Seeking the Sublime in the Everyday

 I was about to write about Baseball because it's that time of year but then I heard on Brian Lehrer's show, this amazing phrase; Charismatic Megafauna . Brian was interviewing climate change novelist Lydia Millet.  I've never heard of her before but I'm definitely looking her up. When she dropped this wonderful term Brian, bless him, said, "Wait, what did you say?  What is charismatic megafauna?" Well, charismatic means, "exercising a compelling charm which inspires devotion in others."   I've been drawing animals all my life but this sounds so much more glamorous. I haven't had time to do real research but here's what Wikipedia says. Charismatic megafauna  are animal species that are large—in the relevant category that they represent [1] —with  symbolic value  or widespread popular appeal, and are often used by environmental activists to gain public support for  environmentalist  goals. [2] Examples include  tigers ,  lions ,...

  I've been thinking about whales-- I'm not sure why.  I remembered this drawing that I came upon in a magazine back in the days of my little black book collages.   Can Leviathan Long endure so Wide a Chase? I was entranced and then haunted by this strange image but I didn't explore it.  that was before I knew about the internet and Google.  But this week I googled the title and learned that it's a quote from Moby Dick.  “the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff.” I also looked up the artist, Cynthia A. Osborne and found a lot of her work but not this one. Sad to say, she died in 2018. I'd love to learn more about this image--it's a lithograph.  What are those women doing? Dancing? Exercising?  Why are are the people rushing to ...

My friend, Jim, took his elderly father to the beach.. The old man sat all day watching the waves and as the sun began to set he said,  “It never gets tired.”  That makes me think of this poem by Mary Oliver: I go down to the shore in the morning and, depending on the hour, the waves are rolling in or moving out, and I say, Oh, I am miserable, what shall-- what should I do? And the sea says, it its lovely voice: "Excuse me, I have work to do." The sea may never get tired, and it may have work to do, but we’re putting an enormous burden on it.  It’s choking to death on plastic garbage. What can we do about it?  When I walk on the beach I try to remember to take a bag and pick up trash.  People see me and thank me and I think, “You could do it too.”  But what do I do with what I pick up?  I put it in a trash can but can I trust the ones who empty the trash to dispose of it properly...

April 6th is the birthday of Charles Burchfeld, (1893-1967) watercolorist and personal favorite of mine.  Just as in the hymn my title comes from, he makes nature sing.  One thing I miss living in the city is the music of the crickets in late summer. When I look at this painting, "Insect Chorus,"  it almost tickles my ears. Here's another favorite. I find everything about dandelions charming-- their sunny yellow mop heads, their delicious greens, their name--Teeth of the Lion.  I love them despite--or maybe because of--their reputation as a weed. Many flowers lose their appeal when they go to seed but that's when the dandelion comes into his glory. I've tried but I can't capture those delicate little seed parasols in pen and ink. Mr. Burchfeld certainly did. Last week I wrote about green and my ambivalence toward lawns. I mean, I like a lawn but I have no interest in having one and I'm not ...

Why do I like to draw the rhinoceros? My figures, animals or humans, have a chubby, cuddly quality.  Even my old people look like children. If I were to draw puppies and kittens they would be sickenly sweet.  I like animals with some grit, that don’t look cute. That led me to the Rhino. I had been thinking about rhinos for years since I found this  picture in the Daily News.  Four rhinos walking down a road, just ambling along--four dudes out for a walk.  Isn’t the rhino a solitary creature? Not according to these guys. I don’t know where they were or what they were up to. They look so companionable. They look like the bandidos in The Wild Bunch or George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice strolling down a road in Texas, but nice. You can see by how yellow it is that I've saved it for a long time.  I  wanted to do something with rhinos but I knew my draughtsmanship wasn’t up to the task. So I practiced, I think of ...