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Photo essay: Antique Air Show, Part 1
The title of poet of the skies could easily be given to French pilot Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry. The author of the fantastical story The Little Prince also gave us several dramatic flight books, such as Night Flight, Southern Mail, and Wind, Sand and Stars. They are, from what I hear, as contemplative as they are […]
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Navigating my first Artist Residency
Rural New England has been my home for the spring. Winding country roads are everywhere around here. It’s easy to get lost, and find oneself in the next state over (yes, I’ve done this). Yet I love the surprises that show up along the way. It’s an excellent metaphor for the artist residency I am […]
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Portals
Portal: an entrance, a doorway, a threshold. My first foray on the Camino led to many thresholds. Walking an obscure section of one of four historic pilgrimage routes in France, I traipsed past chateaus and hamlets, endless globes of hay and moody cows, country roads and fields of sunflowers scattered across vast swathes of farmland. […]
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2020 Year in Review
What a year. A quiet life at home, periods intense and stressful, so many plans on hold, societal ills exploding in front of us. As I’m sure you can attest to, when everything but the essentials are stripped away, (major) readjustments are required. Funny enough, this back-to-basics arrangement is how I experienced my own personal […]
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Cracks in the Foundation
When the pandemic started, I observed that our society was unceremoniously being shown the cracks in our foundation. Specific areas had become incredibly dysfunctional and were obviously in desperate need of dramatic, multi-layered healing. The nationwide explosion of heartbreak and anger over the last couple weeks has highlighted in a new way the severe cracks […]
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Breathing With Both Lungs
Lungs. A place of life and death and vulnerability… Breathing With Both Lungs I once heard it said Our lungs are where we hold our grief. When I inhale sharply, to remember Why does it hurt to breathe? Lament happened so long ago Or has it been only a moment or so. How fully has […]
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Writing by hand
“Writing by hand will show us True North.” Julia Cameron Part of my journey towards a daily art practice has included ‘morning pages’, the longhand freeform get-everything-out-of-your-brain writing exercise made famous by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. As I was reading through the book of hers about creative pilgrimage called The Vein of Gold, […]
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Photo Painting Series No. 1 ~ 4
For a few years now, I’ve had this nudge to take photographs I have made, get them printed in B&W on watercolor paper, large scale, and paint on them using gouache and watercolors. I liked the idea, but never knew where to start. Immediately after I returned home from a trip to rural France this […]
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All Roads Lead to Burgundy
Series no. 1 ~ The first of four series of paintings I am in the midst of creating is an exploration of my journey on the Camino in France. I call it All Roads Lead to Burgundy. How did I get here? It all came together through a French wine tasting, an art project with […]
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Remembrance
Throughout shadowed corners of churches crisscrossing Europe sit tiers and tires and trees of glowing candles. Icons of the voice of our longings, singing of our hope to recover what we’ve lost, to connect with beloved ones gone yet alive in our hearts. This image from my B&W film days calls to me every November, […]
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Voie de Vézelay ~ Day 3
As I have been busy acclimating to France, and starting my walking pilgrimage, all my posts are going to be be published out of order for awhile, so bear with me! {Voie de Vézelay ~ Day 3} I am on day 3 of about 7, and just passed through Anthien. This is totally in the […]