new moon, new year ...

happy new year everyone!

as we head into 2017 and my 38th year of custom furniture making, 

i'd like to wish all of you a healthy and prosperous new year.  

we had a lovely holiday season here, and after one more day of rest tomorrow, we'll be back at it,

we've got a number of projects we're wrapping up and several new and interesting ones on the board.

as i sometimes do on the new year, i'll leave you with a few thoughts that have 

been lurking around my brain for a while...
click the photos to enlarge them ... 

back in the 90s, for a while i kept a sketchbook/scrapbook.  it came to light a while back from a box in the cellar, and, while there's lots of (dated) stuff in there, i plan to put some effort into sorting through it this year.  while it was living in my drawer this year, i stuck two clippings on the cover, one about lou reed and one on leonard cohen .. 

'i'd go there more often.' ... perfect! ... both are worthy of some further thought ..

as i fast approach the big 7 zero , i am sometimes asked if i will be retiring soon,

at the moment at least, i think not ... 

besides work and my day to day home life with kit and the boys, i seem to be making plenty 

of time for painting, pottery, golf, tennis, and paddle tennis. i don't sit still well ...

this year, i plan to teach myself to paint at least somewhat more realistically.

i am still in touch with and visiting with my painter friend horst, and though he has recently had a physical setback at 92, is still painting from time to time. i had the most lovely visit with him yesterday as i dropped off a book that i had made for him as a thank you for his 'teachings'.

and speaking of late stage, there was a recent article in the new york times magazine on chuck close
about the source of ideas and their relation to 'process' ...
it's a long one, and it concludes with some thoughts on 'late stage' work ..

you'll have to blow this one up to read it .. the gist of it .... 'artists don't retire' ... 

so, after some fine visits with friends both old and new over the holidays, stories swapped, both new and familiar, it kind of, for me at this point, boils down to mr. marquez's thought below ..

happy new year!

20 minutes later .... 

on second thought, i leave you with a poem, 'Cosmolgy' by billy collins.

typically, i'm not inclined to read much poetry, but i like this one ...

merry christmas to all ...

and warm wishes to you for the best of holiday seasons ... 

below are a few images from Christmases past ...

above is a christmas card by sam, circa 1987 ... kit  and i watched him draw this ..

he drew the four red feet first, then the body and the face,

 then the red nose last

 

ice storm, 2008

shop lights, late afternoon

sunset 2015

my 'glass house' gingerbread house .. 2012 ...

with furniture

front porch

no snow, and green grass

we actually golfed on christmas eve and christmas last year

backyard 2011

and this year, taken thursday when we were still working...

and to all a good night !! 

here's to a healthy and prosperous 2017

Capital Letters

I stand corrected, if only for this particular blog post.
My Uncles have all passed on, but I would

be appalled to miscommunicate ANY information regarding
my friend Jack and his horse.

 I plan to use CAPITAL LETTERS for at least 

the next hour or two ... Beyond that, probably not so much.

Your friend,

Dan

the milton avery show at the bennington museum

after a guild of vermont furniture makers meeting at ray finan's shop in south arlington, i continued south to the bennington museum to see the milton avery show.  really glad i did.  milton avery was, according to wikipedia 'seminal to American abstract painting—while his work is clearly representational, it focuses on color relations and is not concerned with creating the illusion of depth as most conventional Western painting since the Renaissance has. Avery was often thought of as an American Matisse, especially because of his colorful and innovative landscape paintings. His poetic, bold and creative use of drawing and color set him apart from more conventional painting of his era. Early in his career, his work was considered too radical for being too abstract; when Abstract Expressionism became dominant his work was overlooked, as being too representational. read the full bio here  avery was a big influence on mark rothko and adolph gottlieb as well as others of the early abrstact expressionist movement. 

click the photos to enlarge them ...

 he also spent a number of summers just up the road in rawsonville and jamaica, vermont. 

nature scenes from pikes falls and ball mountain

loved this one ..  a self portrait

the show included a nice selection of his sketchbooks combined with his later studio interpretations of those sketches into paintings

the center and right hand paintings are interpretations from the same sketch above them

a while i was there, i also got to visit with a piece i made for the museum about 20 years ago .. 

still lookin good

labor day

ahhh .. labor day ... dahlia time ... a time of reflection ... common wisdom bills it as 'the end of summer'.  here in vermont, it's the beginning of what is often 6 weeks of the most spectacular and beautiful weather anywhere.  crispy nights with occasional frost, warm clear days, the leaves change, the days get shorter .. all that, and more. it's been a cinderella at summer so far.  hot, but not too hot, dry, but the vegetables and farmer's corn and alfalfa are as good as ever, sunny, not too many clouds, lots of golf and tennis ... it's been great!

below are a few photos of the nature highlights around the old homestead ...
click the photos to enlarge them ... 

day lillies by the shop

lilly seasonat the house in july

kit's 'purple' garden, end of june .. lupins ..

 what happens when you stop eating the asparagus

 wild chanterelles

 poppies

a couple of paintings

 in july, kit's garden starts to kick in ..

 the three above are from 'my seat by the pond'

 my seat by the pond .. a little weather drama ..

tomatoes!

garlic!

 golf!

new pottery

we wash the convertible once in a while, whether it needs it or not ...

and now we are 'winding down' with the kiss me over the garden gates up to about 8 or 9'

 and the papermakers are finished with their nest

zinnias!

  the shower season will wind down soon .

black eyed susans .. fall is near ..

see that red maple out there?  all over but the shoutin' 

get out and enjoy it!