Jul/110
Space B’s Greatest Hits: The Chelsea Years
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.
Jul/110
summer reading
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
Jun/110
refreshed
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.
May/110
Capturing a Plum Blossom
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