Also, This, Today…

First this in my mail. I stopped at the Brainard Post Office on my way out. Sounds like they just found out themselves! And the staff there deserve better. I’m told it’s an emergency closure and no one knows if it will be permanent. I thought about how when I bought this house, the post office was my way into the community because everybody who was anybody went to the post office. I had a box there for many years and was quite friendly with the first postmistress I met there, Betty, who had worked in my house when the post office was there.

Also today at Hand Hollow Conservation area:

Threw my left over paint last night onto a little sheet of paper.

Today I used what I’d learned long ago in Fred Lisaius’s class to put a wash of clear water over the whole thing and add another layer or two wet in wet to what had gone before.

Also, This, Today…

Miss Molly

Molly died last night, peacefully and at home. She’d gotten sick with something mysterious shortly after I did in early March. She didn’t get over the sneezes when I got better, but there were no answers for us other than supportive care. So we’ve been home together at the right time and yesterday was the day.

Molly you’ll recall is the wee kit who almost didn’t make it home with me after visiting with my Dad in 2010. Mom suggested that maybe they’re together now.

The other two slept close by me last night and we managed to stay warm and now we go on.

…and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
—E. E. Cummings, maggie and milly and molly and may

Miss Molly

Addressing Your Colors

This is just a great quote by Robert Genn:

For those of us who struggle with colour and painting every day, my current conclusion regarding this research is to be of two eyes. Your honest, truthful eye sees the colour, and your knowledgeable eye knows how to mix it. You need to address your pigments on a first-name basis.

Addressing Your Colors

September 11, 2020

Nineteen years have gone by and we still remember that beautiful September morning, blue skies and all the promise of back to school and autumn ahead. While I may repeat my post from year to year in memory of that day and the lives lost and changed forever, the feelings are fierce.

This year I may be quieter here. Things have changed in the world due to politics and a pandemic. The flow of days and what happens has changed, probably forever. But, we all know where we were; how we heard; what we thought; what happened next, even while trying to swim and keep our heads above water today. We may be frightened by different events as we were by the idea of homeland security and attacks against Americans by other Americans because they looked different or worshiped difference. Things aren’t that different now.

REMEMBER

911, quilt by Mary Beth Frezon, 2001. Photo by Pearl Yee Wong of the Michigan State University Museum

This is what I wrote as an early statement about this quilt:

September 11, 2001
The phone rang. I watched my mother talking and prepared myself to hear that someone had died. Who could have imagined? We didn’t have a TV where we were so we didn’t get the barrage of instant images. All we could do is listen to the phoned reports and wonder.

What stuck me about that day was the change. The sky was crystal blue, the Adirondack water still sparkled with the sun, the mountains still held in the lake on all sides. What had changed was me. I felt that someone had knocked a hole in my body or head. That there was a gap between the me of a few minutes before and the me now. I looked at the others and they seemed to have the same problem putting themselves into this new existence.

I’ve used simple images to portray that turning point where the innocent happiness changed on a moment in time. I’ve left a suggestion that this will continue to evolve. All grief becomes tempered over time but how long before the memory of that moment is softened?

We continue to remember and take the time to memorialize and to remember.

…I grabbed the last Sunday Times
You stole my cab
We waited forever at the bus stop
We sweated in steamy August
We hunched our shoulders against the sleet
We laughed at the movies
We groaned after the election
We sang in church
Tonight I lit a candle for you
All of you

from — “Nine-Eleven” by Charlotte Parsons

---

Remember.

Recently I realized that people coming into an age to work and to vote were either just born or about to be born in 2001. So we begin layers of people who have no connection, no memory of that day or its events. I realize that small children alive then don’t really remember, in the way that some younger than me at the time don’t remember Kennedy being killed. I don’t always know what to make of everything that brought us to this time, with its blowhard narcissist, but I am still here, trying to do what’s right and making art and words and soon to be marching.

I remember being buoyed up by the responses to the September 11th attacks and also being worried about the sudden homeland security and searches and all “to protect us”. And I remember the rising tide of hatred, surrounded by all those flapping patriotic flags, hatred against those “other” people who hated us enough to want to hurt and terrify us. And here we are today.

Be kind. Be kind. Be kind.

#RESIST

This is the quilt I was working on that day as it was in September, 2001. It is still a favorite and still filled with loss.

September 11, 2020

The Purpose of Art

The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity. — Glenn Gould

The Purpose of Art