Dream.
Discover.
It is quite a thrilling and entertaining exploration... Then comes the opportunity to juxtapose the details of life's complexity. Is it okay to have this much fun when I am working?
It's a good thing to have some flowing fun, and to labor less agonizingly every once in a while. My puritanical fore-mothers might not approve, but oh well...
I'm going for it, especially on this dismally gray New England day.
Brandon is ever-so quiet, hunkering down in glowering hibernation mode, yearning for the first green shoot to emerge from the dingy snowbanks.
Spring happens.
Eventually.
Between stars—on stars-- where no human race is
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
It's so hard to explain how Carson draws me.
Even explaining it to myself is difficult. A place of simplicity for me, of vastness and survival. It doesn't frighten me, as Frost suggests. I am full of serenity when I am there, saturated by the scent of the sage; reveling in the brilliant light which illuminates the desert's excruciating demands, exquisite details and challenges. I'm challenged to look inward, and to be completely present in the moment.
It's a huge relief.
So much simpler than real life.
Me estira mi querencia... a phrase I learned in Paraguay. I am drawn, stretched and elongated in spirit towards that which I love... These vistas emerge in my art here in New England, 1500 miles away, 38 years after living there.
In this photo, taken in March I am painting in my front patio there... if that's what one can call a circle of eroded walls sprouting overgrown sage, russian thistle and grama grass.
The painting was not much, but it is the first I've done there in ever so long.
I had put off making new covers for my booth grids, and then had trouble finding enough fabric. Thank goodness two knowledgeable friends helped me organize the sewing project and sewed and pinned many yards of the 47 that had to be assembled! Thanks so much to Karen Schneider and her friend Diane... It would have been an all nighter instead of a home at 3 am morning.
Then it was off to set up the show, and be there for the next 3 days...
An excellent time, in an excellent location, meeting excellent artists. Great response to the work as well.
Then, after arriving home in Vermont on Sunday evening late, I discovered on Monday morning that I was leaving for New Mexico that afternoon instead of Tuesday as I had thought. Forget unpacking!
Catch the plane!
What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.
-Tom Lehrer
It's been a week since I struggled with the indecision as to whether I should attempt to undertake an online course. It was NOT easy getting going. The good news is I seem to be swimming rather than sinking. http://www.petemyers.net is the current result, and I'm pretty pleased with it for a starting project. There is much to be done, but at least now that I'm over the first hurdle of understanding how to make it look the way I want it to- at least sort of.
Meanwhile, there are still two commissions in process, and I am VERY EXCITED about some new breakthroughs with surface treatment on the canvas. And the Marlboro, Massachussetts show is next weekend. We'll be setting up on Thursday, and I'm there until Sunday. Long days in the booth chatting with lots of people. At least I hope that's how it will be!
You accomplish nothing if you do that.
Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.
- Pearl Buck
Hanging a new show is a demanding process, and this one was doubly, triply, astonishingly intense.
Uncommon View, Photos by John Peterson Myers renewed a standard of accomplishment for us in the gallery and frame shop. Pete arrived on Saturday February 24. By Friday the 29th- Leap Day 2008, we had framed nearly 60 of his fabulous photos, and hung 33 of them all beautifully. The others will be hung in Charlottesville for his opening this Friday night at the Mudhouse.
All of this took place between his lectures at Middlebury, Green Mountain and Castleton Colleges on environmental health. Jim steadfastly kept the matting and framing process going at an amazing and exacting pace. He is a perfectionist with a great sense of subtle color. Pete and I would jump on board when we returned from the hallowed halls of academia, matting, cutting the glass, cleaning the pieces, assembling, etc into the night. Pete emerged from this process as an excellent framer as well, having traveled from Charlottesville with his matt cutter in the back seat. Precision suits him.
The opening was well attended with a crowd of people arriving from Shelburne, Poultney, Ripton and all the mountain nooks and crannies in between. It was a gathering of wonderful thinkers, and articulate do-ers. Much fun, and amazing conversation.
Pearl Buck speaks to the reality that an artist can't wait for the muse to murmur in their ear. We must leap into the creative act, and persevere.
And for some reason we do.
And yet, we can't forget how important it is to take the time to celebrate the effort.
- Learning is not compulsory...
- Neither is survival.
- -W. Edwards Deming
I am two days into a month of taking an online Dreamweaver course.
I know I can do this, even though it isn't the way I want to spend my time right now. Or at all. I have finally come to the conclusion that it's essential to have the knowledge of how to do this myself rather than try to explain it to someone, or wait until someone who knows how to do it has time for me.
HOWEVER... It is quite daunting to be reading pages and ever more complex pages of a foreign tongue... Fortunately ultimately it will be an intuitive process, or at least that is the reputation of the program. Meanwhile I am very focused.
