The woods in Vermont, a drawing

It's a clear crisp day here in Vermont and I decided to study the woods a little more.  I'm still working on paintings of the woods and trying to clarify the light as it falls through the leaves.  It's a moving target of course.  And that allows me dwell in non-verbal space and experience the outdoors as it changes.

Here's' the study I did today.

The Woods in Vermont, 2012, graphite drawing, 8X6

Judy's Flowers

The weather turned cold and I stayed inside to draw instead of painting outside.  Here's the sketch I did at my friend Judy Ryan's house yesterday.

 

 

Judy's Flowers, 2012, 11X6.5, graphite

I'm drawn to the contrast between the deadish sticks of the hibiscus in the solid pot, contrasting with the fluffy end-of-year seedum flowers in that fat cut glass vase.  Mmmm.

Our creations will be temporary

This week I'm reposting the painting I showed two weeks ago because a kind visitor to Bermuda, Elan Nyer,  emailed me a photo he took of me working there.  You can see how close I am to the subject.  Lately I've been working like this, out in nature.

As I re-engage with painting, I wonder why I use stuff to make other stuff that I or others will have to save and look at or store or discard.   A section of a  powerful reading by Katie Willingham on bravelittlebooks of a slice through Tree of Codes - a die cut book - by Jonathan Safran Foer speaks eloquently to me on these questions.  He cut out and allows words to come through the pages from another's book, The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schultz. Here's a quote she read:

we wish, we wish,
we want we want we want
we are not, he said, long term beings.
not heroes of romances in many volumes.
for one gesture, for one word alone, we shall make the effort.
we openly admit
our creations will be temporary.

The punctuation is mine, and the appearance of it is altered by my condensing it into one piece of writing as I heard it on the blog.  It is not, therefore, a proper quote. But when the book looks like the picture below, it's impossible to copy it perfectly:

It is the temporariness of my being here that compels me to paint.  Not so much to make objects to be held onto or survive me but rather to become immersed more fully in the present moment made all the more precious as it is passing.  Paintings, in the greater scheme, are temporary too.  As I paint I reach out to enjoy or mourn and engage life more deeply in the hopes that it will touch someone else who is another temporary wanderer.  In this way, I make myself a little less alone in my transience and hold up what there is to revel in.  There is much.

Sun through the Woods in Vermont

            
Sun through the Woods in Vermont, 2012, oil, 24X16

Think I finally finished this painting that I started about 5 years ago.  Fall began and gave a hit of copper and purple!