Elizabeth Adams's Blog, page 91
October 19, 2012
The Quirkiness of Memory
When I came across this watercolor from the late 1980s I still liked it, but had no recollection of the scene. It reminded me of twisted trees I saw last year along the coast of Florida, but I knew that couldn't be it. I studied and studied the painting, and then suddenly it came to me - these were the branches of a Siberian peaberry in our Vermont garden, and the ferns that grew underneath them. When we sat on our terrace in back of the house, you'd see this view up underneath the branches. I must have been trying to capture the energy and busy-ness I found in the mixture of foliage. Once the memory snapped into place, I was right back there.
The painting also reminded me of a recurrent dream: I am seated at the piano, or preparing to sing, but the music in front of me is a painting or picture, not a score. I have to "play" or "sing" the painting.
This watercolor looks like music to me! The rhythmic punctuation of the spiky vertical foliage at the top; the twisting branches could be chordal structures; the curving ferns a repetitive, looping pattern of melody. Last night at choir we worked for two hours on works by Stravinsky for our upcoming annual fundraising concert, November 2. We worked hard on a piece called Credo, which has a complex rhythmical structure that our director parsed for us; we went rhoguh,marking our scores, then saying the words in rhythm, then singing them. It took a lotof concentration, and it's no wonder that my mind went in that direction this morning even though the dreams were a while ago.
My bedtime reading lately has been a book called The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World's Wild Places, by Bernie Krause. Krause is a musician, recording engineer, and scientist with a PhD in bioacoustics who has spent a great deal of time making recordings in very wild places, capturing and studying their particular "sound signatures." In a lot of ways, his premise seems pretty obvious to me, and has since I was a child - of course music came from the natural world, of which we (and our voices, our talent for mimicry, and our ability to make sounds with tools) are an intrinsic part. I read the first half of the book, and skimmed the rest. Of course, Krauses' book is all about animals and the natural sounds of water, wind, and rain -- he doesn't say anything about playing or singing inspired by foliage or rocks! But visual rhythm and pattern exist everywhere, and I see no reason why they too can't be translated into sound, music, dance and movement.
October 16, 2012
Bounty
These are the last days of autumn, and the season is going out in a blaze of beauty. Yesterday we took off on our bikes in the middle of the afternoon for a quick trip to the Jean-Talon market; we wanted to go while the outdoor stalls were still up, knowing they'd close soon. In spite of a stiff wind from the northwest that nearly stopped us at times, the ride up was beautiful too -- the streets are piled with golden leaves, and the sun was shining through openings in dark clouds.
When we arrived, we saw that some of the vendors have already packed up and left for the year. There was an over-abundance of pumpkins and squashes, leeks, cabbages, cauliflowers and, of course, apples.
But that wasn't all: to our surprise there were still paniers of Isle d'Orleans strawberries, and it's also cranberry season. Even during these late days of October, the market was still pretty glorious.
As a treat (we were feeling weak! hungry!) we went to the little gelato shop and shared a small cup of 2 flavors: dark chocolate, and caramel brulée d'erable: caramel brulée made with maple sugar. Oh my. (Merci, Martine et Ed, for turning us on to that place!) I can't even tell you how delicious that little cup of intensity was. And how restored we felt, for the ride back!
As the sun went down, the trees lining the streets were in deep shadow, but the tops were blazing with light - red, orange, gold.
It's always a little bittersweet, this time of year, but honestly, I don't know how I'd exist in a place that didn't have seasons. Life here -- and my life, in general -- is so defined by the weather and the time of year; there's always something to fuss about, but also to look forward to, and because we know that we can't hold onto the present, there's an incentive to enjoy it for what it is.
October 14, 2012
October 12, 2012
Les Ruelles Vertes 1
I've been walking back and forth to work through some of the "Green Lanes" in my neighborhood, and wanted to take you along...
"A green lane is a lane of Montreal renaturalized by local residents, in collaboration with the eco-district of the borough. The project of a green lane is primarily a movement of residents volunteers who want to reclaim the space of their lane and improve their quality of life in urban areas. They include the benefit of improving air quality, reducing ambient noise and combat urban heat islands.
Since 1997, nearly a hundred green lanes have been created and are now part of the Montreal Network. They are so popular that some districts receive dozens of requests for greening each year."
The lanes, or alleys, are located in back of the long rows of apartment buildings that face onto the main streets. So you have two sets of buidings backing up on one another, with small backyard areas and a lane running down the middle. Some of the lanes are large enough for vehicles, but in most of the cases of the designated ruelles vertes, the lanes are mainly for pedestrian use, and the occasional bicycle.
Old-fashioned clotheslines often run from one side of the lane to the other -- they're an iconic feature of the Plateau Mont-Royal.
Neighbors cooperate to create these quiet oases -- but it's clear to me who really owns the ruelles vertes.
More in the next post...
October 11, 2012
...and the watercolor version
I just love the clarity, transparency, and spontaneity of watercolor...
...and am starting to remember how I used to do it.
The color makes me happy.
And there's so much room for play.
October 10, 2012
Au Sable
The Ausable River
, looking upstream
We were in the Adirondacks on Friday, near Whiteface Mountain and Lake Placid, where we met up with three dear people, two of whom are longtime blogger friends.
Many glorious leaves were peeped at.
Many wooly fibers were petted at the local yarn shop.
Many bottles of excellent Montreal-made and home-brewed stout were drunk.
We had a very good time. Many photos were also taken, but by my husband -- somehow, I actually forgot my camera! So these camera-phone photos of the Ausable River will have to suffice for the moment. French-speaking friends, would you translate that as River of Sand? Is the river on the sand, or of the sand, or just sandy? There are, I think, old dunes in the area, but all the sections of river I've ever seen are full of boulders!
Looking downstream
When I was growing up in New York State, we pronounced the word Aw-SAY-bull, rather than au-SAHBl, and Ausable Chasm was more famous than the river itself. I've never seen it. The Wikipedia says that this gorge "has a continuous exposure of a section of the Potsdam Sandstone more than 160 metres (520 ft) thick, which includes, in an unpublished location, a rare, mid-cambrian jellyfish fossil."
Now that is something I'd dearly love to see, and to search for on a subsequent trip...maybe with these same intrepid friends!
October 8, 2012
October 3, 2012
Turning
Autumn in Park Lafontaine, watercolor on Arches cold-press, 12" x 10".
We were in Vermont from Thursday through Sunday, visiting family and old friends, and attending a memorial service for an elderly friend. And now we're back in Montreal, where autumn is really moving ahead now. The trees in the Green Mountains were almost at their peak -- it was really beautiful high in the mountains.
Yesterday afternoon I went home early and did this watercolor in the park near our house. I think I could do one every day for a week and they'd all be different -- that might be a good exercise, actually. The light changes almost minute by minute as it filters through the leaves; first the reds predominate, then they're in shadow and it's chartreuse that catches the light, or then a bright clear yellow. I could sit and watch the color show for hours.
The challenge of expressive paintings like this, for me, is not so much the color but finding the forms, or creating a visual "path" for the eye to take. When I thought about what my own eye was doing, I realized it was following the lines of the trunks and branches, so I tried to reflect that in the painting. But another day, you could choose to emphasize the shapes of the trees themselves, or the negative spaces between them...it's all an exploration and a learning process, which is part of why so many artists paint the same scene over and over.
On the personal front, like the party balloons that are slowly shrinking in our bedroom, I've been feeling a bit deflated, a bit unsure about what's next, after all the flurry of birthday activity (J.'s was last week too) and travel. I think that's simply to be expected, and I know it will work itself out.
September 26, 2012
Moving Ahead
I'm sorry for being so scarce here recently. The birthday celebration extended into the weekend, and Sunday was an all-day commitment with my choir-- but a glorious one: the Missa Brevis and an anthem by contemporary British composer Jonathan Dove in the morning, followed by total immersion in William Byrd in the afternon.
Then, this week, I've been working on a grant application to the Canadian Council on the Arts, for support for a writing project. Though I wrote many grant applications for non-profit organizations, this is only the second time I've only applied for a personal grant. I didn't get the first one, a number of years ago, and I have no idea about the chances for this one. What I'm finding is that although it's a lot of work, under a tight deadline, it's been very helpful to have to write a concise description of the project. I feel like I actually know, now, what I'm trying to do!
I have to include 20-30 pages of writign samples with the application, and last night I re-read most of the posts from The Fig and the Orchid, the account I wrote here about my father-in-law's last years. It was the first time I'd read it since he died, and he came back to me so brightly and clearly through those stories, especially the recounted conversations. What a character he was! I'm so glad I wrote a lot of it down, and someday we need to collect that material with some of Jonathan's photographs and publish it. We've needed some time to go by, though.
The weather has turned cooler here, and that means the amusing sight, on the Montreal streets, of people dressed in everything from shorts and tee shirts to parkas and wool hats. As for myself, on the bike, I'm somewhere in the middle, wearing a fleece layer and a windbreaker. I did pull on some gloves one day recently...and the trees are not only starting to turn, but dropping some leaves. Autumn is moving ahead, and so, I guess, am I!
September 20, 2012
Sixty
...years old today, and actually feeling great about it! I'm such a lucky girl, with wonderful friends. And if I should ever feel depressed (or skeptical, like Manon) about the pile-up of years, I can always remember that my alter-ego, Cassandra, is only 9 1/2!
