Snow Days

My little place in this world is covered in snow again. As I struggled with the flu a couple of weeks ago it became warm and all the snow melted away before Christmas. It all just didn't feel right! I began to feel better and then freezing temperatures and a few flurries came on Christmas Eve. Beginning on New Year's Day the snow officially returned. The fresh snow is one of the things I am grateful for in 2014.

I have been enjoying looking at art work online that captures the beauty of winter and this snowy season. A friend recently posted art work done in the early 1900's by Wladyslaw Jarocki on facebook and I found his work beautiful. I love the contrast of the whites, greys, browns and blues of the landscape with the brightly colored scarves and embroidery accents on the traditional clothing of his Polish highlander subjects. I want to give away my black, nylon covered jacket for sheepskin, fleece lined, embroidered coats, woolen stockings, leather boots, long heavy skirts and colorful scarves and dress like these beautiful highland women.

Władysław Jarocki, Żółta chustka oil, canvas

Wladyslaw Jarocki, "Winter Sun", oil on canvas, 69.5 x 99 cm, private collection

Wladyslaw Jarocki, "Hunter in Winter", 1915, oil on plywood, 98 x 67 cm, private collection

This past holiday season I was particularly inspired by eclectic paintings and other works of art posted by a blogger at A Polar Bear's Tale. The art work posted there is so special. There are illustrations, fine paintings, crafted items and photographs to be enjoyed. All the images chosen for this blog seem infused with magic, beauty and nostalgia. The posts cover themes and the art work reflects the seasons and holidays. I enjoyed looking at this blog over Christmas more than watching a holiday movie or tv program. If you enjoy looking at lovely works of art that reflect the magic of a season I suggest that you head over to A Polar Bear's Tale to scroll through the treasures there.

And finally since this is the first post of the New Year I think gratitude is the word for 2014. I started a gratitude jar and before going to sleep I will write down on a piece of paper a moment of beauty from the day for which I am grateful. On New Year's Eve this upcoming year I will read about all the positive things that filled up 2014. Among other things, I am grateful for the love of my family and friends, the return of snow, celebrating Christmas again with my mom and dad who came up to visit on New Year's Day bearing beautifully wrapped gifts, birds chirping and singing outside on a walk and nearby my bird feeders and the kisses of my 18 month old, cutie-pie of a boy, Kazmir.

gifts on New Year's Day with snow just beginning to fall outside

garden in snow

My house in the snow

Spruce Corner

For the last two weekends some of my cards and embroidery pieces were at the Spruce Corner Schoolhouse Holiday Sale. Above are some pictures of this magical little place. I traveled "over the river and through the woods" to get here and also seemed to travel back in time.

This little schoolhouse harkens back to another time when we educated our children in our small communities in one room buildings. Kids of all ages would gather to learn together. As I set up my things for the holiday sale my mind wandered. Part of me longs to send my child to this place with other kids of all ages, with a dedicated teacher who believes in creativity and story as well as math and science. Today schools often look like office buildings or even worse, prisons. They are often big impersonal spaces filled with people and tied to the clock like a factory. Although a place like this may be filled with good teachers and love, it is just hard for me to think about how big classrooms and schools have become in their physical size and numbers of students. The system is less personal. So when I come to this space for the holiday sale, as an artist and a holiday shopper, I start to day dream about "what if?". What if our small communities in the hills of MA could open some schoolhouses like this with a dedicated teacher and smaller groups of our children? Is it possible? What would it look like?

When I walk through the wooden door the first thing that I am aware of is the quiet. There is only the sound of the crackling fire and the hushed voices of other holiday shoppers. I also quickly become aware of the lack of electricity.  The light is all natural. On a cloudy day or at twilight the space has a muted, serene quality and on a sunny day the sun casts shadows, playing with the window panes and lovely arts and crafts objects that are for sale. A fire in the big wood stove heats the space. A top the stove a pot of spiced, hot apple cider infuses it's fragrance throughout the room. The building is truly how it would have been in the 18th and 19th centuries. There is no loud holiday pop music, no glaring flourescent lights and no crowds. It's a place where I can think and where I can enjoy what I'm looking at.

If you live in the area or find yourself in western MA during the first two weekends in December perhaps you would like to shop here too? The Spruce Corner Schoolhouse is on Rt. 116 between Ashfield and Plainfield, MA. This was my third time participating in this sale and I look forward to it every year.

Here are a few things that I purchased this year. I knitted knome for Kazi, a felted Christmas tree ornament and some felting materials to try my hand at felt painting.

It's a  beautiful frigid snow day here at my home and I'm keeping the wood stove pumping as I write this.  If you look closely at the picture with the knitted knome, out the window my sentient sunflower is still standing guard over our house and garden. Her head is bowed and she wears a cap of snow. I hope you are enjoying the warmth of the season where ever you are!

Late Winter: A season all it's own...

The quality of the light in late winter is distinct in my mind. I've felt for a long time that the end of February through early March seems like a season all it's own. It is not spring yet but it doesn't feel like winter anymore. The light is noticeably returning as I can see the time on the clock at 6am without having to turn the light on. The evenings are stretching out so that I see the western horizon line faintly aglow as I look out the window while nursing Kaz to sleep. I am a creature of light and love how the play of seasons and the time of day is forever changing the pallette in which I dwell.

Last Friday I found myself taking the long way home from an outing to the Clark Art Museum in Williamstown, MA. The mountains are just a little more dramatic over that way and I loved losing myself on the country roads, passing dairy farms and expansive vistas as I drove higher and higher in elevation. The whites of the snow also became shades of blue, gray and purple as the sky, light and shadows, played across open fields and forested mountainsides.

Another marker to this season, which is other than winter and spring, is the flowing of the sap within the trees. Things are stirring and coming back to life. A highlight of living here in New England is the marking of this time with Maple syrup making. It's been a couple years since we've tapped some of our Maple trees but today we put in six taps and hung from them the metal buckets to collect the sap. We don't make a big production out of this, just a little fun and work which gets us outside with the end result being a quart or two of syrup for morning pancakes and waffles. I look forward to checking the buckets everyday to see if they need emptying and putting a large stock pot full of the sap on the wood stove to eventually be boiled down to the sweet syrup. I find that getting out this time of year is special. The chirping of the chicadees have that beautiful springtime quality, the sun is higher in the sky and shines down a bit stronger.

Phoenix

A highlight of this gray and snowy February was visiting Mass MoCA for the art museum’s free day a few weeks ago. After packing the car with baby and stroller we drove off through the hills of western MA to North Adams the day after we got 17 inches of white, powdery snow. What a beautiful drive! The wheels of the car were hushed as they turned on top of a packed layer of snow on the streets while sun shone down on pure white, reflecting sparkles like crystals.

The most beautiful and interesting piece of art of the day was Xu Bing’s Phoenix installation. This is the kind of creation that makes your jaw drop in wonder as you enter the huge space and catch your first glimpse of the two Phoenixes. Masses of metal and bamboo - construction and building debris from building sites in Beijing - defy logic, suspended in the air from the ceiling as if flying. Rubbish is arranged artfully and becomes poetry: beautiful and harmonious. The two phoenixes are almost 100 feet long and weigh over 20 tons in all.

Originally the works were commissioned by a real estate developer for a glass atrium connecting two World Financial Towers in Beijing. While visiting the site the artist was impacted by the contrast between the raw, gritty realities of the laborers and their living and working conditions and the building's splendor and opulence. This reality reflects the truth of two worlds living side by side in Chinese society. Wealth and excess contrasts with the stark and gritty.

One of the things I find particularly interesting about this work is it’s connection to the creation of a societies folk art: everyday people creating works of meaning with materials that are at hand. 

Xu Bing uses found materials at the construction site and builds the sculptures with the migrant laborers, the same laborers responsible for the growing skyline in Beijing.  His muse is the mythical symbol of the male and female phoenix.

“...this multifaceted symbol which has signified a multitued of meanings throughout history, from imperial power and wealth, to prosperity, fertility and eternity, The artist was particularly attracted to an image of the phoenix from the Han Dynasty, when the bird was often featured in male/female pairs like those now suspended from MASS MoCA’s beams. Steel rebar, girders, bamboo, scaffolding, conduit, shovels, hard hats, gloves and other evidence of labor (demolition) form the body, feathers and talons of Xu’s interpretation of these mythical birds. The heads of both the male Feng and the female Huang are made from the nose of an industrial jack hammers, a contemporary translation of their strength and ferocity (historical images of the phoenix often show the powerful bird with a snake in its talons or beak).

As an image, Xu’s birds are a potent comment on wealth and excess - and also on the progress of modern society and the debris often left in the wake of progress.”
(- MASS MoCA, text by Susan Cross)

I'm always especially interested in a creation when it's connected to folk art traditions. Something pure happens when the playing ground is level and art is made for something other than the enjoyment of the elite.

I was only able to take a couple pictures before my camera’s battery ran out. One is the header to this blog entry and the other follows...

 I found these images to share online:

I wish I saw the sculptures lit up at night with the LED lights that outline these pieces. I might try and get back to the museum to see this before the exhibit travels on down to NYC. I believe the next place it will inhabit is a cathedral! I'd like to see that too!

Winter Solstice

It's solstice already. The dark, cold, quiet time. In moments I'm met with an extreme sense of well being. Like when I'm driving over a hill, heading west at sundown and get to see the layers of clouds exhibiting many shades of gray with pastel colors illuminating them from beneath as the sun tucks itself in beyond the horizon. Tonight I had such a moment of quiet in the car, looking at the play of colors in the clouds and imagined sitting down to work it out with my water colors. Another time is when I stoke the fire in the wood stove and the logs light up cheerfully with bright flames providing a flickering dance to look at and cozy warmth to sit in front of with Kazmir and play. I've been listening to classical music a lot lately, the local public radio station in the car and using my Spotify account to listen to all kinds of interesting instrumental and vocal music. Russian folk guitar and the singing of Anonymous Four, their Wolcum Yule album, has been played a lot these past days. This stuff fits my mood perfectly. I need quiet, reflective music,  nothing too cheery or upbeat, something soul soothing and beautiful. Perhaps its my solace in this time of constant care giving. Giving all I have to another being and living by my son's schedule. I need soothing. I also need soothing in this time of hard realities in the world.

In my head, I've been thinking and dreaming about things I want to do. Things I'd like to make time for in my life. It's that time of year too. Time to reflect and make plans for the year ahead. I feel like I may be ready to begin my "independent studies" again soon. I just need to organize myself and my things so that it is easy to work on what I want to work on when I have a brief window of time. I just don't have a lot of open ended time. I get an hour here and an hour there and then there is the evening hours which are often still punctuated by Kaz's stirrings and need to nurse as he settles down for the night. I'm not good at working with interruptions or with clutter around. I need clarity around me so that I can think clearly. So I'll just have to do my best in this new reality. I do not want to stop working on what I was working on before the baby arrived. I want to pursue my dreams and passions and also be an example for Kaz so he can grow up witnessing adults around him following their dreams. I got an interesting email today from a man who found my blog by looking for information for the village of his ancestors which happens to be the same village where my Hungarian ancestors lived. This email got me to look back at my blog and read the post he found. I also read other posts from my trip in the summer or 2011. Wow! What a trip. Was that really me? I'm in such a different place now but still I know all that experience lives inside me. There is a lot more desire and longing for connection, understanding and learning in these areas of interest...folk culture, eastern Europe, art making and family....  I think it's time to start making baby steps in that direction again and hopefully some momentum will build and I will be able to move forward on dreams that are important to me.

Speaking of the holidays and dreams I will spend Christmas in Krakow someday. I just saw this link, an article on CNN"s travel page about Krakow at Christmastime, made by someone on Facebook and it totally touches on my longing to get back to Krakow....Old town center, Christmas Market, mulled wine. Time to really start my Polish language tapes in earnest.

On another note, it has been an exciting couple of months in that I've had my art work up at the Meekins Library in Williamsburg MA for November and December. It's been a very successful show and have gotten nice feedback, sold a few prints and lots of cards and may have gotten a commission to make paper cuts for a lampshade. My cards have been selling well in the handful of places I have them. That feels good too and I look forward to spending more time organizing and working on my design business this winter into next year.

Finally I want to wish you a happy and healthy holiday season and close to 2012. I wish you all many blessings and much love in 2013! To take us out, a picture of Kaz similar to what I chose to use for our holiday card this year. He's the best part of 2012 for us! His arrival has been a source of great joy. xoxo

Meditations in the Snow

I've been taking walks and snow shoeing in Northampton while staying at a friend's apartment and taking care of her two adorable kitties.  I found a path by a stream, behind the houses that make up the lovely neighborhoods surrounding Smith College.  The path has shown me many of it's secrets which gives me feelings of peacefulness and delight.  Some signs, perhaps coincidentally or not, came to me on my walk.  There is a spiraling labyrinth under a thick layer of snow with colorful Tibetan prayer flags hanging over it, made by a small community of three neighboring families.  It's a space tucked away from it all where you are invited to walk, reflect and say prayers.  Although I was tempted to go into the spiral, the smooth, beautiful whiteness of the untouched snow as it contoured over the spiral was so pure and poetic that I couldn't disturb the image with my footprints.  I want other's to have the opportunity to stand and admire the spiral's shape in the snow and reflect.

I've been reading "The Way To Freedom: Core Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism" by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and thinking about Buddha's teachings and instructions, and the law of karma or cause and effect.  Coming across these spaces unexpectedly while I was on a quiet walk to get fresh air, exercise and let my mind wander was an interesting and synchronizing way for the physical surroundings to affirm my state of mind.   Later as I came out of the woods that followed the stream on to Smith's campus I found a sitting pagoda with Japanese style gardens around it and a Buddha peaking out of a snow drift.

Shadow Shapes on Snow and Ice

One of my favorite things to do in the winter, after the snow falls, is to look at the shadows cast against shades of white snow.  I love the blues, purples and grays that appear in abstract and recognizable shapes when the sun or moon comes out on a clear, cold day or evening.  I walk and look for interesting things that happen when light plays against objects and textures.  The subtle ridges and lines created by wind over the surface of a field of snow and the play of light against these surfaces can make for some interesting abstract images.  Trees show another side of themselves as their mirror image is cast in shadow on the white covered ground.  Snow, light, wind, cold, ice, trees, plants make some nice art during the chilly days and evenings of winter.