White River

Virginia Woolf's Birthday

2012-01-25T07:43:00.000-05:00

. . . is today. One of the major contributors to the advancement of the British novel. Master of language. Lover of words. Supreme craftsman. Brilliant critic. Born on this day in 1882.

CS101 at udacity.com

2012-01-25T07:39:00.000-05:00

Just signed up for Building a Search Engine. It's a 7-week course offered by one of the two Stanford professors who taught last year's AI course. That was a free course and a wildly successful experiment in Open Source Education.

One of them, Sebastian Thrun has since left Stanford to start Udacity. An online, open source university. I mean folks, this is gold on a platter. There are two instructors: Thrun, a Google Fellow, and David Evans, CS prof at University of Virginia and an MIT grad.

I've never used this term before, but two things are happening now to urge me to do it. The NEXT BIG THING. This idea and Raspberry-Pi. Two major efforts to educate those who want to be educated about computers. Doing the job our schools and universities are not. Sure, you can get a CS degree just about anywhere, but how about the youngsters coming down the pike? They show up in my community college classes knowing absolutely nothing about how computers work. Where will they get the spark that might set them on fire to learn, to experiment, to chase, to fiddle, to solve--to create, invent?

I'm not talking about students who pick CS as a major because it's where the jobs might be most available. I'm talking about the students who will dive into the field with passion, wonder, curiosity, and creativity. Those folks don't go after jobs; they go after knowledge and skill simply because they want to.

New Web Site

2012-01-02T08:41:00.000-05:00

Starting the New Year with a New web site. I've moved all the contents of what was my personal directory hanging off clairdunn.com to borderlinegeek.com. I cannot believe that I got this domain at this late date! My jaw is still dropping.

Anyway, it's got all the old stuff, plus new stuff as it comes along. Today I added a page for the Raspberry-Pi -- can't wait to get my hands on one. That is one page you need to check out!

From Another World

2011-10-02T12:03:00.005-04:00

I have moved. Sold house and land and moved.

Slowly settling in and curiosity, which I thought dead these last 8 months or so is starting to stir. A stumbled-upon word that seemed to be not in context; the word was "processing". I tracked the awkwardness, out-of-context-seeming use and found a new (to me) language call Processing. Two books from amazon.com and five days later, some fruit from the tree I thought dead.

VT2000 Adventures in Processing

I now have four books and my toe(s) is/are in the digital waters. We'll see. But I was excited enough to make the page.

And we wonder why the US is behind ... ?

2011-08-27T05:10:00.000-04:00

Here's the subject line from today's email ad from Apple:

Go Back to School with the App Store, Role-Playing Games, and More

I'm getting ready for the fall term at CCV and this just plain ticked me off.

Ball Lightning

2011-04-08T05:39:00.000-04:00

I've had a wonderful adventure this morning in using the internet as it was envisioned. It started on the BBC's Tech page following articles about the Bletchley Museum's computer collection, and from there I went to the Science page which led to the World Wide Lightning Locations page and from there to following links about about ball lightning. In one of those articles were these sentences:

And Dr Abrahamson believes their theory will even explain how ball lightning passes through windows and walls.

"Most, especially old, houses have cracks around their windows and cracks near doors," he says.

I've always been interested in ball lightning because of a story told in our family. I've no date for the story, but am guessing it was sometime in the 1920s or '30s. The house it happened in burned in 1937, so it was before that. The house was located in the northwestern corner of Fletcher, Vermont on the Buck Hollow Road. The house was likely close to 70 or 100 years old at the time.

My grandfather was sitting in the kitchen near the old cast iron wood stove when a ball of lightning came in, circled around the stove and wandered out through the wall again.

My family is not given to made-up stories, so I do put stock in this.

Tennis, Anyone?

2010-12-21T05:26:00.000-05:00

No. Not tennis; this is me.

But, I've a new addiction: Google's Ngram.

Here's the game. And of course you can make your own.

Find ten NON-NOUNS that pinpoint the start of the industrial revolution to within a decade.

Or maybe you want to play the easy version. Find five.

Ngram

How long before someone with money puts out a game, apps, a Wii Version?

Not long I bet. But you heard it here first.

Glorious sky

2010-10-31T08:10:00.003-04:00

A grand and glorious evening sky, with a murder of crows in St. Albans, Vermont. Shot with my iPhone.

Finally -- real fonts available for the web

2010-09-19T09:33:00.002-04:00

In my other life as a typographer (going on 40 years now) I have long bemoaned the absence of "typography" on the web. Early on it was non-existent. A bit later, madly cumbersome, but possible-- as here in my very old site for Fairfax Press.

Today I was checking out my recent, non-urgent emails, and found one from the Monotype Corporation. (They are a venerable type foundry that did much to influence typography in the 20th Century.) There was a message from them about using their web fonts service. I read it and tried it. And it worked. Because this free facility used fonts which resided on their site, I was experimenting to see if it would slow page-loading significantly; it did not. Consequently, I send you now to the manifesto page of my iPhone Photography work once again, but this time just to see the type face.

It's Bembo--the face I decided upon for my house face decades ago when I was setting up Fairfax Press. However, I couldn't afford it and settled on Deepdene instead. But Bembo was my first love among the book faces, and it remains so. (I note with pleasure that Edward Tufte's books are set in Bembo. Though I just bet I was onto it before he was!)

Of course, if you have a strong interest in pursuing web typography, I suggest you carefully select your face and buy it. A good body face will only cost about $25USD.

New Work

2010-09-03T06:47:00.002-04:00

After months with no posting -- it's time to pony up.

I've been concentrating on iPhone photography and it has already morphed into work I am pleased with. My approach matured fast from idle shooting and tinkering to real work.

I'm fixated on pushing the iPhone to the limits of its native capabilities. To that end, I shoot anyway I can get an image and that's that. No cropping or manipulative post-processing with the exception of turning some images to sepia. What I saw is what you get.

From now on, organic images and pure abstractions will be in their native colors, as will the odd shot of something which caught my eye (like Matching Attire at the left) . For the most part, man-made things will be "sepia-ized" as in Freight at bottom right. All prints are made in the native iPhone size (5.33" x 4"); 8" x 10" matted and framed.

Newest images are here:
New iPhone photographs.

The Artist Gardener: iPad painting by Corliss Blakely

2010-05-23T09:35:00.003-04:00

The Artist Gardener iPad painting by Corliss Blakely
Originally uploaded by Corliss Blakely Artist in Vermont

This iPad painting by Corliss Blakely is fascinating for me. Especially do I like the blurred sketch of what I'm guessing is one of her black/white watercolors. A group of those watercolors is hanging at the STAART Gallery in St. Albans, Vermont right now. And, though it wouldn't be quite a $600 million heist as recently occurred in Paris -- it would still be a heist nontheless -- and one I've contemplated in my weaker moments!

But, I love the casualness of this particular painting--seems a departure from her more structured/studied paintings. This makes it richer and more appealing for me. I look forward to more in this vein; it's valuble to be aware of an artist's growth

A Morning to Remember

2010-05-16T05:22:00.003-04:00

With a nod to the Titanic as I still wait to lose my land, these images gave themselves to me. Sunrises are, for me, more often spectacular than their opposites. They are also fleeting as the light seems to change much much faster. These three appeared within 5 minutes: the first two facing east, the third facing west.

Spring Morning I

Spring Morning II

Spring Morning III

Numbered Days Continue

2010-03-17T05:34:00.002-04:00

As I number the days of this morning view I'm feeling homeless and helpless. And, to preserve my sanity, I seize on any distraction that comes my way.

For the latest one, I have Verizon to thank. Their service is so abominable that after 7 months, I had a temper tantrum and, using the real Credit Card -- the one that's NOT a debit card, I signed up with AT&T and came home with an iPhone. From a couple of bars at best in a few places in the house, I went to 4-5 bars everywhere. But, that was only the tip of the iceberg.

Finally, finally, I feel that I have a small corner of the 21st Century in my hands. When the snow denies me my satellite internet connection, I flick on my phone and read my email. I'm also currently reading Nikolas Tesla's quirky autobiography via a free eBook reader. No more gnashing of molars because I have to wait somewhere and forgot to bring a book.

And, speaking of books--I've discovered a blog that will be a "must read" from now on: The Idea Logical Blog. Anyone reading this who is a compulsive reader, lover of books, old English Major, armchair traveler, etc. ought to be reading this blog on a regular basis. My dears, it previews the future, and I for one will be on board (though I will definitely be moving my approximately 50 cartons of books when the time comes)!

Among the many things . . .

2010-02-21T08:13:00.005-05:00

I care about are blues, banjos, and birds. The alliteration is a must here, because all three are combined in the posts of Julie Waters, Vermont musician and photographer. Of course she lives way down south in Vermont. But at least us Northerners can get there via the internet.

Of course, thanks to our "do nothing" governor, all of us can't listen to a song without loading pauses (unless you have an AT&T iPhone account--and yes that is a gratuitous plug--for those of us desperate to have at least a tiny bit of real estate in the modern world).

Here's the link:
Julie Waters' Blog

Nagoya/Vermont: They're Back!

2010-02-16T06:28:00.001-05:00

The Nagoya/Vermont group is back from their trip to Japan and the first installment is up with wonderful pictures. Well worth the browse. It's these small sparklings that show up in a generally messy world that give a little hope.
Nagoya/Vermont: ON THE PLANET
Check the blog for many more images.

Now this ... this is a room with a view

2010-02-13T22:48:00.005-05:00

Ochre Quarry, France - Susan Abbott
Link to the Quarry watercolors online.

Out of the depths once again

2010-02-06T11:47:00.009-05:00

Hey! It's not much to look at, but I woke up this morning with those colors, or a close approximation, in my head. First time that's happened since my last post on November 27,2009.

I know two things are responsible. The Art of Action exhibit currently at STAART Gallery in St. Albans (reception was last night), and talking to Susan Abbott again. It seems to be a potent mix for me. And that both things occurred at STAART Gallery added something extra; there is a vibe in that place that's hard to describe, but almost tangible.

Putting the family homestead on the market more or less wiped my soul of color. And, for that matter, most everything. I think I know how a mole feels on the first real spring day.

FOR SALE BY ARTIST

2009-11-27T06:12:00.006-05:00

HOUSE and 32 acres FOR SALE
In Fletcher, near Fairfax. House built 1937-38. Hardwood floors. 4 Bedrooms. Needs work.
Current owner/resident is indigent artist whose family land this has been since 1867. New furnace, new chimney lining, roof new about 5 years ago. Excellent spring water.

Large studio/workspace attached to house with heat and double-door entry.

Listed with Paul Clark, 802-598-4553 (Lang McLaughry Spera, MLS#2912808).

When the going gets tough . . .

2009-10-16T04:08:00.011-04:00

. . . the tough go into business!

Two days in a sweatshop, where you get fired if you are caught sitting down while waiting, will either kill you or provide adrenalin. I got the adrenalin.

There is a new business in Vermont. In Franklin County. (Only a couple of artists would have the temerity to start an "art" business in this economy!)

Here's the link where you can see our buttons: ART BUTTON WORKS.

The first official display will happen Saturday, the 17th of October at the Farmers' Market in Taylor Park, St. Albans.

Making It In Vermont - Jay Hathaway

2009-09-17T07:13:00.004-04:00

I usually wait to calm down before I write on an awful subject, but the tears are still in my eyes. Vermont has lost it's main mover and shaker in our cultural affairs.

Jay Hathaway was a man who did what he said he would. If he weren't, the many things he's done would never be.

I met him three times. The first in a two hour bar conversation in Montpelier during the Art of Action doings in January. And later again in Montpelier at a VAC meeting. The last time was in Richmond a couple of weeks ago where we both, along with everyone else in attendance, were over the moon about the display of AOA art that was spread across the sunlight-dappled wood of the Monitor barn. We just hugged and grinned at each other.

It was in the Montpelier bar that I first heard about his slogan idea that titles this post. He was so excited about the double entendre of scrabbling to get by AND creating anything in Vermont.

His enthusiasm was infectious--like a master teacher. And his subject was Vermont, Manchester, the arts--at any given time in any given order. And he did make it in Vermont.

It is the rare person who can mark me as soon and as deeply as Jay Hathaway did. I cried this morning as if I'd loved him my whole life. This is a terrible loss for Vermont and the arts.

Long Hiatus to be Even Longer

2009-08-30T06:04:00.003-04:00

No news is bad news.

Have been looking for work and finally have been reduced to a temp service. And, in St. Albans, the only temp work is factory work. Have had one day of it, and could barely move on Saturday.

Will try it again on Monday, but I don't hold out much hope for its continuance. The $8.00/hour is not enough incentive to offset the pain. Factory work to me meant line-work. But this is not that and there is not a chair or stool in sight. So, from a sedentary work style to one of on-your-feet-all-day is a real show-stopper.

The only bright moments are the few where I can practice calligraphy for a class at the Open Doors programs for St. Albans City Schools (god, I hope it makes!) and those when I go to the Bishop Street Artists group on Thursday mornings. The desperate need for money blocks all creative thoughts--they just don't happen.

My One-day Vacation

2009-08-09T06:04:00.005-04:00

No two weeks in Hawaii, or whatever destination constitutes one's idea of a vacation in paradise could match my one-day wonder.

This is the entrance to The Clark Institute of Art in Williamstown, Massachusetts. A red granite respository of almost unending visual excitement. And, I was there. I was there for this:
Ever since Jayne Shoup (Vermont Pastel Artist in Middlesex) called my attention to the work of Arthur Dove after looking at my work earlier in this blog, I've been getting deeper and deeper into what he was doing. And then, after she went to this exhibit, she told me about it. I was determined to go because, by then, I'd already read a great deal about him and had resigned myself to the fact that, at my age, I would never see his work in the flesh.

Yesterday was the day. A day I'll be recovering from for a very long time. There will be more about it in upcoming posts, but for now, while it is wholly undigested, I at least wanted to give a heads up to any Vermont artists in the southern part of the state. Go there; it's up through 7 September. See this work-- Dove and early O'Keeffe. And, as lagniappe, there's a massive display of Sol Lewitt's work right next door in North Adams at Mass MOCA.

Announcement: Gallery Showing

2009-08-04T08:20:00.005-04:00

Since I paid money for postcards and stamps to send out an announcement, it suddenly occurred to me that I should, for free, announce it here! (duh)

I've now officially "come out" as a painter. Nervous and excited, but very glad that I am where I am. So, there are now two of me at the STAART Gallery: these and a section of my black and white Vermont photographs.

The Opening Reception is Friday, August 14, 2009, 6-8 p.m. at 42 South Main St., St. Albans, Vermont. The Gallery Announcement is here.

Two Days of Art in Burlington!

2009-08-01T07:40:00.005-04:00

Last Thursday I collected on my investment of $75 that I used to register for Sean Dye's class in Oil Pastels at the Holbein Art Event at the Hampton Inn in Colchester.

The profit was magnificent. Something folks can rarely say these days about most of their monetary investments!! Not only did I learn a good deal about oil pastels, but I also had the dubious pleasure of working at a size much larger than my normal 4" x 6"!

He is a marvelous and approachable teacher.

And, it was because of him that I took a deep breath (a beer would have been preferable) and plunked down an actual credit (not debit) card to sign up for an all-day class with another Vermont artist--Jean Carbonetti. As my first class in watercolor, this was a home run. Again, the pain of working larger meant that nothing I did in the class was anywhere near successful, but what I learned and what I'm eager to pursue is incredibly exciting. One of the things I learned was something I've been mucking about with on my own--with limited success: achieving depth with watercolor. This particular class was titled Painting with Light.

Like Sean, Jeanne is an excellent and generous teacher. Both are associated with Black Horse Fine Art Supply in South Burlington, an art store that should be the supply destination of every Chittenden County artist!

Apples-on-a-Stick

2009-07-25T04:03:00.007-04:00

In an earlier post I included images of the old peach apple tree at the end of my house. It was described there as being a source for my "painted tree".

Because it has been so enduring, I owe it a showing of its June glory and a little story of its past integration into my life:

When I was a child, this old tree provided my little second cousin and myself a supply of ammunition as I taught him to throw apples on a stick--likely now a moribund Vermont pastime for children. (My mother did this as a child, and taught me, under the same tree.)

For those of you unfamiliar with this skill, you sharpen the end of a stiff stick with your jack knife, pick up a downer and skewer it with the stick. You then haul the stick as far behind you as your arm will reach an launch the apple into the air, achieving a much greater distance than you could with your small arm alone. (Incidentally, as I think about it now, we were no doubt providing lagniappe for the deer that wandered through the meadow where our missiles landed.)

YAB = Yet Another Blog

2009-07-22T06:43:00.005-04:00

The inevitable has happened and I have created another blog.

Vermilion Hue

I did it for three reasons:

ONE: to make a place where only paintings would be displayed and would be displayed as they were created and so someone who
wanted to keep track wouldn't have to wade into my painting pages on my web site.

TWO: to allow people who might only be interested in the painting, to not have to comb through stuff on this blog for painting posts and could subscribe to Vermilion Hue and get only posts with new paintings.

THREE: to allow this White River blog to revert to and to concentrate on more general things, though still mainly visual.

And, I am doing it now because at the end of this week my paintings will be on disiplay for the first time at the STAART Gallery in St. Albans, Vermont.

The Marking of Time

2009-07-16T05:27:00.006-04:00

LOST
This image is of the Fairfield barn that gave birth to my "Rural" Vermont series. The barn looked like this in January of 2008.

DOWN TO EARTH
This is how it looks in July 2009. For me, it is painful to look at and to photograph. It was a
glorious structure and its subsidence is a "terrible beauty".

NEWS! First Painting Sold for $3

2009-07-12T05:31:00.011-04:00

. . . the biggest $3 I've ever received in my life.

Which now results in a long post with no pictures:

In yesterday's mail was a notice that said a small
exhibition where I was going to show my paintings
for the first time (end of July) was canceled
because there was not enough interest from other
artists in participating. That had been a major
iron in the fire for me and now it was gone. I sunk
myself into the couch and, thoroughly depressed,
ended up in a hour-long nap.

A few hours after this, I went in to St. Albans
to tend the STAART gallery from 4-6 because
my friend Ellen had a gig in Greensboro so she
couldn't finish her whole gallery stint.

It was pouring down rain there and I was settling in
for a quiet two hours of mucking about with watercolor
when a whole herd of folks walked in -- 4 adults in the
25-35 something range with a baby, and two older adults.

They meandered and then the older couple (from Boston)
stopped at the counter where my stuff was spread out,
indicating some kind of interest. So I flipped open
the cigar box with all my watercolors in it and asked
the guy if he painted. He said a little, but nodded
toward his wife, who was looking at my colors and saying
"yes" about an interest in colors.

I remembered that I had a cheap little photo album where
I keep the things that are going to be for sale as
one-of-a-kind postcards. I whipped it out of my pocket
while talking about making things that people would buy
and flipped the pages. She said she wanted to see, so
I flipped through it more slowly.

Several times they murmured approval with a couple of,
"interesting, let me see" and the like, while I'm babbling
on about colors, etc.

Then she said, "Can I buy that one? And will you sign it?"

This caught me completely off guard as I had only that
morning been making labels for them; I was planning on
taking pictures of them this week as I'll be selling them
in the park next Saturday.

I pointed to the two prominent colors in it as I babbled on about
them--Vermilion and Hooker's green. She asked what the
background wash was: Prussian Blue.

I was jumping up and down and telling her how incredibly exciting
this was for me because it was the first painting I'd sold.
I said I needed to know her name. She seemed a bit hesitant,
but wrote out her name in a URL on my scratch paper.

So, I sold it to her for $3 and told her I didn't have
a picture of it. She said she'd send me a jpg if I sent
her my email address.

I then told her that I'd come at painting from an obsession with
color and pushed Ball's Bright Earth across the counter to her,
while saying that I was now into my second reading of it.
She flipped through it and wrote the info in her notebook.

As they left, she said, "Keep on."

I immediately jumped on the internet and when her resume
came up I nearly fell off the stool.

Out of deference to her, I am not including the link without
her permission. I'm at the bottom, she's at the top and I
understand what might be a reluctance for the link.

So, I'm over the moon (a Jaune Brillant #1 one, to be sure) on this.

And, ever so deliciously, I'm savoring the glow from my
three Boston dollars! And, even more deliciously, the
source of those dollars.

Moonlight in Vermont

2009-07-06T04:18:00.006-04:00

After a couple of depressing weeks, I've managed to get myself back. I forced myself out of the house to go to The Studio Store in Johnson to buy a tube of paint. It worked. (The paint served not quite the same purpose as the pencil did in Virginia Woolf's Street Haunting, but similar.)

I mucked with my colors when I came back, and the next day got this onto a small stretched canvas (garage sale reclamation). It's number 4, I think, in my Moonlight in Vermont series. And, every time I work on this project, I curse the modern cars that are now endowed with the inability to turn off the headlights.

There is a stretch of straight road just as I turn off Route 104 whenever I come home from St. Albans. At least once a year, when the moon was bright and I happened to be coming home that way at night, I used to turn off my headlights as I made that turn, and drive for a bit in a moonlit world. It always gave me a few moments of deep pleasure. And, now, no more.

Art that rivets . . .

2009-06-29T10:18:00.011-04:00

and then leaves you depressed.

This is theatrical art I'm speaking of. By chance this morning, this dreary morning, unable to work online because of the weather, and out of the painting frame of mind, I switched on the television. And picked up The Deadly Affair 15 minutes into it.

And, there were James Mason and Simone Signoret in a living room. Minutes of
silence, small movements of making tea, of sitting down, and the halting
beginnings of an awkward conversation.

I was riveted. And, when the scene ended, I came to, and realized that these two were not the people in the living room, but rather artists caught in the act of creation.

And, close upon that realization came the thought, "This is why I rarely care about going to the movies any more." In this world of the 24-hour news cycle and the "next big thing" (which comes about 15 minutes after the "last big thing")--the stature of "greatness" has become quite small indeed.

My Growing Rural Urban Collection

2009-06-19T05:50:00.012-04:00

This blog is schizophrenic or bi-polar or whatever, but I just don't want to split it into photography and painting because, for me, it all hangs together. So now I jump to the black and white side of my brain.

And, if I can't afford to get my images printed and framed, at least I can show them here!

On the Edge of Town

This one was a real piece of timing luck with the light. It's in Enosburgh Falls this spring. So now my list of "Urbans" includes, St. Albans, Morrisville, Randolph, and Enosburgh Falls. Slowly but surely it grows. I've been mucking about with my Randolph images that I shot at the end of February, and think there will be a couple of keepers.

A Leap Forward - with provenance

2009-06-14T05:19:00.016-04:00

I didn't post following Charlie's Art Train #1 because I had to shoot a relative's 80th Birthday Party that same evening (Saturday, June 6, 2009) in Essex--and then recover--and then deal with some 300 images. BUT, there was an undercurrent running swiftly in my sub-conscious.

My attempt at plein air watercolor was an inspiring failure--a big chunk of it was macadam -- and I obviously don't know how to handle that. The hills weren't too bad, but the sky, which I'm usually good at was not so hot -- the sun was hot, and I had not before dealt with very fast-drying paint! Hence the crappy sky.

BUT, back on the train I was able to see Susan Abbott's painting of some industrial buildings and, because it wasn't finished, the underlying rough lines of the sketch. I would have like to have much longer to look at it. (You can see the finished version here of the Warehouse in Bradford, Vermont.)

By Thursday I was desperate for some time with paints. Thursday morning, every Thursday morning, I go to the Bishop Street Artists, a working gathering of painters at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in St. Albans and muck about with colors. And, along with everyone else, look at one another's work. This day Mary Ellen Bushey (no web presence) was there for the second time after returning from her wintering in Virginia near the Chesapeake. I was drawn to her work because it was watercolor. This day she had a small, rough sketch--below--(the kind that is splendid but that only a working artist could appreciate) and was beginning to paint the scene of the sketched marshland. She didn't sketch it larger, just began laying on the paint. She was using a type of brush I actually have and used it for almost the entire painting. I was transfixed the entire time the painting emerged on the paper. What emerged was the kind of watercolor that drew me to watercolor in the first place: free, shimmering, and alive. (I didn't have my camera with me, so I don't have a picture of the painting.)

Inside I was jumping up and down frantically. When she was done, I noticed that the sheet, though still attached to the block, was rippled. I asked about the kind of block it was--Strathmore. I was not impressed. I then went to my workspace and grabbed a 4" x 6" Lanaquarelle block and brought it to her, and suggested she try it. She laid on a few brushstrokes (at right) and then looked at what kind of paper it was. She liked it. I told her where I got it--Black Horse Fine Art Supply in South Burlington and about how wonderful the store is. I also said, because I was learning, I was trying as many different papers as I could and that so far, this one was best of all. As I slowly started to separate the sheet from the block, she said, "You can keep it if you want." And I said, "Whew, I was hoping you'd say that!"

Well, at noon I bolted for my car and broke all speed limits to get home. I mowed down the kitties on the way to my work table, and did this:

MARSH EDGE - 7" x 10"

My painting was not like hers, but the colors were. Lover of words that I am, the word "Chesapeake", and lines from Sidney Lanier's Marshes of Glynn were rolling around in my brain as I worked. (Lanier was a romantic writer of middling verse that I loved as a child.)

When I was done, I thought "My god, those 15 minutes of watching Mary Ellen work, gave me this." Better than any class where you have to stress over trying to do something which the instructor has described in words. There was NOTHING between what I watched her do in silence and what I did when I got home. It was the essence of osmosis. This may not be what people expect when they sign up for an art class, but this is obviously the way I learn best. Just think, how easy for a painter to give a "watching" class! No words, no handouts, no materials, no nothing except the actual act of creation watched. Bring it on!

My Essence of Tree

2009-06-03T07:41:00.021-04:00

The house I live in was built in the very late thirties after the orginal one burned. And that fire gutted a pear apple tree at the south end of the house. The blackness of the burn has slowly been disappearing over the years, but you can see how the injured tree healed itself into two trunks in the left image. On the right is the other side of the trunk.

And I apologize for image of the full tree below, but the tree is closed in by dense growth on the side away from my studio, and the studio is too close to get a distance shot.)
When I wanted a tree that was mine I laid out some dots of color in a tight line and took them up with a brush and drew a trunk. When I looked at it, I realized where it had come from. I am finding out that if you are driven to do something without reason, the source may well be inside you, so ingrained, that its existence is separate from conscious thought.

A Network Morning--with Abbott & Hunter

2009-06-02T09:25:00.005-04:00

I have a tiny "art network", but it's a damn good one!

This morning, while waiting for paint to dry, I called Susan Abbott and we talked about painting for about 20 minutes--a prep for meeting on Charlie's Art Train #1 this Saturday.

Then I checked out the VAC website and stumbled onto a video of Charlie talking about art and his art. It's a couple of years old, but a real gem. A capsule version, of Charlie's version, of 20th century art and his own. It's only about 10 minutes long and well worth those minutes. (Tech note: the quality is better if you make the video smaller.)

Another Step Taken

2009-05-26T08:49:00.007-04:00

I've been making little sketches in small sketchbooks because small is all I can afford in the quantity I'm using. But, I expressed consternation to my friend Meta Strick last week over re-making them again but larger. She said, it will come and that after a while it won't be an issue. Since then I've thought, "yeah, but I have to do the first one first!"

Well, I had a puzzle piece from the Art Fits Vermont VAC 2009 project and decided that would be a good trial piece. The sketch is 4" x 6" and the puzzle piece much larger.

SPARK - acrylic

OMG - New Word (and new mag)

2009-05-19T02:36:00.013-04:00

Excitement this morning here in Buck Hollow!

I stumbled across a new word. I mean really new! No faint bells mumbling in the back forty of my mind, no "yeah, I used to know what that meant", nothing. Just a brand, spanking new word! At my age it is a very rare experience to discover a new word that is not jargon, slang, or technical/scientific. Flashes a chill up the spine it does.

haptic

Of or relating to the sense of touch; tactile.
Greek haptikos, from haptesthai, to grasp, touch.

And, of course, to look it up I had to dig out my Random House Unabridged--this word just ain't in your run-of-the-mill, sit-on-your-desk-for-spelling-lookups dictionary.

Curiously enough, its entry there is in the plural. . .

haptics: the branch of psychology that investigates cutaneous sense data.

I was also interested to find that its etymology is Greek. I've studied both Latin and Greek and my experience has been that though we are accustomed to giving the nod to Latin for many word derivations, our language also has a very large number of very important words that have come to us from the Greek language--a language that is both beautiful to look at and to hear. (telegraph, anthropology, and hippopotamus spring to mind immediately.)

But I'm still amazed that I have never come across haptic.

And, full credit to the man who brought it to me: Jeffrey T. Baker, an alt-photographer living in Portland, Oregon. He used it in a interview (a very interesting interview) with Diffusion, a new magazine whose subtitle is Unconventional Photography. The first (and so far, only) issue came a couple of days ago and I just got around to reading it this morning. As far as I've gotten in it, it seems to be quite good. Well illustrated with a good mix of articles. My only complaint is that the typography of the text could use some help. It is sans-serif, justified, and widely letter-spaced so it looks a bit like a second-grade reader done small. For thoughtful reading, it is much better to have a serifed typeface which helps to hold the letters together into their meaningful word units and aids the eye in sliding easily through the lines.

But, if you have interest in any kind of experimental photography/art, you might well want to get a copy of this. Unlike many photo-centered publications, it has as much or more about art and creation as it does about techniques. This is a real plus for me. The mag is edited/started by Blue Mitchell, curator of the Plates to Pixels web site and copies of Diffusion can be obtained from the magazine's site
diffusionmag.com for $10 (which includes mailing). I'm dirt poor and I think this precious $10 was very well spent.

Hard Edges Again

2009-05-12T07:36:00.003-04:00

It seems no matter what I muck about with, I end up working with opposites. (Scorpios are prone to black and white and other opposites I guess.)

Decades ago, when I left the art department, after putting a nice dent in the top of one of their flat files with my fist, I threw away everything from my work there EXCEPT anything to do with intaglio work. I saved everything--plates, powdered pigments, paper, feathers, scribes, all of it--planning on acquiring an etching press so that I could continue the work in my retirement.

Well, I've never been able to afford the etching press, but I started digging around in what I had saved. One piece fit in with what I'm doing now. This may be an evolving piece; if so, this is its current state!

I Think I Know What I'm Doing . . .

2009-05-09T07:11:00.014-04:00

Sketch - Rocks and Grass

The sketch above is just that, a sketch of practicing rocks with watercolors. I work on such things regularly, almost on a daily basis. And sometimes I make a forward leap as in this one when I was working on washes:

THE LIGHTED HILLS

And then there are ones like this:

EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN

These come along as they do. And what "these" are, I have begun to figure out. They are all to do with the natural world: the earth, sun, moon, and stars as it were. And the moods/ideas behind them are all quite dark. Yet, they come out in bright colors. For me, it seems to be a process of working out a language with nouns and verbs but the adjectives are always colors. If there's an underlying theme, I guess I'd have to say "global warming" as trite as that phrase has become, or maybe "atmospherics", as there seems to be some meteorology in most of them.

I'm still doing this as well, but right now, the color business is such an over-riding passion, that the photography has subsided to second place--not by choice but by demand--my involuntary demand. Though yesterday I got this shot. So, things in my black and white world are still churning, and I do keep thinking about getting around to some other Vermont towns for additions to my "Urban Rural" portfolio which is showing signs of healthy growth. Wish there were six of me.

Assigning Blame

2009-05-05T06:47:00.008-04:00

I began my "official" visual life as a graphic designer. Graphic designers, in the days of triangles, drafting tables, wax, and Letraset were obnoxiously neat. I've never belonged to a work space like this one.

Those people whom I know personally and who are responsible for this state of affairs are, in chronological order, as follows:

Susan Abbott
Meta Strick
David E. Kearns
Karen Day-Vath

One person, not personally known to me, is Philip Ball, author of Bright Earth.

Together, these individuals are responsible for what is turning out to be a major upheaval in my life. I alternately curse them and thank them.

SUNRISE FOR A BUG

Interesting Times for Me

2009-04-22T08:30:00.008-04:00

Things conspire against (or with) me and my obsession with color grows. To the point that I now want to make things with it. So, here are sketches from, dare I say, an incipient painter. Things are screaming at me from inside and outside: the hounds of hell are indeed after me.

THE LAST SUN IS BLACK
first sketch

THE LAST SUN IS BLACK
second sketch

SHIFT

WIND

Iron Oxide Yellow and a New Project

2009-04-16T06:08:00.009-04:00

It's been a long time since my last post. I've been coming back from putting Kittikins to sleep, working on Phil's web site, and learning about watercolors. It now seems that every minute I'm not working on some web site, I'm mucking about with paint, paper, and brushes. Unfortunately for my wallet but fortunately for my soul, I don't have much work right now.

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a used copy of Hilary Page's Guide to Watercolor Paints. (Fuller description/review. is here.)

It is a masterpiece of effort and information. And, while it covers many of the manufacturers of watercolor paints, it does not cover those made by Utrecht. I figure they are perhaps in the same league as Winsor & Newton's Cotman line, and likely some are better. I decided to investigate them because I fell in love with their Iron Oxide Yellow.

So, using Page's methods, I am going to try to imitate what she did with the few Utrecht colors I have. But, it will take me a fair amount of time as I have to really perfect my ability to make graded washes that will show the paints as they are, and not as I have botched them up!

Kittikins

2009-04-06T05:57:00.002-04:00

Kittikins was born 20 years ago this spring. I carried him across the fields from the barn where he was born. This is my last day with him.

What is this plant? Besides lagniappe.

2009-03-30T04:17:00.003-04:00

It's been weeks that I haven't been out shooting--too much hard scrabble going on to do that. But, I had to go to Enosburgh to hang my photographs in the Artist in Residence Gallery AND it was a stunningly gorgeous spring day!

I did get some good shots which I am still processing and a couple of them I know already are keepers. It was long work in the gallery and so I was ready for lunch at the end, starving and dying of thirst. As I was trying not to chew on the menu, I saw some sort of plant off to my left--it looked artificial, but because artificial "restaurant plants" usually attempt to resemble something common and this one certainly wasn't "common" to me, I took a second look. Didn't help. So, I got up and walked up to it and touched it. It was not artificial. It was incredibly beautiful and real. But, no one in the place knew what it was. And I need to know what this thing is.

Kinky Boots

2009-03-25T06:37:00.005-04:00

I'm really getting ticked at this hard-scrabble life that leaves no time for thinking or reading. It sucks. But occasionally there's a moment of bliss.

A few days ago, brain-fried and depressed, I collapsed on the couch only to find the television service a blank screen. Too tired to deal with it, I checked out the recordings for something--anything--watchable and stumbled on this from the Bravo network: Kinky Boots.

How is it that, at least in my experience, the Brits can produce incredibly delightful comedies with real stories on a consistent basis. Sans sappiness, sans non-stop sex jokes, sans stupidity, sans 14-year-old-male humor?? This one is, interestingly enough, based on a real story. And, the musical performances of
Chiwetel Ejiofor are absolute delights!

This movie gave me almost two hours of real pleasure and real escapism. If you ever get the chance to watch--do.

Rousseau, Alfred Watkins and Landscapes

2009-03-16T04:05:00.007-04:00

In a New York Times article today about the European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht, was this painting, Farm in Les Landes by Théodore Rousseau. It was one of those images that, for me, possesses something ineffable. A tranquility and "rightness" that speaks instantly. I don't have many in my "collection" of this sort of image; they are few and far between.

I have another on my bedroom wall, a colored photograph, I think -- I really don't know, in an old gilt and wide-edged wooden frame. And a book illustrated with many such images, albeit in black and white.

The book is The Old Straight Track by Alfred Watkins. Many of the images which appear in that book can be seen in an online version of his "Early British Trackways, Moats, Mounds, Camps, and Sites". This continues to be one of my all time cherished books (as is John Michell's View Over Atlantis, the book that first led me to Watkins). Watkins, besides being insatiably curious, was also a photographer, for which I am thankful. His landscapes are taken with a good eye and a good heart.

His theory was that ancient inhabitants of Britain, traveling by foot and without navigational aids, created a network of straight lines marked by landscape points and connecting "sacred sites" with one another. A friend recommended Michell's book to me in the late '60s and I think I read it in one sitting. But, the value of that book was that it led me to Watkins and his photographs. Recognizing something out of the ordinary about the images was the start of my "collection".

We are deluged with landscape images--in tourist brochures, television and magazine ads, state web sites, and the like--but the kind of image I speak of is rare. For me, it is as if, when I see such an image, I understand immediately that what I am being shown is some sort of essence of place. A kind of reality that in its utter "realness" opens a window on another world, a timeless one, a proof-of-paradise if you will. The one thing they all possess is a heaviness of tranquility. A rock-solid peacefulness that is not saccharin, not "beautiful" in the blatant manner of spectacular images. I've taken one, only one, of these kinds of images. Books

Howl's Moving Castle

2009-03-11T04:15:00.007-04:00

More than a year ago I read about this animated film and wanted to see it. I now think I must be the only person in Vermont interested in such things that hadn't seen it.

At the end of a 12 hour day yesterday I was ready for the couch, a soda pop and chips, and some wonderful and reliable entertainment, like Casablanca. Instead I stumbled onto the second hour of Howl's Moving Castle.

I was enthralled, and in fact watched much of it standing up. Fifteen minutes had gone by before I thought to hit the record button. There is so much to see--shadows, tiny, movements on the periphery of scenes, the incredible art of the backgrounds, and of course, the castle itself. I'm desperate to see the first hour, and will be checking the Independent Film Channel every day until they repeat it and I get the whole thing.

It is a splendid display of internationalism-- British author Diana Wynn Jones, Japanese animator, Hayao Miyazaki, and--by the time it gets to us--the voices of Lauren Bacall, Billy Crystal, et al.

When I do get the whole thing at last, I know I will run the parts where the castle moves, over and over again. Here's a tiny, tiny video clip and a link to the book.

Your very best red . . .

2009-03-08T04:47:00.003-04:00

Two things combined this morning: a reported conversation between Gauguin and Sérusier, and the painting posted by Susan Abbott on March 7.

The conversation ran like this:

Gauguin: How to you see the colour of that tree?
Sérusier: Yellow.
Gauguin: Well, use your very best yellow. How do you see the colour of the earth?
Sérusier: Red.
Gauguin: Then use your very best red.

This bit was on p. 193 of Ball's Bright Earth, still my nightly read.

There's a lot to chew on in these few lines: about color, and about how to make art.

Lillie May Nicholson

2009-03-04T17:33:00.008-05:00

I had a bit of luck in St. Albans' only second hand book store, The Eloquent Page. I was for once without a book when I found I had to wait a long time in the city. So, for $6 I bought Lillie May Nicholson 1884-1964: An Artist Rediscovered, by Walter A. Nelson-Rees.

And, as I came to write this, I looked for a decent link to her bio or work. No luck. It seems her paintings sell well, and galleries and collectors are looking for them. But there's no in-depth bio, at least in the first five pages of Google. I finally found a gallery (Trotter Galleries) with a decent number of thumbnails and a short bio. The image here of "Fishermen at Pier" is from their site.

Nicholson's work is strong and almost entirely of California coastal scenes, both of the water and of people and workers near the water. Many boats, much light and water. She also looked at the social ills in Oakland and in 1943, at the age of 59 became an aircraft mechanic. After the war she never took up art again.

I am fascinated by these paintings because of the incredibly strong, even harsh, brush strokes in many of them. I'd love to see one in the flesh. The paintings are small, the largest one I came across in the Catalog at the back of the book was 16" x 20".

The catalogue lists 335 works, a large number of which are owned by the book's author. On January 25 of this year, one of her paintings realized nearly $6,000 at auction.

WAHOOOOOOOOOO !

2009-03-03T04:44:00.007-05:00

I have some news! And it's 5 a.m. and damn it, everybody's asleep! But, Vermont will be in North Carolina soon!

I submitted work to Dimensions 2009, a national juried show, running since 1964 and sponsored by the Associated Artists of Winston-Salem, NC.

I got a piece accepted! The juror was Jennifer McInnes Coolidge, Executive Director, Museum of Florida Art.

I'm so excited I'm even forgetting to smoke! This is my first juried event! (Well first non-Vermont and first post-AOA.)

WR II and Home Again

2009-03-02T07:05:00.004-05:00

This image is for Susan, Charlie, Phil, Mariella, and James--who will understand the reference.

"Of shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings . . ." and so it went at WR II. At times the conversations were loud! So loud that I found out later that the phone in my pocket rang at 6:28 and I didn't hear it.

For me -- former nascent connections were strengthened and, I hope, one new one in the making.

It was, once again, colder than hell at 5 a.m. At WR III we will be talking on the benches at the RR station after dinner, or at least I won't be freezing to death the next morning.

I was not in fact at the Polka Dot at 5 a.m. It didn't open and I learned that its hours were in fact quite irregular. This together with the information I picked up at WR I -- that the owner is quite ill and what I noticed -- that everyone working there is close to 70 -- and that the building itself is for sale, makes me fear that the end is near for this small, unassuming landmark. So, I ate my breakfast in New Hampshire. Grrrr.

White River II

2009-02-28T06:59:00.004-05:00

This is where I'll be at 5 a.m. tomorrow: The Polka Dot Restaurant in White River.

This week has been packed. New work was on display last night at the reception at the STAART Gallery in St. Albans. Exhaustion (brought in the last piece 15 minutes before the opening), followed by excitement and a case of nerves because it was the first showing of my Rural Urban stuff (you know, trying to light my ciggie with a flash drive), followed by anticipation of White River (took forever to get to sleep).

Goes without saying that I'm bringing my camera and I sincerely hope it is not as cold at 5 a.m. tomorrow as it was on January 4th. Looking forward to this evening at the Tip Top, and realizing that what, in January was nervousness at meeting everyone, is now pleasure at meeting folks who are no longer complete strangers. It is a very nice shift.

Identity is 'round the back

2009-02-24T05:22:00.006-05:00

Now that I've almost resumed my pre-AOA schedule, I'm reading the NY Times again on a nearly daily basis. Somehow today I ended up at this article on "Saving the Suburbs".

Near the end are some fascinating images, well worth looking at. But, in reading it I was reminded of two things out of my visual past:

ONE
When I was living in Canada, all three times, I often took trains from London to Montreal or from London to Kalamazoo, or from Hamilton to Cornwall or Detroit. One of the things I loved most about riding trains was that in the urban areas, you saw back yards--back yards of houses, apartment buildings, industrial structures. Scenes you would never have occasion to see unless you worked, lived, or had business at one of these structures.

TWO
In one of my graduate design classes with a master designer, I remember him saying about suburbia--starting with the idea which we all know, the little box houses that, row after row, all look the same--that though from the street you really can't tell them apart, if they were all reversed so that the back yards were in front, there would be instant individuality. Some with mini-playgrounds, some with pools, some with lush gardens, some with dog runs and picnic tables, etc. Awnings or not, porches or not, bird feeders or not.

Our dwellings in such settings are Janus-faced. Conformity in front, individuality to the rear. Maybe as satellite imagery gets better and better and closer and closer, all will be exposed.

Apologies to Diane and the VAC. . .

2009-02-20T04:55:00.011-05:00

. . . not that it matters to them, but it does to me. I had told Diane I would be in Burlington yesterday at the VAC brainstorming session. I was not. (And I am one who, unless I'm dead, will do what I say.)

And, in my own defense, the reason I wasn't there was because of art. The image here is a top view of a treasure. It is the paper equivalent of a chest of gold and precious stones, heaped up in spilling splendor. The book runneth over with creation.

This is one of the myriad sketchbooks of Meta Strick, a Fairfield artist (YES! Franklin County!) One of these is apparently filled every two to four months. Filled with a maturity of visual thought, from a mind that must be a maelstrom of imagination.
I met her in the St. Albans Artists Guild, and she has asked me to design a web site for her. I saw her work for the first time a week ago. And what I saw was one of these sketchbooks. I only got a moment's look at it, but my mind immediately flashed to "how on earth can I get enough money to buy this?" "Can I rob a bank and get away with it?" What I saw was stunning. She said she would bring more next week. Well, "next week" was yesterday. And so, I did not go to Burlington. Instead I photographed a few pages from the four sketchbooks she brought. She allowed me to take them home.

Page after page, spread after spread, colors upon colors, mediums upon mediums--the January/February 2009 book is already filled.

After the morning meeting we were both at, we went to lunch. For almost two hours, then I went to the STAART Gallery hoping to find the owner, Stina Plant, there. I did. I spread these books out before her and she was as entranced as I was. (And we are both photographers.) I was there for an hour, and, without thinking, and in a state of euphoria, I drove home--instead of to Burlington. Meta's black bag with the four small books in it, and now on the floor of my living room would not let me leave.

I have a short list of split horizon times in my life: this is/was one of them. Needless to say, when her site is done, you will find the announcement here.

Butter? A non-organic substance?

2009-02-19T05:05:00.002-05:00

At my cousin's birthday party this past Sunday I overheard one of his sons say something about "going organic" in his maple sugaring operation. Instantly my mind went over the list of what goes into maple syrup: one item--sap. Startled, I moved in to listen.

Apparently, because he, as have generations before him, uses butter to quell the foam in the pan, his operation is not organic. I still can't digest this one. Admittedly, I've done no research other than recording the synapses that went off in my brain, but, as far as I know, cows eat grass and hay and produce milk. The milk is used to make butter. And, Tom, my cousin, throws a dab of it into the pan every so often during boiling to calm the foam. And, what's boiling is sap from the trees. There just ain't nothin' else in that pan.

And, yet, it's the syrup that comes out of that pan is not organic! I'm still chewing on this one. Inquiring minds want to know!

Art for the Poor

2009-02-16T06:28:00.007-05:00

A cell phone can be a food stamp camera for artists. And, I debated this issue with myself when I was mulling over my AOA project design--at least the part of the guidelines that wanted us to involve Vermonters in art. In the end, I didn't include my idea in my proposal and I'm still chewing on it.

Then I thought of all the "bad art" this idea could spawn. This morning I decided that whatever this produced in the way of "art" could be no worse than the thousands of fake "countrified" craft pieces that only someone who had never seen a vernacular antique could love.

This shot was taken with a Nokia cell phone--back in the day (all of a year and half ago) when I was desperate to get back to photography but didn't have a camera. And here's another from that same time period. Same phone, same desperation.

Both are mucked about with in PhotoShop, but nothing too complicated.

My reasoning that this might be a good teaching idea is that, fundamentally, the source of all art is vision. Whether that vision appears to you in the real world or in your mind, when it gets turned into art it presents a vision for others to see. Of course then acceptance of that vision turns on others' taste--educated or not.

A cell phone is just as good as anything else at capturing a composition and offers a wonderful and ubiquitous tool for teaching a great many aspects of "making art". As to the PhotoShop part, well, there are some excellent and FREE programs that do everything needed.

I'll continue to chew on this for a while, and any comments will be much appreciated.

Ultramarine

2009-02-14T04:11:00.010-05:00

The inevitable has occurred. My current obsession with color has collided with my lifelong passion for words. Try to get to sleep after that accident!

Much more than Finlay does, Ball drops bits of information about the words by which we refer to colors. Both bemoan the incredibly complicated linguistic history of "red"; and that being my favorite color, more about that will undoubtedly appear at some point in this blog.

However, last night the nugget concerned "ultramarine". All my life, well, anyway since I learned the word, it has meant blue; dictionaries concur: bright deep blue. And, for me, that's always been it. Red is red, black, black, blue, blue, and ultramarine, a blue special enough to have its own name. "Deep blue"? As in deep (ultra) blue sea (marine)? But of course. If I ever thought about it, that's likely the association I would have made, and perhaps others as well. (I'm in danger here of teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, for which the punishment should be death.)

I am however, teaching myself to suck eggs! I've studied both Latin and Greek and have always been able to call upon those languages to decipher unknown words I come across. Where in hell were they whenever I've used the word "ultramarine"?

The color of the sea is not germane here. These are Ball's words that kicked me in the cortex last night:

Lapis lazuli is found primarily in the East. . . . Its use in the West did not become widespread until the fourteenth century. The name reflects the pigment's status as a long distance import: in 1464 the Italian A. A. Filarete wrote in Trattato dell'artchitettura that "fine blue is derived from a stone and comes from across the sea and so is called ultramarine."

I knew that! NOT! Though I do know that the pure Latin word "ultra" translates to beyond, on the far side of. As in, "beyond the sea". Sometimes the synapses simply take forever to establish a connection -- ummm, something like broadband in Vermont.

AND, a footnote here to mention a new page attached to this blog: because once posts roll off the first page, they are rarely accessed by readers. Which means, books I've mentioned fall off the edge. I've added a link (top right) to the White River Book List. All books mentioned here, and some from my former blogs, will be kept there with my annotations.

Recovering Lost Data!

2009-02-12T04:33:00.012-05:00

The image here is an example of what I was mucking about with when I was swept away by the AOA wave. It is a coffee-toned cyanotype made from a PhotoShop-created negative that was printed on a transparency. This particular print is on Arches paper.

This is a detail from that image:
There is a lot of info on the web about this process, generally referred to as alt-process photography. I first fell over it when I was reading Photography: A Cultural History by Mary Warner Marien early last spring. As I read on through the early history of photography I got more and more excited and then I came to the section on cyanotypes and thought, "I can do this!" I got the two chemicals, mixed them up and slapped an old 2-1/4" x 2-1/4" negative onto a piece of paper and sandwiched the pair between a piece of glass and a piece of wood with clamps. Of course, being spring in Vermont it was a day of mostly clouds and a fitful sun. But I ran around in the yard, my sandwich held out before me, catching the elusive rays.
And, sure enough, I got a small blue image. (With a UV light set-up you can expose inside, and at night, and when it's raining!)

And here may be the best part in these environmentally-conscious days: NO nasty chemicals go down the drain. Also convenient: you don't need a darkroom.

The two chemicals are massively diluted with water, and they are Ferric Ammonium Citrate and Potassium Ferricyanide. Their solutions are kept separate until use and then mixed in a small flat, hake-brush-wide container. Paint the solution on the paper and let it dry. After exposure, develop the print IN TAP WATER!!!!!

Well, now I've dug out my alt-process journal and am trying to recover all that I knew before setting it aside for AOA. More later on this stuff.

Digging Out from Under

2009-02-09T12:43:00.004-05:00

WARNING: This post is shameless self-promotion.

I was in stasis because I had put so many things aside for the AOA work that I couldn't decide what to do first!

Well, I decided I can live in a pig sty but I can't not eat. So the first thing I've done is update my other (geeky) web site--the one that occasionally brings in money!

VT2000 Technical Services

You might recognize the name from my email address--same email address, same server since 1996 or '97, I forget which now, it's been so long.

So, if there are any artists out there who need web work, heh, heh, I'm here. Don't do shopping carts, flash, or other bells and whistles, just sharp, fast, safe, well-designed sites that handle images properly. Oh, and as long as I manage the site, I can host it as well.

And, as one artist to another, the cost for both is very reasonable.

Round Earth

2009-02-08T06:23:00.003-05:00

Well, Bright Earth has led me to Round Earth as a result of researching the relationship of the bluish-green ice falls cascading from the rock cliffs along I-89 that were extremely numerous yesterday.

The previous day I had read the section in Bright Earth about how glass might have been discovered, learning that clear glass is harder to make than colored simply because "natural" glass contains impurities that often give a bluish-green cast. Aha! Is this cause the same as that which creates the bluish-green ice? What's in the glacial silt that is common in glass? Haven't finished yet--more later.

BUT, I did stumble across this article on the how the fact that the earth is round can be determined from a ship's wake. My immediate interest in this stems from the time I was taking classical Greek and became fascinated by the science of the early Greeks. I remember, on a full moon night, using trigonometry against the vertical side of brick building to determining the distance of the moon from the earth. I was close, maybe off by 20,000 miles.

There's a lot of math in the linked article, but the salient parts are the Introduction on p. 1, the magnificent image on p. 2, and the Conclusions on p.4. The simplicity of the reasoning is stunning. Worth taking a skim at.

Lagniappe

2009-02-06T06:38:00.006-05:00

Sometimes there are surprises when I dump my card after a shoot. Not often, but when there is one, it's lagniappe--that something extra which was unforeseen but good.

This one was snapped when I was pacing in a parking lot waiting for someone to come out of the building. I was hanging out in a photographer's nightmare: a gazillion cars, snowbanks, and the flat boring landscape of big-box Williston.

And I saw this, as you see it now--wholly untouched except for making it smaller for the web. When I looked at it, on my screen at home, I was startled by how much it looked like a painting. And, those of you who know me, know that I'm a black and white photographer and a black and white person. But occasionally I stumble out of my groove.

Bright Earth - a must read

2009-02-04T06:12:00.005-05:00

A while back on my former blog, I posted about getting a copy of Finlay's Color and how excited I was about it. Well, let's revisit that. I finally gave it up on page 258 (out of 302). There was just too, too much of "cute".

Frederico Buskak in his little boat wandering among the Greek isles looking for a home, how excited he must have been to come with his little bag of colors to the shores of Venice.

I made that up of course, but damn I hate that kind of stuff. Once maybe, but such passages increased in number as the book went on. Does the author think that people without imaginations read books like this one? I can do my own imagining, and do it when I care to do it. If that stuff had been edited out, the book would have likely been a lot shorter--oh and there was the young Greek girl pining for her absent lover by means of charcoal on a wall. And!! And!! Finlay spends a large chunk of the book on Australian Aboriginal paintings and makes them sound incredibly interesting--however, among the 21 plates, there is not one example. And "lake", though mentioned often, is not in the index, etc., etc. Grrrr.

Anyway, in my first post about that book, our David Kearns commented that I might enjoy Bright Earth by Philip Ball. A long time ago I had that book on a list, but it never got bought. So, to celebrate turning in my proposal I bought it. NOW this one is a book worth reading!

Here is Ball on why color's use and its theory should go hand in hand:
But only by appreciating the why [of how color comes into being] can one truly understand the social and technological factors that brought these colors onto the palette. Moreover, some basic facts about color mixing have a strong bearing on the uses to which painters have put their pure and shining pigments (whether they knew it or not). . . . I should reprise my assertion that in the end the differentiation between the two is only a relatively modern idea. I feel sure that Leonardo would have damned any book that claimed to speak of color without explaining it.

Bright Earth: Get a copy!

Slice of LIfe Here

2009-02-03T10:29:00.003-05:00

Supplicant, er, Applicant, heal thyself.

The following is excerpted from one of my posts on my other, now unmentionable blog:

Maybe this is what we need to do. Go after that grail of "touching blood". Make them hurt, dance, weep, howl, feel heat in the blood, but above all think.

I now know this might not have been such a good idea for my last project! However, I think it stands up in the wider world. If we don't go after this, what are we after? And, what are we about?

Artists don't make art to hide things from the world. And what we choose to show is what differentiates us. Selection is everything in art; it slices up the world into one's own mosaic. It is the depth of the cut, the sharpness of the blade that determines value.

At the risk of belaboring this metaphor, we hone that blade on books, on people, on history, on glimpses caught by the corner of our eye.

It is my intention in this blog keep a record of my sharpening tools and a box of band-aids within easy reach.