The Island

It's been incredibly snowy this winter. I made one drawing of the island a week ago but otherwise I haven't been drawing from life at all. I've only been drawing and painting things out of my imagination. I miss the river. Here are a few additional images of the island drawn from about the same spot.

The island
2/7/2015
charcoal

3/27/2013

5/6/2013

12/12/2014

Kind of mind-numbing. Why do I do this??

More images:

The Ibis

The dam
colored pencil
2/1/2015

The weather has not been cooperating lately. We are under the lash and it's troubling. I miss these expansive moments of the river's white noise and my contemplative focus. Also, various projects have stacked up; moments spent on one task is time stolen from another. There are moments where dealing with the necessities of life are the most clear and rewarding: shoveling snow, cooking and other domestic chores, doing laundry… Even writing is a form of procrastination.

Such is life and it will change. Projects will be completed. And through it all I still hear ducks overhead and see life at the bird feeder. The snow piles up in last year's nests and interesting animal tracks are seen in the snow. These creatures who share their lives without calculation, illuminate a path for me.

I worked in my studio this morning (like all my mornings) and considered my reason to draw outdoors: to attend and be gently surprised and reminded of the basics of Life beyond my small intelligence. And this picture emerged:

two ibises in Old Egypt (detail)

2/6/2015
mixed media

It's not such a good painting but the sentiment is true for me: the imbalance between what the Egyptian feels about the Ibis and what the Ibis feels about the Egyptian. It brings me some peace in this very troubled world.
Bonne journée mes amis.

A Snowy Day

It was windy too. Hooray for binder clips!

South Natick Dam with ducks and snow
charcoal, watercolor
Jan 27, 2015 

charcoal, watercolor
Jan. 27, 2015

I skied to the dam this morning and did a couple of snowy views of the river.

1 - 2 - 3

Sacred Heart Church
charcoal
25 January 2015

Pleasant Street Bridge
ink, charcoal, lithographic tusche
25 January 2015

Pleasant Street Bridge
charcoal, ink
25 January 2015

We had a few inches of fresh snow yesterday. A blizzard is on the way tomorrow night. But today was brilliant blue and white and not too cold so I was able to get in these three drawings in my morning rounds before we went to church.

Sometimes I get tired of drawing and I wonder when things will dry up and I have to figure out what to draw next. I need to be interested in what I'm doing. Sometimes my attention or pleasure wanes but so far, nothing to actually stop the motif from calling to me.

But those gaps, those "writer's blocks" are perversely essential and need to be endured. Then I burrow in deeper or approach things from a different angle or hold the pencil in my toes left-handed, whatever. Just keep the dialogue going whatever the cost.

Freezing Time

In a peaceful forest, as I drew/painted a tree, my ink and brush were freezing. It was 8º F (-13 C). Luckily, the ink in the bottle wasn't freezing so I could daub away merrily, like Matisse on a sunny Summer day!

I'd taken a walk into town for coffee and to work on a couple of books. The path goes through forest and around a frozen lake. It was beautiful (and very cold!). But my mind kept tripping over photographs I'd seen earlier of a man being pushed off a minaret to his death.

The man doing the hurling/pushing, the executioner, wore a mask over his face. Why a mask? Why masks on the Kouachi brothers? God sees past the mask right? Are the killers afraid of men? Is it to spare the populace so they won't see the truth that one of their own has just murdered one of their own? Maybe a mask makes the soldier braver. My head spins and twists at the insanity of killing like this.

I almost went down to the river this afternoon just to get away from my imagination for a little while. I just wanted the white noise and the needs of the drawing in front of me. And my freezing fingers and the urgency and clarity of the moment. The moment that drowns out the crazy world and replaces it with the simple fact of my consciousness struggling peacefully with itself and Creation. AND NOT HURTING ANYONE!

Seeing God

"La Quinta"
charcoal
10 January 2015

Out of respect for the passionate, loving people on both sides of the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, I have been mostly silent. I know which side I support of course (Je suis Charlie!) but I've always felt that I create an image of the face of God (not the Prophet, I am not Muslim) whenever I make a picture of what is in front of me.

So here you see a banal image of a banal scene: a hotel lobby at 6:00 in the morning. I try to approach this with the same open mind and care that I have when I draw the river back in South Natick.  Because I am a seeing and scribing instrument, the subject doesn't really matter. What matters is the time spent and the attitude during those moments of attention. Some call it prayer. Some call it listening. I call it Art.

Art shows us a facet of the place where our minds meet whatever is outside of the mind. God is in that place and therefore God is in this lamp and in this banality. Since God is there, the moment is sacred and Life is sacred and Life is an Art of recognizing sacredness (unlike the murderers in Paris). The questioning mind is a seeking, scribing instrument used by Creation to find language to create and praise itself. In this way, "blasphemy" could be seen as an form of Love and engagement. It could suggest an ultimate and intimate cry to God to descend from a human-created throne to dwell among a marvelous, many-faceted and intelligent Creation. 

Different & The Same

SOME VARIABLES

depth: foreground, background and the space in-between

horizontal elements: the dam, the bridge

mark-making: ink, charcoal lines & smudges, tangles, black blobs. colored pencil

Don't think, just draw what's in front. Now.

12-26-14

1-2-15

12-28-14

The Merganser

Hooded Merganser (male)
Lophodytes cucullatus
crayon, tusche
12-17-2014
about

These shy but active ducks stay near the dam in the winter. There's currently a group of two males and one female. As soon as I approach, they swim to the other side of the pool above the dam. They are often busy, diving below the surface hunting for small fish or crustaceans to eat. I like the idea that an animal can be described as "busy". This somehow cheers me up. What animal cheers you up?

Bonne journée!

Wires

"Wires"
charcoal
12/16/2014

Our glittering and magical "devices" (a catch-all term for tablets, computers and smartphones) fail to acknowledge the airborne and underground wires and cables that are the bones of the Information Superhighway. So here, la voilà, is said Superhighway. It's lovely in a way.

And then there are the electrical power plants digesting and burning coal, the sun, even atoms to power these hand-held delights. Top this with the holes in the earth where the precious and rare metals came from. One device is the tip of a spear of environmental and economic interdependence. It's sobering, having the entire world at your doorstep: the great unwashed who toil and soil themselves for our pleasure, the Kardashians and lolcats too. 

Coots & Cows

Big rains have filled up the river. It thunders over the dam.
charcoal
12-11-14

One day later: river is till rising. The island is inundated
colored pencil
12-12-14

from a Saturday morning walk around Lake Waban in Wellesley
ink, charcoal
12-13-14

Today at Lake Waban: Coots, I love coots!
ink
12-13-14

Cows, I can't draw cows!
ink, charcoal
12-13-14