Live, from the Swamp Forest!
Deep, damp, drizzling rain; the dry beech leaves are orange, fluttering against the violet greys and moss greens of my young forest.
In spite of my bum knee, I made a trip toNational Gallery of Art
to see Constable’s 6 foot canvases, before the show comes down today. Oh my, seeing those marvelous beauties, the sketch and the polished academy piece side-by-side, reminds me of why I love to paint. How is it that I lost the love of painting in all the confusion? Like yesterday’s dream, all is swirling around, and the nugget of value gets lost, momentarily.
Why do I love to paint? What did Constable teach me? He reinforced the classic colors of the landscaper’s palette. I learned the joy of wild skies from him, how the paint itself just falls into rhythm like the moving air. And maybe most beloved, the backlit forest of grand trees, with bright windows of skylight breaking through. And oh, (this feels like Christmas morning, and a new gift found under the tree!) the sparkle, the way his later or looser works had almost a froth of bright paint, like the high reflection off sunlit water, that danced over everything like a Jackson Pollock skein!
And, how a flat landscape can make a beautiful composition, with a tiny angled boat tucked here in the weeds, or a fishing figure wearing a touch of red there and bring the eye around and make a flat landscape interesting. Then there is the old wood, the mossy beams of locks, the noble ancient trunks, fallen or still arching, rendered lovingly, simply in umbers and siennas --I feel them.
Constable paintings all look like June or July in the northern latitudes. Here, I can actually get more seasonality into plein-aire pictures since the winter is balmy enough for outdoor work.
I am thinking about my canvas The Early Gods, with the great willow trunks standing like menihirs. There are great trees of the Moyaone that could be honored in this way. Maybe I team up with Elena on this, and include the Chapman's giants, maybe I make portrait of the grand oak on the corner, with its oh-so English church as a backdrop. There are Jose’s fine trees, like Ganesha. And Grace’s valley too.
Stand in the deep forest, surrounded by behemoth poplars and oaks. See how they rise, silently arcing, reaching for the light, making a cathedral arch. Our houses of stone for god are reaching for the light, and they learned this from the trees.
Who taught us to look up? Who taught us to climb, aspire, be strong and upright, have integrity, grain and flex with the tempest wind? Who sheltered us in his arms, off the damp and dangerous floor of the world? Who made fruit and nut to feed us? Who gives us warmth today, but the bones of oak and pine?
My early gods, the willows, were low to the ground, with hairy roots thirstily wicking up the river. Great black fast-growing trunks that lurched this way and that, to keep balance in the shifting delta sand. Frankenstein-esque, they would fall, send up suckers and regrow a whole new vertical tree, only to be blown over again. The rolling willows. The immortal weeper by the ferry, lopped off and trampled in construction, then a bush of twiggy suckers, then a few years to another incarnation of the graceful weeping willow in the 1960 postcard, more than once in my lifetime performing this resurrection.
The black willows are disappearing, as landscapers treat them like weeds, and they are not replaced as they are pruned, trimmed, deleted. Oh, you mean those weed trees, no, we don’t carry them. No one wants those.
Now I live among a young crop of white oak and beech, salted with holly and pine. Down the lane from me, great grand dams of tulip poplar remember George Washington, (as if they really cared!). the chinquapin, the live oak, the sycamore – there are grand beings all around me.
When I think of dryer climes, and my love for the French or western landscape, yes, the water is an issue, but one can find watery landscapes in the arid lands. But what is missing are the TREES, these looming giants, spewing moisture and oxygen into the air, waving their leaves to make the breeze, and giving us their bones for heat and shelter. It is they whom I could not live without. These are my guardians, my bringers of wisdom.
Yes, a guardian angel (like V!) can go with me anywhere, but as an earth-based pagan, I have the great gift and pleasure of walking on the body of my god, and in tree form, being surrounded by grace, power, patience and life-giving air, amid the flying buttresses of oak, poplar and pine.
In spite of my bum knee, I made a trip to
to see Constable’s 6 foot canvases, before the show comes down today. Oh my, seeing those marvelous beauties, the sketch and the polished academy piece side-by-side, reminds me of why I love to paint. How is it that I lost the love of painting in all the confusion? Like yesterday’s dream, all is swirling around, and the nugget of value gets lost, momentarily.
Why do I love to paint? What did Constable teach me? He reinforced the classic colors of the landscaper’s palette. I learned the joy of wild skies from him, how the paint itself just falls into rhythm like the moving air. And maybe most beloved, the backlit forest of grand trees, with bright windows of skylight breaking through. And oh, (this feels like Christmas morning, and a new gift found under the tree!) the sparkle, the way his later or looser works had almost a froth of bright paint, like the high reflection off sunlit water, that danced over everything like a Jackson Pollock skein!
And, how a flat landscape can make a beautiful composition, with a tiny angled boat tucked here in the weeds, or a fishing figure wearing a touch of red there and bring the eye around and make a flat landscape interesting. Then there is the old wood, the mossy beams of locks, the noble ancient trunks, fallen or still arching, rendered lovingly, simply in umbers and siennas --I feel them.
Constable paintings all look like June or July in the northern latitudes. Here, I can actually get more seasonality into plein-aire pictures since the winter is balmy enough for outdoor work.
I am thinking about my canvas The Early Gods, with the great willow trunks standing like menihirs. There are great trees of the Moyaone that could be honored in this way. Maybe I team up with Elena on this, and include the Chapman's giants, maybe I make portrait of the grand oak on the corner, with its oh-so English church as a backdrop. There are Jose’s fine trees, like Ganesha. And Grace’s valley too.
Stand in the deep forest, surrounded by behemoth poplars and oaks. See how they rise, silently arcing, reaching for the light, making a cathedral arch. Our houses of stone for god are reaching for the light, and they learned this from the trees.
Who taught us to look up? Who taught us to climb, aspire, be strong and upright, have integrity, grain and flex with the tempest wind? Who sheltered us in his arms, off the damp and dangerous floor of the world? Who made fruit and nut to feed us? Who gives us warmth today, but the bones of oak and pine?
My early gods, the willows, were low to the ground, with hairy roots thirstily wicking up the river. Great black fast-growing trunks that lurched this way and that, to keep balance in the shifting delta sand. Frankenstein-esque, they would fall, send up suckers and regrow a whole new vertical tree, only to be blown over again. The rolling willows. The immortal weeper by the ferry, lopped off and trampled in construction, then a bush of twiggy suckers, then a few years to another incarnation of the graceful weeping willow in the 1960 postcard, more than once in my lifetime performing this resurrection.
The black willows are disappearing, as landscapers treat them like weeds, and they are not replaced as they are pruned, trimmed, deleted. Oh, you mean those weed trees, no, we don’t carry them. No one wants those.
Now I live among a young crop of white oak and beech, salted with holly and pine. Down the lane from me, great grand dams of tulip poplar remember George Washington, (as if they really cared!). the chinquapin, the live oak, the sycamore – there are grand beings all around me.
When I think of dryer climes, and my love for the French or western landscape, yes, the water is an issue, but one can find watery landscapes in the arid lands. But what is missing are the TREES, these looming giants, spewing moisture and oxygen into the air, waving their leaves to make the breeze, and giving us their bones for heat and shelter. It is they whom I could not live without. These are my guardians, my bringers of wisdom.
Yes, a guardian angel (like V!) can go with me anywhere, but as an earth-based pagan, I have the great gift and pleasure of walking on the body of my god, and in tree form, being surrounded by grace, power, patience and life-giving air, amid the flying buttresses of oak, poplar and pine.
posted by Ven at 11:52 AM
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