BirchLane.net

August 2007 

Wednesday 29

At Last. I was offered (and  I accepted) a job today as an Account Executive with The Creative Group, a division of Robert Half International. I start on Friday. Excellent salary, bonus/commission plan, benefits, parking and health club membership. It is expected my sales effort will result in me being named Group Manager within a few months which will result in more overrides. It seems to be a perfect place for me; merging my sales and marketing skills with my creative understanding. Getting there (Hartford) for the next few weeks will be a challenge as my car needs work and I have not the funds to attend to it till I get paid (mid-September) so I will be car-pooling with Susan, which will be difficult as our hours are quite different. But this is all good news. This is a great opportunity.

Also wrote my Artist's Statement for upcoming September exhibition, "Religious Icons."

Tuesday 28

The Wait. Waiting to hear about job. Waiting is like watching the reflections on water; they come and they go.

Monday 27

Trip to Boston. Interviewed with three people in Boston; I think it went well.

Sunday 26

Tomorrow; Boston. On Monday I drive to Boston to meet a few other people from the company I interviewed with in Hartford.

Saturday 25

Macy's.

Friday 24

Meeting in Hartford. I went back today for  a second interview to see if I liked the place/people/job; I do.

Thursday 23

Meeting in Hartford.  I had a job interview today which would marry my sales and marketing skills with my art background and pay me very well, plus amazing benefits.

Wednesday 22

Red Sky in Morning.

Tuesday 21

Danielle Buys Her First Car.

Monday 20

Pictures.

Sunday 19

Firm Will + Utmost Patience.

Acquire a firm will and the utmost patience.   – Anandamayi Ma   We begin our journey towards the supreme goal of life from where we stand. Just as it is good to be patient with others, it is equally necessary to be patient with ourselves. After all, when the desire to live for others comes to us, we can be haunted by our past mistakes, by the amount of time we have wasted in selfish pursuits. But we must accept ourselves with all our strengths and weaknesses. There are many obstacles on the spiritual path which can strengthen us, and these cannot be overcome unless we have infinite patience with ourselves. If we are patient with others, shouldn’t we be patient with ourselves as well? Each of us is individual, with our own special qualities. We start now, where we are, with our partial love for money, partial love for pleasure, partial love for prestige, and a little love for God. We will progress at our own pace. It is not good to compare one person’s progress with another’s. ~Eknath Easwaran

Saturday 18

Family Get-together. What's a summer party (memory) without a photograph of a swimmer in a pool of sparkling blue water ala David Hockney?

A treat for me at the party was the Crumb Cake Michelle brought from New Jersey. The year is 1957, 1958, maybe 1959; I remember  going to B&W Bakery every Sunday with my Dad to buy a Crumb Cake. I held his hand. It was Heaven. Here's a short review of the cake and the bakery from 2004:

August 29, 2004 QUICK BITE/Hackensack; Crumbs to Die For By MARGE PERRY It's well known that the raison d'être of crumb cake is the streusel topping. The cake base is merely the vessel by which the topping is transported to one's mouth. The higher the crumb, the better. B&W Bakery in Hackensack, a 56-year-old institution that bills itself as ''home of the heavy crumb cake,'' may have one of the best streusel-to-cake ratios in the state. Nearly three-quarters of every bite consists of clumps of just-sweet-enough, melt-in-your-mouth crumb. B&W -- the initials stand for Boehringer & Weimer, the original owners -- is a traditional German bakery that does sell other cakes, cookies and pastries. But the business is based on crumb cake, made with the same carefully guarded secret recipe used since 1948. A current co-owner, Ron Kraft, who first worked at the bakery 34 years ago, makes an average of 2,000 pounds of streusel a week, depending on the season. In addition to the amount of topping on his cake, he attributes its appeal to the fact that it is always fresh: the crumb cakes are baked all day long, until 5 p.m. ''We just bake 'em as we need 'em,'' Mr. Kraft said. ''And people keep coming back, because we're consistent.'' It doesn't hurt that the cake is also a bargain -- $5.50 for a strip big enough to serve six.

A few more photos from the party here:

Friday 17

New York City and Tin Pan Alley.  I was looking for information online today about Cara Perlman, an artist and member of Colab who painted my portrait, and discovered that Keri Pickett is working on  a book/film about Tin Pan Alley. Cara also worked at Tin Pan Alley.

I was taking pictures for my job at Hearst Magazines at Tavern on the Green. It was a hot summer day.
When I was finished I walked to Tin Pan Alley. The Clash were sitting at the bar. I sat next to Joe
Strummer. We talked. He was gracious. Later I took a few photographs of Joe and others outside.

Old journal entries:

1986 Village Voice (or SOHO News) article about Tin Pan Alley, my all-time favorite bar. It was featured in The New York Times as a Times Square business owned and operated by a woman, a bar frequented by prostitutes, political activists and Times Square workers, artists, musicians, writers. When I worked at Hearst Magazines I went here for lunch almost every day and at nights to hear the music and poetry. It was here I met the photographers Nan Goldin and Philip-Lorca di Corcia (both took photos for me at Science Digest Animated). The artist Cara Perlman. The actress Alice Barrett. Photographed The Clash. Heard The Del Byzanteens. The Drongos. "...with an owner interested in promoting challenging poets, and musicians, Tin Pan Alley has cultivated its own miscellany, and it may get a larger cast--whether it wants one or not, a very open question--from 'Sound and Substance' an 11-week series of unmusical pairings. Hooking up Japanese front liners the Honeymoons with Hugo Largo's arid nocturnes, say, or Antietam's gusty wailing against Shelley Hirsch's wailing fun...Tin Pan Alley's owner, Maggie Smith, said: 'I'm very interested in booking and helping young political bands and artists (Nan Goldin first exhibited here)...I like to hear subversive music.' It's a bar with music, or poetry. 'I want people to come who want to be in a political environment, and who think that way.'" A 1983 journal entry; a story Suzanne, a bartender at Tin Pan Alley told me: "Oh yeck," Suzanne said. "That's what my daughter said when I told her she was developing breasts. She called me at the bar and she was crying because she had a small lump below one of her nipples. I asked her if she had a lump under the other nipple and she didn't. I told her breasts develop at different rates and into different sizes. The she started crying. You know, Bruce, she's at that age when she's filled with questions. Last week she asked me where kids came from. I told her and then she said, 'Well, mommy, I know you didn't take your bra off.'" 1981 Journal entry. There was a party for Johnny D at Tin Pan Alley last night to celebrate his homecoming. He had been in the hospital for six weks recuperating from a gunshot wound in his forehead. He's the doorman at Tin Pan Alley on Friday an Saturday nights and the bouncer at an after hours club run by his twin brother, Steve, Maggie's lover of ten years. It happened at the after hours club. Some guy comes up to him and says buy me a drink; Johnny says no, and bang, the guy shoots him right above the eye. The bullet is still lodged there; you can actually see it bulging out from under the skin. This coming Saturday Maggie invited us to a party at Susan Brownmiller's penthouse for Jane Alpert. Susan wrote "Against our Will..." and Jane was a Swarthmore honors student during the 60s and was responsible or took part in the bombing of several office buildings in New York City, including the Chase Manhattan Bank. Jane's book is called "Growing Up Radical."

Sciense Digest Animated; I need to write about this Saturday morning class for children I organized.

I met Susan Ensley at Tin Pan:

And who could forget:

And James, who passed away a few years ago:

Tin Pan had the best juke box:

Right now, I hear the Bush Tetras (who once toured with The Clash) singing "Das Ah Riot." (Small world: some 20+ years later I would discover that guitarist Pat Place was a close friend of Shelley Lake, the woman (and friend) who prints my photos here in Eastworks.

Thursday 16

Mindfulness.

"I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child...our own two eyes. All is a miracle." ~Thich Nhat Hanh, "Miracle of Mindfulness"

Wednesday 15

A Little More Painting.

Tuesday 14

Painting. More trim painting at Susan's.

Monday 13

Painting. Spent the day at Susan's painting trim. Saw the landscape below on the way home.

Sunday 12

Al Parker.  Susan and I went to the Norman Rockwell museum today to see the Al Parker exhibition.

"I think one of the things I like best about illustration is the fact that things are always changing. It’s always tomorrow." —Al Parker, 1964

AL PARKER (1906-1985) was the artist who defined the progressive look of illustration from the 1940s through the '60s. He created an idealized reflection of the "Baby Boom" generation with his series of covers for The Ladies' Home Journal in which Mother and Daughter wear matching outfits and enjoy life together. Millions of readers, mostly women, followed his inventive story illustrations in the major magazines. Parker's innovative point of view always made his work stand out from that of other illustrators, and he constantly varied his style and mediums to best fit the requirements of the assignment. His pictures were full of personal touches using carefully selected props and gestures in a manner that invited a closer look. Readers took pleasure in their discovery. He was also a trend setter; his models were depicted in the latest fashions inspiring his readers to follow. Other illustrators were quick to respond to his success. By their following his lead, Parker inadvertently created a whole new "school" of illustration. While flattering, this was not an entirely welcome situation. There came to be so many look-alikes that it was difficult for Parker to keep ahead of them. One of the motivations for his ever-evolving style was to keep his identity separate, as his works, once published, often provided "inspiration" for a coterie of followers. He complained that he could only stay one month ahead of the pack, but his far-reaching influence provided self-inspiration; he was at his best while others were nipping at his heels. Parker once laid down the gauntlet by illustrating an entire issue of Cosmopolitan using a different style (and pseudonym) for each story. Al Parker flourished at the end of the era when illustration had its greatest influence. Parker's work will continue to be remembered for its importance in the history of American illustration, quite apart from the transience of its original publication.

A founder of the modern glamour aesthetic, Alfred Charles Parker (1906-1985), defined the progressive look and feel of published imagery at a time of sweeping change, when Americans sought symbols of hope and redemption on the pages of our nation’s periodicals. His innovative modernist artworks created for mass-appeal women’s magazines like Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, McCall’s, and Cosmopolitan, captivated upwardly mobile mid-twentieth century readers, reflecting and profoundly influencing the values and aspirations of American women and their families during the post-war era. Leaping beyond the constraints of traditional narrative picture making, Al Parker emerged in the 1930s to establish a vibrant visual vocabulary for the new suburban life so desired in the aftermath of the Depression and World War II. More graphic and less detailed than the paintings of luminary Norman Rockwell, who was a contemporary and an inspiration to the artist, Parker’s stylish compositions were sought after by editors and art directors for their fresh look and feel. Embraced by an eagerly romantic public who aspired to the ideals of beauty and lifestyle reflected in his illustrations, Parker’s art also revealed a penchant for reinvention, and his ongoing experiments with visual form kept him ahead of the curve for decades. His vibrant images, borne of diverse methodologies, inspired and entertained millions who encountered them at the turn of a page.

“Art involves a constant metamorphosis . . . due both to the nature of the creative act and to the ineluctable march of time.” —Al Parker

Born on October 16, 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri, Al Parker began his creative journey early in life. His precocious illustrations brought song lyrics to life on the rolls of his mother’s player piano, and he spent hours spent listening to jazz in the record department of his parents’ furniture store. At the age of fifteen, Parker took up the saxophone, and by the following summer, was proficient enough to lead his own Mississippi riverboat band. Musical excursions offered him the chance to sketch between sets and play with jazz greats like Louis Armstrong. Parker played the saxophone, clarinet, and drums to fund his education, and from 1923 to 1928, studied art at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts at Washington University. His first professional assignment, a series of department store window displays, landed him a job in a commercial art studio, but the studio’s practice of signing its name to his efforts brought a frustrating tag of anonymity, and inspired him to set out on his own. In 1930, a cover contest sponsored by House Beautiful brought Parker an honorable mention and an entrée into the world of national magazine publishing. His elegant, stylized drawings were soon sold to Ladies’ Home Journal. Judged to be “too far out” for fiction, his art first appeared on the fashion pages, and commenced a long association with the magazine. The artist’s first fiction manuscript came from Woman’s Home Companion in 1934, followed by a steady stream of assignments from Good Housekeeping, McCall’s, Collier’s, Cosmopolitan, American, and Pictorial Review. In 1936, Parker and his family moved to New York, the nation’s publishing center. For all of its exhilaration, life in New York was filled with unrelenting activity. Parker produced up to ten finished assignments each month and carried out the requisite social schedule that accompanied his success. Though he enjoyed living the life that he portrayed, he sought a place to work that would afford more space and less distraction. In 1938, he moved north to Larchmont, New York, and a year later, the first of his mother and daughter covers appeared in Ladies’ Home Journal. From 1940 to 1955, the Parker family lived in Westport, Connecticut, which boasted a community of noted magazine illustrators. In 1955, Parker, who suffered from asthma, sought a change of climate. After a brief stay in Arizona where he was “knee deep in American Airlines ad art,” he settled in Carmel Valley, California, where he continued to paint and play music until his death in 1985. Parker was elected to the Society of Illustrators’ Hall of Fame in 1965 and received honorary doctorates from the Rhode Island School of Design and the California College of Arts in 1978 and 1979, testament to his extraordinary accomplishments and his ongoing influence.

From the exhibition.

Saturday 11

A Birthday Party. I went with Susan and her mom to a birthday party today for Lauren (below) and her brother, Owen.

Friday 10

My Fifteen Minutes.

Look here: a profile of me.

“Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.”   “Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one consciously, by means of certain external symbols, conveys to others the feelings one has experienced, whereby people so infected by these feelings, also experience them.” “. . . art is one of the means of affective communication between people.” “. . . the activity of art is . . . as important as the activity of language itself, and as universal.” “Love hinders death.  Love is life.  All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.  Everything is, everything exists, only because I love.  Everything is united by it alone.  Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.”  These thoughts seemed to him comforting.  But they were only thoughts.  Something was lacking in them, they were not clear, they were too one-sidedly personal and brain-spun.  And there was the former agitation and obscurity.  He fell asleep. ~Leo Tolstoy

Thursday 09

Six Months.  Susan and I have been seeing each other for six months. My new photography website goes live tonight. An article about me appears in tomorrow's newspaper.

Wednesday 08

Thinking about Van Gogh. I was thinking about Van Gogh today because something a friend wrote in her journal about him reminded me of my photography--not to compare my work to his art; rather to his way of seeing; as I receive comments like this almost on a daily basis:

Browsing your (photography) is  like walking thru a museum and watching a documentary on the history of photography. you have managed to make art your life itself.  So many of your images triggers an emotional response that makes me FEEL. And dear Bruce in a world where I have learned to numb that down, that is powerful.  Thank you for making my life more beautiful with each of your photographs  Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful images and words. Your vision is a gift. You capture nature on a cellular level. It brings joy to me. You have a gift for seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary.

In her journal, my kind friend, insightful and thoughtful, part art historian, part art connoisseur, part art and music promoter, part visionary writes writes in an entry entitled Van Gogh - A Rebel Because of So Many Causes - Seeing What Others Cannot See:

I spent last weekend in the country amidst vast agricultural fields, 30 minutes from any small town.  Sunflowers littered every dirt road and field, bordering everything.  For many reasons, Vincent Willem van Gogh kept queuing up in my mind.  What was it like for Van Gogh to live in his era?  I’m fascinated by how, despite extensive artistic training, Van Gogh resisted the straight and narrow.  There are no “rulers” or straight lines used in his artistic expressions. He threw nothing away.  He disrespected nothing in the worlds he created.  He crafted magic into everything. There are no exclusive “good parts” to his most well known illustrations.  Unlike modern illustrations that create more focus or detail at the points of emphasis, Van Gogh’s imagery is beautiful from edge to edge, from up close to the infinite horizons, from large to small, and from “important” to “trivial.” It’s as if Van Gogh was saying to everyone else in his era who was painting beautiful cherubs, pretty ponies, and royalties:  You don’t think there is beauty in everything around you?  I will paint ordinary wooden chairs, a poor person’s bedroom, billiard halls, the most common of flowers, and old men - and show you as much beauty as you’ve ever seen.   I think some people have gone insane because they were far ahead of their culture’s sensibilities.  The constant friction and conflict between the beauty in their mind and ugliness of their culture’s misplaced ideals - has probably driven some geniuses into madness. In a Van Gogh painting, everything is beautiful.  Every blade of grass and clump of mud.  The Earth is as beautiful as the women.  Buildings are as lovely as the flowers.  The night sky is as lovely as the stars. I imagine he thought:   I will show you common people doing undesirable and ordinary things and give you imagery infused with life, humanity, and pathos. As children, most of us are taught to not look directly into the Sun because it will hurt our eyes.   If you look back at several of the paintings above, I get the sense Van Gogh ignored that advice, and instead gazed straight into the Sun.  He tried to portray its energy at dawn, dusk, night and full light.  And when the Sun was hidden by night, he painted whatever lights embered against the loneliness of night. He wrote to his sister, “It amuses me enormously to paint the night right on the spot. Normally, one draws and paints the painting during the daytime after the sketch.  But I like to paint the thing immediately . . . even a simple candle already provides us with the richest of yellows and oranges” I speculate he might have thought to himself:  I may not be able to be sane within the constraints and frameworks of modern religious ideas and philosophies, and I may not be able to capture the beauty of heaven - but I CAN show you more beauty than you’ve seen before here on Earth. He may have even thought:  I’ll even paint my often rejected and unadorned face and reveal more to you about my psyche, intellect, and pains than any of my ‘modern’ doctors in the asylums I’ve been interned in or any ‘intellectual’ preacher could ever tell you about me.   About Eugène Delacroix’s Tasso in the Hospital of S. Anna, Ferrara, Van Gogh wrote, “But it would be more in harmony with what Eugène Delacroix attempted and brought off in his Tasso in Prison, and many other pictures, representing a real man.  Ah! portraiture, portraiture with the thought, the soul of the model in it, that is what I think must come.”   Of his Portrait of Dr. Gachet, he wrote:  “I’ve done the portrait of M. Gachet with a melancholy expression, which might well seem like a grimace to those who see it . . . Sad but gentle, yet clear and intelligent, that is how many portraits ought to be done . . . There are modern heads that may be looked at for a long time, and that may perhaps be looked back on with longing a hundred years later.”  I love the theme of his paintings when he was held in asylums, and all he could do was paint masterpieces with broader perspectives than the walls and people around him. Van Gogh shows me things that had always surrounded me, but I had never seen as beautifully before.  He humbles me, constantly reminding me of all I have yet to see, and all I may never be able to see.   His work encourages me to never stop aspiring.  His artworks are constant reminders that I’d be deluding myself if I thought I’d seen or understood all the beauty in any person or thing. If you admire Van Gogh’s possible intents, drives, hard work, and ideas - ideas that flew in the face of most everything around him, then:  If you ever think you see something beautiful or unrecognized in someone or something, consider taking the time to attempt to share some of that beauty and intelligence with others. And also, make sure you communicate to those people your admiration of their worth. Let them know before they go.

Tuesday 07

The Gladiola. There was much debate about the loveliness of the gladiola during breakfast Sunday morning.

 "Mom," Nina asked. "Are those flowers real?" 

"I don't really like Gladiolas," Darlene said. "But I thought these were so beautiful."

There was Nina and Darlene and myself. And around the table

Monday 06

Shane.

"May happiness,
pursue you,

catch you
often, and,

should it
lose you,

be waiting
ahead, making

a clearing
for you."

~A. R. Ammons
 

Sunday 05

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

~Theodore Roethke

Saturday 04

A Day in The Country. I arrived in New Hampshire in the early afternoon. When I entered my sister's house I ran right for the bathroom as I had been stuck in traffic on the highway for three hours.

Photos here:

Friday 03

The 50th Wedding Anniversary.

Thursday 02

Stripping Tobacco. Years ago, when I first moved to The Pioneer Valley, I worked on a farm in Amherst. It was a part-time job. It was  October. It was, I told the reporter last week when I was interviewed for a story about me, my strangest job. I wrote a poem about the job. It is reprinted below the photograph.

(poem)

 

Wednesday 01

Dreams. Many years ago, far too many years to say how long ago, I was interviewed for the Cook of the Week story in a local newspaper. I vaguely recall saying "If I was independently wealthy, my sister and I would open a restaurant."

Today on Craigslist I find:

Chef/Gardener/Operator (Berkshires) This is OPPORTUNITY UNLIMITED! If you want to wear all 3 of those hats I have a tremendous opportunity for you!!! I currently own a very well established landmark country destination dinner house that is the ultimate turn-key opportunity for a talented and motivated chef owner or couple. The restaurant seats about 90, with an adjacent tavern room, is situated on 5 beautifully landscaped acres, is in immaculate condition, and has a wonderfully designed and equipped kitchen that can easily support more seats. The restaurant is well patronized, well-reviewed, and is profitable serving only dinner 5 nites/week. this business has tons more room to grow; brunch, meeting functions, on-site weddings, etc. Last but not least there are very attractive living quarters on the property, as well as a bonus cottage. Did i forget to mention the trout stream that borders the property and the 3 fireplaces that really add to the country ambience??? If you're the right candidate the terms are reasonable and flexible; we are motivated to find the right new owner/operators asap!!!

I think I ate at this place, the tavern, four or five years ago. It was lovely. I have a photograph.