I’ve been enjoying catching some shots of the wildlife around here with a scout camera I recently acquired. In an earlier post, I showed a few shots of a large bobcat that has been haunting the property as of late. Earlier this week, I was sitting at my computer and on two consecutive days watched him cross a small earthen bridge into the corner of my studio’s yard and walk around the edge until he popped into the woods and continued past the back of my studio, about 50 feet away. It was about the same time each day and he seemed to be without a care , walking slowly and sniffing around. An impressive sight.
Of course, from these two sightings I was only able to catch one shot of him on the scout camera and it was only of its ears, which are quite striking, I was hoping for a shot where I could see his face but being wild animals, these guys are not always open to direction.
Unlike the deer at the top. I have a number of shots of the deer that live here poking their nose at the lens. The deer are always milling about the yard and when they see something new, such as a metal cased camera strapped to a tree, it piques their curiosity. The herd here is, of course, comprised of all does except for a fawn who is showing signs of emerging antler nubs.
I have caught a couple shots of a young buck with a small rack, maybe 6 points, who may very well be one of the fawns I’ve seen in past years. The bucks always seem to be solitary at this time of the year and much less visible, many becoming nocturnal as the hunting season comes around. There are fewer and fewer hunters in these parts, so our herd stays pretty constant and has learned to stay near our place particularly during hunting season.
I’ve also caught a number of shots of a fox at night. He’s a gray fox, I believe, a bit taller than the red. The gray is more cat-like than the red and had the ability to climb trees. They’re a great looking animal. I used to have one that would often pass my window at my old studio, always around the same time. He would move by at a workmanlike pace, always purposefully moving along the same path.
It’s interesting to see these creatures at close range and see how they live their lives just outside our sight. For the most part…
It’s a busy Saturday morning as I try to finish up a group of work and hit the road this coming Monday. There’s always a bunch of little things, details, that have to be tied up that seem to take longer than I would imagine.
I’m dropping off new work in Alexandria and Asheville this trip, something I do a couple of times a year. It’s basically a driving marathon with a few stops in between but it gives me a chance to have a face to face with the galleries and tell a bit about the new work. It also gives me a chance to just drive and think which is always different for me than thinking in the studio or at home. It’s a different rhythm with different stimuli. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s just driving.
Anyway, on this cold morning, here’s some old Small Faces, before the addition of Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart and the evolution to simply Faces. I use this song, Itchycoo Park, because it always feels like I’m back as a kid in a car, riding along in my parent’s Chevy in the 60’s when I hear this, listening to it through that single speaker in the dash. It wasn’t state of the art sound, but that was how we heard a lot of great music…
A turning point for me when I was first stumbling around with my own painting was when I encountered the work of Giorgio de Chirico, an Italian painter of darkly toned metaphorical works. He lived from 1888 until 1978 but was primarily known for his early work from 1909-1919 which is called his Metaphysical Period. Metaphysics is devoted to the exploration of what is behind visible reality without relying on measurable data. Very mystical. De Chirico’s work after 1919 became more realistic and less appreciated. It is the work from this earlier period that defines him.
I was immediately drawn to the work. It was full of high contrast, with sharp light and dark. The colors were bold, bright and vibrant, yet there was darkness implied in them. The compositions were full of interesting juxtapositions of forms and perspectives. It was a visual feast for me.
At that time in my own painting, I was still painting in a fairly traditional manner, especially with watercolors. That is to say that I was achieving light through the transparency of my paint, letting the underlying paper show through. It was pretty clean which was fine. But it wasn’t what I was looking for in my work.
Seeing de Chirico’s paintings made me realize what I wanted. It was that underlying darkness that his work possessed. Almost a grittiness. I immediately began to experiment with different methods that would introduce a base of darkness that the light and color could play off. My work began to change in short order and strides forward came much quicker as a result of simply sensing something in de Chirico’s work that wasn’t there in my own.
The World Series ended last night with a bang as an aging Hideki Matsui (AKA Godzilla) single-handedly slugged his New York Yankees over the Philadelphia Phillies. He drove in 6 runs with 3 hits including a soaring home run off longtime Yankee nemesis Pedro Martinez on the way to a 7-3 victory. It was the 27th championship in the storied history of the team.
It was a really good Series between arguably the two best teams in baseball. The Phillies, last year’s reigning champs, were a formidable opponent and a very likable group that played the game with full effort. They could have easily won any of these games. However, the Yankees were just a step ahead this year.
To a baseball fan, the game becomes part of your daily ritual. It’s a long season that spans all four seasons, running from spring training that starts in the last weeks of winter to the Fall Classic, as the Series is called. The Yankees played 177 regular season games not to mention all the spring training games. It is, as they say, a marathon sport based on finding the rhythm of a team and trying to maintain it through the ups, downs and grind of this long year. It very much mimics day to day life.
So, you follow your team and suffer through the lows and relish the highs. Being a Yankee fan has had a lot of highs, certainly. But the heightened expectations create deep lows when your team fails to follow through on the promise of their potential. And this year’s team was promising a lot. It was a team that was very easy to like in many ways. I’ve heard fans of other teams say that it tore them up because this team was so hard to dislike. They played hard all the time, played with joy and never seemed to be just putting in the time when they were on the field which means a lot to the day to day fans. When you’re committed as a fan you want to know that your players are as invested emotionally as you in the season.
That’s why it’s been a pleasure following these Yankees over the last 15 years or so. I remember reading about Joe Dimaggio saying that he played hard every day out of respect for the fans, that he knew what a big deal it was for many of them to make the trip, many from long distances, just to see the game on that particular day. It might be the only time they’ll ever see you in person and they deserved to see you try to do your best. I’ve watched Derek Jeter day in and day out for since 1996 and he has never made me feel as though his full attention was anywhere other than where he was at that moment on the field. Full effort all the time. Oh, he’s failed. Much more than he’s succeeded. That’s the nature of baseball. But his effort has never lagged.
And that’s what carries the fans through the lows. That feeling that though they couldn’t go all the way, they gave it all they had. It’s a good life lesson.
And when they give all and win, it’s even sweeter.
Now I have a baseball void for the next few months. Can’t wait for spring training…
When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.
- Mark Twain
I sometimes go to quote pages on the net just to read Mark Twain quotes when I need a laugh. Always been a big fan of his work and his humor. It was pretty easy because he has a large presence in the area in which I live. Twain spent many summers here after marrying Olivia Langdon, from a well-respected Elmira family and was buried here after his death in 1910. The Twains divided their year between their home in Hartford, Connecticut and their summer home here at Quarry Farm, which sat on the side of a hill overlooking the valley in which the city sits.
In his study at Quarry Farm, which has been moved to the campus of Elmira College, Twain spent his summer days writing many of his classics. The family of my grandfather lived at the very base of the hill on which Quarry Farm is located and as a kid I wondered if my grandfather ever saw Twain as he ambled down the hill into the city. My grandfather at that time was a stagehand at the Majestic Theatre, one of the numerous theaters that once graced Elmira and Twain was a frequent guest to establishments in that vicinity. Perhaps they nodded hellos on the street. I could certainly imagine it, whether it happened or not, as Twain says above.
I know that’s a small and inconsequential bond, but it brought the person much closer to a reality when I was younger, made his words seem that much closer to my own existence rather than words in an old library book. I am gratified that this vague connection is with someone whose words and humor still resonate with people today.
A friend sent me a New York Times obituary from the other day of a somewhat obscure painter. The headline read, “Albert York, Reclusive Landscape Painter, Dies At 80” and told of the life and death Albert York, “a painter of small, mysterious landscapes who shunned the art world yet had a fervent following within it.”
I’m not sure if my friend forwarded this because it ’s an interesting read or if he saw similarities between York and me. But reading it made me think about my own form of increasing reclusiveness and its effect on my career and beyond.
I used to worry about what sort of legacy, if any, I would leave behind with the work I’m doing. I guess that’s only normal when you feel you’re putting everything you have into something. Much like a business owner who works his whole life growing and nurturing his business wants to believe that his toil will leave an enterprise that lives on past him. Nobody wants to believe their very best will leave no footprints in the sands of time.
As an artist, these footprints are left through the recognition of your work. This involves putting your work out there, pushing it and promoting it, making it known to those in the art world. Sometimes doing good work will be enough but that is a rarity. It is a very social game in most cases, with careers advanced primarily through contacts begetting contacts. The socially aggressive, those who seek to mingle with the art crowd, are rewarded.
I realized years ago that relying on leaving any sort of artistic legacy through these means was futile for me. I don’t mingle well, haven’t been to anything resembling a party, outside of a few openings at my local gallery, for many years. I don’t make contacts well. Barely keep up with my best friends and family. I can’t remember the last time I went to a movie, let alone a party. I seldom like to venture beyond my normal routine or the end of my driveway.
I now realize this who I am and as such, have severe limitations on how I can affect the legacy of my work. I will never be the insider, the social gadfly who constantly self-promotes. I thought I could do that at one point but I know now that it’s not for me. This blog is as close as I get to self-promotion these days. I can only do what I do and that is paint and try to keep slogging ahead, hoping a footprint or two remains behind.
So, Albert York, my best wishes for you on your new endeavor. Your work seems to have left a footprint…
I am still finishing up a group of paintings that I will deliver to a few of the galleries that represent my work in the next week. I am doing bits of touch-up, varnishing paintings and final framing. One that I am framing today is this painting, one that I’ve really been focusing on as it sits in the studio.
This is a 12″ by 36″ canvas which gives it a little size. By that I mean the painting is big enough to have its size give additional impact. For instance, if this piece were a much smaller size, say 6″ by 18″, it would still have the visual oomph of the painting itself but would not visually dominate a wall because of its size whereas this larger sized painting has the same visual impact and because of its size, could be the focus of a much larger area.
This painting has tremendous visual pull. I find myself peeking at it at many points during the day, drawn in by the warm feeling of the layered fields. It also has great depth into the piece which is something I often mention as a desirable trait in any of my paintings. I don’t know if I can explain what I really mean by that. When I look at one of my pieces, I visualize the horizon or focal point of the painting as being the point where the two planes of the sky and ground come together. Like looking into the bottom of a triangle set on its side. The further away that this line of convergence appears to me, the better. I don’t know if this is just my particular preference or if this is something that is one of those common traits of response.
I struggled a bit with a title for this piece because I saw a lot of different things in it. There is a sense of moment, the sense of the new day coming ( or the present day fleeting, however you prefer to see it) in the light of the sky as well as a sense of place in the houses and fields. The red tree has a feeling of pondering and the two nearest trees at the left give a sense of entering upon a scene or moment. The whole thing has a nice unity with all elements coming together and playing off one another that I could use as well when considering a title.
I am considering calling it the InThe Depth of the Sky.
I don’t know. There’s still a little time to reconsider…
Sometimes when you look behind something that’s been in front of you for years you find out things you would have never imagined otherwise. Such is the case with the song, Nature Boy.
Nature Boy, as recorded by the great Nat King Cole, has long been one of my favorite songs. It has a wonderful haunting melody and tells the story of a “strange enchanted boy” and his search to find love. It always has had a sort of mystical feel to me, a real oddity in the world of popular music in 1948 when Nat King Cole recorded and had a huge hit with it, staying at #1 on the charts for eight weeks.
I was going to just have a short post and put up a YouTube video of Cole’s version but in doing so I saw the name of the songwriter, eden ahbez, and was intrigued. Doing a little research I came across some photos of him such as the one above, from the late 40’s sitting with Cowboy Jack Patton ( who wrote Ghost Riders in the Sky) and a spaniel. I’ll let you figure out who is who in the photo. ahbez’s long hair and attire seemed really out of place for me in thinking of 1948 so I read on.
eden ahbez was a real one of a kind character in the world of music and in general. You could probably guess that from the name which he adopted and wrote only in lower case letters. Born in 1908, he is regarded as the first hippie by many, a long-haired and bearded wanderer who crisscrossed the country on foot, wearing robes and sandals, maintained a vegetarian lifestyle and slept out under the stars. In fact, when Nature Boy hit the charts he and his wife were living under the first L on the Hollywood sign, which stoked a bit of a media frenzy around ahbez. He worked in and frequented a vegetarian restaurant (that’s where he met Cowboy Jack Patton, another interesting character) in 1940’s Los Angeles whose German owners preached the gospel of natural and raw foods. Their followers became known as the Nature Boys.
Not really what I was expecting from a pop songwriter in 1940’s LA. ahbez died in 1995 from injuries sustained in an auto accident. He was 87. His was a truly unique life, just waiting for a biographer to tell the story, and reading the little I discovered makes me find the song even more interesting. Hope you’ll do the same now that you know a bit more about eden ahbez…
With Halloween falling on a Saturday this year, my mind switches back to past Halloweens and all the things that go with them. Part of my normal Saturday routine growing up was to be in front of the TV at 1 o’clock to watch Monster Movie Matinee, a show out of Syracuse that ran for a couple of decades and showed classic ( and not so classic, as the years went by) horror and sci-fi movies.
It was a great kitschy broadcast. It would start with the camera panning in over an obvious model of an haunted-type mansion on a hill as eerie monster movie music played. It was hosted by Dr. E. Nick Witty (I think this is supposed to be funny but it eludes me) and his assistant, the wretched Epal. You never saw anything of Dr. Witty but his long emotive fingers. His voice was kind of a bad Bela Lugosi copy that played perfectly for this type of show. Epal, played by the station’s longtime weatherman who also played other characters (his character, Salty Sam, introduced me to Popeye cartoons) on a number of other shows, was covered in rough-edged scars and wore an eyepatch. He seemed to constantly erode as the years passed.
They had storylines that they used as they introduced the films, little vignettes that ran from week to week. Goofy stuff but fun. They let the movies they showed be the real stars and I saw most of the greats through them. All the Frankenstein, Dracula and Wolfman movies were in regular rotation in the early years mixed in with a plethora of lower quality, monstery B-movies, which kind of took over in the later years.
I remember one wet and dark Halloween Saturday back then spending the afternoon watching one of my favorites with Dr. Witty and Epal. It was The Creature From the Black Lagoon. It was a movie that was shown at least a few times a year so it became part of the kid memory bank. It was the story of a group of geological researchers sent to explore a fossilized skeletal claw-like hand found up the Amazon where they encounter the Creature, a rubber-clad Gill-Man who makes repeated attacks on the research vessel, finally abducting the babe girlfriend of the main scientist.
Originally in 3-D in the theaters, was a pretty stylish 50’s monster movie. Pretty good quality, actually. The Creature was a great costume, very sleek and somewhat believable- at least to the kid sitting on the couch with the Fig Newtons. It had nice underwater photography of the Creature gliding after his prey and also had great sound and music that really enhanced the story. It wasn’t the scariest but it kept you involved with the story. I always felt more of a connection with the Creature than I did with the crew of researchers and actually felt myself kind of rooting for him at times. Much like King Kong, he seemed sadly alone.
That wet and dark Saturday many years ago seems to come to life now whenever I think of the Creature or Halloween, for that matter. I remember the light. The smell of that living room. Funny how certain things, even the smallest trivialities, imprint on the memory when coupled with something important, as Halloween was to a kid.
Today I’m thinking of that day and that lonely Gill-Man and Dr. Witty…
I am traveling today so I thought I ‘d just show another little ditty from Spike Milligan. The wordplay here always makes me smile. Enjoy!
