Flowers and trains

I sent my lover in my car to catch Amtrack's Virginia car-carrier to Orlando, then Miami. Then, an hour later this morning, I bid farewell to my youngest son on the MetroNorth platform as he headed back to his job and home in Alabama. It was a wistful moment where they were looking ahead and I was left watching them go. I should have had flowers.
In my sketchbook earlier this summer I tried to capture a train track crossing a country road in Cornwall Ct. The image was less than successful.

So I traced the part of the car going over the distance horizon, the warning sign and the grooves across the old pavement.

 It was the roadside summer flowers that stood out. So I transferred it to a linoleum block for printing.

linoleum print rainbow roll with metal type

Morning routine

This summer in NY I have enjoyed waking to the sound of songbirds at about 5:30 a.m. It is such a joyous sound and a wonderful opportunity to start the day. Summer is my favorite season, so I try to squeeze as much out of it as possible. The early hours give me extra time to get my writing project done (my Bloodlines art history book), and that helps me feel more patient with others as the day and the distractions arise. In the evenings I don't make it much past 10 p.m., but there really isn't much of a nightlife in the country anyway! I learned this works from my disciplined sister Gwen.

my workstation on the sun porch

about 6:20 the sun rises over the marsh

sitting under a needle point mural drawn by my mother

Barbara Ann Parker, 62

Today we mourn the loss and celebrate the life of my dear friend and inspiration, Barbara. Growing up in Haiti we built stages, held pageants, threw parties, swam often, laughed always. She and her sister Patty organized us into musical productions for the cocktail hour when our parents routinely partied together. Her mother was my first grade teacher. Her dad and my dad started their own boat club, the Cocapou Yacht club. It was all in the 60's.
Seven years ago we reconnected when I moved to Miami. Barbara had relocated there from Haiti and I read about her mother's funeral at my neighborhood church. Since then it has been a joy to get to know her lovely kids, and her husband Ed. I cannot believe I am back to the neighborhood church and this time for Barbara... She will be greatly missed, but I know she will not allow us to cry for long. Her spirit soars.

I am honored to be asked by her sister and her daughter Laura to paint an image for the memorial program. I picked the Hispaniola Parrot because she loved them, they are from Haiti, and she owned one for 27 years who just predeceased her by a couple weeks. As I was painting this version, I felt Barabara laughing at my shoulder... her rich chuckle and mischievous twinkling eye...
It is just so unfair that she is gone now. It kicks my butt. Read her obit here.

Feelin High

Nothing like a 150 foot high railroad trestle to give you a new perspective! Each morning as part of my daily practice, I was able during my stay in Rosendale, NY, to make a little sketch from up on high in my summer sketchbook. For the last dozen summers I have re-purposed a discarded library book as my sketchbook. I love the way the page's existing text gives a ground, and enjoy the serendipidous challenge of working with the illustrations already presented in the page. This year's book is called,  Relativity for the Millions, and the illustrations are by Anthony Ravielli, (who died at age 86 in 1997).

Looking towards Rosendale

rainy morning

looking towards Stone Ridge

This place is the bomb!

Rosendale
Wallkill Valley Land Trust

Pressing Details

dirty lock up- using magnets

fitting in slugs and riglits

the Vandercook 3

about to learn how to add images to my words

Carpenter's examples of painterly techniques

multi layered print on vellum

my studio mates deep in concentration

more from the WSW letterpress workshop with Stephanie Carpenter.

Took a Detour

I was not sure what to expect. Almost queazy with anticipation and worry, I contacted the instructor, booked a room along the Wallkill Valley railtrail, and signed up for a week's long immersion in art technique. Every morning I walked a mile through the Jodhpur Mountain base into a quiet wood-framed spacious studio smelling of ink.
Stephanie Carpenter of the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers Wisconsin, could not have greeted me more enthusiastically. At the Women's Studio Workshop I joined 4 other women from various backgrounds- an archivist, a poet, a graphic designer, and a book artist- to learn about locking in wood and metal type, proper inking, and use of the vandercook3 presses. Carpenter is in love with, and seems to know everything about, the letterpress. At the same time I sensed that she also approaches the medium with curiosity and wonder. After giving us tons of information she would set us free to try our hand at setting up images and words on the presses. Everyday she introduced to us a new approach, a new technique, in what I soon came to realize could be a life long passion.

I was mesmerized by the process, and by my colleagues works along side my own experimentations. Letterpress is a traditional means of disseminating information. It has a history as a being a tool for resistance.  It had been a long time since I felt challenged and exposed to a new medium (most recently it would be embroidery).

There is so much more I want to learn. I am euphoric that last week I gave myself the time for learning at the WSW . This detour might have been the best thing I did all summer.

The Women's Studio Workshop
Its been almost 10 years since I last worked here, but I am a big fan of their summer offerings. #wswSAI Every experience I've had here has been an education and instrumental in pushing my work to new realms. This week I will be learning the ancient art of letterpress.

The pavement has stories.
Route 22 has brought me home and it will lead me away. It's a vital lifeline to cultural centers on weekends and a sleepy tractor filled lane on weekdays. Friends have been killed on it, so I respect it. My children, on foot, bicycle or motorbike were not aloud to cross it. Today I stand in grasses and recall the shouts of farmers herding their livestock. South of here I would sketch old Farmer Swendson as he buckled up his drafthorses. His two boys were killed on a go-cart crossing this highway. Up the road the Perotti's crossed with dairy cows twice a day! Every so often one would escape and angry weekenders from NYC would have to wait for the chase to end. Eventually the cows and the land was sold. Now the fields and silos are overtaken by bittersweet vines and poison ivy. No journey should ever be taken too lightly.