Category Archives: Art

Art, Farther Afield, Gardening, People

South of the Border to Bedrock Gardens in Lee, New Hampshire

76 Comments

“The property was a 37-acre dairy farm that had been abandoned for about 40 years. The first years were clearing out the acres of poison ivy, and the pucker-brush. Work on the farm as a landscaped project started about 1987….Bed by bed, gardens were eked out. In 1991, a wildlife pond was added….Now, about 2/3rds of the property is garden.”
—From the Bedrock Gardens website.

Thursday was quite a day for this homebody. In my trusty red Honda Fit, I traveled out of Maine to go to Bedrock Gardens in Lee, New Hampshire, where I met my blogging friend Judy of New England Garden and Thread.

We had hoped other bloggers from northern New England would be able to join us, but that did not work out. A busy time of year, I know.

But two is indeed company, and as soon as we met, we chatted as though we were old friends, which, in a way, we are. We have been blogging friends for many years and have gotten to know each other through our words about our lives in Maine and New Hampshire.

Here we are at the entry to fabulous Bedrock Gardens. Lovely Judy is on the left, and I am on the right.

And here are some pictures of Bedrock Gardens, a really wonderful place. I am afraid my pictures do not do justice to these beautiful  gardens with its many sculptures, most of them done by Jill Nooney, one of the founders who designed and planted Bedrock Gardens.

A faithful canine waited near the entrance to the gardens.

We went through the magic pathway,

where three guardians waited.

What was this lurking in the woods?

Or this?

Then there was this fine fellow.

Finally, a more tranquil scene.

After spending over two hours at Bedrock Gardens, Judy and I went a few miles down the road to Emery Farm Market and Café.  We had delicious bagel sandwiches, and we were able to sit on the café’s porch, where we could eat and chat as long as we wanted.

What could make this already excellent day any better? Why, an utterly delicious donut. (Longtime readers might remember my passion for donuts.)

All too soon, it was time to head home. But I was full of good memories and good food. As we would say in Maine, it was a finest kind of day.

I am hoping that meeting with Judy in the summer will be an annual event, perhaps in New Hampshire, perhaps in Maine. Such a great pleasure to meet with blogging friends.

 

 

 

Art, Food

Did We Leave Our Car Windows Open?

66 Comments

In the United States, last Sunday was Father’s Day, and to celebrate, Clif and I had went on an honest-to-God outing, something we haven’t done since March 2020, right before the pandemic closed everything down. First we went to the Colby College Art Museum in Waterville, where we saw an exhibit featuring prints of the U.S. artist Mary Cassatt (May 22, 1844–June 14, 1926).

My first impression of the prints was that they were subtle to the point of being dull. But a closer look disabused me of that notion. A lesson, that’s for sure—first impressions are not always accurate. Cassatt was a master portraitist who focused on mothers and children. Cassatt’s ability to capture nuance and emotion shines forth even in her prints. I was utterly amazed that she could give them so much life.

Here is a short video featuring the curator of the exhibit.

After looking at the exhibit, we wandered around the rest of the museum. We found ourself on the lowest floor of the museum, where there were no windows, and we heard a loud rush of water that sounded suspiciously like rain. Could we really be hearing rain so far down?

It seems that we could. When we went upstairs and looked out a window, we saw the rain bucketing in sheets.

Clif asked, “Did we leave our car windows open?”

Yes, we did. The day was hot and humid, and we thought it would be more comfortable to leave the windows open. Boy, were we ever wrong.

The tempest didn’t last long, and when we went back to the car, there was water, water everywhere pooling inside the center console. Fortunately, I was able to mop up most of the water with napkins from the glove compartment.

But the cloth seats were soaked, and after two minutes of sitting on them, so were our backsides.

Nevertheless, onward we went to the second part of our outing—to Buen Apetito for Mexican food. Fortunately, we sat at a booth with plastic seats. As we squished our way in, I explained the situation to our server, who laughed and took it in stride.

“No worries!” she said.

With that settled, we started with a beer—Lunch not Miller Lite— for Clif and a margarita for me.

We shared an order of potato flautases, which I forget to take a picture of. And because it was Father’s Day weekend, we also split dessert, a deep-fried banana tortilla with scoop of vanilla ice cream sprinkled with cinnamon.

As we would say in Maine, wicked good.

 

Some Favorite Blog Posts from Friends Far and Near

Note: After marathon gardening for two months, I’m still not in the swing of things, But eventually each week I hope to feature more posts from snappy blogs I follow.

Ju-Lyn, from Touring My Backyard, received the gift of a kabocha  pumpkin, which is one I’ve never heard of.

From New Zealand, Thistles and Kiwis featured highlights of a trip to Auckland.

 

 

Art, People

About the “Naughty Corner”

44 Comments

On yesterday’s post, I featured this picture of my husband, Clif, and his friend John.

My blogging friend Tialys—who, by the way, has a wonderful blog—asked, “But why are they standing in the naughty corner?” (Clif and I had a good giggle over this question.)

I had never thought of the portrait that way, but I can see Tialys’s point. John and Clif are, after all, standing in a corner. After thinking about the question, I decided that further explanation was needed.

The corner is a backdrop at the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine, and is part of an exhibit called I Am Not a Stranger: Portraits by Séan Alonzo Harris.

Here is an explanation of the exhibit from the museum’s website:

Presented by Waterville Creates! in partnership with the Colby Museum, I Am Not a Stranger: Portraits by Séan Alonzo Harris will include approximately fifty new studio photographs of Waterville residents….This major new work by Harris, an accomplished photographer who is new to Waterville but has lived and worked in Maine for over twenty years, aims to represent the people of Waterville, build bridges across difference, and create a platform for storytelling and community reflection rooted in our shared space.

I Am Not a Stranger includes some of Harris’s portraits of Waterville residents, and if you click here, you will see selected works from the exhibit.

The gray corner was also part of the exhibit, and I asked a woman working at the reception desk if museum goers were allowed to have their pictures taken against the backdrop.

“Oh, yes!” the woman answered. “Snap away!”

Hence the portrait of John and Clif, two very photogenic guys.

The corner backdrop can be interpreted in a number of humorous ways. But it seems to me that the gray background frames the Waterville residents—and John and Clif and anyone else—in a way that gives them dignity and attention that everyday folks don’t normally receive. The backdrop guides your gaze and encourages you to look, really look, at the people in the photographs. The black and white only serves to heighten the mood.

Here is the same picture in color.

Better in black and white, don’t you think?

 

 

 

 

 

Art, authorpages, Food for Thought

Artists Need to Create…

39 Comments

For someone who doesn’t stray far from home, I seem to have quite the busy little life. I suppose no matter where you live there is always something going on, and observant writers, photographers, and artists try to catch as much of it as possible.

Last week, our daughter Dee came to visit, and we celebrated our birthdays. Hers is in October, and Clif and I have birthdays in September. What a time we had! We went to three movies; ate dinners at a Thai and Mexican restaurant (not the same place); had fires in our fire pit, where we made S’mores; got together with friends; and went to two terrific art exhibits at Colby College and Bates College. Have I left anything out? I don’t thinks so.

Dee left yesterday, and now it’s time to hunker down and work on my fantasy novel Out of Time. I am at 70,000 words, and I might have been a wee bit optimistic about when I would finish.  I had hoped it would be by the end of September, but now it looks like it won’t be until some time in October. (Still ahead of schedule. My original goal was to finish by December.) Therefore, I’m going to resume blogging—yes, I have missed it—albeit on a somewhat limited scale with more images than words and perhaps featuring posts from other blogs.

Anyway, here is today’s image, taken at the fabulous Colby College Museum of Art.

Created by

Yes, yes, and yes!

 

Art, Movies

MIFF Warriors

32 Comments

What a week it was at the Maine International Film Festival, also known as MIFF! (I wrote about MIFF in my last post.) Every year we have a fabulous time watching movies, many of them foreign, that will most likely never come to a theater near us. We eat out. We have drinks. We meet with friends.

But this year was even more extraordinary because of a fourteen-hour Argentine film called La Flor.  No, I did not make a typo when I wrote “fourteen-hour.” According to Wikipedia, La Flor has “a length of 868 minutes including intermissions.” Even by MIFF standards—past festivals have included long films—La Flor is unique both in its scope and length.

Did we sit for a fourteen-hour stretch to watch La Flor? We did not. The movie was shown in four parts, one per day. Here is a short description from Wikipedia: “La Flor is broken into six separate episodes, connected only by an on-screen appearance by Llinás [the director] explaining the film’s structure. The first four episodes have the beginning of a story but finish in medias res. The fifth episode is the only one to proceed from start to end, and the last episode has just the conclusion of a story. ” Four actresses—Elisa Carricajo, Valeria Correa, Pilar Gamboa, and Laura Paredes—star in different roles in five of the episodes.

Clif, Dee, and I quite sensibly decided to start with the first part of La Flor and then go from there. We were immediately taken by the energy of the stories—the first a grade B movie about an extremely scary mummy and the second a tale about two musicians who were once a couple but have separated and try to come together to record a song. Without the outstanding acting of the four actresses listed in the paragraph above, none of the episodes would have worked. These talented actresses held La Flor together.

By the time we were done with the La Flor, Clif, Dee, and I felt like MIFF warriors, and the small band of moviegoers who made it to the end felt the same way. I nearly proclaimed, “We few, we happy few, we band of moviegoers.” We all agreed that we deserved purple heart badges.

You might be tempted to scoff at us. After all, how hard can it be to sit and watch movies? If we’re talking about, say, Spider Man or Toy Story or some romantic comedy, it’s not that hard. (But fun!) However, when you’re watching a movie of La Flor‘s length and reading subtitles the whole time, it is an intense albeit rewarding experience.

The same could be said for most of the movies at MIFF, and we saw others besides La Flor. Few of them are fluff, many of them are foreign, and after a while, fatigue sets in. I heard one moviegoer exclaim, “I ache all over.” With my creaky knees, I could certainly sympathize.

Still, we wouldn’t miss this film festival for anything. Although Clif and I are tired, and it will take us a few days to recover, we also feel letdown that the festival is over and that Dee is back in New York.

But there is work aplenty. My third unfinished book—Out of Time—beckons. So onward, ho.

Clif, one of the MIFF warriors, at Railroad Square
Art, Food for Thought

A Spark on Water Street in Augusta

44 Comments

Once upon a time, towns and small cities in Maine were thriving, busy places. Maine is a state with many rivers, and along those rivers were factories that made shoes, spun wool, and produced paper. There was a downside: Those factories polluted the water and the air. But they also provided good jobs. Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, the factories left, one by one, to go to places where there was cheaper labor, first in the southern part of the United States and then out of the country all together.

The devastating effect of this on Maine, a small, rural state with only a million people, cannot be overstated. No big tech companies rushed in to fill the void, the way they have in more populous states in southern New England. Therefore, young people left—Maine has the largest percentage of senior citizens in the country.  Many of those who stayed behind pieced together a patchwork life of part-time work.  Or, full-time jobs that barely pay enough to raise a family, buy a house, and pay for a college education. (Hannaford Supermarkets is one of the largest employers in Maine, along with Wal-Mart.)

Not surprisingly, when the great factories fell silent, once flourishing downtowns went into a tailspin. Business after business closed, and all over Maine there were so many empty store fronts that Tim Sample, a Maine humorist, joked about the “Vacant Building Festival” in Eastport, Maine, where the locals supposedly quip that “If you could buy a Greyhound bus ticket with a food stamp, we’d all be outta here.”

Funny, but ouch, and this applies to much of Maine, not just to Eastport.  It certainly applies to central Maine, to Augusta, the state capital, whose downtown on Water Street has been moribund for so long that only an old timer like me remembers when it was thriving.

However, lately there have been sparks of life on Water Street, and those sparks have burst into a little flame. Appropriately enough, Cushnoc Brewing Co., a brewery that also serves pizza baked in a wood-fired oven, seems to have been one of the first to light the spark in Augusta. (My son-in-law Michael maintains that breweries have done a lot to revive communities. Perhaps he is right.)

Along with Cushnoc came other businesses—Otto’s, Circa 1885, and most recently Huiskamer Coffee House, where we went on Saturday to hear our friend Claire Hersom read poetry along with Jay Franzel and Bob MacLaughlin.

Huiskamer Coffee House is a delight. There are couches, comfortable chairs, tables, and Vermeer and Mondrian prints. (What a contrast between the two artists!)  Wonder of wonders, there was good tea—Harney & Sons—as well as good coffee. Grace Fecteau, one of the owners, let us use our own mugs for tea and coffee, but there are ceramic mugs and plates.

Here is a view of the coffee house from our table.

And here is a picture of the delightful Claire.

As the poets read, subjects ranged from the Red Sox to back country roads to being poor in Maine. To having a father with Alzheimer. Some of the poetry was intense, some of it was funny, and all of it was close to the bone.

How nice that the coffee house was full of people listening to poetry. Tea and coffee were drunk, scones and soup eaten.

When Clif and I left, it was still light out, and on Water Street, there were cars parked on both sides of the road. People walked on the sidewalk.

Even five years ago, Water Street was deserted on nights and weekends. Not anymore.

May this spark continue to grow.

 

Art, Nature

A Week in Two Acts

44 Comments

Act I

What’s Making Me Droopy

On Monday, Winter let us know it was not quite done with Maine by sending a storm that dropped five or six inches of snow. Once again, Clif had to take Little Green out for a spin, and once again,  the town’s snowplow left a tall, hard ridge of snow at the end of our driveway.

The week before, the backyard was free enough of snow that I had hopes of starting to pick up the many sticks that have fallen over the winter. But no, nature had other plans. No picking up sticks for me, no getting a whiff of spring.

Here is Snow-Gauge Clif in the backyard.

And here he is in the front yard. Despite the snow, Clif still looks perky.

However, I am not quite as perky. You might even describe me as  droopy, and I keep repeating, “Soon Spring will come. Soon Spring will come.”

Act II

What’s Making Me Happy

After moaning about Winter and its bony grip, I thought I would balance this post with something that’s making me oh so happy. It’s a picture of a junco—birder lovers, please correct me if I’m wrong—that I bought at a craft fair last week.

Clif and I were at the fair with our books—we did well!—and right across from us sat a talented photographer named Norma Warden. I chatted with her for a bit, and Norma told me she recently moved to Maine from California. She is unfamiliar with the Maine craft fair scene, and I gave her a few tips.

After spending the morning and part of the afternoon admiring Norma’s work, which blends photography with a painterly sensibility, I bought one of her pictures. Birds and art are two of my weaknesses, and when they are combined at a good price, who am I to resist?

The picture is hanging on the wall by my desk, and every time I look at that little bird, I smile.

Here is a link to Norma’s website, where you will find her lovely art selling for amazingly reasonable prices.

Art, Food, Nature, Snow-Gauge Clif

Bring on the Fried Veggies!

32 Comments

We are halfway through March. Although we are still buried in snow, there has been a softening in the air, and as Clif noted, last night the temperature didn’t get below freezing. As far as we can recall, the nights have not been this warm since late fall. So spring is coming, even though we have yet to see her pretty face.

In keeping with planning lots of events for this challenging month, Clif and I headed to The Red Barn for an anniversary celebration—forty-two years! We ordered their crisp, perfectly fried vegetables along with fries and, of course, a whoopie pie for dessert.

More than a little stuffed, on to Waterville we went, to the Colby College Museum of Art. There was a print exhibit, and this wonderful Japanese print caught my eye.  It’s by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) , and how I love this style. My photo doesn’t begin to do justice to this lovely print.

We also saw a strangely compelling short film called Flooded McDonald’s, where, as the title suggests, a “life-size replica of the interior of a McDonald’s” is gradually flooded.  Built in a pool by the artist collective SUPERFLEX,  this McDonald’s was created with such exquisite detail that it looked like the real thing. Clif and I sat and watched as the waters rose slowly in the deserted restaurant. French fries and burgers floated among paper, cups, trays, and straws. Ronald McDonald fell like an old Soviet statue of Lenin, and it bobbed around for a bit before finally sinking to the bottom. Sounds strange, I know, but this video brought forth all kinds of emotions about our consumer culture, trash, and rising waters due to climate change.

Click here if you would like to see the trailer for Flooded McDonald’s.

We are so lucky to have an art museum of this caliber within driving distance of where we live in rural central Maine.

On a more practical level, here is Snow-Gauge Clif to make his weekly appearance until the snow is gone.

In the front yard, I took a long shot so that readers could behold the glory of our driveway.

The backyard looks a little better.  For now.

As you can see, spring is still a month or so away.

Art, Food for Thought, Movies

Art Is not Obliged to Be Beautiful

26 Comments

This has been a rainy, humid week. While the rain has been much needed, a few dry days would be nice. The house smells like mildew, and I even had to resort to using the clothes dryer. I know from sad experience what clothes smell like when racks are used for wet laundry during rainy, humid weather. Not good!

On the other hand, it has been a good week for going to the movies and to the Colby Museum of Art.

At Railroad Square, we saw two movies: Sorry to Bother You, Boots Riley’s wild, surreal, pointed look at racism and economic injustice in the United States; and Leave No Trace, a sad, beautiful story about an emotionally-wounded veteran and his daughter. If you like character-driven movies, Leave No Trace is a must-see film. In fact, both movies are very much worth seeing.

For a small liberal arts college (1,800 students), Colby has an incredible art museum. It is free and open to the public six days a week. Because we live so close—about thirty-five minutes away—we have the luxury of focusing deeply on one exhibit at a time, which is my favorite way to visit an art museum. For this week’s visit, we focused on Self and Society, a collection of German Expressionist Prints.

On its website,  MoMA notes that  German Expressionism was a “major modernist movement that developed in Germany and Austria during the early decades of the 20th century.” The painters and printmakers—George Grosz and Max Beckmann, to name two—were more interested in portraying emotions rather than the actual physical world. And the emotions they portrayed were usually  dark and grim.

Why wouldn’t they be? Many of the artists had fought in World War I and had witnessed firsthand the ugliness and brutality of that war.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but the post-war period was not exactly smooth and tranquil either. Then  we all know what came next. It seems to me that these Expressionist artists, who would be persecuted during the Nazi regime, had their fingers on the pulse of society. Their art will never go on the cover of chocolate boxes, but art is not obliged to be beautiful.

To be sure, beauty is a part of life, and I appreciate  beautiful art as much as the next person. But ugliness is also a part of life, and there are times when that reality is so great that artists have no choice but to face it and portray it.

Here are a couple of photos I took of prints from Self and Society.

Max Beckmann, “Die Granate (The Grenade).” 1915

 

George Grosz, “No. 73 Restaurant,” c. 1925

 

In the gallery below Self and Society, we came across this—Cracked Question by Elizabeth Murray, who was not a German Expressionist.

But somehow, after seeing the horrors portrayed in Self and Society,  Cracked Question seemed absolutely appropriate.

 

 

Art, Books

Don’t Rain on My Books

42 Comments

Oh, the weather! All week it was dry and sunny, simply and utterly beautiful. But then it rained on Saturday, when Clif and I were selling our books at the Windham Summerfest, an outdoor fair.  Luckily we have a very good canopy—brand new—with sides. And luckily the day started out as overcast, with the rain coming mid-afternoon. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have gone, as books and water are not a good combination, and we will not set up in the rain.

Although we didn’t sell as many books as we would have liked, Clif and I still had a good time at what was a very nice event created to promote community spirit. (Boy oh boy, we could certainly use lots and lots of community spirit in this country right now.) Also, a woman bought Maya and the Book of Everything to send to her granddaughter in Texas. It always tickles me to think of Maya traveling out of Maine, to places as far away as Texas. Not bad for a little indie book.

However, one of the nicest parts of the day was being next to an artist named Erik Howell. His snappy abstract art really brightened the gray day. It fact, his work was so appealing that we bought a small piece. We were going to give it to our nephew Patrick for Christmas, but we liked it so much that we put it on our dining room. (Don’t worry! Patrick will be getting plenty of other presents from us.)

By 3:00, the overcast sky made up its mind to rain, and under wet conditions, we packed up and left early.  But it’s heartening that even at events that are literally a wash-up, there are always good bits that make up for it. I even got a tip about a big fair in South Paris, Maine, in mid-November.

However, that’s several months away.

In the meantime, this weekend—weather permitting—we will be taking Maya to a Steam Punk Festival in Dexter, Maine.

Should be fun!