Art

SkyDay Residency Report
Bascom Lodge 13 October

a small handheld book
folded from one sheet
of Fabriano paper
holds colors within
a greyed horizon --

“So mountains are languages
and languages are mountains.”
Etal Adnan from 'Surge’

To live at the horizon becomes
larger than mountain & sky

where poems reside

on lichen lined limbs
within sodden forest floors
on mountains, in valleys
in between clouds and sky

color from
the valley
the greyed sky
the pelting rain
dawn dusk

Thank you Monika Sosnowsk and Peter Dudek
for inviting me up to Bascom Lodge for a swell day
of looking, painting and writing.  Thanks to the 
dinner guests that listened while I read Anne Carson,
Ada Limon, Thoreau and a few of my poems.

[images of residency book, early orange dawn sky, atop the memorial tower, the valley, the lodge, the rain at the end of the day]

SkyDay


Mt. Greylock Residency
Sunday October 13, 2024
dawn to dusk
poetry reading 4pm



On Sunday October 13, 2024, Brece Honeycutt will have a skyday artist residency at Bascom Lodge on Mt. Greylock.

Honeycutt continues to be fascinated by clouds and the ever-changing sky.  Seconds compounded into minutes often bring quick sky changes.  Contrasted with lingering, long lasting blues punctuated with wisps of white clouds.  And yet, grey upon yellowgrey upon orangegrey into pinkgrey can be both grim and great, depending. 

Whilst on top of Mt. Greylock, she will observe and translate onto paper with words and watercolor the skyday.  At 4pm, she will read prose and poetry related to clouds, including poems from her forthcoming chapbook, pink grey blue sky cloud.

Thanks to Monika Sosnowski and Peter Dudek for inviting me to Bascom Lodge for a residency atop Mt. Greylock. 

For information on Bascom Lodge, click HERE.

chromatics:  relating to or produced by color

village maps rendered in vibrant colors
garments dyed any color of the rainbow
.
.
research forming into chapters
guided by color,
dye baths and paint pots

banner: a long strip of cloth bearing a slogan or design, hung in a public place or carried in a demonstration or procession

these didn’t start as banners
yet, as a way to mark color on cloth
indigo, madder & coreopsis

later, hung on a Shaker cupboard
finally sewn into a series of twelve,
a perfect circle/perfectly round.
shaker studies 01-12
.
.
pardon the pun, but coming full circle,
dyeing these cloths lead me down a
path exploring the Shaker’s use of color

four years later, study 06 hangs as a banner in Williamstown, MA
and on Saturday, I will present my paper ’Prismatic Utopia,’ a threefold
exploration of Shaker color—practical, temporal & spiritual
at the Deerfield Fall Forum

Eyes on Art Town, 37 artists’ banners found in downtown Williamstown
A Rich & Varied Palette: Coloring New England’s Past at Historic Deerfield, 13/14 September

[a perfect circle/perfectly round. shaker studies.06, 2021 Indigo on muslin, coreopsis and indigo on found textile, dyed cotton thread]

The title is from a quote by two Shaker Brethren, Calvin Green & Seth Y. Wells (1823)—“A circle may be called a perfect circle when it is perfectly round.”

today marks, literally,
making the first mark
in a new journal
finished exactly a year ago
at Backyard Art Camp

the old journal
swollen with--
observations
to-do lists
calendars
paintings
musings
collages

the new journal’s
blank pages
await
marks
& fullness

Backyard Art Camp takes place in just a few weeks
under a tent in the backyard of writer artist bookmaker
Suzi Banks Baum.  There are two sessions
and each has just one spot left.  

I can’t wait to make past paper and then
construct a new Coptic stitch book.  We make
other types of books as well.  Message her 
HERE for info if you are interested.

five summers ago
harvested dahlias
stuck between sheets of paper
simmered, steamed
 
stacks of silhouettes, waited
suddenly, this summer,
their sense seeped in
 
was it seeing the blots of
Mary Gartside, seeking
flower essence through color?
 
fifty seven washed with
gouaches and watercolors
Inks of—daffodils, pine cones,
black walnuts, marigolds

Thanks to Alexandra Loske for alerting me to Gartside.

Her book, Mary Gartside:
Abstract Visions of Color at Thomas Heneage Books

Thanks to Naumkeag for the Artist Residency in 2019
where the dahlias were gathered.

Simultaneous
Synchronicity
Shaker Color
Sonia Delaunay
Sunrising
 
morning reading of Delaunay’s 
“magnetic language of colors”
“transcribing the poem into colors”
in Pascal Rousseau’s essay
 
“Not images, or objects in the 
traditional sense, but colours, lines
sensations, feelings. Pure inspiration.”
Sonia Delaunay
 
“And when light expresses itself fully,
everything is coloured.” Guillaume Apollinaire

[quotes and Delaunay images from
Sonia Delaunay, Tate Publishing, 2014]
 
[stack of shaker boxes from JKRussel Antiques]

text & typeface

words on the side of the road
as in the Shaker “Wayside Pulpit”
words found in advertisements 
as in the work of Corita Kent
words about to be printed
at Melanie Mowinski’s studio
words printed, read, used, perused
aptly, just begin

--Wayside Pulpit included in 'Unexpected Shaker' a pop-up show in Kinderhook, NY until 8/25
--Corita Kent, ‘bell bound’ found in ‘Corita Kent and the Language of Pop’
--Melanie Mowinski, Press:LetterPress

french yellow oxide
chrome yellow
red ochre deep
red lead
chrome green
prussian blue
.
. 
color matching
Shaker Color Palette
.
.
So excited to be presenting
my paper Prismatic Utopia at
Historic Deerfield’s Fall Forum,
A Rich and Varied Palette:
Coloring New England’s Past,
September 13/14 2024

Info on Fall Forum found here,  Historic Deerfield

Second image Susan Buck's shaker pigments for
Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon. Thanks to 
Jerry Grant for his amazing stewardship of artists
seeking Shakers. And to Susan Buck for our recent
conversation regarding Shaker color and her paint
research. 

plants as prints as watercolors as thoughts as sky as poetry
.
‘Verbal creation, he [Seamus Heaney] writes,
 is an archaeological dig, 
“a dig for finds that end up being plants.” ‘

From Elaine Scarry’s book, Dreaming by the Book 
and Heaney's  book Feeling Into Words: Selected Prose 1968-78

Caretaker Farm CSA flowers and summer ‘dahlia series’
plant inks and gouache on dahlia mono print

started a summer series with
Mary Gartside’s colour blots
as inspiration


dahlia prints from Naumkeag Artist residency
daffodil ink from Suzi Banks Baum 
pinecone ink from Hancock

studio work table #workinprogress 
summer 2024 dahlia series
.

[second image, Gartside Yellow and Orange blots found in ‘Mary Gartside c. 1755-1819: Abstract Visions of Colour’ written by Alexandra Loske and published by Thomas Heneage Art Books]

cast iron stoves & cheese baskets
windows & borrowed light 
walking wheels & rocking chairs
dovetail joints formed by Brother Ricardo Belden
pink purple checked & iridescent silk kerchiefs
dual staircases for sisters & brethren
oval boxes in chrome yellow, red lead & blue
machine shop, azure sky

Shaker Design Stamps USPS
photographs by Michael Freeman

of Fruitlands Museum Harvard MA
of Pleasant Hill Shaker Village Harrodsburg KY
of South Union Shaker Village Auburn KY
of Shaker Museum Mount Lebanon, New Lebanon NY
of Canterbury Shaker Village Canterbury NH
of Hancock Shaker Village Pittsfield MA

2024 marks the 250th anniversary of the Shakers arrival 
in the port of New York


learn more about the stamps on the USPS website
visit Sabbathday Lake Shaker Museum