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December 16, 2009

lost shelter

The grandfather oak

Driving by my house on the way from school to an appointment I was shocked to see that the oldest tree in my yard had come down in Wednesday’s hard winds. The trunk still stands, but the yard is filled with the top, limbs larger than most mature trees.

This oak had been struck by lightning 40 years ago, and hit squarely by a truck in the late 70’s, in a brutal accident that killed the driver. It had survived Hurricane Hugo eighteen years ago, losing a giant limb, but it stood otherwise intact. Its six ancient companion oaks had all toppled over the years, unexpectedly, striking blows like earthquakes .

Under this tree we had built snowmen. My sons remember shooting their bows at a target balanced against its trunk. We had thrown a big party beneath it to celebrate my brother’s marriage. I had stood in its shade in my own wedding gown, as had my aunt before me.

I had come to watch its canopy obsessively, looking for signs of sickness, and dreaded the day I knew would come. Its canopy had been lush this past year, and it cast so many acorns on the lawn it’s impossible to walk there. It had even taken to sending limbs down toward the ground– as if to attempt communication with its human family.

Its trunk still stands 25 feet tall or so, with the lowest limbs intact, but its sheltering limbs are gone. I found myself feeling exposed, my shelter gone. It reminded me of the emotions I experienced when my father died in my 20’s. I no longer felt protected. The man I imagined to be the strongest person on earth was gone. The tree that would take four men’s arms to encircle is gone. The sky is empty where there was complex tracery. Empty.

My brother reminded me of my good fortune to make me feel better. He’s right, of course. “If this is the worst thing that happened to you today, you are okay”. But on the phone later, calling each member of the family to announce the death, I realized we all grieve the loss of beauty. Born before the American Revolution, witness to the life of my family for six generations, and to another family before that, this tree will have no replacement in my lifetime.

November 20, 2009

Conversations against a brilliant background

Nick Cave Soundsuit 2007

Today was what I always refer to as “the best day of the school year”–the day I take a group of students to galleries and museums. These students are members of the Art Club at my school, the purpose of which is to explore the work of artists out in the bigger world. Sometimes we get lucky and we meet artists, walk into their studios or listen to their stories and explanations. Many times this is the student’s first trip to an art museum. I hope that when these young people graduate they will have a high level of comfort in art venues and will continue to enjoy them and share them with their own children.

It’s hard to beat starting your day at the hospitable McColl Center (www.mccollcenter.org) with two towering costumes by Nick Cave backed up by videos of the costumes dancing.

A. The moves are good

B. The costumes are both ravishing and goofy– an unbeatable combination.

My students were enchanted. That was a hard act to follow, but we forged ahead. We were spellbound by the giant woodblocks by Kenichi Yoknono. Instead of creating prints from them, the blocks stand as the finished work. They are 6 feet tall, inked in red, and beautifully tactile.

One of my students got up close enough to read the text inside the KKK hoods created and decorated by Willie Little visible through the tiny eye holes. The hoods were treated coyly as if they were as innocent as a halloween jack o’ lantern. They still engaged her hours later. She was unsettled by the angry/sad messages hidden inside.

Having explored the subject of quilts in class this past week, and Gee’s Bend Quilts specifically, we saw a quilt show at the Craft and Design Museum. Part of my problem is that after seeing Gee’s Bend quilts I will never be the same again, or ever again be intrigued by “pretty quilts”. I pointed out to the girls who were looking with me, the tedium, and the intensity of the work ethic involved in these quilts.

I always see some yawns and perhaps even have to listen to complaints when we delve deep into an art historical era as we recently have the Harlem Renaissance and its aftermath. But I heard no such complaints when we stood in the midst of the comprehensive exhibition of the work of Lois Mailou Jones at the Mint Museum on Randolph (www.mintmuseum.org). Carla Hanzal, curator of contemporary art, has assembled a whole visual biography of this important artist who defied so many conventions.

Lately I have been doing small paintings of the vegetables that have survived the first frosts, against the background of various textiles I have. That seems to have really forged some neurological connections for me. For that reason, I believe, the textile designs of Jones’ early career pulled me in. At that place she and I met and merged as artists. I wanted to wander around those patterns for hours. It felt like some kind of meeting of the minds– beyond words and deep in the land of color. They were painted in velvety gouache. My students and my colleague pointed out to me the complex skin tones, and her remarkable command of color in her portraiture. One of my students asked (astutely I thought– as we’re just finishing up Cezanne) about how Jones’ landscapes painted in Europe relate to Post Impressionism. What serious fun for the two of us, teacher and student, to dig into the painting and list every way we could find.

Nothing in art is ever more fun than hearing the reactions of the young learner and seeing that tiny glow become a flame– of curiosity and respect . It’s the beginning of the ignition of new and freer ways of thinking. It’s the birthing of a mind encouraged to listen to its own voice and the reaching across time and space of one artist to another.

November 17, 2009

Beth

Beth is one of my friends from college days. She’s been there with me through a lot of interesting experiences. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding. She is godmother to my middle son. She and I have stood before thousands of paintings and talked about what we saw. We have looked at the ocean together for hours with or without conversation. Not since Chapel Hill days have we lived near one another, but that hasn’t kept us from staying connected. Some of my favorite Beth memories are from the times she lived in Maryland near DC. We would sometimes stay at her house, and sometimes in the city, abandoning our children to other people’s care so we could go to museums all day, seek out adventure-dining and funky thrift shops. I’ve forgotten more days than most people have lived, but it seems like I remember all the times I ever spent with Beth.

This entry is in tribute to Beth’s influence on me. One of my earliest memories with Beth is one afternoon in our early twenties when we took a blanket and some snacks out to the reservoir in Chapel Hill. We found a remote spot beside the water and sat there enjoying the fall day, the lake and sky. Beth produced a notebook in which she started writing. In my memory it was a book about ideas, goals and inspiration. I was so moved by her purposefulness. She was the first young person I’d ever known who even at twenty-something was living an examined life. That’s probably where my adult notebook-keeping habit came from. Now many years later I have several well-worn volumes I use to give myself organization and direction.

Beth and I have just returned from a weekend at the beach. It was a perfect beginning of November experience. It was sunny and warm enough that we sat beside the ocean for two days– almost all day long. The cooler weather had inspired the wildlife and so our entertainment was schools of porpoises cutting through the water. At times hundreds of birds converged on shallow areas in the surf . There was a dead octapus on the beach we could examine at our leisure. We were small and the vista was large. We were quiet and it was loud. We kept the doors open so we could hear the surf all night. I picked up blue crabs at the fish market because I will pay to watch Beth eat a blue crab. After years of living in Maryland she is semi-professional. If I think about it for more than a minute, I can be back there with Beth, examining our lives under the big blue dome of the sky.

October 22, 2009

Alice Ballard speaks

Last night I had an opportunity to listen to Alice Ballard (www.aliceballard.com)speak about her life and work at Hodges Taylor Gallery. She has long been a favorite artist of mine. Over and over I have come around a corner in a gallery to see a piece of hers and been stopped in my tracks. The desire to touch her work is always overwhelming for me. The pieces are always based on natural objects that happen to appear in her life– perhaps stumbled upon on a walk outdoors, or sometimes arriving in the mail– gifts from a sympathetic friend.

It seems to me they are often generative forms– pods, seeds or bulbs– carriers of the next generation of life. Not always, but often they are cool and sensuous white forms, coated in silky terra sigillata, and burnished to a soft glow. It was interesting to hear of her journey as an artist from two dimensional painting to sculpture, and of her love for hand building. Her formal education centered on painting, and her sculptural studies were all self-taught.

Many of her most intriguing forms were sleek pinch pots. She explained how the act of pinching the clay compresses it and adds to its strength. She also gave insights into her process, including the occasional working of the piece upside down which allows gravity to act as a partner in the construction.

Alice Ballard posited the theory that the most important events in an artist’s life often happen before the age of six. She talked about her own memories of being at her grandmother’s farm and being given beans and corn to plant wherever she liked. The magical thing was being there long enough to see them sprout. It is easy to see how those childhood experiences were seed for this contemporary work.

September 28, 2009

Dreamland

tree trunk in the maritime forest

It’s Monday back in the real world. I’m attempting to pretend I’m all here, but I still have one foot on an island. Yesterday’s sunrise, which seems a continent away and a month behind me, was a battle between blackened hovering clouds and peach colored light thrown at the edges of billowing cloud formations. It came and went, shifting back and forth. I sat in the sand and tried to paint a seized moment here and an arrested cloud there. Sand blew low and hard, needle-pricking me. It completely filled my paintbox and scattered itself on my page. My brush, new and sharp-pointed- became frayed and full of sand particles. My hair blew so hard across my face I couldn’t see. The waves tossed spray high above the horizon line. A heron flew overhead. Then a peregrin falcon. It was altogether a spectacular and peculiar sunrise.

The night before, at dusk, we had traveled to a roosting site, hidden away from the public, to watch perhaps one hundred or more egrets and ibises rocking up and down on tree limbs suspended over a perfect mirror of a pond. The mosquitoes lit on our faces and arms and drew blood in spite of toxic doses of bug spray we’d bathed in.

Part of that day had been spent in the maritime forest, learning about plant species. The woods were scattered with deadwood more extreme than any sculpture. We were irresistibly drawn to touch it and photograph it from every angle. Yesterday morning we took a walk in the marsh and sat long enough on an ancient hammock, now covered with cabbage palms and live oaks, to observe the behavior of fiddler crabs. I had time enough to do a lightning fast sketch of the underbrush on the hammock. I learned new words for the plants and creatures that fill the marshes– spartina, sea lavender, periwinkle snails. Mike picked up a glass lizard, the only legless lizard I have ever seen. Empowered by my previous night’s experience of petting the belly of a California King Snake I attempted to do the same to the glass lizard, who struck at me. No harm done beyond the embarrassment of my own reaction– abject bone-rattling fear, which greatly amused my fellow adventurers.

There was butterfly catching, seining, lots of drawing to record what I saw. I was swimming in a soup of sensation. It made me delirious and carried me out of myself and back into union with the earth. It is with reluctance that I bring myself back to electric lights and cars, billboards and cellphones. I looked back at my journal from last September’s trip to this island. In it I said that I’d had the revelation while there that the secret to living this second part of my life was to live it like a poem. “order it and edit it and take time to live it consciously”. This year I plan to remind myself everyday that I am in the midst of a poem.

September 16, 2009

Artful Asheville

the loud creek

Last weekend I camped beside a loud stream near Asheville. All night I got to hear the stream rush by– my favorite way to sleep. The canopy was dense so I could only catch small bits of the mountain starlight. My alarm clock was a loud crow who would arch through the trees, cutting his handsome black silhouette against the green patterned canopy and insisting I get up. On Saturday, in spite of the the crow, I slept two hours later than my definition of sleeping in because it was so delicious.

For entertainment I started by visiting the Faculty Show at UNC-Asheville (www.unca.edu). I was particularly intrigued by the work of Mark Koven there. The sculptures he was showing were small in scale, and kinetic. My favorite was a tower with a small generator that was powered by a turbine. (I was reminded that Leonardo invented the turbine.) The turbine required the breath of more than one observer to turn it enough to power the dragonfly wings mounted at the top of the piece, which in turn evoked, for me, the flying machine drawings of Leonardo. I also was captivated by the drawings of Tamie Beldue, which were skillful and voluptuous, in graphite and watercolor, and floating under a layer of wax which gave them an extra aura of delicacy and intimacy.

My son Stewart and I had fun going to the Asheville Art Museum (www.ashevilleart.org) which has its own special style– Very Asheville. It’s in a glamorous Italian Renaissance style building in downtown that was the former home of the town library. Now it houses a wonderful collection. Lucky for me the work I’d seen there in April had all been replaced with other work so I got a larger notion of the museum’s holdings. There are always plenty of surprises there, but the piece that sticks best in my mind is an abstract Maud Gatewood rendering of a tunnel (also very Asheville). One sees the view framed by the tunnel. Snow is falling and creates a pattern over the framed vista.

I paid a quick visit to the Blue Spiral (www.bluespiral1.com), ate some great food, watched a guy dressed in a nun’s habit complete with a black miniskirt pedaling up Biltmore at a 45 degree angle on a red bicycle that had to be 10 feet tall (employing the same Attitude as the Wicked Witch of the West). I heard the drum circle in the park. Saw lovely bits of blacksmithing here and mosaic-making there… bits of random wall painting, and the basic urge of many creative souls to express themselves. My refrigerator is now full of mountain apples from the Farmers’ Market. And my head is full of color, and snapshots of focused energy made material . Thanks Asheville.

July 6, 2009

Independence Day

little Woodstock

How did you celebrate your independence? I cut myself free of my everyday life and went on a trip back in time, and due west in space. I went to beautiful Black Mountain, NC. After locating an old friend on the web,and a 35 year absence from the annual July 4th celebration in Black Mountain, my name was once again on the guest list.

I have dim memories of a communal effort to make pounds and pounds of cole slaw some 35 years ago on July 4th in the old location of this party– The White House. I remember our young faces, and the good feeling I always had being with this group of people. It meant a lot to me to be joining them again for the celebration.

Nowadays we look substantially different from our 20-something incarnations, but the spirit is the same. I really do believe our young selves are still alive, wrapped inside our current selves. The girl is not gone– she is at the core of the woman. The humor was just as loving and gentle and knowing as I remember it. The friendships have held true among this large group of people, and the thread that connects me to them is as strong as if I had nurtured it. They are of such a loyal and inclusive stripe that I was, even in long absence, at least a little bit present, it seems.

Just like long ago, I still enjoy the quick wit, the practicality, the earthiness and the loving hearts of my Black Mountain friends. And they really know how to throw a party. Their fourth was conceived of as a three day affair, in a big open field in the valley, beside the Swannanoa River. Sobol, Sneed and Allison masterminded a projection screen for movies, a volleyball net, a pond for swimming, and an bunch of barrels for their own unique sport: gocart bowling. There was a grill, lovingly tended by Pate, covered in pork coated with a secret barbecue sauce he’d imported from Alabama which was, I swear, magical. The Barbecue Brain Trust of Black Mountain has apparently spent years attempting to decode the recipe, but it cannot be done. Sneed says Thomas has Pate bring him a gallon each year which he hides away. Sneed is pictured on this year’s White House tee shirt, and Patty, his wife organized the Eleanor Roosevelt luncheon for the ladies as well as the tee shirt production and marketing.

These people, the souls of hospitality, erected a huge tent and a smaller tent, brought in a refrigerator to hold the food, and must have shopped for days. I can’t begin to list all that went into this amazing extravaganza. But there was barbecue, corn, marinated cucumbers, savory baked beans, and slaw, so lovingly prepared they’d make you swoon. And at the same time, we enjoyed live bluegrass music, a bonfire, kids chasing each other, 80 year olds dancing, tiny babies being cuddled and old friends’ memories ( or lies). And this was the 36th time they’ve done this for 100 of their closest friends.

One of the best parts.

That night I got to sleep at Patty and Sneed’s with the window open, beside a creek that rushed through my dreams all night. In the wee hours when it started to rain the noises were even more beautiful. In the morning my last view was of small fat white clouds breaking up against the blue green mountains. It was really hard to point my car east and slip back down that mountain.

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Art and Life

lost shelter

Conversations against a brilliant background

Beth

Alice Ballard speaks

Dreamland

Artful Asheville

Independence Day

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