Larabee and Liza

a gift from lisa

2012-01-30T18:46:00.001-05:00

We do not dislike everything that shines, but we do prefer a pensive luster to a shallow brilliance, a murky light that, whether in a stone or an artifact, bespeaks a sheen of antiquity... In both Chinese and Japanese the words denoting this glow describe a polish that comes of being touched over and over again, a sheen produced by the oils that naturally permeate an object over long years of handling - which is to say grime... Yet for better or for worse we do love things that bear the mark of grime, soot, and weather, and we love the colors and the sheen that call to mind the past that made them.

Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (谷崎潤一郎 1886-1965)

empty piazzas

2012-01-25T10:13:00.002-05:00

memory's garden

2012-01-21T16:59:00.002-05:00

2012-01-17T12:11:00.000-05:00

helen frankenthaler 1928-2011

2011-12-27T20:55:00.000-05:00

I wanted things that I couldn't at times articulate.
-Helen Frankenthaler
Rest to you.

merry christmas!

2011-12-25T11:27:00.000-05:00

watercolors by my son, liam! a very merry day to everyone:)

end of the fourth stanza

2011-12-23T22:46:00.000-05:00

olive was oily

prue's gone to pot

beginning of the fourth stanza

2011-12-18T16:01:00.000-05:00

mina was maudlin
nerissa was not...

i need to do two more to finish this stanza. slow going, i am afraid, this week! christmas is very soon and there's lots to do:)

third stanza

2011-12-11T13:32:00.000-05:00

isolde was icky
jessamine jeered
kate was kenspeckle
lisabet leered.

second stanza

2011-12-03T23:06:00.000-05:00

elle was enchanted

flora was fowl

gracie was greenish

hortense would howl

something i am working on

2011-11-27T21:01:00.000-05:00

so, i am working on an alphabet poem. these are the first of the drawings and the poem begins like this:

ana was anxious
beatrice was bats
clotilde was cunning
dorcas was daft

i have the rest of the poem composed and am looking forward to doing the drawings. more updates to come:)

happy thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T08:40:00.000-05:00

atmosphere

2011-11-20T10:09:00.004-05:00

i think i could safely state that what i am after most in my own work is to create a sense of atmosphere. when i see it done flawlessly i tend to become obsessed with it. thus we have this clip from "the third man" a movie from 1949 starring joseph cotton and orson welles. i have been watching it over and over. the combination of the dark,empty streets, the music of the zither, and the ambient german being spoken, has produced a spell that has me thoroughly enchanted.

fragment

2011-11-12T12:35:00.000-05:00

Late Hours
On summer nights the world
moves within earshot
on the interstate with its swish
and growl, an occasional siren
that sends chills through us.
Sometimes, on clear, still nights,
voices float into our bedroom,
lunar and fragmented,
as if the sky had let them go
long before our birth.

In winter we close the windows
and read Chekhov,
nearly weeping for his world.

What luxury, to be so happy
that we can grieve
over imaginary lives.

– Lisel Mueller

figures

2011-11-06T18:45:00.002-05:00

that novembery feeling

2011-11-04T09:02:00.003-04:00

my husband, greg, took these during our nightly walk. the month of november, and its predilection for the color gray, is evocative for me. it is month filled with atmosphere.

happy halloween

2011-10-31T07:57:00.003-04:00

I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.

O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.

I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;

The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out.

It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
Who share the unlit place with me—
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.

They are tireless folk, but slow and sad,
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,—
With none among them that ever sings,
And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had.

Ghost House
Robert Frost

voynich manuscript

2011-10-26T08:29:00.003-04:00

an undeciphered manuscript from ages ago with beautiful and mysterious drawings. read about it here and find images here.

harbingers

2011-10-23T19:39:00.000-04:00

spooky

2011-10-20T14:47:00.001-04:00

my question: what do you think the hand like figure on the face of the girl on the left is?

near lawrence avenue

2011-10-16T19:42:00.002-04:00

sometimes the experience of just remembering something is enough to constitute a days activity. this painting is about that. as i get older i am able recall things and feelings with less clarity regarding specifics, yet somehow the overall impressions of times past are stronger. i am not sure how this happens. but i do appreciate it.

more portraits

2011-10-10T10:21:00.004-04:00

inside the house

2011-10-06T14:11:00.002-04:00

my cousin visited last weekend and took these photos. i would say that the first was taken during the late afternoon and the other early, early, perhaps around 7:00 am in the morning. i knew of course that light changes throughout the day, but i really found the contrast so compelling. the color white has a lot of variations!

beginning again

2011-10-02T16:26:00.002-04:00

ladder

2011-09-30T08:01:00.001-04:00

ideas for paintings

2011-09-22T21:55:00.002-04:00

landscape with a black tree

2011-09-17T11:22:00.001-04:00

collage, collage, collage

2011-09-12T22:20:00.004-04:00

not too far from where i live is a used bookstore extraordinaire that is housed in the basement of a public library. i have found some incredible old, dusty, and moth nibbled books that are as beautiful as the poems that are sometimes in them.

meet mr. hook

2011-09-08T17:00:00.003-04:00

he is delighted to have made your acquaintance.

what is inside

2011-09-02T08:08:00.005-04:00

these illustrations were originally part of a very dilapidated book of physiology from 1872. this tome had the distinction of being "the only text of physiology approved by the women's christian temperance union". i figured out why after leafing through it: the reproductive system was completely left out. as an addendum the book encouraged students, if they wanted to further their studies, to purchase another book, ominously titled "hygiene" for information on subjects of "delicacy"!

henry james

2011-08-21T11:19:00.004-04:00

<
the turn of the screw is one of my favorite ghost stories and the film version, with deborah kerr, kept me awake and spooked for days after i saw it. chilling!

green water

2011-08-15T19:49:00.002-04:00

where water meets sky and land

2011-08-08T20:18:00.004-04:00

H

2011-07-29T11:54:00.000-04:00

lucian freud

2011-07-22T17:48:00.001-04:00

he was a great painter. rest to him.

lucy and martha

2011-07-19T09:10:00.001-04:00

2011-07-06T21:55:00.000-04:00

just one more thing

2011-06-24T14:39:00.000-04:00

we are going to miss you forever. rest in peace dear peter.

really really lucky

2011-06-07T07:40:00.002-04:00

last wednesday, while driving some very dear friends from the airport to their hotel, i was in a terrible accident. i truly believed, for what seemed like hours as we careened across the interstate (i hit a piece of metal in the road that destroyed the front axle), that i was going to die. miraculously, we all emerged unscathed. despite feeling immensely grateful for this unmitigated blessing, i also am also experiencing quite a lot of anxiety and feelings of unidentified dread. i want to take some time to work through these in my work and am going to take a break, but before doing so i wanted to let you all know, each one of you, how truly thankful i am for you. you are each a gift of unspeakable beauty and inspiration.

leonora carrington 1917-2011

2011-05-27T07:36:00.004-04:00

rest in peace.

theodore roethke's birthday

2011-05-25T13:20:00.003-04:00

is today. here is an excerpt from his poem "the far field".

All finite things reveal infinitude:
The mountain with its singular bright shade
Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow,
The after-light upon ice-burdened pines;
Odor of basswood on a mountain-slope,
A scent beloved of bees;
Silence of water above a sunken tree :
The pure serene of memory in one man, --
A ripple widening from a single stone
Winding around the waters of the world.

poem

2011-05-17T10:30:00.003-04:00

the night will never stay,
the night will still go by,
though with a million stars
you pin it to the sky;
though you bind it with
the blowing wind,
and buckle it with the moon,
the night will slip away
like sorrow or a tune.
-eleanor farjeon

this poem was lost to me for twenty years. thank you my farmhouse kitchen. a piece of the puzzle is back in its place.

2011-05-11T09:35:00.004-04:00

as i was getting this painting ready to ship, it fell from my hands and broke on the floor. the wood was very old and had developed this amazing, rich patina that truly added to the depth of the paint. needless to say, i was heartbroken and apologized a million times to the buyer. but, now that the night has passed and the sad despair i felt with it, i cannot help but think there might be some possibilities in this. what do you think?

camellias

2011-05-04T07:52:00.005-04:00

the school i work at has camellia bushes lining the brick wall of the gymnasium. they are heavy with blossoms now and when it rains the water accumulating on the petals tears them from their stems and they fall to the ground. i took a few and had them drying on my desk. the petals peel off beautifully intact. i played around with them on paper and decided to stitch them to it. i wonder how they will look ten years from now?

a beautiful sense of longing

2011-04-25T13:26:00.001-04:00

a painting done almost 200 years ago. from an expedition to peru. how wonderful.

2011-04-24T11:38:00.001-04:00

eulalie frum-chottle and her cat, mavis, wish you all a very happy easter!

house number sign

2011-04-20T10:16:00.000-04:00

i painted this for a friend. what do you think?

collages

2011-04-10T11:22:00.003-04:00

these were really fun to make. i felt the "intangible" as i like to call it. the feeling of forgetting oneself because one is completely engrossed in creating.

kansas

2011-04-03T16:39:00.002-04:00

more about this painting here.

endless enchanting outcomes

2011-03-20T14:50:00.000-04:00

2011-03-13T11:14:00.000-04:00

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup.
from "barter"
by sara teasdale

2011-03-06T10:21:00.002-05:00

thoughts on this painting here.

2011-02-27T19:22:00.003-05:00

i have been a bit under the weather of late. feeling better but still have a way to go. a poem by sara teasdale:

prayer
Until I lose my soul and lie
Blind to the beauty of the earth,
Deaf though shouting wind goes by,
Dumb in a storm of mirth;

Until my heart is quenched at length
And I have left the land of men,
Oh, let me love with all my strength
Careless if I am loved again.

2011-02-17T07:52:00.003-05:00

a visual feast here. xius xius. enchanting. have a look.
also, today this is celebrated in asia. it certainly must be beautiful to see!

2011-02-14T07:28:00.002-05:00

happy valentine's day! i was the lucky winner of this from holly of gollybard.
thank you, holly!

2011-02-09T13:25:00.003-05:00

looking at these pictures from last spring and early summer is keeping my spirits up.it cannot be that far away....

2011-02-06T20:56:00.004-05:00

i am excited to be a part of pocketful magazine issue number 5. have a look. selin is a wonderful editor and has compiled page after page of deliciousness for the eyes:)

2011-01-30T14:37:00.005-05:00

there is grace in this world, such as none of us has known about. the world is not a hard or severe place, as people tell us. it is not even just. you are forgiven everything. the fine things in this world you cannot wrong or harm; they are much too strong for that.
-from "the dreaming child"
by isak dinesen

also, another stellar painting by j.b. krost here.

by the red door

2011-01-23T18:24:00.004-05:00

read about the thoughts i had while painting this here.

portraits

2011-01-16T13:47:00.006-05:00

a new post regarding a profound and thought provoking painting by jb krost on "eternal glimpses".

collaboration

2011-01-09T10:59:00.005-05:00

i am very honored and excited to announce the start of a collaboration between myself and jb krost whose blog, haunted room, is a favorite. jb's paintings are beautiful and powerful, conveying some intense personal narratives that are unforgettable. to find out about this project visit our blog that will chronicle the work made and includes some thoughts about the above painting.

gone too soon

2011-01-03T07:32:00.002-05:00

i think he was my favorite living actor. rest and peace to you, mr. postlethwaite.

2010-12-31T08:56:00.002-05:00

happy new year!

for francis

2010-12-29T08:39:00.003-05:00

our cat middy is treated like a very spoiled baby-luckily her disposition has not been ruined by this:) i hold her like this for an hour sometimes:)

two sisters

2010-12-27T10:47:00.004-05:00

2010-12-24T17:50:00.005-05:00

the 1950 version of "a christmas carol", with alistair sim as ebenezer scrooge, is my favorite of all that have been filmed. and this bit, where he gives his long suffering housekeeper a christmas present, is my favorite part in this movie. it is the moment, for me, when i am convinced his transformation is permanent.

regardless of what you believe, or don't believe about this season, i wish this feeling for all of you. the feeling of joy that occurs when kindness and generosity takes hold of your heart:)

2010-12-19T11:39:00.005-05:00

laura, laura, laura, LIAM! my son- i love his drawings. he taught me over the weekend how to make little monoprints with packing tape.

2010-12-12T10:22:00.000-05:00

2010-12-08T07:56:00.000-05:00

still missed.

2010-12-05T17:02:00.002-05:00

oh you lovers that are so gentle, step occasionally
into the breath of the sufferers not meant for you,
let it be parted by your cheeks,
it will tremble, joined again, behind you.

from "sonnets to orpheus IV'
ranier maria rilke

2010-11-29T10:16:00.002-05:00

erasmus finebottom has the measles. lets wish him a speedy recovery:)

2010-11-21T18:24:00.000-05:00

by night only crazy things
like the full moon and the whippoorwill

and us, are busy.
-charles olson

mist

2010-11-14T13:25:00.001-05:00

mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rest its soft machine on the ground;

the the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

from "a martian sends a postcard home"
by craig raine

2010-11-07T17:40:00.002-05:00

"i write to realize the world as one has come to live in it, thus to give testament. i write to move in words, a human delight."
-robert creeley

a painting and a poem for halloween

2010-10-31T10:51:00.006-04:00

A Ghost Abandons the Haunted
You ignore the way light filters through my cells,
the way I have of fading out—still
there is a constant tug, a stretching,
what is left of me is coming loose. Soon,
I will be only crumbs of popcorn,
a blue ring in the tub, an empty
toilet paper roll, black mold
misted on old sponges,
strands of hair woven into
carpet, a warped door
that won’t open, the soft spot
in an avocado, celery, a pear,
a metallic taste in the beer, a cold sore
on your lip—and when I finally lose my hold
you will hear a rustle and watch me spill
grains of rice across the cracked tile.
-katie cappello

the most beautiful dream

2010-10-24T17:08:00.001-04:00

i had a few weeks ago. it has stayed with me. what is the most beautiful dream you have ever had?

blithe spirit

2010-10-17T19:57:00.004-04:00

i think perhaps my favorite margaret rutherford movie. as madame arcati she shines. one of david lean's earlier efforts. his eye for a shot is beautifully shown in the scene above, when, during the seance he moves the camera to follow madame's shadow while the tune "always" twinkles in the background. something very ethereal and timeless. lovely.

2010-10-09T13:59:00.001-04:00

"the thin grey line of a road, winding across the plain and up and down hills, was the fixed materialisation of human longing, and of the human notion that it is better to be in one place than another."

from sorrow acre
by isac dineson

summer

2010-09-26T11:17:00.002-04:00

has gone. officially. today i felt, for the first time this year, autumn in the air.

new england

2010-09-19T17:16:00.008-04:00

2010-09-11T12:17:00.001-04:00

“If you will tell me why the fen appears impassable, I then will tell you why I think that I can cross it if I try”
-marianne moore

a tantalizing vagueness

2010-08-20T08:36:00.001-04:00

had to share this description of what robert frost said inspires him to begin a poem. i feel the same out drawing or painting.

off to find a butter churn and a buggy.

2010-08-03T07:24:00.003-04:00

nonsense words that mean we will be venturing out for a lark about. will be back in september. if you are in silver spring, maryland please stop by artspring-i have a small installation; "the secret lives of shy people". thanks ulla:)

2010-07-25T17:10:00.000-04:00

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
-william butler yeats

souvenir

2010-07-22T07:33:00.006-04:00

my souvenir from our little trip. it has already become a treasure to me.

blissful

2010-07-21T10:31:00.004-04:00

three days of exploring western massachusetts while mina went to college orientation. the exquisite pleasure of strolling around the places comprising the physical landscape of emily dickinson's life. it was wonderful.

2010-07-16T07:45:00.003-04:00

milton avery on his art:
"i work on two levels. i try to construct a picture in which shapes, spaces, colors form a set of unique relationships, independent of subject matter. at the same time i try to capture and translate the excitement and emotion aroused in me by the impact with the original idea.

nicely put, mr. avery.

also, signore ferrara's unexplained cinema was given the nod by film comment magazine. so proud:)

waiting

2010-07-12T07:32:00.002-04:00

so busy now. waiting for some time to open so i can paint again. wish me luck:)

2010-07-09T07:23:00.002-04:00

The life that I have is all that I have
And the life that I have is yours
The love that I have of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have, a rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years in the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.
-leo marks

unexplained cinema.

erin dittrich

2010-07-07T07:28:00.005-04:00

the wonderful drawings of erin dittrich- a friend i have made through flickr. her kindness is inspiring

2010-07-05T05:26:00.005-04:00

today is my wedding anniversary. so grateful for every year!

the simple truth

2010-07-02T07:43:00.004-04:00

I bought a dollar and a half's worth of small red potatoes,
took them home, boiled them in their jackets
and ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt.
Then I walked through the dried fields
on the edge of town. In middle June the light
hung on in the dark furrows at my feet,
and in the mountain oaks overhead the birds
were gathering for the night, the jays and mockers
squawking back and forth, the finches still darting
into the dusty light. The woman who sold me
the potatoes was from Poland; she was someone
out of my childhood in a pink spangled sweater and sunglasses
praising the perfection of all her fruits and vegetables
at the road-side stand and urging me to taste
even the pale, raw sweet corn trucked all the way,
she swore, from New Jersey. "Eat, eat" she said,
"Even if you don't I'll say you did."
Some things
you know all your life. They are so simple and true
they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,
the glass of water, the absence of light gathering
in the shadows of picture frames, they must be
naked and alone, they must stand for themselves.
My friend Henri and I arrived at this together in 1965
before I went away, before he began to kill himself,
and the two of us to betray our love. Can you taste
what I'm saying? It is onions or potatoes, a pinch
of simple salt, the wealth of melting butter, it is obvious,
it stays in the back of your throat like a truth
you never uttered because the time was always wrong,
it stays there for the rest of your life, unspoken,
made of that dirt we call earth, the metal we call salt,
in a form we have no words for, and you live on it.

-philip levine

when i read this poem for the first time i immediately went and bought some small potatoes:)

also, holly is having a giveaway!

2010-06-30T07:19:00.001-04:00

maybe this will be a painting some day. this is fascinating to me. and it happened 102 years ago today.

summer weekend and hand drawing

2010-06-28T07:54:00.007-04:00

a lovely weekend spent with friends. honored to be a part of this amazing endeavor: hand drawing. also on facebook. have a look there is some truly inspiring work!

the house was quiet and the world was calm

2010-06-25T08:20:00.002-04:00

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

-wallace stevens

from far away.

2010-06-23T07:48:00.001-04:00

midsummer!

2010-06-21T07:12:00.004-04:00

i have always found it most delightful that the longest day of the year is usually the nicest. happy midsummer:)

wings

2010-06-18T07:42:00.003-04:00

We have
a microsopic anatomy
of the whale
this
gives
Man
assurance
William Carlos Williams

We have
a map of the universe
for microbes,
we have
a map of a microbe
for the universe.

we have
a Grand Master of chess
made of electronic circuits.

But above all
we have
the ability
to sort peas,
to cup water in our hands,
to seek
the right screw
under the sofa
for hours

This
gives us
wings.

-miroslav holub

also a reminder that even the face of terrible defeat the good people of the world should never give up.

hypatia lime

2010-06-16T07:36:00.000-04:00

cannot seem to find her cat.

middy's world

2010-06-14T07:18:00.002-04:00