Articles

Still Life in the Physical World

We desire this ripening — 

green pears in southern windows,

shiitake mushrooms nested in a basket

from the corner grocery —

all the abundance of duty

and want.

No, what I want is more.

How our lives collide

like strange sketches,

your small talk no different

than a woman’s.  You are

my double, the mirror

message I leave for

the visitor who pauses

in the hallway.

The mind creates the world,

but the body inhabits it,

draws all the edges we count,

such as index finger

tracing background air.

Or, say we walk beside the river

on this brilliant day.  How different

to have hair defined by tree,

clothes outlined by water.

Still, there is always the body

displayed against sheets — pale

green or deep lavender. And

there is this, the best

any artist could ever do:

the body outlined by body —

arm across thigh, head

to belly; this is the portrait

we most desire, each of us

separate, revealed

by the other.

Gayle Kaune

First published in Still Life in the Physical World, Blue Begonia Press

The Day the Plein Air Painting

class met it was hot,

exuberant, after months

of gray. I turned left

at the Jesus is Lord sign

and met six women,

at the Jesus is Lord beach.

Vermilion, orchre, cerulean blue,

the colors were all out that day,

and we learned to create

the palest wash, search the horizon

for light and shadow.

We painted on the muddy banks

of Chimacum creek, while heron

kept watch and eagles circled.

And we worked all afternoon

until the tide filled the creek

to overflowing.

Then we stripped off our clothes

and entered the water undefined

left the shadows of the trees

to become the light

in our very own landscape.

Gayle Kaune

First published in All the Birds Awake, Tebot Bach.

Gayle Kaune is widely published in literary magazines. Her chapbooks include, Concentric Circles, winner of the Flume Press Award and N’Sid-Sen-Star. Her books are Still Life in the Physical World, published by Blue Begonia Press and her latest, All the Birds Awake published by Tebot Bach. She lives in Port Townsend with her husband and a ghost dog. She paints occasionally, when she gets up the courage.

Back in November of 2009, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Texas Democrat (which has got to be a pretty sticky thing right there), echoed the point that it was funny to call health-care reform rushed, "America has been working on providing access to health care for all Americans since the nineteen-thirties."

I have often felt the same way about writing.

Not that I, for a minute, compare writing, mine or anyone's, to the crucial issue of health care. I'm just struck by how often there is this misconception of time, how long it takes to accomplish certain things, how slow and arduous hard work really is.

For instance, you might think all my thoughts come to me as I write this, and in one sense, they do.

In another, they've taken all my life to uncover.

All that comes to me now is an intensified need to meet my deadline.

I’ll say this though, when I first began to write for you, I was determined.

But some of my earlier columns, well, kind readers, thank you for not pointing out how naive I was.

Well, actually, a few of you did.

In my defense, I was writing from a younger perspective. A glorious deficit, yes.

Still, I had to learn to surrender (and "surrender" is the only word) to the other - the smarter, more sure-of-herself other - within. And come on, surrender takes time.

Every writer talks about this "otherness," this voice inside that just knows.

Then comes the moment when there might be another way of saying something and I agonize, because I should. . .I shouldn't. . .should. . .shouldn't submit this to my editor.

But it’s only when this “other” insists, that I know it’s over.

"It's time," she will say. "Press SEND!" So, first and foremost, in my annual post-holidaze, which always make me overly sentimental, I want thank her. Our relationship has evolved nicely through the years. Though, like most couples, we still bicker about a thousand little things.

For instance, right now she reminds me that I've written a lot over the years about this end of the year transition that always feels monumental. . .maybe because columnists are always writing about it with a much broader brush than it really deserves, I don't know.

Still, I know that you don't necessarily have to be a writer to want to try, at least, to pinpoint why December is such a mixed bag of emotions.

2013 finished? It's impossible!

Eventually, though, it sinks in.

What next?

Out of the corner of my eye, the morning sun creeps across my carpet and everything about the way the sunlight stirs me.

"Spring is next," my otherness will say, "that’'s what. We just have to get through the longest, bleakest months, that's all."

To which I will answer, "Not a problem. Piece of cake."

On the bright side, there are things that can help. My new favorite is the spa at downtown's Olive 8. Oh my God, for the price of a manicure you can use the steam room, Jacuzzi, heated saline pool, and sauna. Plus, cocktails are served to you while you lounge in a terry cloth robe!

I was waiting for something dramatically warm to pop up in my neighborhood. It fills me with hope I can hardly wait to air. And I have a sneaking suspicion this will always be so.

This month, well, it's going to be merry, sure, why not? But it's still going to be winter raining down.

So why not think about steamy warmth and a well-stocked bar by the pool? Because there is nothing wrong with having a little of both.

It was a bright and beautiful day in the rainy city. And it had been nearly two weeks since the last First Thursday so I was feeling a little art starved. Since NYC is crawling with tourists this time of year, not to mention the heat, humidity, and invasion of baby strollers from Brooklyn, I did what any other sensible art seeker in my shoes would do. I hopped a ferry and went to Winslow.

What? Okay, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but very soon, that's exactly what sensible art seekers are going to be doing now that the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art is open.

At the risk of giving you the impression that all the sophisticated art-crit vocabulary got knocked out of my head the moment I walked into this place, I just need to say that BIMA is so totally cool. Honestly, I tried to maintain my visitor-from-the-big-city demeanor but this place is hard to resist. The curved concrete, glass, and steel building designed by architect Matthew Coates is big and handsome - it kind of dares you to walk by - it's walking distance from the ferry. Take the first left turn and you're there.

I think that the best and most surprising thing about being inside BIMA is all the natural light that pours in everywhere. If you're one of those people who gets gallery fatigue from the lack of light and air in those cloistered spaces where art usually lives, then you’ll be pleasantly surprised by all the views of the outside world. If there ever was a museum that's ideal for seeing and being seen at the same time, this is it. A good place for both of those pastimes is the John and Lillian Lovelace Gallery on the first floor. It's a rare and delightful experience to be wandering through selections of Northwest art from BIMA's permanent collection while ferryboats float in and out of view and people stroll the streets of Winslow just outside the window. Especially when the collection is as much fun as this one is.

I like the pair of elegant but cheeky Philip McCracken sculptures - different versions of eternally suspended tension - that are sitting right next to each other. In one, a dangling stack of scissors, pliers, and a wrecking ball threaten the structural integrity of a delicate china plate; in the other, a drawn steel bow is loaded up with an arrow that's ready to fire but never does. There's also a painting by Max Grover ("Red Car Trip at Dusk"), a serene Harold Balazs steel sculpture, and Karen Hackenberg's incendiary "American Pie." I love the fact that many of the pieces in this disparate collection are staged in clever little narrative vignettes, like the Patty Rogers painting "Each in the Other's Heart" that hangs above Robert Spangler's chair that sits between a Philip Levine sculpture and a wedding crown by Hekki Seppa.

Upstairs in the Rachel Feferman Gallery you'll find "First Light," a regional group exhibition that's wild and wonderful, which is not surprising since it was assembled by BIMA Executive Director Greg Robinson, with the expert assistance a stellar list of Pacific Northwest curators that he rounded up for the occasion: Max Grover, Norie Sato, Cynthia Sears, Jake Seniuk, Janice Shaw, and Barbara Earl Thomas. If you recognize any of those names, I don't have to tell you any more. If you don't, then just trust me when I say that you’ll wander happily through this show with your eyes wide open and your brain buzzing.

It includes more than 50 artists, established and upcoming, from all over the Northwest, working in every possible medium. You should go to the BIMA website for the complete list (http://www.biartmuseum.org/exhibitions/first-light-regional-group-exhibition/), but I want to list a few of my favorites: Lucy Congdon Hanson's big kinetic "Spoon"; Chris Jordan's "Oil Barrels," a hypnotic modern mandala with a rusted oil barrel at the center looking for all the world like our poor planet Earth, which is hung next to David Kroll's haunting "Koi and Blue Flower Vase;" a drawing and dry-point etching by the endlessly amazing Carl Chew; Allen Moe's elegant pottery vessels that are startlingly enhanced by what I will only describe as unexpected accouterments; Steve Einhorn's timely Peace Piece ("Guns Into Ukes") musical contraptions (look for the vintage Packard hubcap); and "Fire Inside the Heart," a big, sexy painting by Linda Okazaki that's full of secret symbols. If you ever find yourself regretting your decision to skip the NYC art scene, sit down in front of "Roundelay," Heather Dew Oaksen's video installation and watch the subway cars shoot by for a while.

The views from the second-floor Beacon Gallery (or as I call it, the prow; sometimes I can't tell if this a museum or a luxury yacht) are even better than those on the first, but you’ll find yourself distracted from all that natural beauty by the unnatural beauty of "Sea 'scape" an installation by Port Townsend artist Margie McDonald. It's an invasion of fanciful and delicate marine creatures, made from recycled copper, yacht rigging wire, and fishing line, that look like the merging of sea-life and neural synapses. On opening day, this was still a work in progress so it's impossible to say what it will eventually look like, but McDonald definitely won my award for most creative use of gallery space thanks to the spidery sea stars that cling to and crawl out from the crevices in the glass wall panels.

On the ferry ride back to Seattle I felt a little turned around, like I was returning to the quiet island from an art adventure in the big city. That alone was worth the trip. And given how easy it is to walk on the ferry downtown and walk off the boat at BIMA’s front door, I’ll be doing it again soon because there’s still plenty more to see.

Kathy Cain

Kathleen Cain is a Seattle-based writer who has been spending an inordinate amount of time on the Bainbridge Island ferry lately.

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art is located at 550 Winslow Way East on Bainbridge Island Washington and is open dailty 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Admission is free. For more information, visit www.biartmuseum.org.

Soon after their 1958 wedding Lucy and Herb Pruzan wanted to do something to make their house a home. The answer was artwork and their first acquisition as a couple was a 1959 abstract painting by C. Louis Hafermehl purchased at the Bellevue Arts and Crafts Fair. This was the start of something big, the beginnings of a stellar collection of regional artworks that the Pruzans are still adding acquisitions to. 

I don't know how much longer I can live in a condo. Seriously. I'm looking at houses again.

And there is this one house. The first time I parked in front of it, I was more than a little taken with it.

The second time I parked a block away. I wanted to stroll up to the house more slowly, view it as a passerby would, rather than a woman in love. And I began to think about it not only as a more spacious way of living, but as a reflection of my inner life. I long for a house again the way some women long for children.

Perhaps I peered in too closely, interpreted the house as a mirror more than I should have, but, suddenly, it was as if no other house would do.

I rely on this feeling, this sense that something is precisely right, the way others rely on tools that are specific, like, oh, I don't know, an omelet pan when an ordinary frying pan won't do.

By the third visit, I'd read all the information I could find at the library about affordable restoration of a frilly old Mini-Victorian, considered a little shabby, even kitschy, by some of the neighbors.

But their houses are more, well, the word "established" comes to mind. It's the kind of neighborhood where a house may boast a few clay flower pots leading up the front steps or a hot tub off the back, but, by and large, they are basically all the same house. And in such reserved company, "my" house must prevail on her own, head held high.

Not to say the house isn’t admired, she is, just not readily accepted as a "local."

"Whatever that word means by now," said my librarian, handing over another book.

"It's hard not to think about how much work owning a house will be again," I told her.

"How can you not think of it?"

"My husband is trying to talk me out of it BIG time," I said.

"Of course he is. Larry is a sensible man."

For the rest of the day, I thought about what she said.

And I thought about how my conversations with her had begun years ago, in a low register at the counter of the library, how she would always give me a little gift of knowledge to take home along with my books.

The friendship we developed never went beyond the walls of the Carnegie, but it was continually a lesson it how much easier it is to be yourself when you don’t feel yourself trying, how much better we get at being ourselves in certain company. I have her to thank for that.

My earliest memory of adoring her was the day I overheard her tell a particularly ornery man who spent his afternoons in the library to stop pestering unsuspecting walk-ins with his political views. Obama was up for his first election and tempers were flaring even at the library. "I don’t care," she said in a loud whisper, "if you are a Democrat or a Republican, old age is not an excuse to be rude."

Who knows if we would have become better friends if we were closer in age, or lived next door to each other, or if I wasn’t so preoccupied with work, with other friendships, with life?

But it felt like an honor, a miracle-of-an-honor, to chance upon my librarian admonishing a man close to ninety, like seeing a flower open. It hardly matters when we came to trust each other.

All that matters is that, in the end, there she is, an easy friend. So wise. So right.

________________________________________________________

Sanelli's latest book is Among Friends. She'll be presenting her staged version of The Immigrant's Table at Nash's Organic Farm in Sequim, Washington on April 20th. For more information, www.marylousanelli.com.

Patricia Rovzar, whose gallery has been representing Lyle Silver since 1997, recalls meeting the artist: "When he first came to me for representation he was skillfully immersed in working as a courtroom artist. He was getting out of that mode and wanted to focus on his fine art. Since I have been representing him he has gone from making pretty straightforward landscapes to those that are a lot more gestural and less refined, less confined by the landscape itself." 

New Year's. It's always a Big Deal. For a few days, it's all anyone can talk about. Next, it will be all about little red hearts. It all comes around so quickly.