TO DIG OR NOT TO DIG

The Hole Project

 Dearest Readers,

My proposal to dig a deep hole, line it with marble and make a ladder emerging from it out of boughs and leafy branches was accepted for SculpFest 2012 at the Carving Studio in West Rutland Vermont. Nine other artists with outdoor site-specific pieces were also accepted. The only problem is timing.  Can I accomplish this feat of struggle, endurance, deep digging and hand-made ladder building by September 8^th, the date of the opening reception? I seriously doubt it. I’m still waiting for confirmation of where my site will be on their grounds.

Hmmm. My inclination is to “Go for it” at my own pace without fear, and wherever I am at the final date I stop. My core body strength these days is limited. This hole has been in my mind for over a year. It is meant to be a personal test...a struggle and a “hero’s journey” as Joseph Campbell, the scholar of myth called the path of the seeker for spiritual understanding. The digging is about going down inside under the surface of things. The ladder of course, is the resurrection and the hoped for transformation.

The Carving Studio, a marble sculpture school, is housed on a former location of the Vermont Marble Company. There are four abandoned quarries on site, marble slabs strewn throughout the forested grounds, several abandoned marble warehouses, gorgeous rusted mechanical hoists and “maypole” contraptions originally used to carve and extract marble out of the hills. Twenty-five years ago some artists organized the Carving Studio on this land, donated by the Gawett Marble family. Here are a number of shots of the school and the grounds. I should know by next Sunday’s blog what my decision will be...To dig or not to dig...that is the question.

Carving Studio Main Building

Abandoned Quarry #1

Abandoned Quarry #2

Abandoned Quarry #3

Marble Monoliths

Abandoned Maypole Extractor

Outdoor carving studios

Possible site for hole

Discarded marble slabs in forest

Sculpture Field North

Sculpture Field South

Abandoned marble work buildings

In the meantime,

I leave you dear readers with three new nude model drawings from my Thursday night open figure session at the Chaffee Art Center nearby, 

a new quilted hankie portrait, 

Day 75-Alive

another great Vermont skyscape; this one of morning fog lifting from the mountains, 

a new quixotic self-portrait entitled “Erotic”,

and a poem bemoaning libido’s apparent high tailing it out of here on the occasion of an actual date with a man.

DEAR LIBIDO

Libby dearest you confuse me.

Six years of glorious solitude.

Content with deep thinking.

Then James calls and shakes it up.

Oh not in the romantic way.

I’m talking about a splash of ice water

Against the warm cheek of my sexual self.

Vamoosed. Not there.

Out on a date with a cumbersome guy.

Fearing his advance and fingers on my knee.

No hormones picked up the call.

A goodbye hug and a peck on my cheek.

Tried to fake it.

Hate his long-lipped moustache.

-April 21, 2012

WALLS AND A WINDOW

My bedroom window at dawn

Dearest Readers,

WINDOW:

I’ve been staring at walls and my window this week in Vermont. I have one long, skinny window in my bedroom. It’s the first welcome sign I see when I wake up, and the last glow of light when I retire. On certain days when the wind is right, the whiff of donuts from a nearby bakery wafts through the dawn’s early light. Twice weekly band concert music in the park, the ubiquitous argumentative crow family, and Rutland’s twice daily ten-of-nine curfew horn blast past my window sill. The curfew is a remnant from the turn of the last century when it was a morning reminder for kids that school was about to start at 9am. At night it signified that 9pm was approaching, and all minors had to be off the streets. There is no curfew now and school starts earlier than 9am. A few years back there was an effort to do away with the horn, but people protested in favor of retaining the nostalgia. The horn emanates from the main fire station near me, and is also used as a warning siren in emergencies. It is very loud and very close to my place.

I’ve been tweeting haiku-ish window poems the past few days. Here are a few of them:

*In bed, staring out at the summer sky–a moist white membrane above my head.-July 16

*Night. The window a black rectangle in the wall. Sounds of rain, and my frightened pup panting on the mattress. -July 17

*6am. threatening rain. a crow flaps on the porch roof outside my window. Faint car sounds in the distance. -July 18

*Riled and roiled by wind and rain. Makes 50 shades of green outside my window. -July 19

*White window. A red tailed hawk screeches behind the thin veil of morning. -July 21

*white sky. maple leaves blurry in front. This is the view outside my window without glasses.

-July 23

*The open window welcomes the wind. Drawings flutter on the wall. In flies a magic carpet that swirls me around the room. -July 23

*Johnny Cash sails through the window. means band concert night at Main Street Park.   

-July 25

*Raining buckets, splashing on the sill. Etta James is catatonic–scared of thunder, lightening and gobs of rain. –July 26

*Northwesterly wind at dawn. Dellveneri's bakery donuts waft through the bedroom window. –July 27

WALLS:

I’m inspired by my Decatur GA friend Ruth Schowalter’s recent blog in praise of six of the murals of the late Hale Woodruff commissioned by Talledega College in Alabama in 1939, and now on view at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art.

In response, I photographed the six murals on view at the main Rutland VT post office downtown, by the late Bellows Falls Vermont artist, Stephen J. Belaski (1909-1987). They were commissioned in 1937 by the WPA as part of the depression era effort to give work to artists. These colorful wall paintings tell some of the stories of the American Revolution as played out by events in Vermont.

"Ethan Allen and His Green Mountain Boys"

"The Call to Unite"-Assembly of Mountain Fighters

"The Beach Seal"-Flogging of a NY Landgrabber by landowners in Vermont

"Freeing the First Slave in the State of Vermont"

"Benedict Arnold Commanding the First Naval Battle on Lake Champlain"

"The First Stroke for Independence-The Attack on the James Breckenridge Farm in Dorset"

 I close, dear readers, with the latest installment of Vermont plants that I remember from childhood, plus this week’s self portrait entitled “Rushed”, a figure sketch from the weekly live model class, and the start of a painting in my studio based on my first of five “test drawings” that I did the first week I arrived in Vermont. 

Have a great week, y’all.

Dandelion

Fuzzy bush

gladiolus

Wild grape vine

common weed

Self-Portrait-"Rushed", 10"x19", charcoal and pastel on colored paper

"Nude Figure", 10"x19", pastel on colored paper

start of "Cradled in the Nest of Loving Kindness", 46"x41", acrylic on canvas  7.26.2012

Test drawing for "Cradled in the Nest of Loving Kindness", 35"x40", charcoal, pastel on kraft paper 6.11.2012

HONESTY

 

HONESTY

Removing a coat when the temperature climbs

Unhooking a tight brassiere,

Erasing a smudge from a bifocaled lens

Openly looking at fear.

Lifting a rug to discover the source

Of a smell or a lump or a creak,

Spotting a bird through a tangle of leaves,

Regarding the words that we speak.

 -Tuesday 7.10.2012

 

Dearest Readers,

 My tendency when blogging is to stretch and embellish the storytelling...not a lot, but just a smidge in the interest of keeping the reader interested. Drama can distort, and simplicities ignore ambiguities and complexities. I’ve been thinking a lot about honesty this year. It’s not just telling the truth vs telling lies. Honesty gets tangled up in being nice and wording a sentence for the least amount of conflict. I’ve been working at presenting my self in public as I would to my own mirror at home. I’ve got a habit of being perky when the situation just calls for straightforward, unencumbered being. It’s hard even recognizing when I do it. Little white dishonesties happen in my painting and writing too. Slowing down helps. I’ve revised two more of my “test” drawings to get deeper into what I’m feeling. 

BEFORE:

Untitled Threshold Wings #1

 AFTER:

Untitled Threshold Wings #1 Revised ©2012-35" x 39"

Acrylic and charcoal on kraft paper

BEFORE:

Untitled Threshold Wings #2

 AFTER:

Untitled Threshold Wings #2-Revised ©2012-35" x 39"

Acrylic oil stick and charcoal on kraft paper

I’m diving into the open figure drawing group that meets ever Thursday evening at the Chaffee Art Center nearby, letting it rip, showing all the line-work, even the corrections on the paper.

I’m still awed by the skyscapes here in Vermont. These were shot in E. Dummerston in the south western side of the state at my friends' rural home.

I continue to document more summer plants from childhood memories...

Buttercups

Crabapples

Goldenrod

Lamb's Quarters or perhaps Jewel Weed

Sugar Maples with sap tubing for maple syrup

Tall dark droopy pine

Some sort of variegated leafy ground cover

I visited artists and friends this week who live in out-of-the-way rural havens. Here's artist Paedra Peter Bramhall's bronze sculpture pool in Bridgewater Corners Vermont at the top of a mountain,

and Michael Beale, below left, with Paedra in Paedra's studio with his large digital photo collages and glass sculptures. 

And these are my dear friends Gordon and Eleanora Faison at home in E. Dummerston, VT who are on the board of the Brattleboro Museum of Art.

My dog Etta runs free now off leash when we visit these beautiful places. She exhausts herself chasing down smells or a red tail hawk screeching overhead. Saturday night in E. Dummerston the blue-black night sky was studded with countless stars. It took my breath away.

I leave you my friends with this week's feeling self-portrait entitled "Content", 

#89-Content 10 x 19-charcoal and pastel on paper

and "Helpful", the latest quilting of my vintage hankie portraits– here displayed outdoors in my lap.

#87-Helpful