Morning Birds

Birds at birdfeeders make boring pictures, I know, but how could I resist? As I sit having my coffee every morning, I see them outside the window as if I were in an aviary. There is something so satisfying about anonomously feeding these beautiful creatures, silently watching from behind the window glass. They don't know I'm there or where their feast came from, or that their mere presence is enough reward to justify my doing it.

It's a little different from feeding the chickens and the dogs, who have no idea which side their bread is buttered on and don't care. They see me and demand food as if it were nothing more than their right and proviledge. I love their cockiness as much as the little birds' innocence. I suppose it has something to do with my feeling of omnipotence..........a benevolent god who smiles on both those who know me and those who don't, without prejudice. Because of them, I am giving without expectation of acknowledgment or gratitude. I judge myself by this act and am pleased. It is an all-encompassing experience of gladness and harmony...

Toni

 

Painting of Women

I began this painting before I knew I was going to leave the gallery. It was to be my entry in the "Feminist Mystique" theme show. Well, maybe I will show it some other time.......or maybe I will paint over it as I do most of my paintings. In any case, I am happy with it no matter what its life span may be. The experience of doing it was exciting, because it flew out of my fingers the same way many of the paintings I used to do at school did. The format is similar, with the division of the canvas substituted for the multiple canvases I used to use.

I had a small hope that perhaps I would continue where I left off now that I am free of thoughts about selling, but it doesn't seem to have happened. At art day yesterday I was unable to think of anything to do. I ended up doing a quick and disposable painting from a photograph I took of Toni last week. It was fun, but my interest waned after about a half hour and disappeared not long after.

Thelma

I've had some trouble trying to think of what to say about Thelma's death on Saturday morning. It was certainly expected, and it is good that she isn't suffering anymore. It 's also good that she didn't have to live out the rest of her life in circumstances that she would have hated. But those are words that mean nothing. Thelma should have lived forever. I should still be able to pick up the phone and call her, talk to her, laugh with her. We should still be having lobster stew at Billy's, still buying candy at Bracken's. We should be making plans for our next trip, deciding on which motel. We should be thinking of our annual trips to Scoodic Point, our visits to the galleries. We ought to be assembling our painting stuff, striking out for some old farm. We should be in Vermont, at that Inn where she got me to teach that workshop. Or we should take another car trip to Florida, to Washington DC. We should go back to the Catskills. We should see more antique places, paw through more junk at yard sales. We should swap more recipes, exchange more paintings, decorate more Christmas Trees, set up more still lifes. We should go to Corea and visit Jean again, maybe visit Betsy. Most of all we should go back to Rockport. We should go there over and over again until we have memmorized the lighthouse, Front Beach, Atlantic Avenue, Good Harbor Beach, the headlands, Motif no.1, Gloucester. And when we have memorized them, we should keep going back to see them new again. We should sit at hundreds more tables with Betty Lou, talk for hundreds more hours about art, about life.

For more than thirty years I rode in the passenger seat of one of her enormous cars as we drove somewhere wonderful. I settled in and let the sound of her voice envelop me, feeling absolutely safe and happy, knowing that as long as I was with her, nothing bad could ever happen.