BRYN MAWR FILM INSTITUTE

Just in time for the oscars I am proud to present the Bryn Mawr Film Institute.  Saved by the prodigious energies of Juliet Goodfriend, who has lived up to her name by being a good friend to all in the area by creating this wonderful cultural gathering place.  Read all about it in Wikipedia and by all means attend their Oscar party if you are in the area.
SOLD

FRIENDS MEETING STABLES IN WINTER

These stables, that have probably been around for 400 years or more, lend their stately presence to Merion.  Read some of the interesting history of the Friends Meeting House and its stables here. I painted another part of these stables last April but could not resist this view because of the lovely long horizontal of unbroken snow on the roof of this simple elegant structure.

FIVE OCLOCK SHADOW #2

This is the same light seen in the last painting looking in the oposite direction away from the source of light.   We think of shadows as being cast by people or objects, but there is no word, that I am aware of, for images cast by the sun like this one. Of course there are always both elements in play, but sometimes one is stronger than the other and the sun really creates an image for a moment or two that is quite striking.   I love the diference here between the color of the light from the east window on the right and the light from the west coming through the arched window on the stairs.

FIVE OCLOCK SHADOW

As I am following the sun around my house, I came upon this composition.  The sun was shining through the window on the landing through the bannisters on the second floor.  I had not seen it before or since so I guess it is a rare find.  The sun at just a particular spot - my stonehenge.  Not sure why the blue is where it is, but who am I to question the mysteries of light.

ROMANIA

This month's Virtual Paint Out visited Romania.  This is a country with an amazing history of being conquered, reconquered and divided and redivided.  Especially amazing when you wander the roads today.  What exactly were these folks conquering? It looks like there is nothing there accept a few humble one and a half story abodes and a lot of very treacherous looking mountains, where even Google maps refuse to go.  Tried finding Dracula's relatives in Transylvania but alas there were none in sight.  Couldn't even find a wandering gypsy.  These houses with their aging patina were the most exciting things I could find.  I added the grey skies as I felt if I lived in Romania I would always feel a little grey.

AS TIME GOES BY

Here is a belated Valentine for all of you who have ever been in love.  It is an oportunity to step into the past in a profound way.  Watching and listening to it made me so grateful to artists of all sorts who bring us this kind of magic.  It all started with Herman Hupfeld who wrote AS TIME GOES BY.  Then there is the genious of Frank Sinatra whose voice because of all its resonance over time touches so many emotional buttons.  Ingrid Bergman is  limpidly beautiful in every scene and Humphry Bogart - well he's Humphry Bogart - the hard as nails, smoking machine who could turn up his mouth at the corners and light up your heart.  Hollywood at its best....and now of all things - Youtube, an ever evolving art work that never stops giving.

TULIPS IN FEBRUARY

I love the pristine beauty of tulips.  Here I am following the light around my house again (My winter substitute for gardening).  This is just before sunset, which, I'm happy to say, is getting later and later. Here is a link to the tulips in my garden last spring.

To buy this painting go to DAILY PAINTWORKS and bid on it to benefit the people of Japan.

Brahm's Waltz

While waiting for paintings to dry, I finished my latest translation of music to color.  Brahms' Waltz in A minor.  Each note is chosen from a set of tuned colors. C is Red  and the colors are tuned having a full spectrum of colors in each octave. In this set all colors are moving from dark to light through the whole range. The notes are then animated in Flash, one at a time. Each note is faded to black as it disappears in time.
When you get to my page in youtube, click on Brahm's Waltz to check it out.

JAPANESE CHERRY TREES IN WINTER

These 100 year old Japanese Cherries can be found in one of the most tranquil places in the Merion area, the graveyard of the Merion Friends Meeting House.  I missed painting these old beauties when they flowered but hope to catch them this year.  If you want to cummune with the imagined spirit of the long dead, this is the place to go.  Click on this link to read about the interesting history of these trees.  Here also is a link to other paintings of this site.  Friends Meeting building and Stables.

from THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG

Waiting for my latest painting to dry - lots of white - takes time - if YOU have time read this wonderful description of the mystery and glory of great art by Muriel Barbery from the Elegance of the Hedgehog.  She is referring to the painting that is linked to the title of the book. (the colors are way off here)

"The enigma is constantly renewed: great works are the visual forms which attain in us the certainty of timeless consonance.  The confirmation that certain forms, in the particular aspect that their creators have given them, return again and again throughout the history of art and, in the filigree of individual genius, constitute nonetheless facets of a universal genius, is something deeply unsettling.  What congruence links a Claesz, a Raphael, a Rubens and a Hopper?  Despite the diversity of subject matter, supports and techniques, despite the insignificance and ephemeral nature of lives always doomed to belong to one era and one culture alone, and despite the singular nature of a gaze that can only ever see what its constitution will allow and that is tainted by the poverty of its individuality, the genius of great artists penetrates to the heart of the mystery and exhumes , under various guises, the same sublime form that we seek in all artistic production.  What congruence links a Claesz, a Raphael, a Rubens and a Hopper?  We need not search, our eye locates the form that will elicit a feeling of consonance, the one particular thing in which everyone can find the very essence of beauty, without variations or reservations, context or effort.  In the still life with a lemon, for example, this essence cannot merely be reduced to the master of execution; it clearly does inspire a feeling of consonance, a feeling that this is exactly the way it ought to have been arranged.  This in turn allows us to feel the power of objects and of the way they interact, to hold in our gaze the way they work together and the magnetic fields that attract and repel them, the ineffable ties that bind them and engender a force, a secret and inexplicable wave born of both the tension and the balance of the configuration- this is what inspires the feeling of consonance.  The disposition of the objects and the dishes achieves the universal in the singular: the timeless nature of the consonant form.

"  

WINTER SUNRISE

This morning the sun rise really intensified the blues of the snow.  Winter is so full of a variety of blues it is a joy really, if only it weren't also cold.  Here is something from the BLUE MAN GROUP to chase those winter blues away.

DOGS AND SNOW

Dogs seem to think that snow is nature's invitation to a boisterous romp.

UNDER COVER

The delicate branches of our split leaf maple are weighed down by snow (along with everything else, including our spirit).  I hope their brittle branches can make it.