My Best of NYC

Joe's

120th & Broadway

(for my morning coffee)

My Train Stop

Metropolitan Opera House

Lincoln Square

Wafels & Dinges

Dante Park

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Childe Hassam

Celia Thaxter's Garden, Isle of Shoals, Maine

1890

Winslow Homer

Maine Coast

1896

John Singer Sargent

Portrait of Madame X

1883-1884

Riverside Church

Lunch

Henry Moore

Reclining Figure

1965

at Lincoln Center

Hill Country Barbecue Market
Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center

Chopped Barbecue Beef with Cole Slaw

Museum of Modern Art

Henri Matisse

The Red Studio

1911

Paul Cezanne

Pines and Rocks

1897

Pablo Picasso

Girl Before a Mirror

1932

Pablo Picasso

Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon

1907

Jackson Pollock

One:  Number 31, 1950

1950

My Good-bye NYC Dinner

Le Monde

Broadway & 112-113th

(top, clockwise) Heirloom Tomato and Fresh Mozzarella, warmed with Arugula and Balsamic Reduction; la pain et beurre (?); Merguez (N. African lamb sausage) with Mustard Sauce; Pork and Chicken Pate with Cornichons, Toasted Brioche, and Lettuce with Tomato and Vinaigrette: and a glass of chilled Sauvignon Blanc.

Bye New York!

Race Day!

I got back from NYC on Saturday night and went racing off MDI on Sunday.  It was a perfect way to ease back into island life, although, like in NYC, I was surrounded by art - awesome, inspiring scenery.

Norwood Cove, Southwest Harbor

It was a perfect summer day for anyone, but for those of us who were sailing, the conditions could not have been better.  The wind was blowing 10-20 knots, south to southwest.  And sunny - the sky was summer blue with ever-changing wispy clouds.

South of Cranberry Island 

The course took us from Greening's Island in The Great Harbor south out to Bunker's Ledge, then east past Cranberry Island, over to and around Baker's Island, and finally west past Sutton's Island and to the finish off Northeast Harbor.

South of Cranberry Island and Islesford

Excellent Sail Trim

Covering the Competition

We were in third place for most of the race, and our strategy was to stay close to the competition - not go off on some wild tangent hoping we would guess right.  We didn't make mistakes as a crew.  Our tacking and spinnaker sets and takedowns were all good.  We communicate well with each other and we love our "skipper".  He's a hero.  He shares the helm with Phyllis, herself a "world-class" sailor. 

Heading Back to the Rock

Uh-oh, Light Air Ahead . . . patience

Then, in between Sutton's and Great Cranberry, the wind lightened, died, shifted, then  v-e-r-y   s-l-o-w-l-y  filled in from the southwest.  We decided to stick close to the north shore of Great Cranberry, expecting the wind shift and we found ourselves with the best advantage of getting/drifting to the wind sooner than the other boats - we kept inching closer and closer to the wind line, not much control of the helm with the boat auto-tacking.  Our concern was catching a lobster pot, but finally, poof!  the sails snapped full and we gradually picked up speed, distancing ourselves from the competition who were left stalled, frustrated, and impatiently waiting for the new breeze.  

Race Committee

We got the gun!  First place finish!  Thanks, Shearwater, great race!  Hooray Eventyr!  Cold beers and chocolate chip cookies all around!

Back home to Norwood Cove.

Our Competition . . . nice race . . .  (hi, john)

We are officially the boat to beat in the MDI Series.  Two wins in a row!  

Brooklyn Museum √

Brooklyn Museum  - add to "Done" list.

I arrived in NYC on Saturday and had all day Sunday to do whatever I wanted.  No question about it - Brooklyn Museum.  So I hopped on the 1 Train at 116th and made my way to Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Museum 

The Museum came into view immediately as I reached the top steps leading out from the subway.  It was striking - an incredibly beautiful building.  Awesome, really.  I stopped in my tracks and just said, oh, my . . .", when someone behind me responded, "uh, excuse me, huh?"  Oh right, you don't just stop - on subway stairs . . . in New York . . .  oops.  I took a picture after I let the people get by me.  

I made a plan to focus on mid-19th to mid-20th C. European and American paintings.  Otherwise, trying to see it all is way too overwhelming and I end up feeling defeated.  So, I've learned to pace myself at museums.  (I did so well pacing myself here that after a break in the cafe I treated myself to some Italian Renaissance paintings.)  My plan worked well for the amount of time I had.  I was able to really look and notice and engage, and even do "little inside dances" (see post Up Close and Personal, 6/11/13) when I came upon a "famous" painting, like Edward Hicks' Peaceable Kingdom, c1833-34. 

Marsden Hartley

Evening Storm, Schoodic, Maine No. 2

1942

So, anyway, I was excited to see Marsden Hartley paintings at the museum.  Hartley (1877-1943) was an American Modernist painter who lived and worked in Europe, the American southwest, and New York City, though he was born in Lewiston, Maine, summered in Maine, and painted exclusively in Maine in the last years of his life.  His influences were Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso, artists he became familiar with during his days of studying and running in New York avant-garde circles; although it was the people and the rugged coast and mountains of Maine that inspired him to create some of his most powerful landscape and figure paintings.

Marsden Hartley

Ghosts of the Forest

1938

"The idea of modernity is but a new attachment of things universal - a fresh relationship to the courses of the sun and to the living swing of the earth - a new fire of affection for the living essence present everywhere." (Marsden Hartley, statement for catalogue of 1914 exhibition)

Marsden Hartley

Gull

1942-1943

The painting below, "Fox Island", is not at the Brooklyn Museum; as a matter of fact it's presently at the Portland Museum of Art.  But I had to include it here because it is so essentially Maine for me.  

Marsden Hartley

Jotham's Island (now Fox), Off Indian Point, Georgetown, Maine

1937

Summer Racing

So happy to be sailing again.

Sailboats

Pierre Auguste Renoir

1885

I'm back at it after many years of children, jobs, and busy schedules creating shifting priorities.  But sailing has always been a part of my life., if not through my own experience, than through my husband and my collegiate sailor daughter.

I began sailing and racing when I was about 10 in Bluejays on Long Island Sound.  Then around college age, I became a wooden boat "purist" in Mystic, Connecticut - until I moved to Newport, Rhode Island and discovered J-24s.  So fun and fast and competitive!  And then my oldest daughter was born and we moved to Maine.  That's when life shifted.

Girl With Sailboat

Edmund Charles Tarbell

1899

But my girls are all grown up now and I have time again, I mean my own time, and I've gained perspective on what I really want to spend my time doing, like racing sailboats for one.  Three years ago I was invited to join a crew on a J-42 and I've been racing with them since.  We compete well in the fleet, but more important is that the other people on the boat are pretty wonderful, as friends and sailors.  We laugh a lot, and kick butt on the racecourse, too.  Summer Sundays can be no better.

"Eventyr"
(Maine Sailing Partners Photo)

Of course, the views of MDI from off shore are amazing and I never grow tired of the quality of light, color, and composition of the mountains, islands, water and sky.  These were the first breathtaking views of the artists who came to MDI one hundred and fifty years ago.  They traveled here by boat, quicker than the overland routes of the time.  And it was the mountains that came into view first, from many miles away, assuming it wasn't foggy and stormy.  Then it would have been awe and fear inspiring.

Off Mount Desert Island
Fitz Hugh Lane
1856

"Rising in unique configuration from the sea . . . is Mount Desert Island on the Maine coast.  Peculiar to its topography are the conjunctions of sheer cliffs and ocean plane, and of evergreen, pink granite, and northern light."   (John Wilmerding, The Artist's Mount Desert) 



I will miss racing this Sunday because I've just arrived in NYC - art center of the universe!! I'm here for a week of art immersion, attending the Lincoln Center Institute and as many galleries and museums as I can fit in seven days.  I will post from here this week.

. . . connection (?) . . . MDI . . . sailing . . . art . . . roy lichtenstein . . . nyc . . .

Sailboats Through the Trees

Roy Lichtenstein

1984

I like this Roy Lichtenstein . . . 

Watching Wimbledon Makes Me Remember London

Watching Wimbledon on TV is a summer ritual for me.  The tennis is so awesome, plus the leads, closings and commercial segues of the broadcast always show scenes from in and around London.  "I was there!" I say.  "And I was there - and there - and I rode that double decker!"  whatever.  I did.

This moment (below) was the highlight of my trip to London in 2010.  It's from a journal entry I wrote at the time.  I believe this was one of the most special moments with my daughter - subtle and loving and breathtaking, like her:  

National Gallery, London

Here I am again, lost in the paintings of a museum.  I’m with Mary, though not now. She’s in another gallery somewhere.  We’re at the National Gallery of Art in London and this is my 3rd visit here in three days.  The Gallery is way too heart-stoppingly, hyper-ventingly dangerous that I need to do it in bits - pace myself.  breathe.

​

I’m so happy to be here in London with Mary, if even for a short time.  She is studying and I am visiting, and she has taken me to this museum. Her gift to me.

Young Man Holding a Skull

Frans Hals

1626-1628

​
Each gallery is paradise - each artist, each painting has an idea for me.  I am caught up in Young Man Holding a Skull (Frans Hals, 1626-28) wondering if it really does look quite modern in its brush strokes and expression, when I hear,

“mom . . . MOM . . . come here.”

​

I see Mary’s face now, eyes wide, turned to me like Girl With a Pearl Earring (Johannes Vermeer, 1665, The Hague) . . . art is everywhere. 

Girl With A Pearl Earring

Johannes Vermeer

1665

The Hague

I go to her where she is standing just inside the next gallery, watching her as she motions me to see what is there, now, right in front of me.  I see.  My breath leaves me.  I look at Mary and want to cry.  

​

“Leonardo,” she says. “It’s Leonardo.”

                            

She just knows all that it means to me.  

The Burlington House Cartoon

Leonardo da Vinci

1499-1500

 

Thoughtful Kind of Day: Damn, It's Raining - Again

Breaking Wave

Charles H. Woodbury

1917

It's raining for the fourth day in a row.  Too many days to justify anymore that quiet is nice, house cleaning is gratifying, reading is transporting, and writing is therapeutic.  The TV has been on Wimbledon and Netflx the whole time, but I haven't been trying to justify that. Though even with my "shows", it's gotten a little lonely - John is out of town at the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic - and I'm starting to think and daydream maybe too much.

However, I have art.

I discovered a new artist, for me, someone who has given me much to think about.  Charles Herbert Woodbury (1864-1940), American painter, etcher, illustrator.  I've become fascinated with his seascapes - his representations of water in particular.  The still and shifting surfaces are thickly painted with rich colors that create both translucent and reflective qualities.  The water he paints is graceful and fluid in it's movement.  He is painting it as it is:  "...he painted what he saw, satisfied that what he saw was really there, all in proper relationship, checked and rechecked by endless reference to the real world" (David Woodbury, son).

And his maxim, “Paint in verbs, not nouns.”   

I can see that.

Gloucester Docks

Charles H. Woodbury

1935

The Irish Lady Off Land's End

Charles H. Woodbury

1900

The Blue Cliff

Charles H. Woodbury

1916

Deco Wave (Dancing Wave)
Charles H. Woodbury
1914

It's not intentional that this post is about water when it has been raining endlessly.   At least I didn't think about it until now.  It's a curious coincidence.  But Charles Woodbury helped me pass the time.

It's even raining at Wimbledon . . . ugh:

(www.london24.com)