Filling in the blanks

Closing in.

Gratifying day! Guiding the book project through a critical juncture, Anne and Leslee achieved a level of clarity that brushed a touch of gold throughout the pages. At the end of Fridays session, the tragic snow skiing accident had been relived through a detailed account of events. A roller coaster only Anne,family and friends could have ridden.
Embracing the journey!
Marcus

13 Ways of Looking

Raven detail from "The Watch"

Inspired by Wallace Steven's "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" which you can read online by clicking the link.


Thirteen Ways to See a Raven

1. The opportunist never sleeps.

2. Three blackbirds is a good omen representing   
    brightness and goodness. 
    Perhaps Wallace was in good spirits that day.

3. Ignoring change, the bird was blending, adapting, 
    playing.
   Or, simply delivering a message of doom in the face of nature's dramatic change. (magical change)

4. Blackbirds (corvids) are monogamous representing relationship longevity .

5. The blackbird sings in riddle, allusive and suggestive.
    Perhaps the tune is like the bartender's last call!

6. The ghost appears outside the window, waving warning or just playing.
    Perhaps the weight of winter is seeping in.

7. The blackbird should not be shunned because of its blackness for its value is gold.

8. The spiritual blackbird, the watchful eye.

9. Significant moment , birthday?
    Life map mile marker. Personal growth , one step closer to death.

10. Emotions soar when the blackbirds fly.
      Feelings can be dark as death,
      or bright as the sun,
      even on a cloudy day.

11. Perhaps, death follows closely.

12. When the blackbird stirs, nature is on the move.
      The pace of the planet is a fine rhythm.

13. Always present, the blackbird never sleeps!


And you, faithful reader? Tell us how the blackbird looks from your perspective. Help us get 13 responses below. 

Making Time for Walden - Cabin in the Woods

Marcus and I are reading Thoreau's Walden or Life in the Woods in the midst of trying times.

I bought my copy of Walden and Other Writings from The Strand bookstore in New York City in September of 2000, when I was terribly homesick for the mountains of North Carolina. When I picked it up yesterday, for the first time in years (not counting unpacking and packing it) I found within the pages, in the chapter called "Solitude" pictures of my long-gone friend Ishmael and the garden we grew together on the Bruce Farm in Mars Hill, NC. Calvin Chandler, who had cows and a tractor, plowed and raked over the soil for me - half an acre worth - and I planned to grow enough vegetables to keep students and families of Mars Hill in fresh vegetables all season. The task would prove much easier to dream than to realize - not so much the growing (I had the Ishmael, with about 7o years of gardening experience, to help me) but what to do with all the vegetables and how to get my classmates to come shovel manure in the name of community.

So mostly, it was just me and Ish at the garden. The photos are a result of my excitement at the vast, plowed expanses of what would be my garden. It was the fall of 1993, and I was starting a garden of greens and crimson clover. Ish and I were talking about how to lay everything out, and I caught a great crooked picture on a little disposable camera of Ish walking off a row, followed by two scrappy beagles, whose names I can't remember but know that I have recorded in a journal somewhere in the pink liquorstore box in my closet here in South Asheville, in the late summer of 2011.

Ishmael died in the late nineties, when I was living in New York. The place where our garden was is, last I checked, an embankment that serves as an entrance to a gated community, now starting to show the age, despair and neglect of the recent few years.

So what does all this have to do with work on Marcus' 25- year retrospective? Well, this remains to be seen, but I suspect it's because a retrospective is, necessarily, a lot about time, timing, looking back and wondering. It involves asking, sometimes too, what to make of a diminshed thing - whether we're talking about the natural world we once knew, or the people we used to be. That's the hard part. But. A retrospective well done can have a happy ending, and help us re-member ourselves as surely as we see the same person in the mirror when we pause to look ourself in the eye, every time.

Plus, in the middle of August, really, especially, who doesn't dream of retreating to a remote cabin in the woods, to study the of late summer drone of crickets and cicada, and to stare at the deepening sky, trying to catch and name that particular shade of blue. Closest thing to hitching a ride on the watch in the detail of Marcus' "The Watch" and flying into that deep color blue.

In hectic times like these, it's good to have some sort of retreat, a cabin in the woods to re-member. Maybe that's reading a book you once loved, or losing yourself in an art, the practice of making something. And then, added to that, an invitation to a good friend's "cabin" in the woods wouldn't hurt.

Marcus writes:

Walden

My cabin in the woods:
No roof.
No walls.
Canvas provides shelter from the cold,
Paint fuels the warmth,
brush along,
Invitation only!

-----------------------August 2011

Come visit us here anytime. Tell us how you retro-spect and re-member. And share where you found your "cabin in the woods" where you make the time, in these times, to practice your art, whatever it is you practice.

Dwell in Possibility: Religion, Science and the Art of Metaphor

Detail from the painting titled "The Watch"

In The Life of the Skies, Jonathan Rosen talks a lot about the fracturing of the world (or the western mind) that happened after Darwin. It's a fracture Rosen himself is still trying to heal, through birdwatching as an mediating activity - one that makes people look up and see. For Rosen, as for many of us who love birds, what we see when we look up is the glory of a bird, but also all that the bird represents - literally, spiritually. Metaphorically.


He talks a lot about naturalists of that time - Darwin, Alfred Lord Wallace. And about how they also sought the divine in their work, whether this was made explicit, or not. Wallace, for example, spent years on the Malay Archipelago before he finally found the bird that sent him on this quest - the bird of paradise - a bird in which the natural and the spiritual seem to meet by virtue of a name!

Rosen uses poetry to really bring out the spiritual aspect of birding. He connects Alfred Lord Wallace's quest and love with Wallace Steven's mystical bird, the one in "Of Mere Being" that sings "in the palm at the end of the mind." Rosen makes a good distinction we really appreciate between the materialist versus naturalist.

Marcus responds to this idea in a way that reminds us of poetry, reflecting on his life, confined, yet metaphorically free through the natural world he creates in art. The following words to the conclusion of the post are his thoughts, shared with you. The featured image is a detail from his current work, the painting, titled "The Watch," which you can see in progress in the slideshow to the right:

My confined life is metaphorical happiness.
I should be miserable because?

But, I do not accept misery as a solution.

Self value is part of measuring happiness.
I have purpose, the result is bliss.

Emily Dickinson pops up the the book Life of the Skies too. Her poem, "I dwell in Possibility" evoked this response:

Why not live a life without restriction.
An infinite perspective is the fountain of youth.
Which feeds our hunger to search in a spiritual and or scientific way.

I love the intertwined idea of science and religion. Because I breathe the metaphorical, my acceptance of both is satisfying. I am not grasping for Big answers! Content with the obvious, focusing on MY metaphorical foot print and embracing what is real.
This is my consumption!
Reality is the foundation, for I live in an abstract frame.
Escape through paint, brush and love? YOU BET! If your mind becomes bored with your heart, you are defeated.
Rock on!

Carolina Wren

I just had the pleasure of watching and hearing a Carolina Wren. Less than a few feet from my face,the power and clarity of that voice is amazing. How does that small frame produce such volume?

Carolina Wren photo credit: birdtiques.com

Reading *The Life of the Skies*

Currently, both Marcus and Leslee are reading the book, The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature, by Jonathan Rosen. Rosen, a New Yorker who haunts Central Park with his binoculars, writes of the world that opened up for him when he began looking up and taking note. He also does a lot to connect human nature and the act of birding. Birding, for Rosen, is both a spiritual and physical pursuit that really speaks to the tension between our destructive and creative tendencies.

Leslee, who birdwatches and loves to learn the names of things, has always suspected a connection between what people notice and what they care about. She thinks maybe the more people notice and name the birds in their backyard, the trees in their neighborhood, the fish in their streams, the more likely they will be to care for them, and fight to protect them. She also likes this book for the great use of quotes from Thoreau, Audubon, Faulkner, and this one from Robert Frost's poem about the Ovenbird:

The question that he frames in all but words

Is what to make of a diminished thing.

For his part, Marcus is in the business of showing folks the world in a way that helps them notice birds, among other natural phenomena, and recognize the peril, the "diminished thing" nature may become. In a way, what Marcus shows in some of his paintings, like the one of the cedar waxwings and the bobcat, is similar to the message Rosen conveys in his book.

But there are some differences. Here's what Marcus says, particularly about the thesis that we are seeing the end of nature: "Insight comes when the end is near? I am not sure I like that projection. Clearly! Cherish the moment. My take on the "ending insight" is that clarity is the result of hindsight. Actually, hyper-hindsight! The past is always clearer than the projected future." So stopping short of predicting the end, Marcus seeks to convey understanding with a decidedly less "doomsday" approach.

Stay tuned to hear what we think about the comparison of birding to hunting, and the gender inequality among birders . . .

In the meantime, what do you think? Do you know the names of the birds in your backyard? Do you notice them? Are we "at the end of nature"?

(Image is from the New York Times review of Rosen's book. Credited to Oliver Munday.)

Saturday Reflection - Monday Direction

A classic shot of Lake James, courtesy of the Lake James homepage

Saturday at the lake has become a reliable diversion from the work week. With plenty of snacks, a good book (painting project) and friendly weather, we settle in for the day.

Anne remains on deck for an interview. She seems to be in delay mode most of the time, perhaps if the exchange could be conducted at the lake, the information would flow freely. Add a glass of wine to the equation?

My current painting projects consist of work needing to be completed for the book, Florida subjects for winter shows and miscellaneous scenes needed for creative growth. More hours in the day would be welcomed!

I am discovering that the more creative paintings provide me with a satisfied emotion, a more rewarding feeling of accomplishment. Such soul-reflecting works should insure longevity and provide me the inspiration to continue painting long after I am dead.

What a concept!

With lots of shows on the horizon the typical productive week will be altered  slightly. The norm is to enjoy a complete week of painting with one day of play. Soon, the show routine dictates a pace that Anne maneuvers through like a super human (super hero). Organizing business demands, travel requirements and a host of family stuff only scratching the surface of her list. Me, the adjustment is pathetic in comparison.

The book project will adapt with the schedule. Our goal is to have a mock book in toe when we visit the design company, located in Charleston S.C.. November is the target.

Hopefully, Leslee will join our journey, providing her expertise with text layout. Multiple ideas channeled into one goal should deliver the desired result.

Go / Team / Go !