Seeking the Sublime in the Everyday

  Happy New Year!   Now that we're done with the recent forty days and nights of rain we can enjoy one of life's treats--Autumn in New York. Julia Glass, in her novel Vigil Harbor said,  "October in New York reminds people to renew their vows to stay forever." So let's be sure to take some long walks.  You may remember the architectural tour I posted in 2019,  An Architectural Tour of NYC Here are two great buildings I left out.  If you stumble upon either of these you might think you're not in New York City but somewhere in Europe.   Here's the Old Police Building at 240 Centre Street between Grand and Broome Streets And First Baptist Church, at Broadway and 79th Street. As another way to celebrate Autumn I'm moved to write about my favorite calligraphy ink. It's been my go-to material ever since I branched out from Black and White. People would ask if I ever filled in my black and white drawings with color and no, that really doesn't work; it...

Happy Birthday, Jessie! 7/9/79 One of My Best Days  The original due date for our first child was late in June, but July came and still no baby.  I got on a Fifth Avenue bus after a Doctor’s appointment where I was told, once again, to be patient.  A woman saw me and leapt up to give me her seat.  When I thanked her she said, pointing at my belly, “Well, I’m a nurse and, Honey, I’m not delivering a baby on this bus.” I said, “I wouldn’t mind, I’m way past my due date.” The old lady sitting next to me said, “Your baby’s late? It’ll be wrinkled." "Really?" "Like staying in the bathtub too long--You get all wrinkled." When you’re pregnant everybody has something to say. So we waited.  My mother woke up on July 3rd and said, “It’ll be a girl on the ninth.”  Mom was always right, but I didn’t think I had another week in me. On Sunday, July 8th, Arthur put me on a forced march from our home on Horatio Street to Chinatown, a dim sum lun...

Here are three artists I adore—I love them so much I’d like to be them but, oh, right, I gotta be me.  What I mean is, I look at their work and think, “Gee, I wish I’d thought of that.” But I didn’t, so I stick with what I do, inspired by all the different ways there are to make art. First, Rest in Peace, Gloria Vanderbilt.  She personifies this quote from Robertson Davies, “Money can’t buy happiness but it allows us to endure unhappiness with exemplary fortitude.” She endured unhappiness beyond what most of us can imagine and her fortitude was more than exemplary. She just kept on keeping on. I love her aesthetic.  I had trouble finding images of her paintings but she was often photographed in the midst of her creation. Like Aunt Connie, she made her home her magnum opus. A wealthy woman who showed that money is nice but not everything, she was classy and not snobby—she’ll always be an inspiration.  Florine Stettheimer 1875-1944 ...

Today is my mother’s birthday.    She would have been ninety-two.    I can’t picture her as an old lady; she was vigorous up until the day she collapsed on the golf course.    I’m pretty sure that’s the way she wanted it.  I was born on her twenty-first birthday.    I once, looking for some love, asked her, “What was the best birthday present you ever got?”    I thought she’s say, “My darling baby girl.” She replied, “I guess it was the blue bike I got when I was eight.” “Hey, what about me?” “Oh, right.    Well, you were nice too.”    Fishing for compliments never pays off.  It was nice sharing a birthday with Mom. She was energetic and creative and I’d always have a great party.    Then Dad would do something nice for her.    The year I turned nine and she turned thirty I had the first slumber party of all my friends, and the next night Mom and Dad went into the city to ...

I have a long and diverse list of artists who have inspired me, like Georgia O’Keeffe, Edgar Degas, Wayne Thibaud, Hans Holbein, Hillary Knight, Alexander Calder…and Aunt Connie. Aunt Connie  was an artist whose canvas, her magnum opus, was her house. Aunt Connie and Uncle Tut once had a summer cottage by the sea in Westhampton Beach, Long Island.  The great hurricane of 1938 washed away that house and even the land it stood upon.  All that was left was a bucket and an old bookcase. They believed it was the Lord’s doing that they and their children were safe in New Jersey when the storm came, so when they found a house near us in Sag Harbor they named it “Grateful Haven” and took as their motto the Bible verse Matthew 7:25; “And the rains descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.”     Durrell and Constance Tuttle, and their children, Bette and Port...