Friday, May 18, 2007

walk in beauty

Home after a long week. Enough light left so I can get a few garden chores done.
But instead I wander off into the woods. This time of the year the days are long and the evening light is lovely. The sun hangs low in the sky, a sphere of red-orange. Leaves are starting to fill the canopy, but the sunlight filters through. Shafts of brilliant gold illuminate emerald buds. Magical light dazzles, like jewelry suspended in air. I want to capture the moment, to paint it or photograph it. But I know it would be in vain. No medium is sufficiently radiant. Not to mention the chill of evening air on my face, scented with honeysuckle. Or the haunting melody of the hermit thrush, fluting like a distant lonely Pan.
I remember the Navajo blessing, "may you walk in beauty".
The experience of beauty is a gift given to the artist. To pass this gift on to others is his duty. But sometimes failure is part of the process. So I am content to hold this fleeting gift, with the hope that someday it will emerge in a future work.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Weird

More weird spring weather. Yesterday was record hot. Tomorrow is supposed to be brutally cold. Progress on sculptures and gardens seems haphazard, but both are coming along. I don't know if it's the weather or my own ability to procrastinate that makes my projects disconnected.
But in the meantime, I've done some work on my web page. Mostly repairing some bad links, changing the appearance, and adding an Artist's Bio.
I have also set up my new printer. So far, the results look wonderful. It is very exciting to be able to work in a larger format. And the pigment-based inks are archival and can last up to 200 years without noticeable fading.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Rain

Weather happens. I sit on my porch watching a gentle rain and listening to the distant rumble of thunder. It's raining on my sculptures-in-progress (obviously no progress today). But I refuse to be frustrated.
After a winter that would not let go, the warm rain is a welcome sign of spring. The dark skies make daffodils and forsythia seem luminous. The leaves are just beginning to green-up. (A friend always reminds me that this is the time of a thousand shades of green. The dark greens of summer are lovely but monochromatic by comparison.)
My new printer has arrived and I will use my indoor time to set it up. It will be exciting to get back to my digital collages.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Spaces

Yes, yes. I know. I should have been working on my sculptures. But today was such a beautiful sunny day and it was time to work in my garden.
Mostly ripping plants out in the long neglected north garden, a series of semi-formal beds that were well designed but long ignored. The fact that the beds were presentable until recently is a testimony to the original design. But stuff grows and runs together and the structure is lost.
Good landscaping is like good sculpture. A balance of shapes. And the spaces between the shapes are just as important as as the shapes themselves.
So, as much as I hate to yank out perfectly good perennials, I need those spaces to define the overall structure. I will work on the sculptures tomorrow.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Mixed Blessing


The "Art in the Heart of the City" show asked me to leave my pieces from last year's show in place. This is a mixed blessing since I am happy to leave my work in public. But it also means I can't use the underground support structures for those pieces with my new pieces. I have to cast two new huge slabs for them.
I guess I'm mostly pleased, since I always hate to move them from their home on the Ithaca Commons. One piece in particular, "Song of the Wazonghi" seems to have acquired a cult following. Poems and other "offerings" appear at its base from time to time, and it is occasionally adorned with necklaces.