smoke-shaped forest, 22x 30, ink, shellac, and oil on paper, 2012

Last week I finished smoke-shaped forest, which continues a series reflecting on the simultaneous gains and losses associated with 200 acres of land being cleared adjacent to my parent’s property outside of Charleston, SC.  In such cases waste wood and plowed stumps are often stacked up and burned, and they create an eerily beautiful sight at dusk in that thick southern air.  Anyone who has ever sat around a campfire knows the seduction of staring into the coals, a kind of primal reverie of thought and thoughtlessness, comfort and fear, and the clear insistence of a light in the darkness.

broadleaf plantain with clover, 10 1/4" x 13 7/8", oil on panel, 2012

broadleaf plantain with clover is the first in what I believe will be a series of edible wild plant paintings, most of which can be quickly located in urban environments.  These are works about the act of foraging, which is another way of seeking a depth of experience outside of the dominant culture.  But they also raise questions regarding patterns of recognition and the problems associated with the indirect transfer of knowledge.  One of the classic problems of depicting plants is the method of depicting a “representative sample”.  That is, the collection or photographic documentation of a single plant does not account for the inevitability of variation, and this creates a reservoir of doubt.  Paintings are effective in communicating some types of specificity, but often at the expense of others.  The payoff of this more “scenic” method, in my mind, is that it describes more fully a set of relationships within a given habitat.  And just as my front lawn establishes criteria for fruitfulness, so does the limited context of my panel.

grackle with smartweed and clover, 14 1/4" x 17 1/4", oil on panel, 2012

grackle with smartweed and clover keeps up the thematic approach to ground-cover, and the act of looking down as a move out of the demands of the body and into the life of the mind.  Because the bird’s eye is denied to the viewer as a point of reference, the grackle straddles a space between life and death.

silver maple with natural edge, 8 1/2" x 4", 2012 (unfinished)

On this side of the bowl you can see the bark inclusion that penetrates the piece. It creates a great cloud/wave form in the transition from heartwood to sapwood.

ink bowl, sycamore with spalting, 4" x 1", 2011

black oak root, 4" x 2 1/2", 2011

ink bowl, ornamental cherry, 3 1/2" x 3 1/2", 2012

It’s hard to believe that it has been four months since my last post.  I’ll blame it on a very busy fall semester, but my teaching responsibilities were only part of the equation– I also purchased a lathe, and have been working furiously to learn the art and craft of turning bowls.  I never had much interest in the strict symmetries that lathes produce, but a friend introduced me to the possibilities of green-wood turning and I’ve been at it ever since.  As the wood dries it distorts in various ways depending on the species of wood, orientation of the grain, shape, thickness, and the balance of sap and heart woods.  It is complicated enough to keep things interesting, and introduces a welcome element of surprise.  Turning is a great way to make use of woods otherwise destined for the landfill or the fire pit.  The “undesirable” aspects of the wood are often the very things that set them apart as turnings.  In the silver maple bowl, above, it is the bark inclusion that caused such wild grain, and it is notable that the visual interest increases even as the “usefulness” of the bowl decreases.  The last bowl pictured came from an ornamental cherry tree that had been cut down after being hit by a car.  This bowl was taken from a section where as many as seven branches were converging, causing a wild swirl of tensions that create lumps and distortions throughout the piece.  I’m not sure if this species will gain more pink color as it ages or not.

Many of these bowls go from the shop to the studio, where they hold ink and water while I am making paintings.  When put to work like this, the bowls take on a patina of use which amounts to a type of finish work.  It is a wonderful moment where the tools of making are themselves transformed, by their use, into the very form of their purpose.  Much of my recent thought has revolved around the roles of craft, beauty, and usefulness in my own work, and this process makes manifest every aspect of that thought.  The bowl, and the craft by which the bowl is both made and transformed, function at first as a supplement to the painting.  But the opportunity for autonomy or repurposing is strong enough to allow a shift from “supplement” to “complement”, and it is these complimentary works which are holding so much of my attention.

hairband bouquet on the new table, watercolor, gouache, shellac, and oil on paper laid on panel, 2011

This Friday, September 23, you’re invited to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Old Orchard church with an exhibition of art work at the Milligan House from 6-9 p.m.  I’m showing my most recent painting, pictured above, along with another painting from 2008.  This most recent painting features a piece from my collection of “interesting objects” made by my daughter Florence.  The almost-frontal view is familiar in my work, a circumstance where the illusion and reality of the painting threaten to snap together into the monotony of the painting as an object in the room.  I try to preserve, instead, a shallow space like a pool of pictorial space in which depiction can both sink and float.

The 2011 EarthDance Mission Award winners were selected by a panel of judges consisting of: Kelly Childs of Slow Food STL; Jean Ponzi of The EarthWays Center; Roseann Weiss of RAC; and Lew Prince, founder of Vintage Vinyl Records.

This year’s winners are:

Artist: John Sarra

Farmer: Paul Krautmann

Community Activists: Veronica Holden and Sarah Kate Buckles

Musician: Ryan Spearman

On Saturday, Septmeber 24th, 7pm-11pm, join us for the Mission Awards Ceremony and Dance Party at Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room.

This event will feature appearances by, and video tributes to, the five EarthDance Mission Award Winners.  Plus, you can (Earth)Dance to live musical performances by The Lulus and The Phat NoiZ Blues Band.  Purchase your advance tickets here!

Re-installing the central dining room fixture-- the only time you'll actually see the fluted glass interior.

Installed, showing two of the four peripheral globes.

One of the great things about summer is that I can pursue a wider variety of projects than the school year allows.  Five years ago I removed the central light fixture from our dining room while redoing the ceiling.  This summer I finally got around to rewiring the fixture and replacing the sockets, as the insulation had degraded a bit since 1905.  The fixture is an incredible piece of craftsmanship, composed of eleven different pieces of bronze and two pieces of glass.  I had to make a template to locate the four corner loops, which actually only bears weight when the brass socket assembly is removed.  This is the finest fixture in the house, and I trust that it will now be in good service for another hundred years.

The workmanship on that metal reminded me of a painting that I made for a friend last year, the image of which I am just now posting.  It is a “portrait” of his gorgeous old Model 1860 Henry Rifle (.44 caliber rim fire, this one manufactured in 1862).  It features a receiver engraved with “running deer pattern number one” by Samuel Hoggson, a factory engraver for Henry Repeating Rifles.  But of course I was just as attracted to the figured walnut stock.

Detail of the engraving.

The painting was an interesting challenge, as I wanted to have the rifle convincingly immersed in a landscape that I fabricated from a few photographs and my own memory of life in the Southwest.  I was able to paint the rifle from observation, but used an Italian replica for most of the work because it made me nervous having the original laying around in the studio.  I enjoy having plenty of room for imagination, innovation, and problem-solving in paintings.  I made the rustic frame by request, and was happy with the way that the silvery, weathered surface of the white oak offset the image.

Which brings us back to wood.  This summer I was able to retrieve this old church pew, which after some repair and refinishing has become the favored place to drop whatever you are carrying when you come in our front door.  Although I haven’t yet been able to confirm it, I believe that the pew is made of American Chestnut.  It is always a pleasure to breathe a bit more life into beautiful and useful things, but that would be even more significant “win” to me if this were in fact a remnant of the pre-blight riches that once dominated our eastern forests.  I used my home-made black walnut stain to color the piece, sealed it with a thin coat of shellac, and then applied three coats of wipe-on polyurethane.

An old pew, repaired and refinished.

John Sarra, throw it higher, oil on panel, 11 x 14, 2011

If you happen to be in New York this summer, stop by to check out Space B’s Gallery’s new location at 59 Franklin Street in TriBeCa.  On view is Space B’s Greatest Hits: The Chelsea Years, which  features work by Jeff Bailey, Conrad Bakker,  Daniel Caspera, Marc Connor, Randy Gilmore, Alex Menocal, Mary Anna Pomonis, John Sarra, Alex Schuchard, Patrick Smith, John Coyle Steinbrunner, and Erik Wicker.  The exhibition continues through the end of August.  Gallery hours: Friday & Saturday 12:00-6:00 and by appointment.  Call Alex at 917-518-2385.

Need atmosphere? Just add local wild-fires, and you've got a great excuse to stay indoors and read.

We’ve had our annual time in the woods and at the beach, and here are a few highlights from my reading:

CROCUS

For months now I am bleak and primitive.

The congregation of crows refutes

the resurrection of anything.

I sleep all day, drink all night.

I believe only in certainty of equations,

the curvature of space, words used merely for incantation.

This cold wind I sway in, this continual lent–

But wait, the first crocus

throws dirt.

–Nancy K. Pearson, Two Minutes of Light

ARCHITECTURE

I peer into Japanese characters

as into faraway buildings

cut from the mind’s trees.

In the late afternoon a small bird

shakes a branch, lets drop a white splash.

In the wind, in the rain,

the delicate wire cage glistens,

empty of suet.

Poetry’s not window-cleaning.

It breaks the glass.

–Chase Twichell, The Snow Watcher

Anthology

That evening I was reading an anthology.

Scarlet clouds grazed outside my window.

The spent day fled to a museum.

And you– who are you?

I don’t know.  I didn’t know

if I was born for gladness?

Sorrow?  Patient waiting?

In dusk’s pure air

I read an anthology.

Ancient poets lived in me, singing.

–Adam Zagajewski, Mysticism for Beginners

Don’t ask us for the word to frame

our shapeless spirit on all sides,

and proclaim it in letters of fire to shine

like a lone crocus in a dusty field.

Ah, the man who walks secure,

a friend to others and himself,

indifferent that high summer prints

his shadow on a peeling wall!

Don’t ask us for the phrase that can open worlds,

just a few gnarled syllables, dry like a branch.

This, today, is all that we can tell you:

what we are not, what we do not want.

– Eugenio Montale, Cuttlefish Bones

Red oak base moldings, reclaimed/belt sanded/planed

I’ve been busy in the studio since school ended, with new sets of oil and ink paintings underway.  The wood shop has been getting plenty of use as well.  I was fortunate to reclaim several truck loads of red oak base moldings which were otherwise destined for the landfill.  There are plenty of nails to remove but the wood cleans up well, as you can see in the photo above.  Because the oak is red and flat sawn, there is not much to compel a full clean-up.  Instead, the wood tends to hold more life in the median state– refreshed without being made new, cleaned up without being stripped of its history.  During this process I happened to be reading Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, and came across the following resonant passage:

The spring flood brings us more than high adventure; it brings likewise an unpredictable miscellany of floatable objects pilfered from upriver farms.  An old board stranded on our meadow has, to us, twice the value of the same piece new from the lumberyard.  Each old board has its own individual history, always unknown, but always to some degree guessable from the kind of wood, its dimensions, its nails, screws, or paint, its finish or the lack of it, its wear or decay.  One can even guess, from the abrasion of its edges and ends on sandbars, how many floods have carried it in years past.

Our lumber pile, recruited entirely from the river, is thus not only a collection of personalities, but an anthology of human strivings in upriver farms and forests.  The autobiography of an old board is a kind of literature not yet taught on campuses, but any riverbank farm is a library where he who hammers or saws may read at will.  Come high water, there is always an accession of new books.

Our first plum blossoms-- photo taken on April 9, 2011

Sung Po-Jen's "tilting bowl" plum blossom

In preparation for the birth of our daughter, we thought it might be fun to plant a tree.  Somehow it took four years for this plan to actually be accomplished, so I planted four trees across our front yard instead of just one.  We have two apple trees, a cherry tree, and a plum tree which have now survived their first winter, and during the first week of April I was happy to see the first blossoms appear on the apple and plum trees.  It reminded me of one of my early introductions to Chinese poetry, Sung Po-Jen’s Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom.  The book is described as what might possibly be the world’s first printed book of art and literature– it was first published in A.D. 1238, and the image above is reproduced from the edition of 1261. The poems are composed of just four lines, but are packed with complex references, implications, and shades of meaning.  Translator Red Pine was kind enough to follow each poem with a commentary through which we can gain some insight into the mind of a 13th century scholar.  I include one of my favorites, below, which relates to the blossoms in my front yard as I so recently saw them:

39    Tilting Bowl

fill it and it empties

more or less are both mistakes

all things have a balance

don’t think this one isn’t right

This “bowl-on-a-swivel” was placed next to the throne to remind the emperor that whatever was full would soon be empty.  Only when the bowl was half-full was it stable.  According to Hsun-tzu, Confucius saw a device like this in the ancestral hall of Duke Huan: “An attendant poured water into a container that hung at an angle.  As the water level approached the midpoint, the container became upright.  But when the attendant went beyond the midpoint, it tipped over, the water poured out, and only after it was empty did it resume its former position.  Seeing this, Confucius sighed, ‘Alas! Whatever becomes full becomes empty!’”

– Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom, by Sung Po-Jen,  The Chinese Classic Translated with Commentaries by Red Pine, Introduction by Lo Ch’ing

A is for... image by The Firecracker Press.

Here are the specifics for the upcoming show at COCA.  Please come out to support the artists and the institution!

Location: COCA, 524 Trinity Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63130

Opening reception and art auction: Friday, June 10 at 6:00pm

Exhibition Dates: Jun 10, 2011 – Aug 13, 2011

Participating artists: Gina Alvarez, Amy Alton Bautz, Brendan and Sarah Bayless, Ilene Berman, Rick Dunn, John Early, Ben Guffee, Jana Harper, Jason Hoeing, Anne Treeger Huck, Tom Huck, Jim Ibur, Matthew Jeans, Robert Longyear, Lindsay Obermeyer, John Parker, Daniel Raedeke, Dionna Raedeke, Ruth Reese, Eric Repice, Amy Firestone Rosen, Fabio Rodriguez, Christine Sarra, John Sarra, Jennifer Walker, Ken Wood.

From fiber and glass to wood and oils, these artists straddle the worlds of studio art and parenthood. Each artist tells a “story” with a different letter of the alphabet – a story that represents the impact that art-making has on children, and the impact that children have on their art.