Fashions

The art world (the galleries, museums, critics and their artists) is governed by the whims of fashion.  Right now cynicism and spectacle making are in style; Jeff Koons and Damion Hirst rule.  The current art world is like a nuclear arms race, everyone attempting to be preemptively innovative, relevant and original, except without any actual art.  Empathy, courage, hope, joy, grief, despair and sorrow are always relevant, but not to the art world.  An artist has to make something “new” which means something in fashion. 

Several credible news sources published articles* about the link between the CIA and Abstract Expressionism  which revealed that the CIA was integral to the founding of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the success of the Abstract Expressionist movement.  When I read the first headline, I thought it was nuts, but it actually explains a lot.  The plan was to create the myth that the US has a superior culture to Europe and Asia in that it is innovative, creative and energetic.  The myth of American ingenuity was bolstered by artists happily innovating away, supplying the newly created demand for American Art.  It was all about money.  It always was just about money.  The crazy thing is that it worked.  

It’s true that in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, painters and sculptors were lumped together with goldsmiths and potters as craftsmen.  It was all about the money then, too.  They got paid for their craft and that was it.  A kid with an aptitude for the craft was apprenticed young, trained by the master and accepted into the guild after producing a “masterpiece.” There was no such thing as an “artist”, as we know it today.  The guild system gave way to the academy system.  A kid with an aptitude for painting, drawing or sculpture went to an academy, studied with a master and started a career as an artist after being accepted into the academy exhibition.  I think what's happening now is all the Impressionists’ fault.  They got disgruntled and fed up with the academy system and started a movement away from academic studies.  And look what happened!  We have monumental stainless steel balloon animals.
  

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* <https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/04/23/reviews/000423.23joffet.html>
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/modern-art-was-cia-weapon_0_n_3156994.html> <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html>
<http://www.openculture.com/2013/04/how_the_cia_turned_american_abstract_expressionism_into_cold_war_propaganda.html> 

Shipping your work

Indestructible, detail

Shipping your work to exhibitions and buyers sounds scarier than it is. Artists worry about their work being damaged during shipping, but I ship small, lightweight sculptures all over the place and I've never had a problem. The only problem I've ever had with a shipped sculpture was a porcelain relief sculpture that was dropped and cracked while it was being installed in a show in NYC, which could have happened even if I'd delivered it myself; it was dropped by someone working in the gallery. That being said, don't ever use the USPS for shipping art. The USPS is great at a lot of things, but shipping art isn't one of them. The USPS has limited insurance for art (<$1,000) and they're not careful with packages marked "Fragile", which is why many galleries and museums will not accept work shipped via USPS. FedEx and UPS are much better. With the ability to create and print shipping UPS and FedEx labels at home, the whole process is pretty painless.

Of course, you want to double box your shipment with 2" of packing between boxes and 2" of packing between your work and the box in all dimensions. Use bubble wrap instead of peanuts because many places don't accept work packed in peanuts. Use new boxes and the strongest possible packing tape. Get insurance. UPS won't insure a box that is old, battered or badly taped. If you do a lot of shipping, you'll start saving thick foam sheets and pads whenever you find them - new appliances, computers, TV's, electronics, etc. often come wrapped in great stuff.

If your work is too heavy to ship in cardboard boxes, hire a carpenter to make shipping crates for you. For framed paintings, drawings and prints, use Airfloat boxes.

Another thing artists worry about with shipping their work to exhibitions is the cost. While it's not cheap, it isn't too bad if your work is relatively small and light. I usually figure it will cost around $200 per show for shipping and handling. This is where it becomes critical to chose your shows wisely. There are hundreds of exhibitions and not all of them are right for everybody. The way I think of it is that each line of my resumé represents the expense of at least $30, which is a standard exhibition entry fee, just to exhibit my work. If I have to drive a long distance delivering and picking up, that's additional expense. I prefer shipping my work rather than driving if the distance is more than a couple of hours each way because gas is expensive and my time is valuable, too.

I plan to spend less than $1,000 a year on entrance fees and shipping. If you're on a budget, it's important not to blow your budget on shows you'll never get into. Rejections hurt your budget as well as your pride. I think of entry fees for shows I didn't get into as part of my ongoing education.

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Giving it away

September, oil on paper

The first time somebody asked me to give away some of my work, I was horrified. I was infuriated. It was a painting that wasn't dry yet and I wasn't even sure the painting was finished. At the time, I was having trouble with actual, physical theft of my paintings so I felt very protective of my work. That was more than forty years ago. Naturally since then my opinions have changed and my feelings about giving away one's work have evolved.

Over the years, I've been surprised at how often artists are asked to give away their work for charities, nonprofits and fundraisers. Are jewelers also asked to donate their merchandise? Shoe stores? Dress shops? It has always seemed odd to me that artists are hit up for donations. For one thing, artists are not allowed by the IRS to deduct the value of donated art work, only the cost of materials of the work. So why ask artists to donate their work? Does it look like we're making big bucks? Most artists barely make enough to pay for materials. Plus, the problem is that giving away anything lowers its value, unless its value is zero.  So, asking an artist to give away work is kind of like saying "your work isn't worth anything, why not just give it away?" The other problem is that an artist giving away work (theoretically) devalues the work of other artists trying to sell their work, just as one seller lowering prices has an impact on the rest of the market.

All of that notwithstanding, these days I give away some of my work, on purpose. I've found that it's very freeing and liberating, so every year I do a couple of pieces that are specifically for donation to nonprofit fundraising events. Also, there are a couple of organizations that accept donated art, Art Connection and Rxhibitions, and I'm definitely sending some of the overflow their way. And I participate in various events and fundraisers. The art market has managed to survive the shock.

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Show off: Solo and Juried Exhibitions

To state the obvious, there are basically two kinds of artists' shows:  solo and group.  A solo show is a big deal. Exhibiting the work of one artist, a solo show focuses on the most current work the artist has produced. A special kind of solo show is the retrospective, showing many years and periods of the artist's career. Typically, an artist has a solo show every two to five years. It's a huge amount of work and the acid test of artistic success. A subset of solo shows is the duo show, where two artists share gallery space, hopefully because their work complements each other's.

Group shows include invitational, non juried and juried shows. Invitational shows are what they sound like - an artist is invited to show work in a particular show. Juried shows are exhibitions that are judged by jurors. Artists submit their work and the jurors decide which pieces to include in the exhibition. If the show includes awards, the jurors decide what piece gets which award, usually after the show is hung but before the opening. Non juried shows are usually first come, first serve - when the show is full, they accept no more entries.

All of these shows can be useful. With the many online listings of hundreds of calls for entry, it can be hard to decide which exhibitions to enter. An approach that helps me is to think of each work I want to exhibit, not in terms of "Oh, I hope this gets into the Blah Blah Blah Show," but, "What's the best exhibition for this?" or "Where's the best place for this?" I'm convinced that there's a venue for everything I want to exhibit, I just have to find it.

Online shows are a new type of exhibition that haven't been around very long. It's still too early to tell what place they'll hold in the art world in the long run. Like everything else, there are good ones and bad ones. Don't dismiss all of them because of the bad ones. For a sculptor, online shows can be very beneficial because shipping and handling, which can be prohibitively expensive for sculpture, are eliminated. An online audience can be anywhere in the world, as Google Analytics demonstrates on a daily basis, so an online show can reach new audiences, broaden your following and enlarge your group of viewers.

Awards are an integral part of exhibiting and artists need to win them. The jurors have their own tastes and preferences, often incomprehensible. It's helpful to look at past exhibition catalogs and see what sorts of things were included in the show and what won awards. If you hate everything that won awards, stay away from that show. Also, check out the jurors. There's no point subjecting yourself to a hostile juror. If you dislike the work of a juror, chances are quite high that the juror won't like yours, either.

It's really important not to take any of this personally. Try to see the humor of getting what I think of  "The Rejection du Jour". You have to have thick enough skin for none of this to upset you; winning, not winning, being accepted, being rejected - it's all in a day's work. Every artist, at whatever level, wants to be working at a higher level, showing more, winning more awards, getting better press coverage, selling more. There's always going to be somebody with a glitzier portfolio and resumé than yours.

It's never too late to become the person you were meant to be.

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Juried exhibitions - what's the point?

Exhibition on computer screens in Canadian transit stations seen daily by 1 million people

I used to think I couldn't afford to enter national juried art shows. Now I think I can't afford NOT to enter them. Partly, it's a resumé thing:  you need new entries on your resumé every year so you have to show somewhere. Partly, it's a way of building a reputation as an artist. And partly it's about critical acclaim. Artists aren't ranked like tennis players or medical students, but the exhibition system effectively ranks artists according to where they show their work.

Juried art shows are not all the same. They have different purposes and uses. They're not intrinsically good or bad, but each one is more or less useful to each artist. I think of them in grade levels:  A, B, C, D and F. Within each grade, a plus can be added for an important juror or a very prestigious location; a minus can be given for a not very prestigious juror or location.

F level shows are local, and are either unjuried or are judged by jurors with a purely local reputation. These shows don't accept shipped work, and many only accept entries in person, not by digital photo.

D level shows are local with regional jurors. Some of these accept shipped work and entries by digital photos.

C are regional with regional jurors. Accept shipped work; entries online or by digital photo.

B are national with national jurors. Accept shipped work; entries online or by digital photo.

A are the most elite national shows or international shows with national or international jurors. Accept shipped work; entries online or by digital photo.

All of these shows have their uses.  The D and F level shows are always worth entering if you want to support the venue, help with fundraising or build your local audience. The people running these shows usually care quite a lot about their organization and can be supportive of you if you're supportive of their organization. Many art associations have shows that are open only to its members. Check them out; join as many art organizations as you can afford.

The advice usually given to art students about to graduate is to start out at the bottom and work your way up, from local to national shows. I disagree. Try them all and find your level. Research the jurors. Research the venue. If you hate the work of a juror, he/she will probably hate yours. Don't submit your work unless you have a decent chance of acceptance. If the venue only exhibits contemporary art, don't submit traditional work; if a venue only exhibits representational work, don't submit abstract work, etc. Decide how much money you can spend every year on exhibiting and stick to that:  it will help you decide which shows to enter and which to skip.

New technology has made new types of shows possible that can be worth doing. Exhibitions on computer screens, private or public, can be legitimate and effective. They can expose your work to a larger audience than would be possible in most exhibitions.

Entering shows inevitably means not being accepted into at least one somewhere along the line. If your work is not accepted into a show, look at an exhibition catalog (check online) so you can see what the exhibition looked like.  It's very often illuminating.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving

Art should be illegal

Shells, red and white chalk

There are questions I will no longer take seriously and discussions I will no longer participate in: whether the Vietnam War was worth fighting; whether jazz is more creative than classical music; whether photography is Art, etc.  The first five thousand times were OK, and now I'm done.

Similarly, there are things I won't do. I don't mean things like "I won't drink shots of tequila on my birthday", I mean things I won't do as an artist. I don't do commercial art. I don't exhibit my work in festivals or fairs. I don't show my work in any show that includes "crafts". You have to draw the line somewhere.

If you added up all the artists who ever lived from the first cave drawings to the present, you would have fewer total artists from the past than there are artists alive today. You would think that with this current planetary glut of artists, we'd have tons of great art.  Statistically, we should.  There are more than ten times as many artists per capita today (2%*) than there were in the Italian Renaissance (<.05%*) But great art is not what's happening, as it did in the Renaissance.  What we have is a lot of advertising and a lot of people playing artist, but very few actually learning how to really draw, paint or sculpt. To do that, you have to pay your dues and learn your craft. And to do that, you have to give up stuff:  time, energy, money, preconceived ideas.  And that's hard.

My conclusion is that art should be illegal, punishable by arrest, imprisonment and fines. Two things would happen. First, the general public would buy more art if it's illegal. Look at Prohibition. And second, the people who really just want to play artist would stop wasting everyone's time and learn golf instead (they could still wear berets), and only those who are truly compelled to draw, paint and sculpt would still be practicing artists.

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*Percentages from Wikipedia and I have no idea if they're right.

Photographs and sculpture

Ugolino, Carpeaux

Photographing sculpture is challenging. It would seem to be simple, because hey, the sculpture is just sitting there. It's not going anywhere. But you have to be careful not to flatten the forms with too much light, while you also have to have enough light to see the details. You need good contrasts to make a good photo, but you need to accentuate the shapes and textures of the sculpture, not the photograph. Using a flash doesn't work.

The best light is always daylight, but direct sunlight outdoors on a bright day can be blinding on a white or light sculpture, washing out most of the detail. While bronzes with dark patinas photograph well outside, they also lose detail and texture in bright outdoor light. In both cases, direct sunlight overhead can produce unintended cast shadows that are disruptive. Spotlights can do the same thing and I've never liked the results of using spotlights for sculpture photos. Bright light bleaches out colors, forms and textures. The best light is diffused, soft light. I've had the best luck with putting small sculptures near a sunny window, with some large sheets of white foamcore reflecting light back onto the sculpture. For large sculptures, I take pictures outside very early in the morning, or on an overcast day.  I'm probably the only person taking pictures outside at 5 AM muttering, "Dammit!  The sun came out."

Many photographers are not good at photographing sculpture unless the sculpture is in a museum where the light is all set up and all the decisions have already been made for them. Even then, they blow the shots half the time by shooting from the wrong angles. Sculptures have good sides and bad sides, even Michelangelo's. You have to find the best angles and the good sides. And adding insult to injury, most photographers of sculpture don't credit the sculptor. It's infuriating! What arrogance!  What intellectual laziness! I doubt whether they'd like to have their photographs published without credits.

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Eye candy

Ceiling of chapel at Mayo Clinic

I have a grudge against photographers carrying on about their "art" and how much time it takes, what long hours they put in and so on. Oh, please. I'm a sculptor. It usually takes me more than a year to make a sculpture:  do the drawing, make the armature, create the sculpture, cast or fire it, mount and patinate it, and then finally, take photographs of it. The very final step, the photograph, is just a minute fraction of the effort of what it takes to make a sculpture, that entire year of work. And that's the same amount of work a photographer does - just that last bit - the minute, tiny bit of effort, the taking of the picture. I do respect the work of nature photographers who travel and camp out in adverse conditions to get those amazing photographs of charging elephants. I feel like they're doing something sort of comparable to what I'm doing in terms of commitment and time. But the snapshots? The sailboats and seagulls and roses and so on? No. That's eye candy and a two year old with a disposable camera could take the same picture.

In the '60's, I spent a couple of years concentrating on photography. I took my camera wherever I went, shot a bazillion photographs and I have the stack of Triex contact sheets to prove it. Ultimately, I got bored with photography. It felt like a dead end for me. I realized what I really wanted to do was to learn how to draw, paint, and sculpt, and that's what I did. So here's what I think about photography. With a few exceptions (Steichen, Adams, Weston, Lange) photographs are just eye candy. Pleasant, eye-catching, basically unsatisfying and probably not good for you. If you're actually visually hungry, there's nothing in a photograph to nourish or satisfy you. I can't look at a print of a photograph for even a few solid minutes, whereas I can look at a Rembrandt for years. In a Rembrandt, there are variations and gradations of tone, textures, colors, line, shapes, forms, lights and darks. In a photo, there's none of that. Photography has no substance for me. There's basically nothing to look at. I view photos the same way at dog looks at a mirror, interested at first and then "oh, that's not even real" and then annoyed. For me, there can be no comparison between a painting and a photograph - one is interesting and the other is inherently empty.

Every day, we all see hundreds of photos and videos. They're everywhere. Everybody takes photographs - with phones and iPads as well as with cameras. Our lives have turned into one big Kodak moment. Inevitably, there's a sameness about all these photos. How many pictures have you seen of fall foliage reflected in water? sailboats on a sunny day? flowers with butterflies? old barns?  Almost all of these photos look the same. In writing, if the same idea is expressed in exactly the same way in the same language over and over again, it becomes trite. That's what all these photos are:  trite images. They are trivializations reducing what was an authentic experience into something shallow and meaningless. Instead of enhancing our lives with real content, depth and meaning, they are dulling our senses with mind-numbing repetition.

Because a photograph can be assimilated in a fraction of a second, photography is a perfect fit with 21st century culture. Anything that takes significant time and actual thought to create or appreciate is totally out of fashion, but photos are ubiquitous, the cultural version of fast food.  I call it "Easy Art" or "Art Lite" - fast and easy to create, fast and easy to assimilate. Photos are ephemeral and temporary.  Since we see so many of them, they are as disposable and unmemorable as kleenex.  I think photos almost never make it into permanent storage part of our brains; they're like all the everyday trivia that is discarded immediately. I don't think this is good for us. We're bombarded with a constant visual overload of drivel that amounts to visual pollution, in which we see hundreds of images every day, but really look at none of them. Our brains are overstimulated and undernourished; our perceptions are warped by an avalanche of cultural garbage, a diet of candy.

I'm off to the library.  I'm not taking my camera.  

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Why even bother?

Study of Rodin sculpture

Sometimes I wonder what is the point of applying to elite shows, competitions, grants and solo shows.  My odds are not great.  I'm old.  I'm not cutting edge, startlingly innovative or snazzy.  My chances range from "a snowball's chance in in Hell" to "well, it is possible."  But you can't win if you don't enter, so I feel compelled to enter some of these things.  I spent a lot of years not entering anything and that's not the solution.  Now, I'm probably overdoing it in the opposite direction, but what the heck.  At this point in my life, I'm not worried about looking like an idiot.  I'm used to that, as well as feeling like a fool.  And there's no fool like an old fool.

One of the nice things about getting old but not quite past my expiration date is that I don't give a rat's ass about a lot of things I used to care quite a lot about.  (Not ending my sentences with prepositions is one.)  What possible difference can it make whether I wear yoga pants to the grocery store or not?  Does the lettuce care?  And why do I have to wash my car all the time?  It will rain.  What's important is that I pay the bills on time, get the trash out and there's some kind of dinner at our house every night.  In my opinion, the secret of happiness is lowering your standards to the point that you can live with yourself, but not so low that you're wallowing in some kind of mess.

On the other hand, there are times you have to go the whole nine yards.  When you're learning how to do whatever it is you want to do with your life is one of those times.  Going off the deep end is totally appropriate when you're mastering your art.  There's no other way to do it.  No pain, no gain; no guts, no glory.  Set the very highest standards and don't stop until you meet them.  If it’s true that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something, then I became an expert at life drawing and life sculpture four decades ago, and presumably, haven't lost it completely yet.  I'm glad I did it then because I couldn't do it now.  That kind of arduous acquisition of knowledge and relentless hours of practicing every day is really only possible for those who are young and full of energy.  I made some terrible life choices after my excellent art school education, so I have to work harder now to accomplish everything that I can.  I can't let the bloopers of the past determine my future.  I have to take a few more shots.

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Michael Jordan

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Glazing sculptures

Trotting Horse, glaze test, 2014

Lately I've been experimenting with glazing my fired clay sculptures.  I've always left them unglazed, preferring the pure bisque look.  However, I finally decided to dive into the wonderful world of glazes.  Consequently, I've spent a lot of time completely baffled, trying to understand why this glaze did that, and that glaze did this. There's not always an answer to every question, either.  Or at least not right away.  Maybe that's why potters have that quizzical expressional on their faces all the time. Glazing sculpture is like a baking a cake in a kitchen with the lights off.  Might be good, might be bad; who knows?!

The photo above is almost what I want, but I'm not there, yet.  It's a glaze test on a relief that developed cracks because it got too thick - you can see a crack between the neck and the head and it also buckled near the top left edge.  So I decided to use it for a glaze test.

One year later:

Indestructible, glazed porcelain, 2015

Got it done.  "Indestructible" will be exhibited in three successive national juried exhibitions in New York, NY.  It will be at the Audubon Artists Annual Exhibition 2015 in October and November, and the American Artists Professional League Grand National Exhibition in November. Finally, it will be exhibited next at the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club Annual Exhibition in December.

On sculptures, I like a matte glaze that has a soft sheen to it, but not the hard, glassy look of gloss glazes. Glossy is usually pretty repellent on sculptures. I'm looking for an antique bronze kind of thing - green with brown, or brown with green.  When I'm reunited with my kiln next summer, we'll see what happens.  Maybe I need to go to Greece to figure this out.

A previous blog post in June 2015, "Anatomy, Leonardo, horses," describes the process of making this relief.

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Sorrow

Rufus, pen and ink

“I’ve had the privilege to be owned by some truly wonderful animals.  I had the two best dogs that ever lived, a border collie and her favorite puppy, and now I have the two best cats.  Not sure where I go from here if my cats don’t live as long as I do.  Right now we’re the exact same age if every human year is equal to 5 cat years.  I cherish the grumpy old man qualities of Pete, the alpha kitten of the litter who once tried to catch every leaf that fell and every bird that flew.  I commiserate with the aches and pains of the runt of the litter, Wendy, still tiny and delicate as a kitten, now growing old and even more fragile, but always beautiful.”

I wrote that a month ago and never got around to finishing what was to be a blog about my various cats and dogs.  A couple weeks later on the second night of my trip back East, in a motel in western NY, my sweet 13 year old cat, Wendy, had a heart attack.  I got her to a vet hospital, but she went into a seizure just as the vet began examining her.  She died a little later.  The miracle is that I found a vet hospital, in a place I'd never been before, with a veterinarian, two vet assistants and desk staff there in the middle of the night.  Another miracle is that with my terrible sense of direction, terrible night vision and complete inability to follow directions, I got her there within 90 minutes, in the dark, sobbing, in the rain.  It helps me to know that I did what I could. 

Peter, Wendy's littermate and brother, is confused.  He must have walked ten miles when we got home to Massachusetts, looking for Wendy.  He also doesn't know how to eat by himself because he's never done it before.  He always waited until Wendy started eating before he ate.  Now he just looks at the plate and looks at me.  He'll eat if I talk to him and pet him, but not much.  I think he'll be OK, though, because he's trying to catch the woodchuck in the back yard.  

This makes me think of my 4 year old grand daughter, Rose, warrior princess extraordinaire.  Her highly emotional older sister, Elison, had just heard the news that one of the chickens had died overnight and Elison, sobbing, said among many other things, “my heart is breaking.”   Rose, listened to it all silently, and when there was a lull in the drama, said firmly, “My heart will never break.”  Ah, Rose.

”There are no terms to be made with sorrow.  It can be cured by death and it can be blunted or anaesthetized by various things.  Time is supposed to cure it, too.  But if it is cured by anything less than death, the chances are that it was not true sorrow.”

Ernest Hemingway

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My Greek Island Residency

Archaic Goddess

Plowing through the monthly listings of artist's calls for entry, grants, etc., I came across one for an artist residency on Skopelos, an island off the coast of Greece.  It calls to me.  I keep thinking about it even though I added up all the costs and it would be about $3,000, which is more expensive than any vacation I've ever taken.   In spite of that, I'm obsessed with  thinking up reasons why I should do a residency in Skopelos, Greece.  I actually have a solid project in mind that would be perfect for the place and the culture and everything.  But I just don't think I can afford it.

I'm thinking of brilliant sun, water and rocks.  Mornings in the studio making sculpture, afternoons baking on the beach, evenings full of music and laugher.  What I can do is have my own private Greek island residency in Wisconsin in April next year.  My studio there is unheated and uninsulated, so there's always a lull before I can start back to work full-time with clay in the studio.  I could work on my Greek project in the house for the 3 or 4 weeks until it's warm enough to work in the studio.  In the mornings, I can work in clay; in the afternoon, I can do Mediterranean stuff:  buy a bottle of ouzo, eat a lot of Greek salads and listen to CD's of Greek folk music.  And go to the beach; even though it will be only about 50 degrees, I can always work on my tan.  And then I will have a whole new body of work for my next solo show.

Uh, oh!  I just found out about a residency in Nepal.  Going to be hard to do an imaginary Nepalese residency in WI.  No yaks.  Maybe I need to actually go there and make some bronzes in Patan.  And, of course there's the one in Chapala, Mexico that I can't do this year because of my solo show, but maybe next year.  I  need to think of something small and ceramic to do in Mexico...

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Passing through the Umbra

Mayan Man in the Moon

Firing the kiln, patching plaster, mounting reliefs in frames, patinating sculptures - I'm busy getting my work ready for a solo show, which opens in five weeks.  What makes this more complicated is that I'm also driving across the country in two weeks with all of the finished work, plus cats, clothes and laptops.  There's always a wild flurry of activity before my annual migration back East, but this year it's wilder than usual.  I'm trying really hard not to do anything dumb, like strain a muscle or cut my thumb.

No matter how busy I am, as a lifelong insomniac, I'm also an indefatiguable reader.  I can't fall asleep without reading first.  Right now, I'm reading a book, "Seveneves" by one of my favorite authors, Neil Stephenson.  Unfortunately, the book is freaking me out.  It's about the end of the world and although I've read a lot of science fiction, I don't remember reading anything before that made me look out the window to check that the moon was still there.  But not finishing the book isn't an option.  Because the moon of planet Earth is a big part of this story, I've been appreciating our moon as never before.  I can see why primitive people worshipped it.

Tonight there will be a lunar eclipse while the moon is at perigee.  It sounds like it will be amazing and I've given a lot of thought about where and how and when I want to see it.  Over the water?  From Eagle Terrace?  In my back yard?  I should be finished at work at the restaurant with a few minutes to spare before the eclipse and I'll be awake.  And probably a little more freaked out than usual.  I'm trying to think of this whole phase of pre-exhibition nuttiness as just passing through the umbra.

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Mists and mellow fruitfulness

Apparently, while I was building sandcastles and sitting around a firepit, summer abruptly pulled up its stakes and moved on.  Party’s over.  Summer’s gone and fall is here.  All this week I’ve scrutinized the colors outside, wondering as always, why it so immediately and completely looks like fall.  For one thing, the colors of the trees and the fields are reversed.  The fields gave up their blooms of yellows, golds, oranges and reds, turning deep and dark bronzes, browns and purples.  The trees are the season’s show offs, and the maples are already starting the show with twinges of yellow and scarlet here and there. 

What stopped me dead in my tracks on my walk this morning were white aster blooming amidst the creamy froth of the Queen Anne’s lace.  And then I saw lilac and purple asters waving among the blue cornflowers.  I’m not ready.  I need more time.  I'm aghast that August has ended.  Summer is my time of production and creation.  I need more.  I need a LOT more. 

But I also crave the calm and order of September.  The kids go back to school and we all enjoy the quiet and comfort of a return to normalcy and routines.  “Happy is the home where everyone learns and does his duty,” says that wild party animal, Martin Luther.  

My back yard is suddenly full of little birds smaller than sparrows – some kind of finches, I think.  Darting, flitting, fluttering, zoomming, divebombing – they are very busy.  Waving around ontop of a thistle, bungiejumping on a milkweed, suddenly, poof!  They’re gone.   But here, read the real thing!  Nobody can compete with Keats.

To Autumn, John Keats (1795–1821)
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”