Happy October!

Gosh, it's been so long since I've posted on my poor blog, I'm ashamed to admit it!  And yet life has a way of distracting one from all the ideas you had planned, the projects that you want to tackle -- and before you know it -- poof! -- weeks, months have gone by.

But October is one of my favorite months, as is Autumn in general. I love the summer and being able to move around without coats and boots, but at some point all the heat and brilliant colors become overwhelming, and one ends up waiting for a chilled breeze, the scent of fallen leaves scuffling underfoot.

Combing through my photos from when I started this blog back in 2007 or '08, I found some season-appropriate images that I thought I'd share.  I do have new ones, but like many of us these days, they're lodged in my cellphone -- someday I'll download them and play around with them.

I hope you're all enjoying the fall season so far, although many areas have been hit by such horrific disasters, those from Nature and those from our fellow humans.  But even a moment to find that hidden last blossom of a rose or a spray of little helicopter pods turning the most amazing array of hues should be a moment to relish!

 I'll try to be more diligent about posting. When I read back on my entries, it was a great reminder of how much the journaling helped with so many aspects of the creative life -- and how many wonderful friends I made over the years!

"I'm so glad I live in a world

where there are Octobers."

L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

October Entry:

It's been so long since my last entry -- summer is simply too busy and lovely to spend indoors. But now it's fall in New England and to sit at my desk and come back to my blog seems natural. I love this time of year mainly because it does make one pause and consider slowing down a bit before the push of the holidays arrives at one's doorstep.

Nature's palette also invites a new way of looking at things, the colors more muted like a delicate William Morris print. And don't forget the cooking! Ah, to make warm cheesy biscuits and fudge brownies, comfort food for sure.

So this afternoon I created this journal entry above, using a new digital pack from Cottage Arts, LLC. It seemed to present the perfect background for some thoughts.

Good to be back -- and hope to stop by and visit my fellow bloggers' sites, too.

Happy Autumn, happy October! 

What's on the Horizon?

It's been awhile since I've posted anything. My bad, but summer is a tough time. Life just seems to gravitate to the outdoors, and I'm reluctant to come inside and sit in front of my computer and scanner and post images, thoughts, etc. 

But as the light begins to shift and autumn starts to roll in, to come inside -- especially on a day when it's drizzly and damp -- is not such a chore, is it? So as I started to sort and re-organize my space for the 'indoor season' I found some works from last winter, still resting on the easels, waiting patiently for me to notice them. 

Your works do become a kind of family, images filled with memories of contentment or frustration, eagerness, curiosity and yes, sometimes anger. However, I have good memories of these two -- both started out as something else; both were re-worked over other 'failures' with oil, cold wax (Dorlands) and bits of pastel (Sennelier).

Horizon1 (detail) (oil, wax, pastel; 10"x24")

There's something about the horizon line and bodies of water that intrigue me, whether I'm on the Cape or traveling through the farmlands of New England. These past weeks I pass field upon field of corn mowed down and bundled into rolled stacks, not unlike Monet's "Haystacks." 

As the late afternoon sunlight moves across the land, it is breathtaking. You want to slam on the brakes and capture the shadows and light, the dimming colors of hay and pine against cloud-laden skies.
 

Horizon2 (detail) (oil, wax, pastel; 10"x24")

These are partial scans of the larger work, too big to scan as a whole.  Each measures 10" x 24" and is painted on a birch panel, which I love more and more as I work on them.  They take a good deal of abuse, as I tend to use brayers rather than brushes, continually applying bits of paper toweling to remove paint, then add another layer, remove, add. During this process I also use the edge of the brayers to create marks that then reveal the layers below, a kind of construction/deconstruction process, and the panels hold up well.

I hope to continue this "Horizon" series on panels of varying sizes. I've always wanted to do a triptych or diptych, and I think the birch panels would work as you could clamp or screw the panels together.  One more note on this process:  depending on what brand toweling you use (or napkins), the brayer will often pick up the pattern ever so slightly, which makes for another layer of texture -- pretty cool!

We are enveloped and drenched in the marvelous, but we do not see. 

Baudelaire

Autumn Haze

Columbus Day weekend, that lovely 3rd day off at the height of the autumn season -- a wonderful time of year! Today a haze of gold -- I can't think of a better way to describe it -- has softened the sunlight and the gardens and pathways are dappled with the leaves that are falling each moment.

Going through some sketches from the past months, I found these -- simple watercolors, no great detail or angst went into them. But I tend to like them, as their "sketchiness" seems to match the season. 

Small Pond, New Hampshire

As I travel back and forth to work or on a weekend jaunt, I pass so many ponds and small lakes, not to mention the beautiful Connecticut River. In the late afternoon on my way home, I drive the back roads to avoid commuter traffic, passing farms and old barns, even a vineyard or two. 

I love the way the sunlight hits the side of a farmhouse, striking the old, worn sideboards in a dazzling white against the autumn maples and dark green pines. 

Berkshire Barn

And then the sun begins to dip below the treeline. I know in a few weeks I won't even be able to see the sun on my way home, as it will be twilight by that time. 

So, for now, I relish that lovely dusk sky, flooded with rose and peach and lavender, when the light is riding the rim between day and night and all seems hushed.

Dipping Sun, East Weatogue

In nature, light creates the color. In the picture, color creates the light. 

Hans Hofmann

*   *   *

in just one breath
last leaf falls
skies open wide

[haiku by artist]

On the cusp of two seasons

Today is the first day of autumn. A welcome change but a bittersweet moment as I gaze at my garden and see the blooms fading, drooping, dropping. 

But at the same time the skies are that clear, bright cobalt blue and the air is crisp. Above the leaves are shifting to gold and amber, ruby red and wine. So odd, standing on the cusp of two seasons.

Images from earlier in the spring and summer, sweet momentoes -- 

Anna Magnolia

Azaleas

 

-- and my favorite of all flowers, the rose -- 

Last Roses

Two Roses

Last evening I sat in the garden watching the sun crouch down among the pines and the shadows stretch long, dark fingers across the lawns.

There is something incredibly beautiful about a summer garden heading into its final hours. Perhaps melancholy, yet still holding forth that fragile-edged beauty that whispers to one's soul --

 

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.

Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.

Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence."

Yoko Ono

A Changing Light on the Landscape

Working on some new approaches to landscape painting, trying to avoid that "pat" formulaic technique -- tree here, water there, etc...  Looking for the light, too. Not necessarily the beautiful light of a summer's day but rather the tempestuous light of a passing storm . . . scudding clouds roiling over a stretch of marshland in the early evening hours when shadows begin to creep across the land.

Passing Storms

oil on canvas

12 x 16

The other kind of light, which is much more difficult to capture, is the night. This painting, working from some photos I had taken at the Cape, was an attempt to evoke the light of a large, luminous moon. You know the type -- the one that looms up over the horizon while you're driving and you just about slam on the brakes because it is so awesomely beautiful it takes your breath away . . .

Harvest Moon

oil on canvas

9 x 12

Both are quite different in my approach as I truly beat these canvases to death, poor things, trying for that impressionistic, lost edge look. I painted, scraped back, etched with tip of the brush, smudged with fingers. You name, I think I did it. The camera shots are not good; I took them rather quickly as I brought down the show at Aetna, so my apologies. But with winter upon us I didn't think I'd have much opportunity to do a shoot outdoors, which is usually what I do to avoid costly professional photographer fees.  It's also another reason why I usually paint on a smaller scale so I can scan the painting and then upload, print, etc.

Here are a few works that I've admired for years from the American Tonalist school of artists that painted in the late 19th century and early 20th century.  Their works celebrated the natural landscape, especially in light of the encroaching industrialism in the East.  Henry James wrote that their shared vision was one of experiencing the natural landscape as a "personal epiphany" -- ah, yes!

George Inness' Early Autumn, Montclair

James Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold

Charles Warren Eaton's Sunset Glow

Painting is by nature
a luminous language. 

Robert Delaunay

It's that time of year again. Autumn is creeping in, bringing roiling skies and chilled winds from the north. The light is fading earlier each evening and, no matter how I race home from work to grab a few minutes on the deck, I never quite make it, the light dipping down below the stand of pines . . .

This season is quite dull, so far. The tropical storms from late August ripped so many trees apart, scattering branches and leaves that now there isn't much for autumn to work with -- all is sere and brown.  The splendor of a New England autumn is a faint memory from years past . . .

But the beauty of autumn is still there if one looks hard enough, long enough. Maybe it's not something you see but rather feel through the other senses -- the smell of the north winds, the crisp cold air that tingles and tantalizes, the first bite of pumpkin pie or a macintosh apple, the warmth one gathers from the fireplace, a truly wonderful spot to sit and dream . . .

 

weaving thoughts and memories around like so many strands of ribbon and yarn. And as the garden slowly moves into its yearly slumber, a stand of old bourbon roses waves as you wander by, lifting their drowsy heads to give one last scent, a parting gift . . .

A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively,

wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically

that he remakes it in his own image.

Joan Didion

(all artwork and photography by K. Marszycki)

A Wish for You . . .

Don't eat too much,

Don't drink too much, 

But do laugh and hug very much.

Cheers!

November

the gifts of autumn . . .

silver light on water, on delicate petals . . .

a shimmer of amber lacing the last fruit . . .

slow down in November's quietude . . .

feel the wind on your face . . .

trace the bare branches against the skyline . . .

listen to the crunch and skitter of fallen leaves . . .

the gifts of autumn . . .

Commuting Art

driving the commute, car hurtling past autumn woods . . .

a glimpse, a glimmer flickers on the windshield, on the inner eye . . .

then gone.

sitting in the office, the image remains a faint impression . . . light, textures, a sense of earth, of sky and water . . .

in the moments between budgets and meetings, how to capture, to evoke . . .

gather up a texture file, another, one more . . .

graft and meld, crop, enhance . . .

add the mark of scratchings, faded text, the hint of a compass as a talisman to find the way back . . .

all ephemeral, a chimera, a sweep, a smudge as the car hurtles past . . .

Liar, liar . . .

All right, I lied.  I said I was going to take a break for awhile, the impact of autumn, loss of light and more got to me.  I apologize! 

Last week was frantic, hectic with emotions running high here on the home front.  There was no peace to be had and the weekend was eaten up by running errands, food shopping, laundry, bills, what-have-you.

No art, no peace -- all was in abeyance.  By the time I got to work on Monday, I was exhausted.  Easier to be at work than at home sometimes (ha!).

But this weekend proved to be quieter.  I put all menial tasks aside yesterday and today.  My one "duty" will be to hand out candy to the little ones for Halloween tonight.

These paintings are the result of time to create, to experiment.  Listening to Mary Ann at Blue Sky Dreaming and to Eva Macie, I tried working with Yupo and acrylics, learning how this paper keeps the artist hopping!

Turmoil

As you can see, turmoil was on my mind, and I think this illustrates how I was feeling last week.  Incredible the number of textures you can capture so quickly on this paper!  I did several more and plan to use them in my collaging, although I have so much to learn with Yupo.

The Weight of Winter

"Weight of Winter" is acrylic on bristol vellum, using a brayer to capture texture, as well as a bamboo pen.  As November creeps over the threshold, I feel that the year is coming full circle, but that the weight of impending darkness threatens my inner balance.

However, as Emily Dickenson wrote: "Hope is the thing with feathers . . . " and "Summer River" brings out the deep warmth of a sunset on the Connecticut River, when colors deepen into that exquisite jewel-like quality.

Summer River

Well, the light is leaving shortly so I'm off for my walk before the trick-or-treaters start their nocturnal treks through the neighborhood.  Next weekend we turn the clocks back, so we gain an hour -- and that's good!

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words . . .

Emily Dickinson

fragile structures continued

slightly frayed
silken petals
at the point of stillness . . .

seed pods
encased, brittle with life
needing only
a breath,

a whisper
to begin again . . .

fragile structures

flight

Taking some time off from work, playing with a series of digital images -- Fragile Structures -- using manipulations of the software to enhance, to obscure, to render the ordinary into something "other" -- why?

Because we so often disregard what we see everyday, the mundane, the simple . . . and yet when closely examined, these structures are pure, even in the midst of decomposing.

As I begin to play with these images they often take on a new life, as in the hosta leaf above.  It appears to be soaring off into space, on a trip of discovery . . .

 

detachment

This image has an altogether different feel -- dark and brooding, perhaps threatening.  The detachment from the stem, I think, adds to this sense, and the leaf reminds me of O'Keefe's skull paintings, all bones and sharp edges.

The textures I used are from a wall of graffiti I photographed while walking through Fort Mason Park in San Francisco with my brother.  It lends itself to the sense of times past . . .

I feel that autumn demands that we keep some kind of tracing of what is transpiring all around us before winter slips over the threshold and covers all in a blanket of white.

One can never study nature

too much and too hard.

Vincent van Gogh

Opposition

 

Restlessness surging -- gray skies and clouds scudding overhead -- winds blowing, whipping trees into a frenzy --

The changing seasons always seems to make one unsettled, as if trying to get the sea legs squared away beneath one --

The urge to drive straight north up to the Canadian border non-stop, to see mountains and hillsides slipping gold and scarlet petticoats mixed with the scent of pine --

One theory in American history is that the westward expansion was fueled by the growing sense of claustrophobia here on the East Coast, with its' crowded cities and towns.

I believe it. Henry Thoreau's acreage around Walden Pond is surrounded by developments and corporations leaking out from the Boston area. The Cape is a long string of beach motels and cottages, many strung with for sale signs.

But one must slog on. Soon we adjust -- to the light, to the growing cold, to the crowded highways and strip malls.

An escape hatch is needed -- where do we find them?

Inside our heads as we feel for the edges of our space . . . 

in one breath

leaves fall --

skies open wide

*   *   *

You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
Rilke 

Autumn Light & Shadow

Autumn -- one of the most beautiful seasons with nature's array of colors, but also one of the saddest -- losing the light, deepening shadows conveying a sense of urgency, a growing awareness of decay beside such beauty.

Because of the drought we've experienced, the leaves are brittle and dry, curling up upon themselves before their time. I picked several hosta leaves that, to me, appeared almost mummified, frozen in time. I wanted to try and capture the delicacy of these structures. I knew I couldn't accomplish this with my camera, so I carefully scanned them, using a length of velvet as a soft weight.

I want to continue these explorations, this navigation through a shadow world that demands we look closely and spend time with these fragile structures.

So, as the light begins to fade and the orb of sun drifts down into the horizon, cherish the light -- grab those final moments and celebrate Autumn!

Come forth into the light of things.

Let nature be your teacher.

William Wordsworth

Invisible landscape conditions the visible one . . .

I think I've entered a brown period in my artistic endeavors. These past weeks mostly everything I touch, whether a painting or a photograph has been tinged by brown, by sepia, sienas and umbers.

Does the season influence one's palette? It must.

I know that by late winter I am hungry for exotic tropical colors. And sounds change, too, the melodies change and gavottes and rondels, maypole dances and young girls skipping double-dutch pervade the air and continue through the warm summer days alongside colors of kiwis, persimmons, mangos, flip-flops and bubble-gum.

But now the pace slows. The rhythms are more pensive as if leading us to that lullaby time of deep winter, a time for adagios and nocturnes, of lullabies and bittersweet love songs. So, too, the colors of November -- subdued tones and hues, the splash and cacaphony of summer have now mellowed to the eye and ear.

This painting marks a departure for me. I usually paint landscape; this is more a land(es)cape.
After weeks of walks in our local woods and along footpaths, of browsing quiet lakesides and beaches, the play of light and shadow seemed to insist itself upon me. And so, Shadowplay evolved.

Shadowplay
acrylic, pastel & oil pastel on canvas
2" gallery edge

I liked working with the layers of acrylics, of daubing and stroking in small skidmarks of color with pastels and oil pastels, of scraping back to a layer beneath, uncovering more patches of light. This is also much larger than I'm used to working with, 24 x 36, with a 2" gallery edge.

I am terribly fond of the Pre-Raphaelites, of their deep umber passages of foliage entwining the edges, of the voluptuous folds of shawls and gowns; also of Julia Margaret Cameron's 19th c. photography. It's interesting when we stop to consider how much we are influenced by other mediums and textures.

So, another brown creation -- Renaissance -- a digital image of a clematis vine that wraps and entwines itself throughout part of my garden:

Renaissance
digital photograph with textured layers

Using various techniques for texturing the original photograph, I tried to bring a certain mood to this image, one of a waning blossom with the tiny promise of a new life nestled beside it.

For within deep autumn is always the promise of a spring yet to come . . .

"Out of this wood do not desire to go . . . "

There comes a time when nothing you can write or say will capture the sheer beauty and solace that one finds unexpectedly. But we endeavor, nonetheless . . .

I stumbled upon this scene on my way to work one morning last week. As I rounded the corner of this quiet country road, a sweep of pale pink coated the woods. I had never seen this before. Apparently, once the taller trees had lost their canopy of leaves, the smaller understory trees now had the sunlight necessary to continue the change in color. Eventually, they will be a bright scarlet. But at this moment the delicacy of the hue was amazing. I felt I had drifted into something from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream -- a fairyland, a dreamland, a land of reverie where Oberon and Titania reign supreme.

I know that words cannot begin to describe how I felt standing before all this -- acres worth as far as the eye could see -- but I hope these few images convey the wonder of it all.

Out of this wood do not desire to go . . . (Titania, Midsummer's Night Dream)

A quick trip to Cape Cod in the autumn does wonders for one's spirit! Glorious weather, walks on the beaches, good food, good wine, good reading and to spend time with a true friend -- what more can one ask? Just thought I'd share some of the photographs from our time away -- enjoy!