Seeking the Sublime in the Everyday

Almost done with the Blue House--at least I've gotten to the roof line.  I've read that the custom in building a house is that when the roof is complete you throw a party. So I hope you'll celebrate with me. I still have to finish the round window on the top floor-- but that'll be easy.  Then I'll hang curtains and decide who to put in the windows.  Then on to Blue House Interior! All week I've been thinking about blue; Navy Blue, Sky Blue, Cobalt Blue, Aqua, Ultramarine, Teal, Cobalt, Periwinkle, Cerulean, Cyan, Indigo, Woad, Prussian Blue, Egyptian Blue, Slate Blue. My etching inks were Chinese Blue and Horizon Blue. Then I hit my crayon box and found Robin's Egg Blue (there's a robin living on my block-he's so handsome I think I'll draw him!) Turquoise, Cornflower, Pacific Blue, Denim, have I missed anything? My friend, Mara, told me about this wonderful book, the Secret Lives of Color, by Kassia St. Clair, the history of all the colors.  Br...

Last week I said I would try something in blue and here it is, as a work in progress. It's a blue house,  based on a picture of an antique doll house I've kept in my collage notebook for years. As I sit making all those little dots I think about what comes next. I have to put something in the windows.  One of my guilty pleasures is peeking into windows--Arthur thinks I'm going to get arrested but it's too tempting to see how strangers live. So I should offer something in these windows for my fellow peekers. What to put in the windows of this house?  Maybe some of my own work, like a tiny version of the Bear and the Bison. I thought about some of the gorgeous mosaics at the 81st street station of the C train, right by the Museum of Natural History. Sometimes I get out there even if it's not my destination, just to look. ere's another whale. The Hall of Ocean Life is one of the most amazing spaces in the city--a full sized blue whale hanging from the ceiling.  Tha...

 I'm a month late for his birthday but today I celebrate Maurice Sendak, one of my early idols, author of some of my favorite books, provider of countless happy hours.  Where the Wild Things Are  has been called  " The most suspenseful and satisfying nursery tale of our time."     How many of you can recite the opening lines illustrated here? "The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him "WILD THING!"  and Max said, "I'LL EAT YOU UP!" You know what comes next--Max is sent to bed without his supper and that night he sails off into a great adventure. What song did you and your kids sing for the wild rumpus? After Max has tamed the Wild Things, after the wild rumpus, he feels tired and longs to be "where someone loves him best of all" and so gets up to leave. The Wild Things say to him, "Oh, please don't go, we'll eat you up we love you so." Sendak said he modeled so...

  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 ...

 This week we say goodbye to Knox Martin, painter and beloved teacher at the Art Student's League. He was ninety-nine.  Do you know this work of art? Have you ever noticed it?  Painted in 1970, it is located on the south side of Bayview Correctional Facility at 19th Street and The West Side Highway so it's been there as long as I've lived in New York and I see it every time we head north out of town. That building is no longer correctional facility and its future is uncertain.  I hope the painting survives--it's ten stories tall! It's titled "Venus."  Here's what I read about it, by Marilyn Kushner. "Traditionally the goddess of love and fertility, Venus represents woman, erotic and supple, but it also conveys Martin's love affair with New York. Venus is his love poem to the city where he has always lived, a place that is part of his being. The feminine, curvilinear shapes of the image are in direct contrast with the straight forms that inters...

I'm embarrassed that I live in the greatest city in the world but don't pay enough respect to what it has to offer. I can see the Empire State Building from my living room and with just a short walk in our front yard (Hudson River Park on the banks of the beautiful river) I can wave to Lady Liberty. I'm afraid I take these treasures for granted. I used to say that a ride on the Staten Island Ferry was all you needed; you avoid long lines and big crowds--it's plenty close enough to see her.  but last fall, because Teddy's second-grade class was studying New York history so we made a visit.   Nancy, my dear friend from High School joined me and Jessie, Molly and Teddy.  It was a beautiful fall day, a lovely boat ride, and it wasn't crowded even though school was out.  The kids climbed up as far inside the pedestal as you're allowed and Nancy and I sat and watched the harbor and had a nice visit.  Lunch in the cafe and a quick trip to the gift shop. She really...