Rising Up Again

 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.

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

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Nearly

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.

Art can 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

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Beauty

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

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"