Wild Muse Notes

It’s much colder here here than it was in Boston. Somehow though, the winter here is less depressing. As intimidating as it is, dealing with the elements and having the ocean right there is energizing and inspirational. I feel more real here, more connected…more human. The beach changes dramatically in the winter. It looks like some remote primordial landscape at low tide. Beautiful and abandoned. The photographs are of high tide in the morning just after it snowed. I love how the mood and the landscape shift from month to month, hour to hour.

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A horse is a horse of course of course but this is not really a painting about a horse. It’s the latest in a series of assemblage works in collaboration with C.P. McDill. There is a full page for this assemblage on my website with detail photographs and a lovely description written by C.P. who seems to understand my work so well.

I just rediscovered the work of Father Paul Plante on a website for a New York City gallery called Mixed Greens. I am excited to see his new work and that he is doing well. His is the first art that I ever collected and could afford. I have his Weedy Seadragon and one other pastel of a bird’s eye which I purchased at the Nielsen Gallery in Boston. I love his philosophy as well as his art. Those two little pastels are still my favorites. They are both hanging in the main room of our seaside cottage.

It’s well into spring and feels like early winter here. The ocean is rough and wild and loud. I find it comforting and invigorating. It worked out well for us on spring break. Most of the vacationers never showed up. We live right on the beach which means that our peaceful isolated life is transformed by weekenders and vacationers in the warm season. We have the place to ourselves the rest of the year and when it storms.

It seems to me that most people only love nature when she isn’t showing too much character. That’s when I love her best. On one of our walks against the wind, we saw the seals again. When the beach is empty and the sea is rough, they swim over from the rocky point and play in the surf. The wild ducks like to body surf. I saw a flock of young males playing that game in the smaller swells.

Chris and I have been building a garden from scratch. Besides working on art in the studio and watching animals surf, that’s how we spent most of our time for the past few weeks. Little Nemo is not happy about it at all. He does not understand why we are outside and he’s not. Poor little guy. The future garden is still just an empty lot so it’s a lot of work to get it started. It’s still painful when I think about the lush wild garden at the old place but there is something to be said for starting fresh. The best thing about starting over is that we are planning and building this garden together.

I lust for old books, especially the damaged and tattered ones that aren’t really worth anything to book collectors. I call them “well rubbed” like in The Velveteen Rabbit. I love books are that in far worse shape than these. Usually the books and print that I want most are the ones people throw away. So sad. I don’t care if they are burned, torn, water logged, scribbled in, and completely falling apart. I want them. If they are childrens books or school books or printed before 1944 I want them even more. They always have such a good home here with me and are much appreciated. They are often transformed into works of art and other treasures. I take donations.

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Bookbinding tape is ridiculously expensive. I know it’s archival but it is just tape. I am tempted to improvise with some wood glue and a roll of black ribbon. The good news is that I have my hands on an entire lot of early readers, spellers, and primers from the turn of the century that were really dirt cheap. It seems like there is an abundance of them in Pennsylvania. One of these days, I’ll have to go there with a truck.