It's a cold simple life I lead, my friends. There's plenty of warmth, mind you, but as we are learning this first year of being back in our northern home-land, winter is a good time to settle in, clean up, sort out and read. I'm stll reading a little book about beauty and ethics by Elaine Scarry. But my daffodils are dead. The tulips are pretty pooped, too.
Scarry's book is lovely when she conjurs beauty in her description of a palm tree she has learned to see as beautiful.
Or speaks truth, she writes:
When I used to say the sentence ( softly and to myself) "I hate palms" or "Palms are not beautiful; possibly they are not even trees," it was a composite palm that I had someone succeeded in making without even evet having seen, close up, many particular instances. Conversely, when I now say, "Palms are beautiful," or "I love palms," it is really individual palms that I have in mind. (pages 19-20)

But my patience is tested in the second chapter and I'd rather just get to painting.
Aesthetics issues are interesting to artists , no doubt, but I am keen to paint, not read, today. Cold but true.
Take care,
Rachael

It's amazing to walk on a dark cold night in a white haze of snow. Thick, thin, wet, cold, falling everywhere and then these thin dark trees.

The more I look around, the more I listen to stories, I'm entranced by and connected to the history of and culture in Upstate New York. After reading about Lily Dale, I listened to a local radio interview about a new book about Maggie Fox, on which was mentioned the Spirit House in Georgetown.

There is such a thrill to find these wierd little stories in the cold, in the dark, in the history, in the now of this place. Nice to be here.

Take care,
Rachael

What did Winslow Homer doodle when talking to a dullard? When did Stuart Davis decide to paint rythym instead of draw revolution? Why all the itinterant painters (the Johann Mengels Culverhouses that wandered from Holland to Albany to Utica to Syracuse and presulably back again)? The Terra has just announced a big gift to the Archives of American art and soon, my friends, we might get answers to some of those questions...
American Art News

The Terra Foundation for American Art is pleased to announce a $3.6 million grant to enable the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art to increase access to its collections worldwide.

The grant, the foundation’s largest to date, will fund a comprehensive, five-year program to digitize a substantial cross-section of the Archives’ most important holdings, including the papers of a highly diverse range of artists and arts-related figures from the eighteenth century to the present.

At the end of the program, nearly 1.6 million digital files will be available free of charge on a newly designed Website of the Archives of American Art , with select files available annually.

I find it pretty exciting whenever, wherever information central to the study of culture and ideas becomes more accessible.

Alright then, off to work,
take care,
Rachael

"What they call talent is nothing but the capacity for doing continuous hard work in the right way."- Winslow Homer

Started to read an excellent little book by Elaine Scarry and started to think. More soon but do take care.


take care,
Rachael

More on and by Prof. Scarry is here and here and here...

A friend of mine from a residency I took a few years back is having an open studio in Raleigh, NC. I share because Anthony's encaustics are deceptively simple, smart in color, and full of life. So, if you can, try getting to Anthony Ulinski's Open Studio .

And since I think open studios are important, I'm happy to share news of yours, but mind you I won't promise for everyone, just give me plenty of heads up time and if I can, I will.


take care,
Rachael