Waiting for the Rain to Stop, 2021, Archival Digital Print
I spent more time in the car waiting than I did caring for the flock. The rain was in deluge mode for most of the day. Like many artists I search for the unified field theory of what I see and feel as I work. Why this not that? Why here not there? Why transmute it in this way and not that way? An artist does nothing if not make thousands of decisions as she works.
Westside Highway, Rain, 2018, Archival Digital Print
A mighty thunder and lighting storm rolled in last night. The sudden darkness was spectacular for its drama as it came across from the Catskills. I was out picking a few Daffodils trying to grab those beauties before I was struck dead. Those blooms smile at me now right above the sink with a single white Geranium. The Westside Highway shot from last week gives the urban version of rain from the train, but it is far less thrilling than the experience up here.
The rains are welcome now and good for all things growing. I have two climbing roses ready to be set in and various seeds started for the back garden. It looks like a Fox may be living under the foundation of the house and I hope to see kits soon if I’m right.
I’m thinking a lot about the abundance of empty decorative painting and what it means particularly now, and finishing the book on Hillary’s campaign disaster.
More soon on all of these.
The Heavy Rain, 2017, Archival Digital Print
Yesterday
the laden air
full
foreboding
every bird silent
heavy hours
of dread
until it burst
open
falling
from heaven
washing our misdeeds
away.
Rain-Soaked Mourning Dove, 2015, Archival Digital Print
I’m glad I am on a hill. The rains began last week. There are small lapses when the clouds catch their breath and fill up again but it has been pouring, drizzle, mist or fog for days and forecast into next week too. The greens continue to surprise and the birds are so wet they look like they have been dipped in bathtubs. I saw a Blue Jay yesterday whose feathers stood out sopped and with a just out-of-the-shower startle. Everyone says this is unusual for this time of year. It’s all new to me; each day there are more things to see.
Somerset Maugham’s short story, Rain is a favorite of many and the summer is a good time to reread it. You can find it whole here and enjoy as the rains fall. It was made into a film in 1932 featuring Joan Crawford as the prostitute Miss Sadie Thompson. So you can watch it on YouTube. The opening scenes make me think I should have a rain barrel to be collecting all this water for later use. I have a lot to learn about the land.
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.
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