that he offers us, “Here, here is how I made it through that dark passage, so may you.”

"No. 4", Angeloch, oil, 30"x30"

Mysteries

2011-12-13T11:57:00.000-05:00

Rosie and I walked up to check on the tile this morning. The tile is a cement holding tank set into the ground, at the bottom of the tank is a pipe that feeds water to my house. It’s a gravity fed spring water system. We were making our way down and around through the woods when I tripped over the top of a pipe sticking up out of the ground.

I knew there were old wells in that section of woods, I could not resist pulling on the pipe. Could I be opening a covered up well? Would I lift up the pipe and be standing next to a deep Alice in Wonderland type hole? Would the pipe even budge?

It budged, it was a shovel. I didn’t expect that. It was a shovel without a handle in the middle of the woods. The shovel was in the ground the way you would stick a shovel in the ground during a job or at the end of the digging or filling in part of the job. I have left my garden shovels tucked into the ground like that many times. To the best of my knowledge I retrieve my shovels long before the handle has completely disappeared and the woods have reclaimed where I was working.

We can carbon date but we can’t make objects talk and spill their beans. We try. We try to understand everything.

Love

2011-12-12T16:35:00.000-05:00

Last Friday's Post:

Love was the word today. And there was a lot to love about the day, the final touches of spruce up the town for the holidays got finished, I had really good pizza for dinner and it was not windy. Still I was a bit perplexed about the word of the day till I remembered my mother. Tomorrow is the second anniversary of her death.

My mother was a very charming woman, not so much to her children. I believe she thought if she showed us affection we might be too content to potty train. Seven children. But in her dying days which were about ten, she smiled and said I love you upmteen times a day. On the days she had strength she interspersed her love words with her regular ‘straighten ups’ to her offspring.

Here’s one scene: my sister leans over the hospital bed rail and says “Hi Mom I love you” to the fading one who responds, “Wow, you have a big bum.” My sister, 40 something years old, thinks my mother could not have said that, and in an effort not to have those be the last words she hears her mother speak to her, says, “What Mum?” Giving my mother the chance to smile and say again “You have a really big bum”. Four or five siblings, a niece maybe, a cousin or two are in the room and we are not deaf nor dumbfounded. With the relief akin to sniper fire survivors, we giggled and snickered.

At the very end it was just my mother and myself. It was wonderfully conscious and peaceful, three times my mother smiled smiles I did not know were humanly possible, they were the definition of beatific. I don’t have any idea what follows this life if anything at all, but my often sharp mother’s death, it was holy.

So then what about those poems, love is always gentle and never unkind, blah, blah, blah. Is it possible that love is also like my mother and our gentle river that raised up and wailed us. A confluence of events occurred in the river’s core and we were in the way, hard as it to fathom, it wasn’t personal.

A tricky cheesy word

2011-12-11T13:16:00.001-05:00

The Original Mary Mary

Alright as it is Sunday I should admit I got another cheesy word, last Friday. A quite tricky cheesy word, it is love. It took all day on Friday for me to make a connection to the word, not that there were not plenty of things I loved about the day but I thought the word was love in a capital kind of way.

Late in the day I made the link to the word and the second anniversary of my mother’s death. My mother was a tricky charming woman, and writing about her is even trickier especially because like love in a capital kind of way, it seems just when you think you have it all figured out the target moves.

I am going to give this topic a whirl for the next few days if you will keep in mind that I am aiming with clunky words at a shape shifting target.

Music to my Ears

2011-12-10T09:24:00.001-05:00

Sitting for treats

In the morning or the very late night as it is, the cats run around making noise about 15 minutes before I get out of bed. Lu the calico, has many ways of making noise besides galloping. As this is an old house all doors close themselves. Lu removes the door stop in my bedroom and lets the door slam. Then Lu goes around and pushes the same door open from the other side so that, yup, it slams again. Lu also opens drawers,cabinets and cupboards and empties them. She especially likes the under the kitchen sink trash cabinet.

This morning the cats were completely quiet, completely. It got so that I was concerned. And then a clear ping rang out, like a metal gong had been rung. In case I thought I imagined that, and again, pinnggg. I got up. Lu was sitting on the kitchen table (I know) looking as pleased as could be. It was then that I saw my felt necklace in the dog’s metal water bowl. Apparently my felt necklace, her deft paw and the dog’s water bowl, perfect gong.

I know she thought that was just brilliant and hilarious, I do too.

Deadening

2011-12-08T17:01:00.001-05:00

Deadened Sunflowers at Sunset

Yesterday I spoke with a long distance friend of mine who I had not spoken with since June. She had no idea Wilmington flooded. Linda has been here a few times so she needed to go through it building by building. Today I go to my quarterly eye doctor appointment. He is twenty miles away and I haven’t seen him since the flood. I expect he might ask me about .

Sitting here, I can imagine some time in the future where I will be able to talk about the flood and it will not bring up feelings of shock, confusion or helplessness.

God weighed in

2011-12-07T11:11:00.001-05:00

Here's what it looked like where Stinky and I washed off in the still dark December lake

God weighed in this morning and he took Jennifer’s side. We have been meeting at 6:15 when it is still really night. Jen worries that the dogs are going to run into something in the dark, like a porcupine or a skunk or a bear. I have pretty much ignored Jen’s worries and forged ahead, getting to the lake even earlier than 6:15 so that I am waiting for ‘Jen who hates to be late’ when she arrives.

This morning Jen arrived and said the first two sentences I could have predicted, oh it’s dark and maybe we should meet a little later. The dogs ran ahead. Rosie has one bad habit. Of course I could not see her carry out her stinky 'rolling in it' desires because it was so dark. About halfway to the halfway mark Rose came up behind me and rubbed her muzzle on me. I pet her. Only then did the enormity of the smell reach my nose. I can’t remember now if that was before or after I agreed to later tomorrow.

Swimming In December

2011-12-06T08:52:00.001-05:00

It's not snow but it is my white flood rock

Wow was it ever rainy and dark this morning. By the end of the walk I felt just like I had been swimming. I love that feeling of being all wet and getting out of the water. And yes, I could have used a towel and my pants were all stuck to my legs but still I was grateful and exhilarated.

It is not often that we have a warm rain in December. It is not even remotely conducive to skiing, which is what we economically need to be doing these days. It is sort of overwhelming here how much we want the weather to cooperate with our business plans and how much this year the weather has said no. And how strongly.

I find myself giving in. I don’t have more stress to give to worrying about when the gallery will be ready or when the mountain will open. I’ve used up all my stress this year. And what I am learning from depleting my stress bank: next year, I’d like to remember to forget to re-up.

Wasting time and money

2011-12-05T15:17:00.001-05:00

This morning the word was waste. Yuck. I dislike wasting time, money, food, gas, you name it, I don’t like to waste it. Some days driving to the morning walk I think I am wasting gas. Then I get there:

This is where I turn around:

This is almost back to the beginning of the trail head:

Most everyday it is just that beautiful. I have a deep and profound gratitude to be able to make that daily trek. Yet without doubt I question my energy commitment to the time and gas it takes to walk the walk. So too, all my adult life, I have questioned my time and energy commitment to art, to community work and to beauty. As you can imagine, Irene has put me right up against the wall questioning those commitments and choices. And three months out, as difficult as this time is, my answer remains the same, what else is there?

When this happens

2011-12-04T16:25:00.001-05:00

Today’s word upon waking was grace. As it is Sunday I thought that was pretty cheesy. Long as I have been doing this word of the day thing I remain skeptical. So today after my snarly thought came the phrase ‘moving through hard things today, be graceful’. Well you can guess how that went, by noon today no less than 5 people had expressed some form of upset feelings to me.

This afternoon I thought of upset feelings like a weird form of bumper pool. My upset feeling ball careens into your feeling ball upsetting you and sending your feeling ball into someone else’s space. On it can go, often enough, it seems, picking up steam.

Gosh it is hard not to get upset back! And I didn’t, but all day long little snippets and snags kept popping up in my mind and I’d go back to that cheesy Sunday word, grace, be graceful. Finally I looked the word up because when I call on something so many times in one day I start to question it’s meaning: graceful - characterized by beauty of movement, style, form, or execution

Back to my bumper pool game, I see now my work is not so much to make sure that I will not get moved or bumped but my work, my gracefulness, is what I do with the hit.

Again the flood, such a teacher.

It's Both

2011-12-03T16:35:00.001-05:00

You might have the wrong impression. All those beautiful dawn photos of the lake and the glory hole might lead you to believe that the morning dog walk is perfectly bucolic and peaceful. And truly some of it is. But we walk with four dogs, my one beautiful Rosie girl and Jen’s three boys including Smelliot, oops typo, I mean Elliott.

We have just finished rifle season here in Vermont and the woods around the trail unfortunately have some deer remains where hunters gutted deer. Elliott quite likes the body parts. So these days the walk goes a little like this, good morning, oh it’s cold, oh it’s warm, oh it’s pretty, girl talk, girl talk, blah blah Elliott! ELLIOTT! sorry what were you saying? girl talk, (stunning beauty, jaw dropping beauty) ELLIOTT! girl talk ELLIOTT! ELLIOTT! ELLIOTT! No NO leave it, get up, LEAVE IT, LEAVE IT, LET”S GO, LEAVE IT. (Often some running towards the dog rolling on the whatever on the ground takes place here.)

To push matters over the edge, at the very end of the walk near the parking lot on more than one occasion of late there has been human stuff, you know of the ‘blank happens’ kind. Yes, Elliott again, he likes it.

On the way home today I thought about how I am, how easy it is for me to be immersed and committed to the whatever that is really good or conversely the whatever that is really bad but it is not so easy for me to hold them both loosely in my mind at once. The walk is good practice, the flood is even better.

Art

2011-12-02T07:39:00.001-05:00

The other night the river got going again. It picks up boulders and smashes them into one another. It is a particular clunking thud sound that I could not comprehend when I was evacuating here but it is a sound to which I am now keyed.

It was 1:30 am and it woke me up. After a bit I turned the light on and I thought about a river art event on the anniversary of the flood, a piece that would last for the duration of the flood, maybe 4 or 5 hours. It seems important to me that the anniversary event incorporate the sound of the flood, the sound of the thudding, somehow recalling and transforming the sound of the raging, racing wall of water.

Art can be a decoration, an add on after basic material necessities are secured. And that banal realm has a definite significant subtle value in our lives but art can also be the source which puts our spirits, our emotions, our souls aright again, if we will allow ourselves the experience.

Surprise

2011-11-30T10:48:00.001-05:00

Most days I do a word thing when I wake up. I choose a ‘word of the day’. Persevere has been the word over and over again since August 28th. I’d get out of bed thinking, again? At night before I go to sleep I think about the word and see how it set the tone for the day or helped me navigate a situation or would have helped me if I had remembered to think about it.

Yesterday’s word was surprise. I’d never had that word before. I arrived at the dam for the dark sunrise dog walk before Jennifer. While standing on the dam looking down the hill, I heard this really odd sound, like something driving through the trees and hitting everyone of them, clack, clack, clack, loud. Of course it was really still quite dark. Rosie and I stood there staring into the black woods frightened and dumbfounded. Believe me, this is how the word of the day thing sometimes works, I was indeed, surprised.

The noise stopped, nothing came out of the woods at us and I figured it was probably a moose or a buck with a big itchy rack rubbing against the trees. Hmm, I thought, I got my word of the day out of the way early.

On with my busy day I went. I was at the gallery hanging outdoor winter lights when a fellow came up to me with a big camera on his shoulder.

http://www.wcax.com/story/16148274/wilmington-businesses-show-resilience

I chuckled when I went to bed last night, I guess the day had more surprises in store, on tv! I didn’t even fluff my hair.

Check out the new floor

2011-11-29T15:40:00.001-05:00

Rising Up Again

2011-11-28T17:58:00.001-05:00

November mornings it seems as if the sun will not rise. The sun gets going so late, well after 6am. Today's slow motion sunrise seemed to go hand in hand with the oddity of rebuilding a village after a flood. Much as we are steadily working at remaking our lives, it seems almost like a miracle that it is actually happening.

2011-11-25T13:45:00.001-05:00

Writing today from the new Reading Room at Bartleby's Books. Patty who works at the Red Mill and lives in Wilmington Village is here telling the story of the flash flood. For the first time since the flood I can tolerate listening to someone telling the story of how rising water went from inches below our highest levels to many feet over the high water mark in a matter of minutes.

It is amazing that we are not 90 days out and many buildings have been rebuilt, roads are functional and we are going on.

Ready

2011-11-24T13:03:00.001-05:00

Walked with Jen and the dogs to the glory hole:

Baked a Pie

Checked on the gallery, that's Carl Boyd's red truck in front. He's working on the gallery floors this morning.

Dropped off paintings at Bartleby's for tomorrows Opening day. Check out the link......

http://www.dvalnews.com/view/full_story_obits/16538892/article-Bookstore-shares-space-with-gallery?instance=secondary_stories_left_column

Ready to head off to the Longbothams for dinner, Happy Thanksgiving!

Nearly

2011-11-23T19:51:00.001-05:00

This morning I remembered falling in love with Ernie. Liz had a batch of kittens at home. She called, said she was sending her husband over with two kittens and I had to take them both. I was willing to visit with the kitties but I didn’t think I was keeping either of them.

Along came Rusty with the kennel and out of it tumbled a cute black and white kitty. Then out of it sauntered this absolutely cross eyed, bowl legged, smushed faced long haired black and white man/kitty. I believe I might have gasped. He was an instantaneous yes for me. It was also clear to me Liz said take them both because she was sure no-one was ever going to pick that thing.

Liz was quiet on the phone when I said I’d take the cross eyed one. Now here it is nine years later and Ernie is laying on my arm while I type.

Some days I believe Ernie is the most beautiful cat I know. And as much as he has grown into his face, when people first meet Ernie, they might ask me what kind of animal he is, they are genuinely not sure he is a cat. At a glance, he could be mistaken for a skunk or a porcupine, he's so big and hairy he just doesn't look like what we think of as a cat.

Ernest, like some art, teaches me about the uncomfortable feelings evoked by atypical beauty. Beauty can have some teeth to it. And when beauty does have teeth, it is often ineffable, nearly scary.

Artcan bring me into unexpected terrains, often by some combination of beauty and values. I don’t always love experiencing the ensuing mixed up feelings but I find myself grateful for the stretch.

Almost

2011-11-22T19:44:00.001-05:00

Today’s word is almost. I almost got the photo of the bald eagle in the tree and I almost got a good predawn photo of the icy orange barrels at the glory hole.

Beauty

2011-11-21T12:56:00.001-05:00

Beauty is a broad subject. My business is beauty. Why it is so important to us I can’t succinctly say, but I can say we humans love sharing a sense of beauty with one another.

My dog Rosie is a beauty. The rescue group even named her ‘Beauty’. Rose just turned two, and I looked at her and thought, hmmm, has she grown up to look like an ordinary little black dog?

Later that very day, Rose and I walked to the General Store. As we approached a woman pulled up in her car and came right over to us, “What a beautiful dog, oh my gosh such beautiful eyes" and so on went the conversation.

I beamed, I know I did, and I know if my friends could have seen me they would have rolled their eyes.

But the reason for beaming is maybe a little different than what we might first think. Rosie is a lot like the gallery, it’s not that I take credit for Rosie’s beauty, it's that Rosie is a vehicle for a heartwarming exchange of beauty with a stranger, that’s what I do with paintings at the gallery, it’s why I love it so.

Revisiting

2011-11-20T12:31:00.000-05:00

Like many artists I save my rejected monoprints to tear up and repurpose as cards and collage parts. Most of my big and rich pile of rejects washed away in the flood. Today I went into my home storage boxes to see if I could find anything to tear up for Thanksgiving thank you notes. I want to send thank you notes to all the people who came to the gallery after the flood to help with the debris and the clean up and clean out.

But I got lost looking around in my flat file. Here are two early in the game monoprints:

Happy Shapes, 9"x 11"

Red Square, 9"x 9.25"

November Rainbow

2011-11-20T10:35:00.001-05:00

A rare November rainbow from this mornings walk, now I am ready to head out and clean the gallery windows.

Trying something

2011-11-19T09:29:00.001-05:00

On the walk this morning Ali spoke about social media and how forgiving it is. Ali says the idea is to communicate and to try things, find what works for you and your people. It doesn’t matter if ya get it right, right off the bat. That was a chilly morning relief. Since the flood, it has been hard to keep up my contacts and communicate with everyone. Debra Boudrieau, my wonderful Post Irene business adviser from the Vermont Small Business Development Center, advises I use social media to communicate the Gallery Wright and me story. So here we go, I am blogging and hopefully getting word to you....