I would suppose that it is in the building process, layer of color over color, the mixing of hues, blended for emphasis, that an oil painting deepens in richness. Watercolor, transparent in the thin veneer of "light" becomes like a stained glass window, allowing the light to permeate the inner realm of heart and mind. The diversity of mediums, each unique in application and experience, allows each artist a diversity of expression, and like the artist, I embrace each unique connection, building my palette, one color, one person, at at time. Rich depth, along with translucence, leaves a trace of a life's history. And within that history, those who dance the dance with me find their own embellishment, coupled for a bit on my dance floor, yet dancing their solo dance of momentum. They spin out, and some back in. And some new dancers enter into the dance, layering yet another shade onto the painting. As I travel, I celebrate the palette, the painting, the dance and the history. Not only of my own trajectory, but that of others in their own passionate step within the greater "dance". I dedicate this post to "history".
The Growth
of Seeds Planted
"Ezra Cornell was a self made man, but not formally educated," P. Tells me, "So, in order to make education accessible, he donated this land for a university campus."
Cornell Plantations traces its roots to 1875, when Sage College was constructed to house women at Cornell, and an arboretum of rare specimen trees and a conservatory for teaching botany were integral parts of the early campus plan. The university itself started in 1862.
In 1944, Liberty Hyde Bailey, professor of horticulture, and director of the College of Agriculture created the name "Plantations". The arboretum would eventually grow to contain the current holdings of over 4,000 acres of natural and constructed landscape, and natural history collections.
For those of us who are gardeners, we know about soil and weather and other environmental influences. We know that we need to make sure the soil is getting enough nutrients through manure, compost, or other added components. We know we need water for the roots to go deep and far. We need the sun's heat and light. And then there is the TLC—the attention and love.
And when all of the ingredients aren't fully there, some seeds die out and others become dormant, and wait for the environment to nourish them once again with layers of nutrients and the heat of translucent light.
According to Wikipedia:
"Culturally, the 1990s were characterized by the rise of multiculturalism and alternative media, which continued into the 2000s. Movements such as grunge, the rave scene and hip hop spread around the world to young people during that decade, aided by then-new technology such as cable television and the World Wide Web."
Alcohol free with live music expanding across a town hall or grange, dancers would listen to the instructions from the Contradance caller. Based on old and new geometric patterns, the dancers would maneuver their way up or down the hall in long lines, intersecting with other dancing pairs. The music? Celtic, Appalachian, Old Time, English. No Grunge or Hip Hop. The 90's culture never entered these halls and granges.
Dust floated thick in the flood of light dropping down from the high ceilings of the Peterborough Town House in New Hampshire. From the stage, fiddles sawed away at dance tunes, guitar and piano held down the rhythm, and Irish flute interlaced a high toned harmony. We walked, swung, do-si-do'd, and allemanded. We laughed and flirted and conversed. With apple cider in hand from the orchard he worked at, P., in the Fall, would offer dancers the chance at thirst quenching after aerobic dancing. | Over the years, P. And I became friends. Because life moves forward, and seeds planted find their way to the sun and water if they can, friendships like these find their own way forward. P. found his way to a new source of nourishment in Ithaca with a lady love, now his wife. The 90's moved on as well, and every now and then, he and I connect on a festival dance floor or by phone. The seeds planted by years of music laden connection stay rooted in the soil that awaits once again the nutrients needed for a new sprout. | Now on staff at Cornell University's "Plantations", P. has brought his love of trees and nature to a studied botanical environment. What was once an apple orchard is now acres of sustainable groves and beds of plant diversity. I pull myself into the small mini-truck passenger seat and P. gets into the drivers seat. He knows exactly where to start the tour: A small path along brookside shade gardens leading us through the trees to a bench near a stone wall. From here, we explore the world of, and human need for, parks of all kinds and sizes. |
Living Memorial to the Holocaust (New York City):
"New York's Memorial Garden is an outdoor space devoted to contemplation and reflection, dedicated to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust and honoring those who survived. Eighteen boulders were selected because in the Hebrew tradition the number represents life. A single sapling, planted by Holocaust survivors, grows in the hollow within each stone. As the trees mature, each will become a part of the stone, its trunk and roots widening and fusing to the base--the artist’s metaphor for the tenacity and fragility of life," states the University's website.
I have been an Andy Goldsworthy fan for quite awhile. I feel that his love of art through interaction with nature embodies the root we lose more and more everyday as technology removes us from our groundedness.
To see images of other works by Goldsworthy:
http://visualmelt.com/Andy-Goldsworthy
The 90's seeds sprout again in Pennsylvania with a visit to K., another dancing friend from the slick wooden floor of the Concord Scout House in Massachusetts. Life propelled us forward into our respective era changes and the seed went to sleep. But K., loyal to the nostalgia of shared experiences, appeared again from renewed nutrients. And from newer technological resources came a probing e-mail: "Is it you?"
I pass through my own history on a trajectory south out of New England and New York and veer in the direction of Doylestown and the River towns along the Delaware, criss-crossing between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Sometimes K. and I cross by car and sometimes we cross by bicycle.
Delaware Canal State Park (PA)
The Towpath Delaware Canal State Park preserves the 60 mile towpath paralleling the Delaware River between the towns of Easton and Bristol, and also contains a 90-acre pond, many miles of river shoreline, and 11 river islands. Between 1832 and 1931, the Delaware Canal transported anthracite coal between the mines and urban areas. Barges pulled by mules allowed coal to reach Philadelphia, New York and the Eastern seaboard. | Once railroads were in place, the canals were no longer economical. Across the river in New Jersey, a similar canal paralleled the river for use in transportation by barge. K. and I bicycle some of the towpath, a section at at time over several days, on both sides of the Delaware. |
The Delaware Canal still has most of its original locks, aqueducts, and overflows. Although the canals reached their peak shipping in 1855, the canals stayed in operation until the Great Depression in the early 1930s. According to the National Park Service, it was the "longest-lived canal in the country".
Ringing Rocks County Park,
Upper Black Eddy (PA)
Ringing Rocks County Park is a 128 acre park nestled in the woods in Upper Black Eddy. Located within the park is a field of boulders, about 7-8 acres in size, that have an unusual property. When the rocks are struck with a hammer or another rock, they sound as if they are metal and hollow and ring with a sound similar to a metal pipe being struck. | K. and I grab a hammer and head over to ring the rocks, which takes all of ten minutes. Because we are both musicians, we stay just long enough to make some music. | The boulders are made of a substance called diabase which is basically volcanic basalt. This is one of the largest diabase boulder fields in the Eastern United States. The boulders have a high content of iron and aluminum and were thought to have broken apart during the Pleistocene Epoch probably about 12,000 years ago. |
According to a biography of Hart by Frederick Nolan, the song was inspired by a visit that Richard Rodgers made to the "now famous" Stockton Inn in Stockton, NJ.
K. and I check out the wishing well, leaving our bikes across the street, then return another time for outside dining and to make a contribution by coin to the wishing well!
Pennsylvania Home and Gravesite
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) was born Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker in Hillsboro, West Virginia, and would go on to leave a legacy as the first woman to receive both the Pulitzer and Nobel prize for literature. Beloved for her extraordinary work on the book, The Good Earth, she spent the first 40 years of her life in China and the remaining 40 years living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and Vermont. |
She shared their commitment to social justice and simple living. She also wanted to raise her children in a healthy, rugged environment. Buck spent the final decades of her life running a traditional village store in Bondville, then a restaurant in Danby, Vermont. She continued to live in Danby, until her death in 1973 at the age of 80, wherein her remains were brought back to her family home in Perkasie, Pennsylvania for burial.
Pearl S. Buck International provides opportunities to explore and appreciate other cultures, and builds better lives for children around the globe.
With symbolic artistic license, Leutze captured the essence of the determination, anguish and patriotism of General Washington and his men during the Christmas night crossing in 1776.
K., also a musician, turns the violin peg to slightly raise the A to match the A of the mandolin, and I settle myself into an added chair in the circle of musicians.
"Too bad you can't find the power cord," I say to the other violinist. "I'd play along."
But the electronic keyboard stays leaning against the wall in the adjoining room. And as the group plays through Italian waltzes, tarantellas and mazurkas, I close my eyes to dance in celebration of live music resonating around the circle. Other times, back at K.'s home, he on violin and me on keyboard, we play whatever we can find with written music—waltzes, Italian songs, Scottish folk music, and old popular songs from the 1930's and 40's, and let the music sing!
Silk fringe, the edged slit, rides up along her right thigh as it wraps behind his trousered leg. His arm, firm along her middle back, guides her back to the left, and her calf releases from the wrap. Mandolin strings flutter a picked melody which seems to pull her dreamy eyes up into his, just for a moment, before closing her lids in total trust. Violin bows bounce on gut strings, their own private dance floating above the guitar bass notes grounding each step, each note. The dancers' shoes slightly brush as steps pivot in tight circles between small round tiled tables.
The man's thin face, with small trimmed mustache, hides within the shadow of his hat brim. The long flowing sleeve draping from his left arm whispers its own verse in harmony with the rich alto song being sung in sync with the violins. The woman's broad shoulders, one strap holding tight, the other loosely riding her right arm, lean in towards her partners chest, and her auburn curls kiss his cheek.
Arbors of hanging flora diffuse the mid-summer moonlight just rising above the vined hillside and glasses of Chianti clink, breaking the hush of intimate conversations. From the corner table under the wisteria, the mandolin stops and the two violins bring the tune to its end. The sole couple dancing lingers in the final moments of embrace, moonlight now flooding the side of their faces below the glow of the rising moon.
Anything for Tango! Even in my daydreams.