Last Days of Summer

Girl with Umbrella, Central Park, August

Girl with Umbrella, Central Park, August

Here we are in the last days of summer.  It was cooler, chilly even, and now hot again, so confusing.  Do the dogs shed their coats or grow them?  They look at me wondering since they think I have the answers. This weather must perplex many a mammal with fur.  The shot was taken in the 90s with a film camera I bought for $50 from a friend.  It’s a small Olympus that I still have.  Heavy by current standards, I carried it everywhere usually loaded with Kodacolor 200.

 

For many summers I took students out on the land in both Vermont and in New York, a few times in Venice.  It is the best kind of experience for learning to concentrate amidst all the distractions and difficulties of being unprotected while trying to paint.  Students hate the first week or two of it and then learn the routine of becoming part of the environment and the pleasure of what they witness.  They become sensitive to all these things they hadn’t noticed when they just walked through the land.  This is more so in the city.  This was taken just as the rains hit and paints and canvases had to be protected quickly.  One prepares for that and all was saved.

 

Things change but Central Park is still beautiful in the rain, in August, when the weather is odd and we find old photographs to remind us.