Long Time, No Post

And there is a good reason for this hiatus. I've been posting to another blog which is centered on the Vermont Arts Council's Art of Action project. It's Vermont Directions.

And there is likely going to be a longer hiatus. I'm preparing my presentation for the VAC at the end of this month. And, to make matters worse, I'm chomping at the bit to create an album of shots I took in White River Junction. A very, very, photogenic town. But, that too will have to wait.

Same Sunset - Two Artists!

This image (from an earlier post) is here again because of a wonderful coincidence.

I swear that this same sunset was photographed by David Kearns from the Firehouse Studio in Burlington, Vermont, just 30 miles south of me. David is not just another artist, but he is also, as I am, a finalist in the Vermont Arts Council and Lyman Orton's Art of Action Project in Vermont.

Here the link to his images of it that he displays in the small slide show that's second on the right of his page.

And here's my image (again):

YAS = Yet Another Sunset/Sunrise

I just can't let go of these. The color creeps into my peripheral vision at the end of day through my southwest window as my computer work is coming to an end. I look, and then grab the camera on my way out the studio door. And, so with this one, I finally gave in and uploaded it to Alamy. And, there it will sit, no doubt with the other gazillion sunset/sunrise images. It is, and will remain, the only brazenly obvious sunset image in my stock image collection.

Also, I've started another, very specific blog. It is a chronicle of my thoughts, experiences, excitement, and angst as I create, prepare, and finalize my proposal for the Art of Action project for Lyman Orton and the Vermont Arts Council. I figured it deserved its own blog, rather than having bits scattered among the general visual stuff here.

Art of Action Update: Sans Art

Just read a fellow finalist, Elizabeth Torak's latest post here, and was happy to find I had company in my state of critical mass. Everything that passes into my brain now goes through the "AOA filter". Unfortunately it's not exactly a semi-permeable membrane. Rather it seems like the huge grates that stop logs upriver from where they are not supposed to get. Which means of course, that almost everything gets into my brain.

So far rolling around is Priscilla Paton, Edwin Smith, William F. Robinson (TWO bloody books) and, Spirn on the Language of Landscape. Unfortunately, her writing style leaves something to be desired, so that's a tough row to hoe.

You will note there is no image in this post. I, like Elizabeth, am, at the moment entirely "imageless". This may be the first time I've cursed my excellent academic background.

But, I am driven to read, to note things of note, which by now are all over the map and in absolutely no order in my notebook. I'm just afraid I'll forget what was triggered if I don't write it down.

An so it goes -- and right now, I can only go with the flow. I just want to read, though I wish there were four of me. (That's the number of books I've got going.)

Vermont Artists and a Coincidence

I've just spent the morning checking out a number of Vermont artists and what I saw was indeed "something to write home about."

Art of Action Finalists will take you to the AOA project coordinator's blog where he offers links to those artists who have a web presence. Take your time with these sites. (Skip mine.)

If you, like so many non-Vermonters, are one of those who has experienced Vermont as a state of mind rather than an actual place, you will get your grounding here.

What I've seen this morning makes me jealous of painters. Makes me love them unreservedly. And at this moment it also creates one of those "coincidences" that often occur to us, and which we usually shrug off.

Last night, early evening actually, I went outdoors to have my last cigarette of the day and noticed a faint, small reddish glow in the distance, rather near my neighbor's house. I determined that it wasn't emanating from their house, and began to get a bit alarmed as the glow was on a hill, and reddish -- in the countryside this usually means fire. As I kept watching, it began to get brighter and less red. And, in the time it took for one small, self-rolled cigarette, the moon rose, fully engulfed in wisps of clouds and pieces of night. I wept because I could not paint.

September was a good month!

Earlier this month I announced that I'd made my first stock sale. Now, on the very last day of the month, I received notification that I was one of 20 artists out of 300 applicants to be selected by The Art of Action in Vermont. This means that I will receive a sizable grant ($2,500) to research and prepare a proposal for a visual arts project that will direct attention to some of the challenges facing Vermont in the coming decades. Vermont's independent newspaper, Seven Days, has a good summary of the project.

When I received the short note from the administrator of the Call for Entries, I cried--something I don't often do. And, it was because this award told me that others saw what I was trying to do with my images. The administrator, John Zwick maintains a blog on The Art of Action here.

I'm deeply grateful to Lyman Orton, the person who made this opportunity possible. He is a member of the Orton family which owns and operates The Vermont Country Store. More to the purpose of this entry, he and other family members administer the Orton Family Foundation, a foundation intimately concerned with the environment, with quality of life, with community enhancement in any number of areas.