In the Name of Art

Snapshots and Art

The view from Lynne's front yard the morning after a rainstorm, it was my favorite sky, blue, grey and white with spots of flying sun. 

The vagabond artists posing ever-so-decorously in front of the Chocksett Inn in Sterling MA. Ginna is the only participant who wasn't fully captured. Note the aprons on those who think ahead. Note me at upper left, one of those who doesn't think ahead.

Ginna showing her work. On the left is Lesley and on the right is Anne.

I finished this one at home with the threads. I didn't plan to do that, but the longer these things stare at me the more they tell me about what they need. So threads it was! I'm a bit leery about using religious imagery and usually don't, but the icon theme made that tendency more overt. The animals become totem-like and in this case, somewhat predatory. The threads always seem protective to me, so perhaps they protect the Virgin. The title is a verse:

Oh stitch the reason 

On my heart

When I am blind 

To snake and hawk.

Last Icons, Some More Art

Saints Florus and Laurus, and I haven't researched them to find out who they are or what they did to achieve sainthood. I liked it for the angels and the horses, yes, when I was young I was one of those girls who drew horses contantly.

A Judgement Day, the top (of course) showing the heavenly realm and the bottom showing sinners being pushed into hell. That black thing on the right is a "sin worm" and contains sinners with their sin carefully inscribed on each bulge in the worm. 

And the art, one of the first 2 I did before going to the museum, St. George's shadow is here with a variety of saints who will remain nameless because I don't have a program to tell who is who:

Icon Museum, First Look

To begin with.....I have to let all the wonderful moments settle from my trip to Lynne's house (a jewel with a view), her incomparable hospitality, the friendship of women (you Collagistas know who are) who I had never had the opportunity to meet and share art with and our lovely setting in the Chocksett Inn in Sterling MA. Then there's the time we spent at the Icon Museum in Clinton MA just down the road from where we stayed. Everything is on simmer right now and I'll have more to report in other posts, but just for today, here are some shots from the museum, all Russian icons:

This is called a Minyeia and it's a liturgical calendar with a year's worth of saint's feast days. There were so many saint's days (2 or 3 a day) that there are way more than 365 figures. Each line is a week and the figures are very tiny, magnifying glasses were provided for the purpose of making everything out. We were told that the smallest brushes consisted of 1 horsehair and that the artist had to learn how to paint between heartbeats!

This is the St. Nicolas that we all know and love, or, to be more precise, the original St. Nicolas. Scenes from his life surround the central figure who was a 4th century bishop in Turkey. The visuals were designed to narrate the life of the saint without text because most of the faithful were illiterate. The frame around the scene (and there are frames of this sort on all the icons) represented earthly existence and the content represents holy existence. I've always admired this kind of presentation for it's vivid but structured story telling.

Hodigritrea or Smolensk Mother of God. In contrast to other icons that are repetitions of a single depiction of the subject, there are 450 ways to paint this, plenty of choices! The word Hodigritrea means "She who shows the way". The figure of the infant Jesus is odd, he looks like a miniature old man and is the result of not really being able to paint children properly but is also a device to emphasize his wisdom and divinity.

More tomorrow, I'm in a flurry of laundry, cleaning and organizing and have 5 more examples but no time to write.


 

Hawk Mt. Raptor Conservancy

Usually I post all these family pictures on Slide but I wanted to include a bit of commentary so this post will go on forever. You've been warned......

 

 

Sunday afternoon we went up to the mountain and the views above are from the South Outlook. It's very easy to get to, the path is flat and on a slight incline.

 

Sterling, doing one of his favorite things.

 

My father, happy to be at Hawk Mt.

 

Another view from another outlook up the trail to the North outlook.

 

A view looking northwest over farmer's fields. The birds approach on migration routes from all angles but the sharpshins came this way because they were intent on attacking a stuffed owl posted above the rocks.

 

 

Late afternoon light. We stayed until suppertime and saw a bald eagle, saw some other raptors too, but that was the highlight. We talked about leaving, and my father said, " We'll go and a bald eagle will come over." and woman behind him said, " Look, there's a bald eagle!" and so it was!

 

A wonderful building in Kempton PA where we stopped for supper.

 

 

Views of Columbus Day on the North Outlook, Sterling (my dad) is front and center. It was cold, but all I had to do to warm up was go down the trail and back up!

 

 

 

 

Determined to document some of the more mundane details of the trip, I started taking pictures of the path up to the outlook. 

 

 

The 2 above were the last bit of trail before arriving at the North Outlook. The one above is looking down and the one above that is looking up. They saved the best bit of the trail for the last.

 

 

 

 

Last shots. Everyday on our drive into the conservancy we'd see this church and it's fantastic steeple, so it was the last picture I took before the 6 hour drive home.

 

From the front of the church. Thats all!