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Archive for the ‘Favorite Things’ Category

Dale Nichols and His Snow Paintings

Posted in Favorite Things, tagged , on February 1, 2021| 5 Comments »

 

“Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.”

― Mary Oliver

As I get ready to go out and plow the snow that has already fallen while fretting about the snow that is coming behind, I thought I would repost an entry from several years ago about an artist whose snow paintings always please me. They focus on the prettiness of the snow and not the work nor the possibility for peril that it brings. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Even though I am no fan of plowing or shoveling or trudging in wet and cold boots, the beauty and quieted atmosphere of snow is among my favorite things. And Nichols captured that in his work. Enjoy this rerun and have a good day, snow or not.

Most likely prompted by the recent weather here as well as a desire to try a slight change of palette, I have been doing a small group of snow paintings recently. I thought I would look at several other artists, especially those with a distinct personal style, to see how they handle snow in their work. One of the artists whose snow works really stuck out was Dale Nichols, who was born in Nebraska in 1904 and died in Sedona, AZ in 1995. He is considered one of the American Regionalists, that loosely defined group of painters whose work  for which I have long expressed my admiration.  

Dale Nichols- After the Blizzard 1967His biography is a bit sparse with but Nichols lived a long and productive life, serving as an illustrator, a college professor and the Art Editor of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. He also spent a lot of time in Guatemala which resulted in a group of work with Meso-American forms that is quite different from his Regionalist work and more than likely influenced the color palette of his normal work as well.  

But Nichols is primarily known for his rural snow scenes and it’s easy to see why. The colors are pure and vivid. The snow, put on in multiple glazed layers with watercolor brushes has a luminous beauty. The stylized treatment of the crowns of the bare trees adds a new geometry to the paintings. There is a pleasant warmth, a nostalgic and slightly sentimental glow, to this work even though they are scenes that depict frigid winters on the plains of Nebraska. Free of all angst, they’re just plain and simple gems.

You can see a bit more of Dale Nichols other work on a site  devoted to him by clicking here.

Dale Nichols- The SentinelDale Nichols- Silent Morning 1972Dale Nichols- Mail Delivery 1950Dale Nichols- Bringing Home the Tree

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Uncloudy Day

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , , , on January 31, 2021| Leave a Comment »

“Private Space”- Available at the Principle Gallery, VA

Oh, they tell me of a home where my friends have gone
Oh, they tell me of that land far away
Where the tree of life in eternal bloom
Sheds its fragrance through the unclouded day

—Uncloudy Day, Josiah K. Alwood 

Still on a semi-hiatus here on the blog but wanted to continue playing my Sunday Morning musical selection. This week I am going way back with a gospel tune called Uncloudy Day, written by Josiah K. Alwood in 1879. We’re not going back quite that far for this week’s pick but it’s still pretty old, taking us back to 1956 when The Staple Singers first recorded what is probably the definitive version of this song. 

This is a powerfully performed song, with the droning bite of the undertone from the electric guitar of Pops Staples and an emotional vocal lead from Mavis Staples. It’s hard to believe but Mavis was only 16 years old when she recorded this.

It’s reported that this song was a huge influence on a young Bob Dylan. His appreciation didn’t stop at the song as he pursued and proposed to Mavis Staples in the early 1960’s. She turned him down but they have maintained a close friendship and working relationship to this day, recording and touring together periodically over the many decades that followed.

Anyway, it’s a song that always stops me in my tracks and I think anything that makes you stop to listen is a good song to kick off a Sunday. 

Be careful out there and have a good day.

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Steady As She Goes

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on January 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Think about
Think about how many times I have fallen
Spirits are using me larger voices callin’
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten

—Southern Cross, Stephen Stills, Rick and Michael Curtis

 

I have a lot to do this morning so this will be brief. At least, that’s my intent. Sometimes it doesn’t work out that way.

Just wanted to show a new small piece at the top, Steady As She Goes, which is headed to the West End Gallery for their annual Little Gems show which opens on February 12. I love doing my boat pieces even though I am not a sailor. And even though the romance of sailing free on the wide expanse of the ocean under endless skies is powerful, I know that will not be a sailor in this lifetime.

My loss, no doubt.

But the boats themselves offer great symbolism for me that translates well in paint and speaks to the non-sailors like myself who understand and envy those who respond to the lure of the open sea.

I thought that a fitting song would be the Crosby, Stills and Nash song, Southern Cross, especially with a video that features the lyrics. Interestingly, Stephen Stills wrote this song with the Curtis Brothers, Rick and Michael, basing it on an existing song from the Curtis Brothers called Seven League Boots, which they had recorded several years before with members of Fleetwood Mac.

Stills explained how their collaboration on Southern Cross came about:

“The Curtis Brothers brought a wonderful song called ‘Seven League Boots,’ but it drifted around too much. I rewrote a new set of words and added a different chorus, a story about a long boat trip I took after my divorce. It’s about using the power of the universe to heal your wounds. Once again, I was given somebody’s gem and cut and polished it.“

Well, he did a fine job in polishing it and I like how it attaches to this painting.

Give a listen and have a good day.

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In the Beginning…

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on January 12, 2021| 3 Comments »

In the beginning
You really loved me, oh
I was too blind
I could not see, now

But now that you left me
Ooh, how I cried out, I keep crying
You don’t miss your water
‘Till your well runs dry

— You Don’t Miss Your Water, William Bell

The painting at the top is a new piece, 9″ by 12″ on canvas, that is headed to the West End Gallery for next month’s annual Little Gems show, which opens February 12. After it was completed, I was really looking deeply at it as I tried to discern what it held so that I could title it. I felt that the scene in it was from the dawn  of the day, the start of the new day.

I normally see this time symbolically as a beginning filled with great potential and optimism, brimming with energy. But there was something else in this piece that didn’t seem to be looking forward. Instead it felt almost remorseful, looking back. For me, I sense this in the Red Tree’s posture toward the rising sun and in the tone and density of the sky’s color.

It’s like the character represented by the Red Tree is trapped between the duty of the coming day and lure of the past and what has been lost.

The feeling of this piece brought to mind a favorite song of mine from Otis Redding, You Don’t Miss Your Water. The first verses are at the top and the first 10-15 seconds of the recording, after the distinct opening chords when Otis first sings “In the beginning,” always sends chills down my spine. Glorious chills.

That’s where the title for this painting originated for me.

The song was originally written and recorded for Stax Records by William Bell in 1961, four years before the Otis version. Bell’s version is wonderful but Otis took the song to another dimension. Interestingly, Bell wrote the song in NYC and it was actually more about his homesickness for his Memphis home than lost love.

And maybe homesickness and the remorse for what is lost in the past plays a part here in this painting. I can’t say for sure and only time will reveal it’s true meaning. Maybe it will take on a whole new demeanor as time passes, as sometimes happens.

That’s the way of art. It is often never fully one thing forever.

But in the beginning…

Anyway, here’s the immortal Otis Redding and You Don’t Miss Your Water.

Have a good day. Keep hope alive.

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And it’s time time time…

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Quote, tagged , , , , on December 23, 2020| 1 Comment »

Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.

-Jorge Luis Borges

It’s that time of the year when the young build up their stores of memories and the older folks delve into their own storage for past remembrances from this same time many years ago.

The memories that the young will bank this year will be so different from our own memories of holidays past that many of us may pull out this week or the next. And how could they not be different? The world is forever changing, for good or bad. But the relationships of families and friends remain constants so while circumstances and surroundings may change, the base on which memories are built remains much the same.

So these memories being formed in the next week or so will likely be as rich for these young people fifty years from now when they find themselves watching the youth of that time creating their first deep memories. These may end up being the richest they know because this year with all its awfulness created hardships that in many cases illuminates the good that is embedded in our lives, good that is often overlooked in the rush of life.

This year gave us time to reflect on such things and to see that our time here is all we really possess.

If you’re looking for a silver lining to a very dark cloud, maybe that’s it. Maybe time is, in the end, that substance, as Borges writes, of which we are made, that thing that sweeps us along and inevitably consumes us.

This seems a little more evident this time of year as I revisit my own richly detailed memories of this season from many decades ago. There are many remembrances from the intervening years but they most often lack the depth and detail of those early ones and some even have faded into seeming non-existent. Some are there but remain hazy, as though they don’t belong to me, like I am looking at the memories from another life. Like I was a different person at that point.

And maybe I was. Perhaps that’s another thing that comes with being made from time– it changes and as a result, we cannot help but change, as well.

Time…

Here’s a song about time. It’s not a holiday song but it is a great, great song from Tom Waits. I feel a bit sacrilegious in playing anything other than Waits’ iconic version but this one is lovely. Plus to add a festive touch, it is performed by a giant tragic clown who strokes his sleeping French bulldog as he sings. It’s a nice performance by Puddles Pity Party of a song that always slows my heartbeat a bit. I particularly always seem to hear the line And the things you can’t remember tell the things you can’t forget/That history puts a saint in every dream even when the song is playing in the background.

Have a good day. Enjoy your time here.

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Hold Back the Night

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on December 16, 2020| 3 Comments »

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora

This is another new small piece that is headed to the West End Gallery this weekend. I am finally hitting some responsive chords in my work and feeling a new creative flow building which is reassuring. This recent work has felt great coming out, free and easy without having to stuggle, and I think it shows in the work itself.

It’s all work that appeals to my own sense of what I want to see. 

Maybe what I need to see right now.

That I can’t answer. But this feels good and right so I am pretty happy in the moment.

I am calling it Hold Back the Night after a  favorite song from the 70’s, a cover by Graham Parker and the Rumour of the song of that title which was originally recorded by the Trammps a few years earlier. Very upbeat which matches my current view for my work in the near future.

As I said, pretty happy in the moment.

Of course, tomorrow might be a different story. So, for today, I am going to take in the colors and forms and sing along with Graham. Hope you’ll do the same. Have a good one but be careful out there.

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Gaudete, Revisited

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , on December 14, 2020| 2 Comments »

Felt like some real seasonal music that went beyond the typical radio fare this morning. This took me back to a post from several years back that features one of my favorite Bruegel paintings. Win-win. Take a look and have a good day.

Bruegel, Pieter the Elder- Hunters in the Snow (Winter) 1565

I was looking for a medieval image of a scene in snow that would fit a piece of medieval seasonal music. In this instance, or most any other for that matter, you can’t go wrong with a painting from Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Flemish painter, who lived from around 1525 until 1569, has long been a favorite of mine with the gorgeous colors of his peasant scenes as well as their elaborate and harmonious composition.

This is one of the more famous of the 45 or so known remaining paintings from Bruegel, titled The Hunters in the Snow from 1565. The contrasting darkness of the trees and the hunting party against the lightness of the snow and the atmosphere just make this piece memorable for me. It is of its time but it feels as though you could step into it, be part of it.

The piece of music I wanted this to accompany is Gaudete, a well known piece that comes from the 16th century which means that it, like the Bruegel painting, are not really medieval since that period ended with the 15th century. But both feel as though they have that medieval feel and, besides, Gaudete is based on truly medieval Latin lyrics. The song is a Christmas carol that opens with the line Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus which translates to Rejoice, rejoice! Christ is born. Gaudete is Latin for rejoice. While I do not practice any particular religion, this is a beautiful piece of music and a wonderful expression of the meaning of the season.  

There are all sorts of performances of this song out there. Steeleye Span, the British folk/rock group, had a minor hit in the UK with this song in the 1970’s, and it has been performed by many choral groups. I like the version below from Choir of Clare College Cambridge and London Cello Orchestra. It’s probably the drum backing that does it for me but regardless, it’s still a wonderful recording.

Anyway, give a listen and have a fine day out there.

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Skating

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Television, tagged , , on December 13, 2020| 1 Comment »

Hey, A Charlie Brown Christmas is on PBS tonight!

I grew up with this seasonal special from Charles Schulz and his beloved band of characters who felt like childhood companions. Its soundtrack from Vince Guaraldi has become part of the genetic makeup of generations of kids and for many such as myself there’s a visceral response upon hearing any of the compositions from it.

One of my favorites is Skating with its bright, cool, and clean lines. It both evokes memory from the past and feeling in the present moment, gliding seamlessly between the two. Maybe that’s the mark of a timeless piece of art?

I don’t know.

So, for this Sunday morning music, let’s give a listen to Skating from Vince Guaraldi. Can’t think of a better way to skim into the day. Have a good one.

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A Matter of Life and Death

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Video, tagged , , , , , on December 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Scene from “A Matter of Life and Death”

Taking a small break this morning without mentioning the Supreme Court decision from yesterday, which speaks for itself. But I did want to mention that TCM is playing a favorite movie of mine, A Matter of Life and Death, tonight at 8 PM. 

Released in 1946 as Stairway to Heaven in the UK, it was created by the collaboration of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger along with legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff. I am a huge fan of this team which made extremely interesting and thought provoking films– The Red Shoes, Parallel 49, Black Narcissus and so many others– with storylines that were well outside the norms of traditional cinema storytelling of the time, featuring spectacular visuals often filled with gorgeous saturated color and groundbreaking effects. This film very much fills all those boxes. 

It is a fantasy about a WWII British flyer who inexplicably survives the plane crash that was supposed to end his life which basically causes a rift in heaven. He falls from the sky and is found on an English beach by a US Army nurse. They form an instant bond which is the basis for the rest of this film as the flyer attempts to fend off the efforts of the heavenly agent sent to retrieve the wayward soul. It is said to be a metaphor for the revival of the British nation as well as the PTSD that was affecting so many returning troops in the post-war era.

It’s a beautiful film with scenes that alternate between great examples of Technicolor, black and white and super saturated color, each designating a different phase of the flyer’s experience. Film is, as with all arts, a subjective experience and I imagine that many folks will not find this to their liking. But for me, it’s a masterpiece. If you’re interested in great filmmaking, take a look tonight.

Here’s a link to an interesting article on this film from the Criterion Collection as well as the trailer, below, which was made for it’s recent restoration and theatrical re-release.

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Rubber Soul

Posted in Current Events, Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , on December 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Say the word and you’ll be free
Say the word and be like me
Say the word I’m thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?

It’s so fine, it’s sunshine
It’s the word, love

— The Word, The Beatles

There’s a lot of things I could comment on today. The pandemic is raging with over 200,000 new cases a day the new norm and 3000+ deaths per day in its sights. We have a lame-duck president*** who ignores his responsibilities to whine endlessly and claim without a shred of evidence that he was defrauded in the election even though his attorneys have admitted several times in court that they are not alleging or showing evidence of fraud. Instead of accepting defeat graciously and doing his duty, he cries and blusters about an election in which he was defeated by 4.4% of the vote, a landslide amount in any election.

The current count shows him trailing by about 7,000,000 votes. To put that amount in perspective, it’s the combined number of voters– from both parties– in West Virginia, South Carolina, Kansas, Wyoming, South Dakota, and North Dakota. That’s a lot of folks.

But I digress. I don’t want to talk about that. Let’s talk about something more upbeat, say, the fact that the album Rubber Soul from the Beatles was released on this date back in 1965. It was their sixth album and marked the beginning of a remarkable four album arc — Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the White Album— that both ignited and marked a sea change in pop and rock music.

It is a great, great album that still stands up well after 55 years. Every song is a winner. I want to share a song but with every track being so memorable, it’s tough to choose one to highlight. Any one would be a solid choice but I am going with The Word this morning.

Give a listen — say the word and you’ll be free–then have a good day. Be careful out there.

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