my cousin's america

Detail of Marc Chagall's America Windows, Art Institute of Chicago

on that late summer thursday in my cousin's america
midwest, illinois, land of state sovereignty, national
unity, after chicago, after art and people-watching
in millenium, the set changes to the fox river
i walk to the end of the path in st. charles, my toes
nearly touching the pudding mud, bite into
an apple, study a sign explaining non-point source
pollution—it seeks the lowest spot, the spot where
i stand, the entire riverbank. they say they will bring
the lost prairie back, since strip malls are rootless there's no
drinking the rot and wreck of runoff, clean the river
with angelica, aster, black-eyed susan, snakeroot,
blazing star, prairie clover, tall grass, wheat grass. how about it:
straight talk this time, no double talk, no song and dance.

i seize on this, my non-routine, this minute
compared to yesterday's minute and the minute that's coming
at me with the current's rush. look there, there: coasting—coasting—
wheeling in a chevron backlit by sky unspooling, the wild
geese land in a world-web much like ours: feed, fly, mate
talk, sleep. an earthbound journey dreaming itself, dreaming
the next stop on the map. press on the brakes, slow
the vehicle to let you pass, an almost identical story
to the one i tell of my america, only in maine it's wild
turkeys i try to save. together we multitask
alert to impending disaster, we fluff our feathers
train our beady little eyes on the arrival of what we call hope:
a timely procurement of our next meal.

in the room with raphael

crowds of people pulse on all sides of me, their body heat pressing into me, hearts thumping, their fingers pointing at walls alive with color and history. wide-eyed, they sigh and speak a babel of languages, their heads and necks tilting back—snap, crack—for a better view, first in the pinacoteca, and then in raphael's rooms. there it is, the school of athens and, oh god, higher still, heaven in a ceiling. at times i think i cannot breathe. there are too many people. i remind myself inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.

i attempt to take a few pictures with my iphone—after all, how often does one encounter the stanze di raffaello?—but i am not really in the mood. am i coming down with a cold? a raw rain runs clear rivulets across the vatican museums' windows. i position myself by backing away from the throngs toward an empty area near the wall, being careful not to touch the wall. (i have already been chastised once for touching by roman guards in the castel sant' angelo.) the window area is cordoned off, but i feel better with a view of the damp day beyond the crush.

my blah mood starts to disperse when i notice a couple intent on studying the artwork. i try not to stare, but they stop right in front of me. i pretend to be interested elsewhere, yet i am curious. my eyes can't help returning to them, to her smooth white skin and wavy reddish-blonde tresses, to his intelligent eyes and shapely bald head. there is nothing outstanding to behold in these ordinary people, but something about the strangers that i can't quite figure out gives me the sudden urge photograph them. that's the odd thing about it—i am rarely moved to take deliberate snapshots of people i don't know.

the second i see them, i realize they are unusual subjects. he leans into her, gently, slowly, his hand touching her hair, his head touching her head—but no, it's not a tender moment he seeks, it's the audio guide—while she looks up. after he gets close enough to her to hear, they do not move. they stay frozen in the spot they have claimed for themselves, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, his eyes fixed on me (well before i even lift my phone). it's as if they are simultaneously posing for me, but not posing for me. yet that can't be, that's not it. they are listening, absorbed by a voice in their ears whispering a language they understand, explaining the details of what their eyes witness.

i try not to be obvious; i turn and take photos of the frescoes—but what to focus on with this overload of detailed stimuli coming from walls and ceiling? so i just do it; in the blink of an eye, i do it, i do what i have wanted to do all along—i turn back around and touch the camera button.

there is this uncanny sense i have—an idea, a ridiculous idea, perhaps, but a fun one and one that seems like it could be true—that this man and this woman make their living as actors, not because they are dramatic or seem to be striking a pose, but quite the opposite—because they are relaxed and comfortable and, above all, quiet in their own skin, in their own space. it is as if they are alone, not a tourist in sight, in the vast, ornate, renaissance chamber, as if they belong standing where they are standing, and they themselves are on view, an audience sitting in darkness just beyond the walls of raphael's room waiting to applaud.

the man and woman are in position—they just are. they inhabit—more than that, they own—this piece of air.

i can't help clapping in my head.

her art of another kind

Hannah Montalvo, Diary, 2012 (detail). Mixed Media on Board, 60 x 52 x 1 1/4 inches.

...the revitalization of experimental art following WWII signified a renewed interest in freedom of expression, spontaneity, and unorthodox materials—un art autre (art of another kind)—a radical break with all traditional notions of order and composition in a movement toward something wholly "other."  —Excerpt from the exhibition catalogue for Art of Another Kind, International Abstraction and the Guggenheim, 1949−1960. On view at the Guggenheim until Sept. 12, 2012.

my journey home two weeks ago began under sunny skies in vermont with me crossing my fingers and hoping that the day would stay dry, at least until i could get hannah's painting safely back to maine. (major thunderstorms were in the forecast for the afternoon.) the painting was too big to fit anywhere except in the back of the pickup truck so.... hannah and a friend carefully loaded it, wrapped it in a blue plastic tarp and strapped it down with bungie cords. i was now on my own—hannah would remain in vermont for most of the summer—and i had the responsibility of transporting my daughter's artwork home intact.

within an hour of unpacking her work and getting it in the garage, dark clouds brought thunder and lightning and rain which continued, on and off, for the rest of the afternoon.

last saturday ed and i hung the large abstract* painting. it took a few hours, including the time ed needed to locate, purchase, and attach the proper bracket hooks on the painting's frame and on the wall in order to mount and securely hold the 40 pounder on the only spot in the house where it would fit—the wall halfway up the staircase to the second floor.

i'm glad this piece from our girl's semester of work is with us. i joked with hannah that i should place candles and flowers under this painting, and some of her others also located in the upper hall, as a kind of shrine dedicated to her since she—and her creative spirit—dominate that space.

of course, the idea of candles and flowers and shrines was just meant to be funny, but the idea of a place where her creative spirit resides when she is not physically present is no joke.

she is with us.

within the combination and manipulation and transformation of basic materials—wood, paper, canvas, fabric, ink, paint—is inhabited space. her creative energy lives up there.



*some people call abstract art weird. sometimes they don't understand. sometimes it's hard to understand. some people say abstract art is disconnected from reality. that's true, if by disconnected from reality we mean it doesn't represent external reality, it isn't a replica of the obvious, of what we capture with our eyes, or the way a camera lens "sees." but there is more to reality than this. not all reality is beheld with our eyes, not all reality is witnessed externally. abstract art is disconnected from reality as we see it, but certainly not as we know it and discern it inside of ourselves.

beyond the hum and glow

are you really my friend?

in portland, maine, at the portland museum of art, photographer tanja alexia hollander is attempting to address that question through a photographic view of her cyberspace friends. ed and i went over on saturday afternoon and took a look .

hollander asks: who are my friends? are cyber friends real friends, even those people i've never spoken to face to face? her focus is on the cyberspace world of facebook, specifically her own hundreds and hundreds of facebook friends—old friends, new friends, professional friends, deep connections and the more superficial ones, and finally the friends she has never laid eyes on before, friends she has never met in person.

when i first see the words friends she has never met in person i immediately want to slap some quotes around the word friends in that context. how can someone you don't know, someone whose eyes you've never looked at except, perhaps, in a photograph, possibly be a friend? but i stop myself and don't end up adding the quotation marks after all because i am beginning to see there is value in some of those friendships in the internet realm. hollander, too, is basically optimistic about the power of social networks.

hollander traveled all over the united states—eventually she'll travel the world—on "a modern day odyssey" to visit and photograph a fraction (200 photos) of her facebook friends and "collapse the intangibility of cyberspace"for this, her first, exhibition called are you really my friend? during her trip she met many of those friends for the very first time. her project idea was to reach across time and space to physically connect with friends she knows well and friends she doesn't know at all except for on a computer screen.

this exhibition is nothing like the usual "please do not touch"deal in art museums—this exhibition is hands-on, and that's always a treat. some of the old school portraiture (she used a hasselblad)—high focus, wide depth of field, long exposure, deadpan expressions—of hollander's fb friends are magnetized to walls so you can touch them and move them and group them and rearrange them any way you want (which i did) in your exploration of what it means to be a friend. for example, you might put images of people who were photographed with their dogs in one group, couples in another, people in their living rooms in another, or make a cluster out of folks in their kitchens. or you could sort them by age groups or sex.

in her exploration of the meaning of friendship hollander invites visitors to answer her questions—which change regularly and are posted on a wall like a fb wall—including how important is face time? how has social media made you more social? which are collected by using sticky notes and attaching them on the wall.

the day we were there the question was can you be friends with someone you have never met? many of the answers were yes and of course. there were a lot of it depends.  

an exhibition like this is certainly thought-provoking. plenty of ponderable questions are raised: are the friends we meet on the internet real friends? can cyber friend connections become real and personal? (i am only talking about adults here, not teenagers talking to strangers—that's a whole other (scary) topic altogether.) and, taking it even further, are the people on fb and blogs even real? how can we tell if they, and the subjects they write about are real (unless, of course, it's labeled fiction) or merely inventions, their worlds complete fabrications?*

the answer is we can't. without doing what hollander did—visiting every friend (i would love to do that)—there is no way to be absolutely sure, is there? it's freaky and bizarre that there are people who live in a make-believe land they pass off as real, and they would have to be freaky and bizarre people, or just unimaginably pitiful and lonely and craving attention.

final thought: you know, i believe if you read a person's words long enough, and their voice breaks through loud and clear, you won't have to suffer being repulsed by the smell a fake, but you will instead be able to sniff out and recognize the scent of someone genuine. there is a body living beyond the computer's hum and glow: flesh and blood make words on a screen and, conversely, words on a screen make flesh and blood—blood that flows warm and red but also circulates its own hum and glow back through a distinctly true heart.

*note ~ have you now been totally spooked into wondering if i am even real? i can tell you yes, i am really real. really. (and i am sure you are too.) you have my word on that. what, my word's not good enough? then pack up the wife or husband and come down east to maine for a visit and see for yourself.

the fabric of a maine island family

when the mayflower set sail from england she carried in her belly a person who helped sow the seed of a maine branch of the dyer family. having started out in plymouth, massachusetts, some dyer descendants decided to head north in the late 1700's, to vinalhaven island in maine. it was on vinalhaven in the early1800's that a talented and hard-working dyer housewife promptly began her endeavor - the stitching of an exquisite woolen quilt which has been passed down through the family for generations. in the near future it may become part of the permanent collection of the farnsworth museum—a museum celebrating maine's role in american art—in rockland, maine.

i have seen and touched this lovely antique quilt thanks to denny denham, and let me tell you, it's a beauty. denny's mother was a dyer, and it was her wish to have the quilt given to a maine museum where it could be properly cared for and preserved.

embroidered and pieced wool quilts are the rarest type of eighteenth and nineteenth century bed covering. the maker of the dyer family quilt created her design using multiple techniques - quilting, piecing, and embroidery. all the fabric was most likely produced in the home. the main fabric is a plain-woven light brown wool and the backing fabric is a plain-woven pale yellow.

the consistency of the wool embroidery yarn colors indicates an expert dyer. (no pun intended - could the family name possibly be an indication of a skill passed down through the generations?) the talented quilter needed colors for her quilt, so i like to envision her stepping outside her homestead on the island one fair day, and collecting the necessary plants which could easily have produced the variation of vibrant dye colors in the threads. that was how dye was produced in the old days.

most of the quilt's squares and triangles are made up of a floral design, but the four blocks across the top which cover the pillow area contain rather unusual motifs, distinctly maine motifs. cod fish (three fins across the top and two underneath the fish suggest cod) are stitched on two of the blocks. another one features a two-masted sailing ship. an american eagle decorates the fourth block. the quilter was obviously proud of her new england roots, and with her quilt she celebrated being part of a tightly-knit american fishing community.

if we take a close look, the dyer quilt unfolds a marvelous tale of maine island history. it allows us to peek into part of the daily routine of a maine family, and imagine a long faded way of life.

woman of the island, you do speak to us across the centuries. you tell us an eloquent story—a story of your life on an island in maine—not with pen and paper, but with a pleasing folk art design, patiently, lovingly, created with fabric, and a needle and thread.            

c'est mon plaisir

c'est mon plaisir....it is my pleasure. look up, and high above one of the the front doors at the isabella stewart gardner museum in boston you will find the stone carving with that inscription. gardner (1840-1924) lived on the fourth floor of her mansion, fenway court, and designed it with the venetian palazzo barbaro  in mind. the three floors below contained her substantial art collection, and today the collection is displayed almost exactly as it was at the turn of the century. isabella gardner's pleasure was to collect and bring to boston beautiful artwork, and then show it to the public for a few days each month (starting when the museum opened in 1903). after her death, her will stipulated that her home and her collection should remain as it was in her lifetime—for all to see. that was her pleasure.

in anders zorn's painting isabella gardner in venice (1894), she stands tall with arms outstretched, welcoming guests into her home and out onto the balcony to see the fireworks. she is happy and full of life. at the gardner museum i almost expect to see her come around a corner, arms outstretched, and greet visitors: please come in, come in. it is my pleasure to welcome you here.

the isgm is like no other. i highly recommend a visit. it feels as isabella intended - you are in italy in an italian renaissance palace, not a museum. much of the art is italian renaissance. the rooms are laid out like the actual rooms in a palace, with straight, long staircases leading to the different floors. it is rather dark on a cloudy day—exactly as it would have been in the 1400's and 1500's. away from the windows it can seem a bit dim; there is no museum lighting. there are also no labels beside each piece of art giving the artist's name and date. (there are handheld cards in every room, however, to give you as much or as little information as you want - mrs. gardner preferred that one contemplate each piece on its own merit.) and yet a museum it is, with rooms full of paintings, sculpture, ceramics, tapestries, drawings, rare books, silver, furniture, stained glass and ornate wooden doors and mantelpieces.

isabella gardner did not like stuffy, sterile museums. hers was intended to be different from the start—and it is. four stories up, the central courtyard is covered in glass (the first of its kind—1903—
in the u.s.)  flowers and plants bloom all year. most of the three floors of museum rooms face the courtyard. the light that fills the space from walls of floor to ceiling windows is magnificent. i stood for a few minutes in each open window (there are a lot of them), sniffed the moist, fragrant, fertile earth, and allowed my eyes to feast on the stunning view of the lush green garden below. (this was early february 2011 in boston, where they had recently endured one snowstorm after another.) above my head there was snow clinging to parts of the glass roof. it must be a wonderful experience to be inside the gardner's courtyard during a howling northeaster.

in several rooms there are glass-topped wooden cases. the tops of the cases are covered with dark, soft velvet fabric. lift up the fabric and you are able to peer back in time at old handwritten notes and signed photos sent to mrs. gardner by friends and admirers, including fdr, walt whitman, teddy roosevelt, henry james, john singer sargent and james mcneill whistler.

as you walk through rooms—like the dutch room, the early italian room, the raphael room and on toward the tapestry room—you will pass walls filled with paintings and drawings. suddenly you will stop dead in your tracks when you notice an odd sight. taped on the wall where there should be a framed piece of art there is instead a small, glaringly naked, white piece of paper. on it is typed "STOLEN." several extremely valuable works of art were brazenly taken from the museum in 1990. the case remains unsolved.






.

seashell art

large cockle, sailor's ear, and sea urchin shells were used by creative kids to come up with a delightful starfish to liven up sanibel's winter beach and give walkers more sights to take in and enjoy. the strong high tide even managed to deposit some debris and add its own artistic touch to the starfish located high up in the sand.

also this shellman, the island's version of a snowman, a bit old and disheveled at this point, was composed of sailor's ear, lucine, and a few sea urchin shells. what fun and amusement for those who put together these artistic creations and for those of us who happened to walk by them on the beach.....

portland museum of art

happy groundhog day! the hog did not see his shadow so.....spring will arrive early this year! that's a good thing because that monster winter storm is headed our way, and outside the window the snow is starting to pile up again. let the shoveling begin....again! we had 4 inches yesterday and now 12-18 inches more. i love snow. even those of you who hate it have to admit it is beautiful out there. for the record, though, i don't like sleet and subzero windchills, but we're gonna get some of that, too. spring will certainly seem sweet when it finally heads our way. i'm counting on you, groundhog!

and speaking of winter, hmmm....what to do on a cold sunday in winter. enjoy art! sunday afternoon at our fantastic art museum we saw paintings by rackstraw downes and photography by edward weston. weston's exhibition was titled leaves of grass. many of the photographs were included in a volume of walt whitman's leaves of grass poems. in early december we had seen some different pieces of weston's work, and also work by alfred stieglitz, paul strand, and ansel adams, in the exhibition debating modern photography: the triumph of group f/64. that was a fascinating show.

light forms around portland



beautiful blue balls at a private residence in cape elizabeth. december 2010.

pandora lacasses's light sculptures brighten even the darkest coldest nights in portland, maine. in downtown portland her lights are everywhere. l. l. bean in freeport has many of her sculptural forms in the park-like area outside the store. at a private residence in cape elizabeth, where we enjoyed a festive christmas party, lacasse's work in blue illuminates and dresses up a large tree. i like how the multi-colored christmas tree in the background peeks out around the right side of the big "blue" tree's trunk. the blue lights are my favorite of all lacasse's colors.

lacasse creates these works of art, these bursts of brightness, with spring wire, stainless steel tubing and LED lights. you are drawn to the lovely, almost floating, sculptures which exhibit stunning color, light and form.

wrapped up



hannah montalvo, shell. wire, plaster, plastic, glue.
november, 2010

in maine, as we draw near to the winter solstice, we think of wrapping up gifts for christmas -and wrapping ourselves up snugly in warm layers against the icy cold that has descended on us the last few days! so many things are wrapped up....

wrapped up

outer layer
shell, carapace, husk,
integument, cover,
crust, plastron,
package,
case,
pod, wrap,
rind, skin, hide.

safely
guarding,
swaddling,
encapsulating,
encasing, enshrining
that which lies
hidden beneath.

inner layer
the gift,
essential essence,
priceless seed,

core

heart

self

soul.

and now we've wrapped up another week....wishing you gaiety and glee this weekend (and still wishing for snow, too)!