The March X ends today, and among the things accomplished: a new greenhouse kit was assembled at the back line of our yard. My thanks to Russ for his catalytic inspiration, Terie and Marty for their help, and Dana for her reliable support.
Happy Easter!
“Everyone has now seen that pandemics are another way for the military, intelligence, and public health services to expand their budgets and their power. In 2020, public health, defense, and intelligence agencies weaponized a [Covid-19] pandemic, resulting in unprecedented profits to Big Pharma and the dramatic expansion of the security/surveillance state, including a systemic abandonment of constitutional rights — effectively a coup d’état against liberal democracy globally.”
– Robert F Kennedy, Jr / The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race (Kindle edition, p. 385)
I am recovered from an unnamed health ordeal that hit me the day after Christmas and lasted a month before I felt reasonably well. Then another month before I felt like myself. My recent article in Clandestiny will be all I say about it any time soon. So now it’s Leap Day and the eve of another March X. I won’t be recording regular notes about my heightened activity this time. Priorities to be confronted: 1) completing a “legacy collage” commission for a Dominican Sister of Peace: 2) building a greenhouse in the backyard of the Town House; 3) preparations for a new gardening season; 4) physical conditioning to ready myself for a decent bicycling program in 2024. Be seeing you in April!
“Cain turns to Evil to obtain what Good denied him, and he does it voluntarily, self-consciously and with malice aforethought. Christ takes a different path. His sojourn in the desert is the dark night of the soul — a deeply human and universal human experience.”
– Jordan B Peterson“No tree can grow to Heaven unless its roots reach down to Hell.”
– Carl Gustav Jung
Yesterday was really something else, and, if I had to live it repeatedly, I could do much worse. Was the promise of this month’s endeavor fulfilled? Perhaps it even suggests a solution to my quandary of the twenty-third day. If I knew that tomorrow was going to be put on a loop, how would I prepare? How then would I live it? A balance of effort and non-effort? How does one avoid crossing a frontier into excessive introspection? How often should action be diluted with non-action? James emphasized to me the importance of cyclic illumination for seedlings, because a young plant grows more during darkness than it does during the period of light. Similarly, a plant can bend toward the sun only if the cells multiply faster on the opposite side. What can that awareness possibly offer to the contemplative? Is there a meaningful difference between negation and denial? What is the March Ex(clusion) hiding that has yet to be revealed?
Today’s sight bite— A tangle of roots, sod, and invasive ivy, —c-l-i-c-k— as the ground is broken for my new backyard berry patch.
“None of them [simulations] emphasized protecting public health by showing Americans how to bolster their immune systems, to eat well, to lose weight, to exercise, to maintain vitamin D levels, and to avoid chemical exposure. None of these focused on devising the vital communications infrastructures to link frontline doctors during a pandemic or to facilitate the development and refinement of optimal treatment protocols.”
– Robert F Kennedy, Jr
I’ve adopted the practice of “grounding” every morning, standing barefoot in my front yard. Although there are many published enumerations of the benefits, I can’t put into words the positive effect that I feel every time I do it, especially when I look up into the sky. Apparently the human organism is an electo-magnetically sensitive creature like other mammals. Last time I checked, none of them wear shoes. They typically dig in the dirt a lot, too, and I’ve been wanting to do that myself more and more. James is holding some black raspberries for me. Eventually, my whole backyard will probably end up as a crude urban farmstead.
Today’s sight bite— The stark metal structure extending out into the downtown parking lot, —c-l-i-c-k— its black hulk having swallowed what used to be a brewpub previously known as the Beer Engine.
“All has changed, thanks to Trudeau and Freeland setting precedent that a so-called Western G7 democracy can seize its citizens’ bank accounts with no due process and no appeal for the crime of demanding the reinstatement of their civil rights.”
– Mark Jeftovic
I think that the fitness matrix of the “March Ex” has fallen apart {that’s not what Ex(clusion) was supposed to mean}. Other progress is being made. I swapped out a couple collage artworks at CAMP. The article for CC:Mag is about ready to be released. Preparations for the coming season of plein air work is coming into focus. Garden preliminaries are seen through. Backyard agenda is at a resting point. And there are still 13 days of the month to transpire. Make the most of them!
Today’s sight bite— n o n e
“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will.”
– Charles Baudelaire
Nearly half done with the month and it’s a struggle to focus on the guiding objectives. I’m going to have to fight for it now, if I want the final weeks to be worthy. I decided to use the tomato patch for cold-weather salad plants until the maters are ready to plant. We might end up with more greens than we can eat this year, depending on how the farm garden develops.
Today’s sight bite— Hand-manicured dirt and the evidence of seeds gently patted down to their proper depth, —c-l-i-c-k— as rocket, kale, and micro-greens await an early spring germination.
“In theory, ‘first principles thinking’ requires you to dig deeper and deeper until you are left with only the foundational truths of a situation.”
– James Clear
There are some significant things getting done, like the work bench improvements, Town House yard tasks, the indoor planting of seeds for the 2022 garden, and my hand-tool experiment of early spring greens at Blue Bank. A sense of satisfaction is undermined by the recognition that the overall enterprise is out of balance, with my progress on art projects taking a backseat. Plus, I’ve hit a lull in my fitness line-items, despite a major physical effort at the farm today. I’m probably overthinking, as usual, but it just doesn’t feel right. I have to examine more deeply what I’m really trying to accomplish this month.
Today’s sight bites— Way too many Wes Anderson images, —c-l-i-c-k—
—c-l-i-c-k— —c-l-i-c-k— —c-l-i-c-k— each frame of his delightfully bizarre movie like a miniature painting on the flatscreen.
“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty.”
– Henry David Thoreau
Feeling a little sluggish this morning, having Ex(ceeded) my portion of coffee during our trip to Lexington yesterday. Then I drank from the can of KNOWLEDGE when we got home, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but, in retrospect, was clearly an unnecessary Ex(ception) to the Ex(clusion). Back to square one on day five. Today we’ll travel to the farm for Hall painting, garden planting, cemetery pruning, water hauling, and Marty “hangin.”
Today’s sight bite— The Blue Bank Hall, partially clad in its new metal protection, —c-l-i-c-k— as it prepares to make a “newenday” statement to reinforce our evolving farm identity.
There are different types of ideal days.
For me, surely today was one of them.
After what may have been the best night’s sleep that I have had in two or three months, I woke up with a cool breeze above my pillow and came downstairs to discover a nutritious breakfast smoothie and a pot of hot coffee to go with it. Thank you, Dana, for getting my day off to such a positive start. TSLA, YHOO, TJX, and FEYE took over from there, when the market opened, and I spent a productive morning managing my active trades for four separate accounts, including the Trust investment. I may have gotten a suitable entry price for a long position in VMW, but only time will tell with that. When the office intercom beeped, I was the beneficiary of a delicious roast turkey sandwich with a bowl of fresh gazpacho. It has been a fine season for tomatoes, and I am still working on getting my fill. Dana said that aging Walie was having one of her most lively days in a long time. After lunch, I noticed a new Ommatidia story by Brendan (which always makes my day), checked email, and worked a bit on my Spotify playlists, now that Marty has me successfully making the transition from Pandora. Some time ago I figured that eventually one would be able to watch any movie or TV show on demand, but I had not expected so soon to see the same be true of music. Yes, I have to listen to commercials now and then, but they are not as obnoxious as those on the Pandora site, since most of the Spotify ads are about the musical offerings themselves. Then it was into the painting studio for another session on the GAB portrait (with a few Danny Darst tunes for good company). I can say that I finally overcame the wall of fear (compliments of an old pal named perfectionism) that became attached to this commission, but now the pressing need is to find a route to the summit by the end of the month. I have pledged to myself to complete the artwork for Greg’s and Lynne’s return from their trip to France. At 4 o’clock, I crossed the street to play chess with the library group: one win, one loss (strangely enough, it usually works out that I beat the people I am capable of defeating and lose to those I am not capable of defeating). Although I rediscovered chess through vision therapy a while back, I am getting more serious about it this year, now that I can regularly match wits with local players right next door. Before I left, I checked out Is He Dead? (I admit that I wanted the Mark Twain comedy primarily to study the engravings by Barry Moser). When I got home I crossed paths with Dana, leaving to meet her spiritual group at the library, and then I jumped back into my yew-trimming topiary project in the front yard. With each passing growing season, it is easier and faster for me to keep them in shape, but more difficult to make significant changes or refinements. Nature will provide an occasional opportunity for a new direction or interesting detour, but it is mostly about keeping the whole effect under control. When the “skeeters” decided it was time to bite my ankles, it was off to Centre for some weight lifting before dinner. Being settled into the gym groove has always been a confidence-booster for me, and that goes back nearly 45 years. Peter Lupus emphasized that 100 twists a day kept his waistline small, although I have not been able to achieve the daily habit yet. In the workout room, I combine strenuous twists with the “ab chair” to manage my own belly, plus a circuit of machines and dumbbell exercises, in addition to the trusty bench press (where is that best buddy to spot me?). As I entered our back door after a brisk walk home, a blend of magnificent odors told me that Dana had been baking up a storm — sourdough bread, chocolate cake, and apple pie! We are preparing to celebrate Marty’s promotion to full-time employment at Hitachi in Harrodsburg. I am not the only member of the household on a roll. Well done, Grandson (and he got an A in his first course at the Technical College). Marty happened to be catching up on sleep (I cannot imagine handling a night-shift + school schedule the way he does), so Dana and I split a Red Hook and enjoyed a bowl of Swiss-chard-lentil soup with raw-tomato-basil-cheese salad. All that was left for me to do was to record my ideal day at this blogsite, and now I am ready to hit the sack. Tomorrow we shall begin again!
It was a glorious day, and I spent it out of doors at K Ridge with my palzee sis. She loaded and dumped multiple Joben beds as I attacked pear, apple, and cherry trees like there was no tomorrow.
Long day. Warmed up enough outside, during my Thursday of Mombo care, for me to get another good pruning session in the books. I am hoping that one more time should do it, except for the peach tree, which needs to be delayed. It is so obvious to me that Mombo is making a true effort to resist giving up. God help her, so she does not. God help her, if she does.
“Beauty should be shared, for it enhances our joys.
To explore its mystery is to venture towards the sublime.”
―Joseph Cornell
I hesitate to use a sports term to begin this review, but, since the Summer Olympics opened last night, I’ll set my disinclination aside to state emphatically that artist Kathleen O’Brien is at the top of her game!
Gardenshapes —an exhibition of her mixed-media collage finishing its run in the main gallery of Danville’s Community Arts Center— has ample proof to support my claim. I made one more return visit yesterday to experience the diverse subtleties of her singular creations.
Inspired by birds and flowers, and exploring the garden as a metaphor, this collection of artworks represents everything that has captivated me for years about Kathleen’s approach. These works have clearly grown out of how she thoughtfully observes and attunes with nature. They also literally contain and preserve natural ingredients. But in contrast to collage that maintains its focus on formal or intellectual juxtapositions, Kathleen’s art always nudges one toward a deeper sense of wholeness and the inner complexity of our balanced existence as both organic and spiritual beings. Without question, she has made a personal commitment to creating art as a mystical practice, and, on a communal level, to providing nature-inspired beauty as a source of healing in a fractured world.
With the strong presence of these intangible dimensions, Kathleen’s art is always esoteric, and yet she manages to make the work accessible to all with her choice of subject matter and allegiance to traditional drawing. At the same time, she can delight the eye of a fellow artist with her methodology, aesthetic choices, and pictorial skill. I’m not ashamed to admit that much of Kathleen’s symbolic virtuosity is beyond my ken, but I appreciate that it’s all in play at the intuitive level. Being near the prolific output of her creative life is simply uplifting, and that’s because all the facets of her art —whether conscious or subliminal— unify as a total perception to nourish the mind, heart, and soul.
Getting back to the show, I was initially struck by the five largest pieces (28 x 36 inches), beautifully presented against white in deep gallery-style frames of natural wood. This “look” is familiar to those who know Kathleen’s art, and enhances the work’s identity as an unique artifact, preserved behind glass, like a rare botanical or zoological specimen. They are titled with reference to the garden theme. In contrast, a separate piece (24 x 30 inches) is presented with its surface exposed in the manner of an easel painting. It looks equally at home, released from behind the glass, expertly varnished in a way that does not distract. Its name is Heaven & Earth, Yin & Yang, Dark & Light, Birds & Trees, Flowers & Bees. My eyebrows lifted as I began to read the lengthy title, but was pleased with the closing rhyme as I finished. This artist always has a quiet surprise in store. Each of the large works is visually distinctive, but very much a cohesive part of a series unified by her long dedication to compositional abstraction, to a consistent theory of color, and to diligent mark making.
The large piece titled Garden for Queen Anne’s Lace is marked by a cellular pattern resembling microscopic tissue, which, while remaining highly abstract, transforms itself into a flower garden, with an interesting emphasis on each “drop of Queen’s blood” that, when closely examined, becomes a dance of circles, squares, and triangles —a dynamic that exemplifies Kathleen’s knack for taking the observer/participant through layers of meaning. The design also incorporates the application of illustrated postage stamps. Kathleen is never far removed from a devotion to cultural references and ephemera, and her Joseph Cornell influences are ever present. A fine example of this are four pieces dedicated to bird-species (16 x 20 inches) that combine found printed patterns with her typical labor of liquid media. Nests are created with random shards and colorful scraps. Dried and painted star-like blossoms effectively merge the organic, symbolic, and celestial. In Kathleen’s collage there are many allusions to language, both literal and archetypal, and here we discover many fragments of the printed word, as well as her “trademark” calligraphy. I was particularly drawn to Garden for Blue Grosbeaks, a strong arrangement of symmetrical and asymmetrical elements that carries out more of her evident investigation into fundamental shapes —circle, square, and triangle. These compositions are anything but static, a characteristic of Kathleen’s art built on a myriad of ways in which she provokes eye movement by simulating the dynamic patterns of nature, often with the application of actual plants and minerals. A perfect case in point is 9 Bird Eggs (30 x 30 inches), with its nimble use of botanicals most artists would overlook as raw material, through which she creates a variety of rhythms within a formal, 3×3 grid structure.
I should mention that Kathleen’s control of what I call “implied viewing distance” is masterful. Enjoying her watercolor effects and hidden treasures up close is inevitably a satisfying experience, as is true with much of current small-scale mixed media collage, but her pieces also can be savored at a distance. I found myself continually studying a work from across the room and then, taking off my eye-wear, sticking my nose near the glass to examine fine detail. Whether from this point of view or from half a block away, Kathleen’s distinctive impression is always recognizable, an enviable accomplishment for any artist. For example, both Royal Lily Garden and Staple Garden contain brushwork that only can be achieved by someone who is continuously handling liquid on a tool and is fully at ease with her surface. On the other hand, she uses this micro-fluency to create the intended multi-layered depth of her macro-composition, and yet I was constantly invited to step back into the intimacy of the picture plane, much as one feels when standing back to admire a flower garden, while being compelled to converge at hand’s length, only to spy a miniature surprise —a dutiful pollinator or tiny feat of nature’s diversity within repetition.
With my fixation on the bigger paintings, it was too easy to neglect the smaller items, so I had to instruct myself to visually isolate and appreciate several other works. Two of these were within squares, and each have treatments not as pronounced elsewhere in the exhibition. Feathers uses paper itself as a dimensional medium, and The Blessing of Rain features a darker atmospheric background —a shimmering chalk texture that makes me wish Kathleen would more intensively explore the potential of pastel effects. In addition, there are three bird portraits (9 x 12 inches), with coatings of what appeared to be beeswax, which recall for me the investigations of 19th-century naturalists. My favorite is Garden for Eastern Bluebirds, with its deft pencil work and luscious color palette. Kathleen pushes her highly capable layering beyond technique to create a sense of time distortion, an interplay of wildlife and cultural antiquity that makes certain the work is much more than a lovely rendering of birds. Throughout this outstanding show are many such allusions to natural and human-made cycles that fuse the worlds of growing things and a striving race that has always responded with symbolic culture to seek a balanced place in the scheme of life.
Indeed, Kathleen O’Brien has found her place. With a home studio close to nature, and a creative passion that distills her observations and meditations through heart, head, and hand, she is a gold-medal artist of the soul.
© 2012, John Andrew Dixon
Garden for Eastern Bluebirds and Garden for Scarlet Tanagers
by Kathleen O’Brien
“One man live. Another man die. One woman laugh and the other one cry.”
—Danny Darst, Lady Luck
Back in the depths of our winter mourning, when I would see people talking and laughing with delight, it seemed out of character with the tone of existence, even though I knew at the same time that it was only natural for every imaginable emotion to be continuously bubbling through the current of humanity. But didn’t I live next to a funeral home? Didn’t I know that death was a constant—running abreast of every joy I experienced on any given day?
That same contrast of feeling is with me again, to some extent, because my best buddy’s sister was in a terrible car wreck. As I write this, she holds on to life despite massive brain trauma… and this is a family that lost their patriarch only eight months ago. I know what it’s like to be plunged into the icy waters of such a vigil, and yet here I am enjoying the heck out myself this summer, basking in the glow of the marvelous Johnson wedding and the best of the Great American Brass Band Festivals to date. Mombo is doing better than anyone could have expected a few short months ago, working her way toward a full mile on the treadmill, in the face of a prognosis what would have broken the spirit of many, and yet my Clan has come together to forge an even stronger bond, proving to me once again that the unfailing light of family love is the most powerful force I have yet to encounter in this life of 60 years. Here I am, enjoying the simple pleasures of each unfolding day. I make art, watch silly TV shows, play with my pup, trade stocks, grow tomatoes, read books, and ride my bicycle like I’m still a kid… and there he is, my soul mate since 1970, wounded to the core and wondering what God holds in store for the next hour, day, week… wondering how he will be forever shaped in some as yet undiscovered way. Two connected but parallel worlds.
As I heard Dana say to another recently, “There is something sad going on in every family.” The inverse must be true as well. I remember realizing that there must be happy things occurring in my family at the same time I was selecting my son’s gravesite, but one hesitates to share such things with relatives in the grip of anguish. In this age of social networks, I’m always struck by the odd juxtapositions of delight and grief, but, of course, life has never been otherwise. However, with age, it’s just a bit more difficult to mentally insulate one’s personal world, in contrast to the manner of my youth. And so I try to let my periodic melancholy be informed by the presence of exuberance, and to allow my occasional bliss to be peppered by the knowledge of sorrow.
It seems to me that all the emotions of life are fully present in our extended circle of experience, but are fleeting, elusive stuff at the private, individual level. I wonder if the impermanence of happiness is at the root of most addictions, many of which go beyond the typical vices and substances—patterns such as gossip, broadcast news watching, pack-ratting, procrastination, argumentation, anger, and all manner of risky and abusive behaviors (yes, that includes extreme exercise, too). In place of natural serenity, we get hooked on habit-triggered adrenaline and brain chemicals that have little to do with what we should know provides the only enduring satisfaction—service to life and oneness with creation. Sensual pleasure and physical comfort have their proper place, but as a focus of life soon become an empty shell or bottomless well.
It is said that change is the only permanent state. Perhaps, but where does change originate? My only answer is: The One Creative Source—the only truly permanent thing. As we come to accept the inevitable—that life in this dimension is characterized most of all by impermanence—then we eventually learn to understand the flow of suffering and sweetness, to look for meaning in the essentials, to appreciate real friends, to value the unity of family, and to age with dignity.
We must work and affirm, but we have no
guess of the value of what we say or do.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
I keep catching myself giving more awareness to the overall work load and target dates than the most important thing—that which is in front of me at a particular moment. With a two-day workshop in Lexington beginning tomorrow, I worry about what is due on Wednesday and Friday instead of attending to the present. Time to walk away for a spell, and, in the late afternoon sun, dig and build a new pit for making tomato-patch compost. Nothing like a tree-top cardinal proclaiming his purpose to put things into perspective. Roger Sterling shouted, “I’m going to put you on notice. You’re in over your head.”
Blog Jam
March Exercise —day three— Morning flew away and my scheduled swim was on top of me before I knew it. College staffers were creating a stone perimeter in front of the pool building for what looked to become a flower bed around the sign. Seeing the men at work out of doors with gardening tools sent a low jolt of some unknown stimulant through my system that triggered preposterous musings about what might have been, had I chucked my day job years ago and become a landscaper. It brought to mind the words of my cousin Dan, when he informed me by email that he’d acquired rural acreage in Ohio: “I think the urges I’m having now were evident in your father when I was a kid, and my father and brother now. I don’t know why I so desperately want to have land that I control, and to provide food to my family and neighbors….but I do.” There is something profoundly misguided about my having had decades of access to one of the most tranquil of Kentucky’s natural havens and, so far, having squandered the opportunity to fulfill that same genetic compulsion. God help me.
Today’s sight bite— Hand-worn rakes sifting through clods of black soil —c-l-i-c-k— as landscapers prepare a new planter at the natatorium.
Tomorrow— An evening with compassionate friends . . .
March exercise—day thirty— Except for some early evening labor in the back yard (our pitiable urban garden), I spent the day pushing forward a commemorative safari illustration. The project will provide a fitting close to my annual exercise.
Today’s sight bite— Fractured brick, chunks of coal, and fragments of clay roofing —c-l-i-c-k— relics of a home’s former incarnation are freed from the dark earth.
Tomorrow— Finish line…
— Each time this year I’ve run the 5+ miles back downtown from the cabin, the time has felt shorter, even though I’m running pretty slowly these days. The silence transpired more quickly for me this morning, too. Milton handed out his periodic survey to the group, and I discovered a 1961 Horizon in Mack’s studio that had an interview with Andrew Wyeth, famous at the time, and now the greatest living American painter. I’ll have to digest the whole article during another visit, but I was able to scan a few stimulating quotations, and then Sara Jane offered me a new commission, with the freedom to interpret a photographic image with my choice of style—the perfect assignment. Everything conspired to boost my motivation to aggressively advance the Brady and Eckerle projects, plus my fine-arts enterprise in general. I couldn’t think about anything else as I ran home. So, why am I sitting here with this log entry?
— Cliff and I had a conversation about blogging the other day and it got me thinking about my string of 616 or 617 consecutive posts, and how important making daily entries used to seem. Brendan still refers to this site as a daily journal, but that hasn’t been true for well over a year. Once again, time is malleable, and, as Arnold has said, there’s adequate time each day for everything meaningful enough to do. Blogging isn’t about the time, but about having something worth saying to yourself, maybe worth recording, possibly worth sharing. I eventually figured out that doesn’t happen every day. When it does, not much time is required to get it down.
— Terie and Marty bought the M:I:3 DVD and left it at our house, so, late last night, I watched the J.J. Abrams picture for the second time, and I liked it a bit more this time around. I think Tom Cruise is the Burt Lancaster of his generation. Regardless of what I might think of his personal life, his work product demands respect. (Hey, not all celebrities can be a James Stewart or Charlton Heston; Lance Armstrong falls into the same category.) If Cruise had not become an actor, he would surely have been an Olympic or professional athlete in some discipline. He has the mentality and natural capacity for high-performance physical achievement. Although one of the least flamboyant stunts, his Chinese-village tile-roof footwork is probably the riskiest choreography in the movie. As I’ve declared before, I think he squandered the full potential of the classic franchise and put its longevity at risk, but this sequel is the best of the lot, the most team-oriented, and it fits nicely into our ancient family idea of an M:I Saga Series. In my opinion, Abrams is a creative, meticulous director with a feel for the spy genre compatible to Mission: Impossible—Cruise certainly can’t be faulted with his selection—but Abrams will need to have further honed his story-telling skills to do justice to his upcoming Star Trek feature, another Desilu-originated concept from the “silver age” of television.
— Local historian, R.C. Brown, is dead at 90. He once saluted me on a Danville street as, “Mr. Dixon, the Spin Doctor!” We often held different political perspectives, but shared a fascination with local heritage. I recruited him in 1991 to expound before a camera, as part of a fundraising documentary (the same program in which we cast Alyx as a child actress). He was in his 70s then, and I was young enough to think I might have a future directing videos (as close as I got to being Ken Burns when I grew up). Brown was the doctor, not me. He was from Ohio, too, but went on to get a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. He taught history at Buffalo State College for 28 years. When he retired to our area, he rapidly became an authority and wrote The History of Danville and Boyle County. I’ll always believe that Professor Brown respected me as a talent, even though I consider his remark shaded by a mild one-upmanship. Perhaps he did understand better than most the true nature of my commercial craft, but I hope he wasn’t thinking of Victor Papanek’s quotation:
“In persuading people to buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, in order to impress others that don’t care, advertising is probably the phoniest field in existence today.”
I prefer this one:
“The only important thing about design is how it relates to people.”
— Thomas Bewick, my newest hero, couldn’t escape the ongoing necessity of making money with “coarse work” (as his daughter called it), despite his artistic reputation and unmatched skill as a wood engraver. I wanted to return the library book and avoid fines, but couldn’t help myself, and finished the biography by Jenny Uglow this week. As I said previously, learning more about his life has reinforced for me the notion that, although everything changes on outward levels, nothing really changes in the human dynamics of making a living as an independent, creative craftsman. I was notably saddened when I learned that he never fulfilled his dream of having the cottage workshop close to nature described in his memoir:
“The artist ought if possible to have his dwelling in the country where he could follow his business undisturbed, surrounded by pleasing rural scenery & the fresh air and as ‘all work & no play, makes Jack a dull Boy,’ he ought not to sit at it, too long at a time, but to unbend his mind with some variety of employment — for which purpose, it is desireable, that Artists, with their little Cots, should also have each a Garden attached in which they might find both exercise & amusement — and only occasionally visit the City or the smokey Town & that chiefly for the purpose of meetings with their Brother Artists.”
Dana reminded me that we all tend to get what we desire if we want it badly enough.