Art

“We look closely at the magic mirror, stand back from it, try to empty our minds of all else, strive to grasp the meaning of every colour, each one of which brings to mind memories of past impressions, which arrange themselves in an architecture as immortal and varied as the colours on the canvas, and build up our imagination, a landscape.”


images for ‘prismatic utopia’ taken at New Lebanon, Fruitlands, Hancock, Canterbury, Winterthur & many studios in between
 
[quote | Marcel Proust on Art and Literature 1896-1919,’ translated by Sylvia Townsend Warner]

juxtaposition
simultaneity

reading about the Royal Pavilion Brighton
pigments & colors reds pinks blues yellows
used across the ocean at the same time
by Shakers on interior building surfaces

techniques of David Ramsay Hay found in his 1828 book
“The Laws of Harmonious Colouring Adapted to House Painting’
‘architectural colour schemes’
personal taste
function of building
function of the room
geographical location
orientation to the light source

taking into account
surfaces materials and objects
unity balance and harmony
coloured furniture

Shakers used the
technology of the time
new pigments & concepts
a colour zeitgeist.a rainbow wave ridden

Thanks again to Dr. Alexandra Locke for your colour guidance and amazing new publication

[Hay information from Dr. Alexandra Loske’s new book, ‘The Royal Pavilion Brighton: A Regency Palace of Colour and Sensation’ as well as images from the book]

[Shaker gift drawings from ‘Heavenly Visions: Shaker Gift Drawings and Gift Songs’ curated by Frances Morin]

yellow yellow blue blue  shiny
 
 
what does blue sound like
and chrome egg yolk yellow
or a pink mourning cloud
 
dark indigo weft
maximized to shimmer
jars your eyes
 
an ethereal
euphoric
emphasis
 
embodied into 
extraordinary
reverie

images: goldenrod at dawn, Mary Gartside’s Yellow colour blot, Polly Jane Reed’s Spiritual Map, The Holy City and chrome yellow in situ at the brick dwelling

pale sky blue
fluorescent sunshine
celestial gold
purple standard
cochineal pink
claret scarlet
cherry violet
chrome green
indigo blue
reddish yellow
slate drab

radiant rainbow

prototyping prismatic utopia
pages and poems

tables set
with colors
unfolding
.
with color
captured 
in jars

‘anything but drab’ on view at Fruitlands Museum
Banqueting Table in Colour exhibition at Brighton Pavilion
.
.
I’ll be onsite at Fruitlands Museum this Saturday August 9 for a pop-up book making workshop from 12pm - 3pm.

Fruitlands Museum, 102 Prospect Hill Road, Harvard, MA. Thursday - Sunday, 10am til 4pm.

And today, August 6th is Arrival Day.  The day Mother Ann and 8 followers arrived in the port of New York City.  251 years ago today. An egalitarian pacifist non-materialist communal society still going strong today at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village.  

small things
spools 
buttons
strawberries
big bright colors

details from 'anything but drab' & 'a good many hands' on view at Fruitlands Museum

Fruitlands Museum open Thursday - Sunday, 10am to 4pm. More info, here

protoypting
prismatic
utopia

prototyping utopia coined by Sarah Margoilis-Pineo

prismatic utopia my ongoing poetry & prose/research project

sunlight on work table
& newly revised poem 

..........


condition report
 
 
 
blue pail with cream interior
sliver of sky 
sacred setting for milk
 
vessels of work 
imbued with utopian striving
 
 
each scratch dent chip abrasion noted
carried with extreme caution
placed on padding
 
everyday objects constructed with                inner energy
made with essences and enthusiasm
 
wrought for industry
fascile in hand
 
 
realized into a relic
symbol of something once caught on wind
torrent of energy infused with work
 
placed in heaven
victorious villages honed and hammered
embodiments of ‘good design’
 
 
what draws us like moths to
fragmentary flames
radiant rainbows
 
rigors of work and worship
symbols of a system that worked
 
equality prevailed
pacifism existed
materials mattered
not materialism
 
care and needs necessitated             kindness
 
 
where faults
faltered into fullness
excess extinguished
into solid cores
 
singleness into many
a whole made a  circle from a row of chairs

thanks to Lucia and Sarah for the editing magic at Blueshore Writers Retreat with Poetry Forge

tumeric lichen
pink sands
celadon lichen
turquoise sea
yellow gorse
silver sea
black rock

find Proust on stained glass windows



glinted transepts
glimpsed on sunny
afternoons

slanted sideways
puddles of Prussian blue
yellows melded into mauves

colors into beings into flowers
azure gentians golden dandelions
crimson carnations

shaded into corners and crevices
cantankerous creatures
cradled into reflections

'anything but drab,' watercolor, inks, dyes on arches paper atop Prussian blue Shaker table

on view at Fruitlands Museum in a former Shaker building

Thursday to Sunday 10:00am to 4:00pm

“A Journal Devoted especially to The Blue Dye Department [New Lebanon] commenced April 22, 1839 by Betsey Coply + Abigail Crosman and their First Year of Dyeing”

I am thrilled to be presenting at the annual Shaker Forum (April 25-27) Enfield Shaker Museum (Enfield, NH).

This year I will read poetry constructed from research—about hydropower & labor, maps & buildings, chrome green ‘bedsteads, biers, barrows, bowers,’ a roster of dye colors and indigo, taken from the Dye Journal started on this day in 1839.

a collection of yellows
a survey of yellowed


swifts
chair backs
painted pages
dippers
buckets
Brethren workshop
stair wells and walls
& a former Shaker Office building

‘anything but drab’ opens inside that yellow office building on May 1 at Fruitlands Museum

[swifts, chair back, dipper and bucket Shaker Museum | New Lebanon; book page from 'Shaker Furniture Makers' by Jerry Grant & Douglas Allen; Brethren's Workshop and stairs Enfield Shaker Museum; former Harvard Shaker community office structure now at Fruitlands Museum]