I was wrong about one thing: I didn't really think of this Blog at all. In fact, I'm thinking about it now because a friend said she'd logged on and found I'd been long remiss in contributing. Can't have that!
When I was quite young, I left central Texas and went to Yellowstone Park as a cabin maid. I was most interested in sending home pictures, as I'd never seen anything like the Rockies in my life and felt sure that nobody in my family had, either. I took a camera to the edge of the lake, at just about sunset, and squinted into the frame.... and decided against that shot. It didn't include the mountain crest to the left. I aimed left and thought better of that one as well, because it didn't bring in the color reflected on the water. I turned all around the panorama, pointing the camera and rejecting one shot after another because I just didn't know what to isolate in a picture.
And that's where I am with a report on the holy places in England and the west coast of Ireland. What parts of them will I isolate with a descriptor? And what descriptor might that be? We should all be exposed to the varieties of that beauty and just hope that something of it will remain in the memory of our mind's eye when we're back to real life: the colors grouped together in the rocks and wildflowers and sheep, the patterns in the mountainsides, and the immortal souls of pirates and saints who will always hover over the sea, its shores, and its mudflats.
I'm home now, but probably not totally. I think that if you go to Ireland, you'll never really go home again.
PW
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
September 6, 2009
This is Sunday morning. On Tuesday, I'm winging my way across the Atlantic to England and Ireland for seventeen days. How I happened to be a part of this odyssey is still a mystery to me. A long time ago, I must have said, "I've always wanted to see Ireland," and been overheard by my Significant Other and friend. Life hasn't been the same since.
Over the last eighteen months, we've met to swap our "must-see" lists, plan the itenerary, watch videos on the Celts, and then plan again. We've discussed the amount of money we'll access and take, and the amount we'll spend. We've lamented the requirements of WeightWatchers juxtaposed against pub meals. We've fretted over packing for a different climate and the whims of nature. But mostly we've worried about the limitations of our bodies as we shlep suitcases from cars through train depots, airports, and up staircases.
So has a knee replacement that is on the brink of collapse, our friend has come down with some sort of hip-knee-and ankle malady, and I have a temporary crown that will likely fall off when the glue gives out. This is why you don't see too many old people on serious trips.
Truly, I want to go because I need to be on the trail of the Celts once more. I'll see traces of St. Hilda in York, Saint Aiden at Holy Island, the pre-Christian establishment of New Grange, about 30 miles north of Dublin, the Book of Kells at Trinity University. All this will remind me that there was once a very different way of looking at the world, and that I might share in it now as I did before.
I think there is something to the notion of reincarnation. Long ago, I was there. Part of me is still there, so I feel the tuggings of home. The newer part of me will return and I'll be sitting here, once again, thinking and writing about what I learned, this trip, of my home and my family. Blog, I'll be thinking of you til then.
PW
Over the last eighteen months, we've met to swap our "must-see" lists, plan the itenerary, watch videos on the Celts, and then plan again. We've discussed the amount of money we'll access and take, and the amount we'll spend. We've lamented the requirements of WeightWatchers juxtaposed against pub meals. We've fretted over packing for a different climate and the whims of nature. But mostly we've worried about the limitations of our bodies as we shlep suitcases from cars through train depots, airports, and up staircases.
So has a knee replacement that is on the brink of collapse, our friend has come down with some sort of hip-knee-and ankle malady, and I have a temporary crown that will likely fall off when the glue gives out. This is why you don't see too many old people on serious trips.
Truly, I want to go because I need to be on the trail of the Celts once more. I'll see traces of St. Hilda in York, Saint Aiden at Holy Island, the pre-Christian establishment of New Grange, about 30 miles north of Dublin, the Book of Kells at Trinity University. All this will remind me that there was once a very different way of looking at the world, and that I might share in it now as I did before.
I think there is something to the notion of reincarnation. Long ago, I was there. Part of me is still there, so I feel the tuggings of home. The newer part of me will return and I'll be sitting here, once again, thinking and writing about what I learned, this trip, of my home and my family. Blog, I'll be thinking of you til then.
PW
Saturday, September 5, 2009
September 4, 2009
...Speaking of materials (and I was, back there, going on about my brush fetish), I've long pondered the peculiar effect of good stuff vs. cheap stuff on the quality of the artwork in progress. Buy an expensive canvas or watercolor paper, and you can suffer a paralysis, sitting before it figuring where to defile its purity with your first mark. Set up newsprint, brown paper, or the back of something, and the work will flow. When you've finished, there will be a fine piece that will surely yellow and disintegrate over time, or one whose backside must be disguised. (People who buy paintings seem to be less interested in one that occupies the reverse of a loser.)
The answer? Put a ban on all cheap materials for students. That way, we'll practice on the good stuff so much that it will hold no terror for us.
...And have you noticed that our pen-and-ink drawings can be stiff and labored? This is because most of us doodled in the margins of our notebook paper with number two pencils for years, and now we're faced with the unforgiving ink pen on expensive paper.
The answer? Bring back the pen-and-ink system for students and require that all doodles in margins be executed by the same. With years of this kind of practice, we would be able to knock out a pen-and-ink drawing with confidence and ease.
You never know when you'll create a winner. Let's broaden the odds as best we can!
PW
The answer? Put a ban on all cheap materials for students. That way, we'll practice on the good stuff so much that it will hold no terror for us.
...And have you noticed that our pen-and-ink drawings can be stiff and labored? This is because most of us doodled in the margins of our notebook paper with number two pencils for years, and now we're faced with the unforgiving ink pen on expensive paper.
The answer? Bring back the pen-and-ink system for students and require that all doodles in margins be executed by the same. With years of this kind of practice, we would be able to knock out a pen-and-ink drawing with confidence and ease.
You never know when you'll create a winner. Let's broaden the odds as best we can!
PW
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
September 1, 2009
Artists are remarkably unplugged from the practicalities of life, to the point of total incompetance. We are disabled when it comes to getting the drift and making arrangements. (Best example: Emile Nolde, my favorite German Expressionist, was among the painters whom Hitler called together for the mission of making propaganda art for the Nazis. He listened, then shrugged, thought he'd continue with his beautiful watercolors of poppies blowing on a hillside. So, one night, the SS came calling, dragged him from his bed, and he was never seen again.)
Robert Rauschenberg was the only artist in modern times who'd go to Washington and advocate for the rights of artists, no matter how obvious the cause.
It should be no surprise that, here in Morganton, NC, the artists can't get together and make some well-thought-out, long-needed plans that would benefit us in the world we live in. If we do get along socially--and this is no guarantee--we can't organize what the English call "a piss-up in a brewery." Any occurance to the contrary is unusual to the point of freakish.
Whatever happend here will likely not be the result of my tender ministrations.
PW
Robert Rauschenberg was the only artist in modern times who'd go to Washington and advocate for the rights of artists, no matter how obvious the cause.
It should be no surprise that, here in Morganton, NC, the artists can't get together and make some well-thought-out, long-needed plans that would benefit us in the world we live in. If we do get along socially--and this is no guarantee--we can't organize what the English call "a piss-up in a brewery." Any occurance to the contrary is unusual to the point of freakish.
Whatever happend here will likely not be the result of my tender ministrations.
PW
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