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August 2007

Posts from July 2007

To my Jelisava

Jelisavasadriatic

Olive tree silhouette against Jelisava's view of the Adriatic Sea / from Malinska on the island of Krk, Croatia / May 2005

As I have been making pots I have been inventing a language. Through their shapes and textures and shadows I say out into a common place things I often cannot express in any other way even to people close to me; things about the strength and frailty of our longings to be good to each other.

~ Elspeth Owen

 

 

Today is the one-year anniversary of my Jelisava blog. I feel like I've been inventing a new language as I've traveled the path since my first post.


The poetry of hands, 18

Poetryofhands18

"Science" Statue in front of the Boston Public Library (sister statue to "Art") / Boston, Mass. / July 2007

“Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and expressing the world -- equal to but distinct from scientific and conceptual methods. Art addresses us in the fullness of our being -- simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition, imagination, memory and physical senses. There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories or songs or images.

Art delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our emotions. And it remembers. As Robert Frost once said about poetry, 'It is a way of remembering that which it would impoverish us to forget.’ Art awakens, enlarges, refines and restores our humanity.”

~ Dana Gioia (chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts)


Riding the rails

Bostonpizza

Dinner of pizza and a greek salad full of feta cheese near the North Station while waiting to board the Downeaster / Boston, Mass. / July 2007

What fun riding the rails from Jersey to Maine. No worries about traffic or directions. Visit the Club car. Observe your fellow-travelers. Watch the scenery fly by the window. Our Northeast coast is full of beautiful water views -- coastal cities and towns tied to the water for their industry and livelihoods.


Calm, silent, stoic, luminous, classic

Bostonhopper

Arriving at the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts / Boston, Mass. / July 2007

A 4-hour train layover in Boston is just enough time to see the Edward Hopper special exhibit. So many of his paintings have strong architectural forms usually softened by a curvy tree or a curvy body. A new favorite was Rooms for Tourists -- a house at night with light coming from many different sources: inside the house, an outside sign, a streetlight (and even though it was a building in Provincetown, Mass, it looks like it could anywhere on the Jersey shore). The novelist John Updike called Hopper’s work “calm, silent, stoic, luminous, classic.”


The poetry of hands, 17

Poetryofhands17_2

"Art" painting the streets of Boston / Boston, Mass. / July 2007

THE COMMONWEALTH REQUIRES THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE AS THE SAFEGUARD OF ORDER AND LIBERTY

~ Inscription on the north side of the Boston Public Library

Bela Pratt sculpted two figures of women that sit in front of the Boston Public Library on Copley Square: Art and Science (see the full "Art" sculpture after the jump).

Continue reading "The poetry of hands, 17" »


The breeze at dawn

Cascobay

Early morning view from the cabin / Phippsburg, Maine (you are so far to the east here that it starts getting light around 4 AM) / July 2007

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.

~ Rumi


Backyard garden

Grapetomatoes

What did we do before we had wonderful, sweet Grape tomatoes? / New Jersey / July 2007

Design is the fundamental creative activity with which we direct our lives, and collectively, the earth’s transformation from its original, natural state into our human-made world.

~ Michael Shannon