Wadhams, NY Memory Painting

Back in the mid 1980s I painted a "Memory" picture of the Wadhams, NY area. It included a farmstead and some of the Adirondack foothills.

Anyway, here is a photo of the painting. Painted in oil on canvas boards, I squeezed it into a heavy wood packing crate, causing a curving of the images and a simple attempt to play on depth.

Today, I conducted a Google Maps search of the area, and was able to take a screen shot of the approximate region.

I sure miss this part of the world. Someday, perhaps, I may be able to return to live there, even if only part of the year.

Photography ~ Convenience Store

photography ~ an assortment

photography - parrot nest

original work - ceiling

poetry ~ herbed flour

At Grandma’s
Herbed flour on the stove.
Nostalgia’s memories grow dim
She used to fuss about us kids when
           we came over
You’d think she had none of her own
Oh, but then, they’d already grown and moved away

Since I could remember,
            she had bursitis
            varicose veins
and that herbed flour on the stove smell
in the house
and she was all Ours


Happy Day
Herbed flour on the stove
I gave her her name by mis-stating
The name of an observation
when I was three
Happy Day

She collected salt and pepper shaker sets
Whole china cabinets would fill with them
Money, she’d hide through the house as well
           I remember father telling of how much
           They’d found – years later – after granddad died
When they too the place apart

It kept the herbed flour smell around.

But those last months were the hardest
Kept to a bed with tubes and tumor.
           For awhile she ate what she pleased;
           Lasagna, spaghetti, stuffed duck…
Herbed flour from the stove.
Until too late … and she was gone

No more flour on the stove.

orginal work ~ Ralph's China Cabinet

poetry ~ Companion

How intimate the lesser bodies of the universe
Our thoughts lie close
                  well-nigh a billion miles away.
United only by the dim reflections presented
                  wavelength-aeons apart;
Friends by telescope.


Knowing only, as we do, the simple names of elements
How is it
                  we pretend
                  we know more than this?
I, voyeur, window-peek by microscope
                  measuring memories in angstroms
                  trying to place affection on a grid
A quantitative affair.


Plucking compassion from a shelf of chemicals
Apply it with sterility
                  Earthen values shant sully
                  Cerebral sensuality.
To you, those million light years away
                  How can I convey this:
I want nothing but your kind approval.

Collage: Turkeys Bearing Arms

this year's best woodpiles

The two storms of autumn 2011, Hurricane Irene and "Storm Benedict" produced an immense amount of tree blowdown in Southern New England.

Many wood stove, wood furnace owners and firewood sellers got creative about how they amassed their piles. This is one of the photos from the many piles to be seen.

I shall be gathering an assortment of like images. If there are enough images collected, I shall pick what I consider to be the "best of" the woodpiles.

Feel welcome to join in on the chorus.

ghost dance face

Painted while sitting in the woods at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, 576 Highway 360, Vonore, Tennessee

According to the museum's website:

•  Sequoyah was born circa 1776 at the village of Tuskeegee, which was very near where the Museum is today. His father was Nathaniel Gist, a Virginia fur trader. His mother was Wut-teh, daughter of a Cherokee Chief.
•  Sequoyah married a Cherokee, had a family and was a silversmith by trade. Sequoyah and other Cherokees enlisted on the side of the United States under General Andrew Jackson to fight the British troops and the Creek Indians in the war of 1812.
•  Although Sequoyah was exposed to the concept of writing early in his life, he never learned the English alphabet. He began to toy with the idea of literacy for the Cherokee people. Unlike the white soldiers, he and the other Cherokees were not able to write letters home, read military orders, or record events as they occurred. After the war, he began in earnest to create a writing system for the Cherokees.
•  When he returned home after the war, he began to make the symbols that could make words. He finally reduced the thousands of Cherokee thoughts to 85 symbols representing sounds. He made a game of this new writing systems and taught his little girl Ayoka how to make the symbols.
•  In 1821, after 12 years working on the new language, he and his daughter introduced his syllabary to the Cherokee people. Within a few months thousands of Cherokees became literate.

conversation

Original Work ~ Hubcap

Photography ~ Bill P's car wheel

art show reception

Jim Riccio / Will Brady
Two Distinct Visions
of the World
18th January through early March 2012

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Rathbun Free Library – East Haddam, CT

36 Main Street / Route 149, East Haddam Village
½ mile from the East Haddam Swing Bridge
[call 860-873-8210 for hours]

Reception – Thursday, 26th of January 2012
6:00 to 7:30 pm

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I plan on doing a talk on collage and collage making some time during the month of February. Watch for it.

living with cancer

When we try to make sense of things that are
not for us to understand
the result can be confusion
and longing for clarity
         when there is none.

Who sits in the dark
awaiting our entry?
         although we each have guesses
     no one of us really knows
for sure.

Is it G*D
         ...or Jesus
         Gautama Buddha
         Deganawida
For whom we wait ? ? ?
     All one and the same some say
     For they are all prophets and gods in different tongues

Heavy can be the heart burdened with
     the certainty of illness
     and the uncertainty of time of passing

To some extent
it is the physical suffering we experience
     ~ and that we cannot bear ~
     while still in this realm
     more than the fear of passing

And yet
     it is not out of order
     to wallow in aweful wonder
as to whether or not
our beliefs of the post-physical
     might not be exactly as we might hope.

Go strong.
Be with those passing.
And remain constant
     while without fear.

poem - the barrenness of dawn

I am summoned to see someone immediately!
He is angry for being inconvenienced
                        and      demands
                                             swift resolution.
Through a third party he is told I will not see or speak with him until tomorrow.
He walked away content.


In a dream
I am served another Summons.
It seems I've been in receipt of a series of pleasant distractions
               whilst asleep
I’m told: I ought to have known that these distractions came with a fee

I become distraught
               not knowing in what manner
               nor what medium
I am to pay for these fleeting pleasures.
The process server smiles.
               "You'll figure it out"


Next to me
   a large cat
   rests contented
   Bathing while abed.

New collage works

Adirondack reverie (c.2011)

A bit about the technical end:
Each collage is “built” by laying the items down atop a larger surface until I get an assortment of items that look interesting together.

That’s the easy part!

The finished array is photographed, and the objects removed,
Then I figure out how to put them back together while making it appear as if the objects are just floating atop one another.

That’s the hard part of making the collage.

The base of a work might be drilled and bolted from the back. Choosing the right glues and epoxies have to be considered. Some won’t help to hold different surfaces together. Some glues have properties that don’t look good when hardened. Even figuring how to keep pieces fixed together while a fixative sets can be daunting. And, there are times, I make no attempt to disguise how a work has been put together. The things holding things together become part of the finished project.

For more information about collage, and collage artists, check out the website: http://www.collageart.org/

at the New Britain Library - large work

Montreal Streetscape (c. 2010)

Tiger out of the Cage (c. 2011)

Tucson (c.2009)

at the New Britain Library - medium sized work

19 (c. 2010)

Come Clean (c. 2010)

Oracle (c.2009)

Turkey Bearing Arms (c.2011)

At the New Britain Library - small works

Justice (c. 2005)

Lug (c. 2009)

Hot Stuff (c. 2011)

The exhibit is down (as of Saturday). Looking for a new space to show my work..