Elizabeth Adams's Blog, page 75

Too Damn Hot

The heat-and-humidity wave up here has drained the energy out of most of us, at least those who don't exist in air-conditioned environments. Saturday wasn't too bad, but Sunday was sweltering, and I had to go to a work bee at the community garden between 10 and 12. That just about did me in, though I had a pretty good time talking to people and chopping up weeds for compost. At one point I just sprayed myself with the hose. I'm glad I wasn't at church singing up in the organ loft, it must have been unbearable.

We always teeter between installing our bedroom air conditioner or not; usually these heat waves don't last too long, and we manage to sleep with a fan blowing on us. At the studio we just have fans, no matter what. Right now it's 3:30 pm and we're ready to call it a day. Yesterday one of my FB friends posted that her dinners had really taken a nose dive: she was having a gin-and-tonic and a Blizzard. I didn't know what the latter was: turns out it's a Dairy Queen treat of soft ice cream with mix-ins like Oreo cookies. Whatever: cold and wet and anesthetizing sounds pretty good to me!

Early Morning Backlight

Oxalis on the terrace. Watercolor on Arches hot-press, 10 1/2" x 5."

The light filtering through the leaves this morning was so beautiful that I had to try to express it. All I had at home was this scrap of Arches hot-press watercolor paper, wonderful for detailed illustrations but not what I normally use for looser paintings. The paper has very little texture and quite a lot of sizing, so the paint stays in place, sitting on the surface, and doesn't run around or blend very much; you can glaze with further coats of color with less danger of muddiness. On the other hand, it's harder to make lovely washes or spontaneous marks and confluences of color, and you don't have the little nubs of a more highly textured paper that add highlights and sparkle to the image. Nevertheless, it was interesting to experiment with it, and there are parts of this painting that I like a lot.

Doing art teaches me a lot of things, one of which is patience. I used to be so impatient! But I've noticed that something has changed, whether I'm sewing or painting or playing the piano -- I'm just more willing to stay with it, even when it's not going well; more accepting of the outcome, more willing to trust in and enjoy the process for itself.

I think living in the city has helped me be more patient too. You have to wait for other people, wait for the traffic light to turn, wait for the train to arrive, wait in line at the bank or the check-out -- it's not like jumping in your car in the country and going where you want, when you want, even though that might take quite a while, but, dammit, you're moving. In the city you spend significant amounts of time every single day stopped somewhere, waiting. And you can either let it get to you, or learn to just be there in that minute, or five, or fifteen.

The Quebecois are not impatient or nudgy people, either. They don't honk, they don't get annoyed if they're in a line -- or if they do, they don't show it -- it's more important to them to be polite and have a decent social atmosphere. It makes such a huge difference in your own level of irritation and impatience not to be on the receiving end of other people's frustration! I wonder if this will change over time - some people worry that it already has - but this extra measure of patience and regard for the collective, rather than me-me-me, is something our visitors always notice too. By the same token, when we've taken our Quebecois friends to the U.S., they always remark on how hurried and impatient everyone seems to be, especially in traffic, but elsewhere too. It's not that way everywhere in America, but unfortunately it is in a lot of places -- and for all I know, may be more so in other big Canadian cities.

The environment you grow up in certainly shapes you, without you even being very aware of it. I went from a languid childhood in a small rural town to a big competitive university, and then became a business partner and very busy person in a college town. Now the pendulum of my life seems to be swinging back; even though this is one of the largest cities in North America, with well over 3 million people in the greater metropolitan area, there's a lot about living here that reminds me of my hometown in the 1950s and 60s. The ambition of my middle years is still with me, but it's softening, and I sure hope I'm easier on myself. And perhaps it seems paradoxical, but I notice that I actually get more done, and do it better, when I'm not pushing as hard. It was so nice this morning to spend time just looking at the light, and the trees, to drink some coffee and then paint, slowly and steadily, but completely absorbed in just that one thing.

Picasso and "le bain turc"

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Bibliotheque Nationale in-between services on a Sunday, and spent my time looking at art books. In a volume of Picasso's drawings I was captivated by several drawings from 1968 titled "A la piscine" - "At the Pool," and took a few not-very-good pictures with my phone -- all I had with me at the time.

Later, at home, I began looking for source material, because the arches in the background and languid poses of the women seemed much more like a Turkish bath than a swimming pool. Not at all to my surprise, I discovered that Picasso had a long obsession with this subject.

Here's a drawing from November 1, 1968. The source, of course, is Ingres' "Orientalist" painting, below: 

But Picasso, naturally, puts his own touch on it as he explores the subject and his own psyche. Eventually he did a whole series of drawings and etchings titled "Le Bain Turc."

This one is from February, 1968: I love the whispering women at the top, the standing woman (so much sexier half-undressed and looking out of the frame at the artist/us), the "odalisque" in the foreground - a clear nod to both Ingres' La Grande Odalisque and Manet's "Olympia"- (and what's she holding? a mirror? a fruit? and in her other hand, are those brushes?) and, as in the top drawing in this post, that earnest swimmer in the pool, wearing her bathing cap, oblivious to the others and determined to do her laps!

It's fascinating in all of these works (there are many more) to see the shorthand with which he indicates the structure and fittings of the hammam, and the casual poses of the bathers. As in many of his graphic works, one face or body may be worked in detail while others are barely indicated, and there is always a lot of distortion as well as multiple perspectives which our eyes somehow ignore, but which give great life to the complex scenes. Below, an etching from 1971: clearly he was still at it three years later. Look what's happened to the swimmers, and the lute player, and the woman with the mirror.

I sigh in admiration!

Autour du Bain Turc, Femmes a la piscine. Pablo Picasso, etching, 1971.

Manon's Latest Sewing Project

What can I say?

Hope you all are staying cool where you are. It's a little better here today, with rain forecast for the evening. No excuses for the Couturier Cat, however. Gotta keep those sweaty little paws busy!

This will be a close-fitting, cap-sleeve blouse with vertical princess darts, eventually. It's my third and final piece of Indian block-print cloth, and probably my favorite. However, I noticed it was getting orange dye on my hands as I worked. Does anyone know a good way to "set" dyes like this? Does white vinegar in the rinse water work?

Coquelicot: Patrick's Poppies

Poppies. Watercolor on 140 lb Arches cold pressed, 23 x 31 cm.

My friend Patrick told me he'd been reading a lot about WWI recently, and was so moved by how absolutely terrible that war was that he decided to plant some coquelicot this year. In his garden the poppies are both pink and red, but when it came to painting them I decided to make them all red. These aren't Oriental poppies, which bloom earlier, but the more delicate papery variety, Papaver rhoeas -- commonly called the wild corn poppy, field poppy, or Flanders poppy -- that grows wild in European fields.

It's a bit frustrating to show these watercolor paintings reduced; they look quite different than in real life. Here are a couple of details, closer to lifesize.

I love the small nodding heads of poppy buds. I also love that vernacular French word for these field flowers, which I never knew before: coquelicot.

My wish on this Fourth of July is that one day all nationalisms will devolve into peaceful celebrations of the positive aspects of different world cultures, and cease forever to be an excuse for hatred, fear, exclusion, and war.

Another painting of Eric's garden

In the past week I've done several more watercolors of Eric's garden from slightly different angles,  trying to capture the density and busyness of the plants, the dark places where little light passes through and the brighter areas where it does, as well as the style and characteristics of the different species. This is the best one so far; in the scene above you can see lupines, a couple of lily stems, giant allium, ligularia, petrovskia (Russian sage), and columbine.

It would actually be easier for me to paint a realistic, detailed version of this scene! But what I'm interested in right now is something more subjective, spontaneous, and expressive. Certain places in a given watercolor painting always seem to work better than others -- for instance, I like the columbine in the foreground of this one - it's shown a little larger than lifesize below.




Eric, the gardener, came over this morning for a studio visit. (Manon loved him right away.) We talked about plants and looked at paintings, and I gave him this one to take home. It's nice to be able to do that -- his garden gives me so much pleasure and inspires me every time I see it! At the jardin communautaire my friends are all very generous: we share plants and seeds with each other; try to help each other learn, and diagnose problems with our plants; and we admire each other's gardens and encourage one another. It's a completely different way of gardening for me, less private, more communal, and I like that. I'm glad I can add some artwork to this mixture of generosity and appreciation.

Next, I hope to show you the garden and fantastic colorwork of Michel, and the potager of Patrick, in a different community garden plot. But meanwhile, I'm revamping my own watercolor palette and learning a lot about recent pigments: a lot has changed! More on that soon.

Happy Canada Day, Happy Moving Day!

It's Canada Day across the country today, and Moving Day here in Quebec: chaos that has to be seen to be believed. On the bike ride up to the studio this morning we passed every size and shape of moving vans and trucks, plus people loading their stuff onto bike trailers, or simply walking down the street carrying as many clothes on hangers as they could manage, presumably for a move to a new apartment around the corner.

As for me, I feel pretty much like I've been run over by one of those trucks -- well, not really, but I'm still beat from yesterday, which was our last full choir Sunday of the year. It began at 9:00 am with rehearsal for the 10:00 mass, and wasn't over until 7:30 pm, the end of our annual post-Evensong choir party.

In the morning we sang the Brief Mass by Dan Locklair, a not-so-brief mass setting for double choir by talented contemporary composer who writes pieces that are very interesting and demanding rhythmically, and also vocally challenging, especially if you happen to be a soprano. We sang the Sanctus split into two choirs on either side of the chancel, with the priests in the center at the altar; this the most ancient part of the mass; the words of the Sanctus, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts..." which may go back as far as 200 A.D.; it's said or sung just before the consecration of the bread and wine. Yesterday they were sung on a series of sustained high As, by both soprano sections, but at different times, so the sounds need not only to be in perfect unison, but to match. It's one thing if you're a 1st soprano, but our half of the double choir is made up of three 2nd sopranos -- and that's asking a lot! But afterward the clergy told us that the Sanctus was an amazing moment for them.

At the party, the Dean described this particular afternoon service of Evensong as "completely over the top" and I think we'd all agree; Patrick had chosen a number of "big" English pieces to end the year, including How Beauteous Are the Feet by Charles Villiers Stanford, the Magnificat and NuncDimittis by Francis Jackson, and the lush and grandiose Evening Hymn of Balfour Gardiner. We ended with our traditional last-day hymn, "How Can I Keep from Singing," an early American tune.  If you'd like to listen, I've included links here to a recording of the Evening Hymn sung by the Worcester Cathedral choir, and the magnificant organ postlude, "Play
skillfully with a loud noise" (Psalm 33), by one of my favorite composers, Herbert Howells, played here by Hayo Boerema.

We also said goodbye to three of our pros who are moving on to other parts of their careers, including my close friend Cynthia, who's been the 2nd soprano soloist sung with the choir for at least 20 years. It's bittersweet: I'm happy for her that she'll have more time with her family now and be able to sing in other venues; this job requires a huge commitment of time and preparation; it's nerve-wracking and demanding, for not a great deal of remuneration -- so all of us, including the pros, do it for love of music and the challenge of the repertoire. When you sing next to someone every week for years, it's a pretty intimate relationship, and if they are a terrific singer and musician, as she is, you also learn a lot. So I'm extremely grateful to her, and will miss her very much, but she promises to come back as a sub from time to tie, and I'm sure we'll keep in touch.

So, in a way, I guess that's my "moving day" story for 2013 -- not a physical move involving refrigerators and wardrobes, but a definite change from a familiar and comfortable place into something that will be new and different. It makes me think about those two quite different, but related, meanings of the word "moving." When I look back on my musical life, there've been quite a few of those, sometimes involving me moving on to someplace new, sometimes involving the move or loss of a teacher or close friend. I really cherish those relationships with both people and groups, and am so grateful for them; they've had a lot to do with who I am and contain some of my happiest memories.

 

My life flows on in endless song;
Above earth's lamentation,
I hear the sweet, tho' far-off hymn
That hails a new creation;
Thro' all the tumult and the strife
I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul—
How can I keep from singing?

Le jardin d'Éric P.

The garden of Eric P., pencil and watercolor, 13"x6".

After working at my own plot early this morning, I did a sketch of my friend Eric P.'s garden, which is one of my favorites in our community garden. I'm fortunate that he is my garden neighbor so I can watch the constantly changing pattern of blooming. He's a landscape designer, and it shows!

What really impresses me about this garden is its dramatic sculptural quality. I did a charcoal sketch of the forms last year, but this is my first attempt with color. I'll do some more and eventually, I hope, get somewhere close to the beauty of the scene in real life.

Below is the sketch as it was when I stopped working on it outdoors: a pencil drawing with light watercolor washes. The painting at the top of the post was finished this afternoon in the studio.

It's a complicated proposition, and a fun challenge. What I want to do is to convey the identity of some of the various plants -- their "growth signature," while also simplifying the scene a lot more to help the overall play of forms come through. Here, everything is competign with everythign else. It's really hard! I think going back with charcoal might be a good idea, and then when the forms and values are more established in my head, to try again with watercolor.

Some Recent Links, and thoughts on the Humanities

Blogging used to be about linking, as well as all this personally-generated stuff we seem to do. I think I'm going to revive the effort here, since each week I often discover, read, and link to some wonderful articles and websites through other people, on Twitter and Facebook. Quite a few people who read this blog don't use those social networks (and I say good for you!) so it makes sense to share the links once in a while.

So here we go, with a little something for everyone, I hope!

The top ten words for which there is no English equivalent. I only knew a few of these: how about Wei-wu-wei, a Chinese word that means a deliberate decision not to do something?

Privacy and the Threat to Self. When did the very nature of personhood become a political and legal issue?

... its political importance is
certainly part of what makes privacy so important: what is private is
what is yours alone to control, without interference from others or the
state. But the concept of privacy also matters for another, deeper
reason. It is intimately connected to what it is to be an autonomous
person.

The Stunning Grandeur of the World's Great Opera Houses. A photographic project by David Leventi. (via Bint Battuta.)

Estates Theatre, Prague, Czech Republic, 2008, by David Leventi.

--

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences released a report on the state of the humanities called “The Heart of the Matter.”

Here are two op-ed pieces in response:

The Humanist Vocation, by David Brooks. I'm not a big David Brooks fan, but there is a lot here worth pondering about the change in thinking (and therefore in society) that is resulting from lack of education in th humanities.

But the humanities are not only being
bulldozed by an unforgiving job market. They are committing suicide
because many humanists have lost faith in their own enterprise...Back when the humanities were thriving, the leading figures had a clear
definition of their mission and a fervent passion for it. The job of the
humanities was to cultivate the human core, the part of a person we
might call the spirit, the soul, or, in D.H. Lawrence’s phrase, “the
dark vast forest.”

The Decline and Fall of the English Major A related piece by Verlyn Klinkenborg.

In the past few years, I’ve taught nonfiction writing... Each semester I hope, and
fear, that I will have nothing to teach my students because they already
know how to write. And each semester I discover, again, that they
don’t.

They can assemble strings of jargon and generate clots of
ventriloquistic syntax. They can meta-metastasize any thematic or
ideological notion they happen upon. And they get good grades for doing
just that. But as for writing clearly, simply, with attention and
openness to their own thoughts and emotions and the world around them —
no.

That kind of writing — clear, direct, humane — and the reading on which
it is based are the very root of the humanities, a set of disciplines
that is ultimately an attempt to examine and comprehend the cultural,
social and historical activity of our species through the medium of
language.

Please leave a comment if any of these articles generate thoughts of your own. I'm especially interested in your thoughts about the last two, since many of us have spent our lives in the arts and humanities, in caring about good writing, and thinking about "that vast dark forest" of the human spirit. Do you think this way of being is endangered? What trends do you see in the young people who you know, or perhaps teach?

From my own observation (which is limited, as I don't have kids of my own, and don't teach) I don't think young people today are any less idealistic than we were, or less creative, or less concerned about important things, less spiritual, or less hungry to learn. But as David Brooks suggests, I think we, the educational system, and society in general, may share the blame with a difficult economy for not making the case convincingly about why the humanities matter, and for failing to offer them enough and giving up too easily, perhaps because of our own fatigue and discouragement. What do you think?

A Tale of Two Skirts (and a Scarf)

I've been on a bit of a sewing binge lately, and the results have been two
new skirts and a scarf/stole sort of thing. Each piece has had its
fussy challenges, but I'm pretty happy with the result, and I really
enjoyed doing the work

  

Here are the two skirts, both from the same pattern, New Look 6107. It's a classic tailored skirt pattern with front and back darts and a yoke that falls just below the waist.

I made the beige linen-blend tweed skirt first, and followed the pattern fairly closely. The fabric was lovely but a bit prone to wrinkles, so I decided to add a lining to give it more body and help  the skirt hang nicely.

For the second skirt, I planned to use this lovely Indian block print, in a heavy cotton. But when I laid out the pattern pieces, I realized I didn't have enough fabric - and not just because my "helper" was lying on it.

Eeking out clothes from too little fabric is a good challenge, and I was determined to make a skirt out of this piece! Since this was going to be a summery skirt in a more informal cloth, I decided to just let it be short -- as short as 1/2 the length of fabric I had. I cut it right to the edge, and figured instead of turning up the hem, I'd make a three-inch hem facing out of the leftover fabric, and use topstitching to finish the hem; the extra weight and stitching would make the hem hang well, and keep the cotton from wrinkling. I also eliminated the darts for a less tailored look, and cut the yoke a bit wider than in the previous skirt. It was also necessary to pay attention to the positioning of the pattern on the center front of the skirt, and match the pattern on the yoke pieces. It was kind of fussy, but worth the trouble in the end.

 

This is another piece of very lightweight Indian cotton with a beautiful large hand-block print (these fabrics came from a seller in India I found on Etsy.)

I downloaded a pattern for a sleeveless top that I thought might work for this fabric, but again I didn't have quite enough, and I decided the pattern was just too large for a top. But the fabric was so floaty and light, it seemed like it would make a beautiful scarf or Indian-style summery stole. Finally I just cut it down the middle and joined the two ends with an enclosed hand-sewn French seam finish, like those used on lingerie. Then it was just a matter of making  a hand-rolled hem all around the perimeter of the very long scarf. The reason for those handworked hem- and seam-finishes is to preserve the sheer, floaty nature of the fabric without adding stiffness or weight; that's why they are often used on silk lingerie and scarves.

My helper always arrives within two minutes if I've spread out a new piece of cloth...

Hand-rolled hems are one of the magic wonders of sewing; they're really cool. You take a series of double stitches at the top and just below a very narrow fold on the edge of the fabric:

Then, after every three or four inches, you pull gently on the thread and voila, the edge rolls over to form a perfect, narrow hem!

If you want to try this, there are some very good instructional videos on YouTube. It was a long way around my scarf, but I enjoy doing this kind of hand sewing: it's meditative, and you improve as you go. My hem was OK, but not nearly as fine as one on a silk scarf I bought at Ten Thousand Villages at Christmas, probably made by a woman or even a child who does this daily. When I looked at that scarf after doing my own, I had much greater appreciation for her beautiful, careful handwork.

Here's the finished piece. I might add some Anatolian-style edging or crochet tassles to the ends or the corners; it feels like it wants something blue as an accent.

I've always loved to sew, but just haven't done much of it for a long time. I think I got back into it because of helping to make new white dickies - a kind of collar/bib that our choir wears under their red robes: a very fussy project that came close to production sewing. But I've also been inspired by some nice Indian cottons I bought earlier this year, and my friend V. and I are both doing sewing more these days, and encouraging each other, which is nice.

All of this sewing is also avoidance of writing, because I'm at a place in my current project where I feel a bit stuck. However, it helped me to do something different, and as I sewed, I figured out what to do about some of the problem places in the writing. I feel like it gave me a break, and cleared my head.

There's one more piece of Indian cotton waiting to be made into a blouse...and this scarf might need a dress. Happy summer, happy solstice!