Transporting Wet Art

As I drove down the old highway yesterday afternoon, I got a text message on my phone from a friend asking how I was, and how my day was going?

I thought to myself well it’s a wonderful late July day. I am so happy.

I am in my old illegal ride, driving down this beautiful road. I have the doors off the jeep, the sun in my face, the wind in my hair and two large wet paintings jammed in the back giggling around. I wanted to take the hightway but chickened out at the last minute. Heading to the photographers to have professional slides made for Fall contests, these are two of my best paintings of the summer, hence the slides before delivering them to the gallery.

My only worry was a smudge to the paint or something sticking to the wet surfaces. Why do I take these chances? Because I like to ride in the Jeep with the doors off and the top down,in the summer, and I know I  am lucky.

This makes me think of another time in my even older van driving into Boston to deliver two very large expensive paintings to Liberty Mutual for a sales presentation. As I drove just south of the city I kept looking over my shoulder to the side doors that didn’t appear to be closed well. I could see and hear the highway streaming by the door crack just beside the art. I prayed i would make it without the doors flying open and my paintings flying out on the South East Expressway causing traffic jams on the evening news. But it never happened.

As I parked into the photographers parking lot yesterday, I pulled out the wet paintings and looked them over closely. Perfect, not a flaw. It’s good to be lucky.

Summer Birds

You know in Brittany France this time of year it doesn’t get dark till after ten p.m. at night. The birds chirp right up to the end too.

I would listen to them in astonishment, even when it was dark. They would be so beautiful singing everyone to sleep. It made me think New England birds get a lot more rest. I can remember watching this little French country bird sitting in a cherry tree singing his little heart out, like raising way up and singing so that his whole body shook happy to hit those high notes. I can remember thinking well here he has this cherry tree and several types of peach trees to bee bop around in, never mind all the fields. If you are a French bird all you have to do is stay away from all the cats and it’s a nice life.

Which brings me to this morning, on Cape Cod where the birds are not singing so sweet. As a matter of fact the bluejays make me want to cut down all my trees. I can’t stand the racket. They are really getting under my skin and pretty soon I just can’t be responsible for future actions.

They are not all jays here though. On a happy note the female cardinal has moved out of the nest in my outside shower for the time being. So i can shower without fear of attack. Actually she was pretty good about it. Whenever I came over to use the shower she flew right out and chirped down at me from a nearby oak. I never knew there were so many birds in these woods. It has been two years since I have had a cat and I see and hear the difference in the yard.

Sometimes I think back to places i have lived and traveled to and for some reason I always notice the birds?

From the swallows darting like acrobats among the vineyards in Tuscany to the roosters waking me from their barns in Brittany. The “blackbirds singing the dead of night” in Dingle Ireland just like the Beatles said.

Checking my luggage in a rent a car at a strip mall, just outside Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris some sparrows even taught me a lesson before a flight last year. I was watching them dart in and out of some hedges bordering a parking lot. Living happily among the concrete and asphalt of a strip mall, they could be anywhere. So close to the fountains of Luxembourg Gardens, and the parks and cafes of Paris. They choose to live in a hedge by the airport.

Oblivious to life’s possibilities.

The Cape Cod School of Art

If you type in your web browser www.capecodschoolofart.com -it goes straight to Lois Griffel’s Arizona web site.

The Cape Cod School of Art was an important little school in Provincetown. It was founded by Charles Hawthorne in 1899. He is really credited with Cape Cod Massachusetts and Provincetown in particular becoming a world class art colony for students, artists, writers and collectors of art.

He passed the school on to Henry Hensche who carried on the teachings at the Pearl Street location for many, many years. I had the opportunity to study with Hensche in the summer of 1983. I also had the opportunity to meet at their home with him, and his wife Ada Raynor also an artist to talk about art and see how they lived and worked.

It was a wonderful summer school though by the time I got there Hensche was old and was not very active, at least with the new students. But I was there for a little while and before that I had studied with Sam Barber at his Hyannis studio, Barber a longtime Hensche student had encouraged my study in Provincetown. I am grateful to all my teachers.

Shortly after my time with Hensche I had heard stories that the school was to be left to one of his students to carry on the Hawthorne tradition. Lois Griffel was chosen to keep the school going in Provincetown, and she did for a few years. I heard good things and saw her one foggy morning with a group of students up in Maine on Monhegan Island in the 1990’s.

So I know living in the Mid Cape, I am out of the Provincetown loop a bit.

Because I was flabbergasted yesterday while in Provincetown to hear that it was old news that Louis Griffel gave up the school, sold the property and left the area for good several years ago.

That school should never have been allowed to fail and for that property to have been sold to developers.

I wonder what happened? Maybe nothing happened.

The Provincetown dealer I was talking with is very knowledgeable of all Hensche students over the years, and we both agreed that there had to be one hundred students that would have loved to take that school over and keep it going for future generations of art students, and keep it in Provincetown.

We need to be aware of the things on Cape Cod that make it special and preserve them and build on them.

Not sell out. Especially a Fine Art tradition in the truest sense. The Cape Cod School of Art’s demise, what a great loss to all of us.

Just remember…

www.capecodschoolofart.com

brings you right to Louis Griffel’s Arizona studio where I am sure she has a desert painting to sell you.

Cape Cod Painting on Location

On location early July 2008. High tide coming in so I needed to work fast.

This canvas 24×36″ is finishing up very strong after a loose start on site. When I am on location I am just trying to gather information and get a groove going with the painting. Get a feel for the site and the day.

Tomorrow I am teaching a class from The Cape Cod Conservatory. It’s supposed to be a studio class but I am mixing it up a bit and taking everyone to a beautiful site not far from this painting.

Another week or so the green-head flies will come out and make painting or swimming out here painful.