maintained, sustained

Andrew Wyeth The Carry, 2003 tempera on panel

It may seem pastoral of me, but I've always been, and continue to be, fed by Andrew Wyeth's work. His attention to the myriad quieter details of the natural and man-made world strike me like poet Wendell Berry's. Both men seem to have a priestly quality of observation that takes in both the pain and the glory of the world as-is. They both come out shining, but not before being burnished and ground by grit.

A recent post by a fellow blogger alerted me to the fact that Wyeth is not only still alive but still painting. The above image (which may disappear, even though I'm lauding it, because it was a bit protected) is one of his newer, and I'm astounded at its clarity and earthy beauty. It gives me hope that as an artist, you can continue to pursue a vision into old age and have it actually deepen and lengthen. Someone once said that there are no painting prodigies-- you can usually sense the youth behind mark-making-- no matter how elegant. Not sure if I agree whole-heartedly, but I would like to think that there's something to be said for the aging process as it feeds into the work of our hands.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

la piscine

{image: David Hockney}

I loved finding out that swimming pool, in French, is piscine, especially when I was more keen to identify my particularly Piscean features-- like an absolute love of being in the water. There's a picture of me as a toddler, my mom holding my shoulders as I float in a pool with the same far away look that I'm sure I still get when I'm able to float, weightless. So when we went yesterday to an indoor public pool with my parents, it was fascinating to see my youngest son immediately shift into that "I've returned to the womb" calmness that I remember seeing in the photo of me around the same age (one and some). He looked like he might fall asleep right in the water. My oldest son, on the contrary, was like a barnacle, if a barnacle could shriek. I hope he someday catches the magical feeling of letting your limbs wave like seaweed, deep under the water, where the weight of it is, indeed, womb-like. Hmmm.

in progress

In the middle of my undergrad degree I made the life-changing discovery that I could work without feeling inspired, and that the mere inertia created by picking up my supplies could lead to ideas that I'd never have had in only thought space. In fact, contrary to so many that I hear complain about their ideas being better than what they're able to produce in material form, I find that my ideas are usually kind of boring compared to the process of discovery that happens with physical matter. Anyway, these days I have nearly no time to wait for a lightning bolt. I often feel, when I start drawing or painting, that I've been pulled from deep sleep and set behind the steering wheel of a car. No coffee, on the highway...snap to it! What a weird phase of life.

get together to work it out

Just one of many collaborative drawings (with more to come, I'm sure) between a mom and her son.

compulsion to list

Why is it so satisfying to make lists at the close of a year and the beginning of a new one? Here are two sets of three... memorable parts of 2007.

Three films that stuck with me:

Darjeeling Limited: critics complain that Wes Anderson relies too much on his own established conventions... 60s/70s gentle pop classics to draw out nostalgic emotion, feminine distance playing against complex neurotic masculine roles, etc. But I'll attend a Wes Anderson convention any day. This film had me sighing and gasping like a proper fan.

Eastern Promises: I just watched this, but it came out in 2007. Amazing in almost every way, if harrowing and appropriately sinister. Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts are top notch. But I really dislike the name of the film.

The Namesake: Perhaps because we're dealing with some of the tensions of living far from much of our family (though not as far as a transplant from India to the U.S. in the seventies), this film was deeply emotional with great subtlety. A brilliant adaptation of the book by Jhumpa Lahiri, which I also loved.

Three music experiences:

Tunng: I don't get to see live music very often, so to see Tunng, a warm roiling rumbling set of musicians with a tribal electronic meld... mmmm it was great. If you want to sample an album, try one of their first (This is Tunng, Comments of the Inner Chorus); their latest (Good Arrows) lacks a bit of the mystery and mastery that the first two have in spades.

Arvo Part De Profundis: I'm always looking for music that I can count on to be a meditative back drop for painting. Weirdly enough, Bjork has held her own for a while-- especially with Medulla and Vespertine. But she's been eclipsed lately by composer Arvo Part, whose moody, dissonant masses and antiphons are both transcendent and grounding.

Blogotheque Take-away shows: An online gallery of fantastic, off-the-cuff recordings of almost anyone I'd want to see perform. These short, candid films by Vincent Moon allow artists to shine in their vulnerability and pared down (often just voice and the percussion of a slapped wall) musicianship.

file under: summer, donna

I'm such a spiritual goofball, and here are but two evidences:

1) My prayer life is dominated by a Donna Summer song. Every time I get away by myself, my first simple prayer is "I need You," at which moment, the disco epic by Summer floods my mind: "Oh I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you right now..." (I'll link to it if I can find it online).

2) My son is in a terrific phase of imagination. "I'm Lightning McQueen, you're Sally" (from the movie Cars) and we start vrooming. "I'm the man with the Yellow Hat, you're Curious George" and whoever gets the monkey can't use words. We play animals, we play superheroes, we go to the library and the zoo and the grocery store in our living room. So after he saw a special during Christmas about Jesus, I shouldn't have been surprised when he said to me, "You're Jesus." I get pretty dramatic when I'm swinging from buildings like Spiderman, so I was really disappointed in myself when I responded to this comment by saying, in a stilted, stiff voice, "I love you." Dude! How dull! We both blinked at each other, and then I snapped out of it, gave him a big hug, and said, "I love you and will protect you!" A little better, but I think we'll have to work on playing Jesus.