Month: November 2016

C. S, Lewis: “All the Light Was Green Light”

Photographer Unknown, (All the Light Was Green Light)

“All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

Erin Morgenstern: “There Are Many Kinds of Magic, After All”

Photographer Unknown, (The Evening Reader)

“Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang Souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound.

You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Do not forget that… there are many kinds of magic, after all.”

-Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

N C Wyeth

N C Wyeth, “Herring”, Oil on Canvas, 1935, Collection of Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth

Newell Convers Wyeth (1882-1945) is best known as one of America’s foremost book and magazine illustrators of his era. Born and raised in Needham, Massachusetts, N.C. Wyeth learned drafting at the Mechanics School and then studied at the Massachusetts Normal School (now Massachusetts College of Art and Design). He was advised by one of his teachers to become an illustrator, and he soon followed two of his student friends to study illustration in 1902 under the renowned American illustrator Howard Pyle in Wilmington, Delaware.

In February 1903, Wyeth got his first commission, from Saturday Evening Post.  This was the beginning of a long and successful career in which he illustrated more than a hundred books, among them many popular novels for Scribner’s, including Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Robin Hood, The Last of the Mohicans, Robinson Crusoe, and Rip Van Winkle.

Sully Erna, “Sinner’s Prayer”

Sully Erna, “Sinner’s Prayer”

“Sinner’s Prayer” is a song by American rock musician Sully Erna. It is the lead single from his 2010 debut album Avalon. The song was originally written for Sylvester Stallone’s blockbuster “The Expendables” but later taken off the film and soundtrack during post-production. However, the song is reinstated back in the film in the extended director’s cut during the films new opening credits sequence.

In 2008, after Godsmack members started working on their side-project, Another Animal, Sully Erna began work on his first solo album. With the help of singer Lisa Guyer, whom he’d previously worked with on Hollow, Sully Erna worked on the album through 2009, and “Sinner’s Prayer” was chosen to become the first official single to be released from Avalon.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Tony Cragg

Tony Cragg, “Companions”, Multi-Colored Fiberglass, 2008

British-born, German-based sculptor Tony Cragg rose to prominence in the 1980s as a leading voice in the cohort known as New British Sculpture. Seeking a new, European sensibility, homegrown out of the continent’s neo-avant-garde positions, this group, which also included Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor, took inspiration from a broad range of practices.

But the awe-inspiring technique of their work—Kapoor’s mirrored surfaces, Gormley’s cubistic distillation of space into three-dimensional grids, or Cragg’s fractal-like complexity—have tended to overshadow their art historical roots. In the case of Cragg, this genealogy forms the basis for the artist’s iconic style, often in surprising ways.

Turner Prize-winning sculptor Tony Cragg emerged in the late 1970s with a bold practice that questioned and tested the limits of a wide variety of traditional sculptural materials, including bronze, steel, glass, wood, and stone. “I’m an absolute materialist, and for me material is exciting and ultimately sublime,” he has said. Eschewing factory fabrication of his works, Cragg has been known to merge contemporary industrial materials with the suggestion of the functional forms of mundane objects and ancient vessels—like jars, bottles, and test tubes—resulting in sublime, sinuous, and twisting forms.

Sari Gilbert: “La Tazzina del Caffe”

Photographer Unknown, (The Expresso is for You)

“The mainstay of Italian coffee lore, la tazzina del caffe, or an espresso, as served by one’s local bar and during the day consumed – generally – standing up, is another one of those things about which Italians have very strong feelings. The purists want is very dense, ristrettissimo, which is the way they serve it in Naples…”

― Sari Gilbert, My Home Sweet Home: Living (and Loving) in the Eternal City 

Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson, “Spiral Jetty”, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Robert Smithson’s earthwork Spiral Jetty, considered by many to be his most significant work, was constructed in April 1970 on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point in Utah. The sculpture is built of mud, precipitated salt crystals, and basalt rocks. The sculpture forms a 1,500-foot-long (460 m), 15-foot-wide (4.6 m) counterclockwise coil jutting from the shore of the lake. The sculpture is sometimes visible and sometimes submerged, depending upon the water level of the Great Salt Lake.

Smithson reportedly chose the Rozel Point site based on the blood-red color of the water and its connection with the primordial sea. The red hue of the water is due to the presence of salt-tolerant bacteria and algae that thrive in the extreme 27 percent salinity of the lake’s north arm, which was isolated from freshwater sources by the building of a causeway by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1959.

Smithson was reportedly attracted to the Rozel Point site because of the stark anti-pastoral beauty and industrial remnants from nearby Golden Spike National Historic Site, as well as an old pier and a few unused oil rigs. While observing the construction of the piece from a helicopter, Smithson reportedly remarked “Et in Utah Ego” as a counterpoint to the pastoral Baroque painting “Et in Arcadia Ego” by Nicolas Poussin.

Note: for those who are deeply into Smithson and Rothko, I recommend a treatise by Timothy D Martin with the Tate Museum entitled: “Psychosis and the Sublime in American Art: Rothko and Smithson”. An intense read but very interesting.   http://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/timothy-d-martin-psychosis-and-the-sublime-in-american-art-rothko-and-smithson-r1136831

Thanksgiving

Wishing Everyone a Happy Thanksgiving Day.

In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”—although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time—the festival lasted for three days.

While no record exists of the historic banquet’s exact menu, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow wrote in his journal that Governor Bradford sent four men on a “fowling” mission in preparation for the event, and that the Wampanoag guests arrived bearing five deer. Historians have suggested that many of the dishes were likely prepared using traditional Native American spices and cooking methods. Because the Pilgrims had no oven and the Mayflower’s sugar supply had dwindled by the fall of 1621, the meal did not feature pies, cakes or other desserts, which have become a hallmark of contemporary celebrations.