BirchLane.net

September 2004

Thursday 30

A Few Minutes Later.

Wednesday 29

Remains of the Day. One thing I miss about family life is waking up in the morning and my children asking me, "Dad, what's for dinner tonight?" Five out of seven days the same refrain repeated. Chicken cutlets. Pasta. Swedish meatballs. Turkeys hamburgers. Salmon.

Tuesday 28

Silence. And The Lift (edit)

"It was at Harvard not quite forty years ago that I went into an anechoic [totally silent] chamber not expecting in that silent room to hear two sounds: one high, my nervous system in operation, one low, my blood in circulation. The reason I did not expect to hear those two sounds was that they were set into vibration without any intention on my part. That experience gave my life direction, the exploration of nonintention. No one else was doing that. I would do it for us. I did not know immediately what I was doing, nor, after all these years, have I found out much. I compose music. Yes, but how? I gave up making choices. In their place I put the asking of questions. The answers come from the mechanism, not the wisdom of the I Ching, the most ancient of all books: tossing three coins six times yielding numbers between 1 and 64." ~John Cage

Monday 27

Early Morning.

 

Passion makes the old medicine new:
Passion lops off the bough of weariness.
Passion is the elixir that renews:
how can there be weariness
when passion is present?
Oh, don't sigh heavily from fatigue:
seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!

~Rumi
 

Sunday 26

Autumn Leaves. I went for two long walks this afternoon, but my cold and my sore-throat came along with me. The sun, however, was warming and it felt great to be outside among all of nature so ablaze.

Late in afternoon, I helped a friend move some things from her Dad's house in Hatfield back to Arts & Industry/Pine Street Studios in Florence. There were seven or eight of us and the work went quickly and we finished with pizza and beer, which Mo bought for us. I met an interesting man who has a rather successful cement counter-top business located in the building--Stone Soup Concrete.

Came home, showered, and started a new Miles Davis biography--in bed by 9:30.

Saturday 25

Returning to the Essential, the Original, the Good. My father called today and left, in part, this message: "Hello, is this Studio 19? Good." And two young women drove all the way from Boston to visit Studio 19.

Friday 24

I Can't Help It. But when I wake up and find such comments they give me the strength to move confidently toward my dreams.

BruceBarone.com is Bruce's new professional photography site. Having been to his house and seen his prints I have a whole new appreciation for his talent. I don't understand why he isn't alarmingly famous.

Thursday 23

Nude as Landscape vs. Landscape as Nude. But first this: every person I met today said they have see my ads in the local newspaper (this is a good sign; advertising first functioning as building brand identity and then sales), including a local well-known artist, Scott Prior.

My neighbor, Laura, a sculptor, challenged me to find a way to photograph nudes as landscapes. I think I found the answer.

Wednesday 22.

Where To Begin?

Tuesday 21

Danielle, Helena and Katharine. And Daisy. Let's begin talking about Daisy. Well, not Daisy, but dogs and photography. Why? Because early this morning I read the following in The New York Times:

Some people look at dogs and see their best friend. Others see a business opportunity. Here (is).......a tale.... Jim Dratfield's Petography New York BUSINESS Photographing pets. OWNER Jim Dratfield FOUNDED 1995 EMPLOYEES Started with one and about $10,000 in equipment; now has a manager and three part timers. What Jim Dratfield needed was promotional material to build up his acting career. "I was an amateur photographer, so I took the pictures myself," he said. As an afterthought, Mr. Dratfield included his dog, Kuma, an Akita, in the pictures. The photographs did not land him more acting jobs, but they did get him work taking pictures of dogs. Nine years later, he is a leading figure in "petography." Besides producing five books of dog photography with editions in Germany, Japan, Brazil, Britain and Australia, Mr. Dratfield has been profiled on the ABC program "20/20" and CNN and featured in AT&T Corporation and Visa advertising campaigns. His patrons include celebrity dog owners like Jennifer Aniston, Kathy Bates, Oscar de la Renta and Lara Flynn Boyle. A photo session consisting of a few hours costs $1,000 to $4,000 in New York, and a minimum of $4,000 if out of town. Mr. Dratfield said there was no blueprint for success in petography. "You have to invest about $10,000 to get started," he said. "You need a good camera and have to take a lot of pictures to show your product. You don't need a studio — I've always preferred to photograph dogs in their own homes. But most important, you have to have a lot of patience and love dogs."

$1,000 to $4,000 for a sitting!!! Oh my. Maybe I should start calling myself a "dog photographer" instead of a "Fine Art Photographer."

Someday soon I will find the words to talk at length about why Friday night, the opening of Studio 19 with the exhibition of photographs by Helena Kvarnstrom,  was such an important night for me---working with Helena and Katharine Tillman, the two people who have had a bigger influence on me during the past few years than anyone and I sincerely thank them; Katharine for encouraging me in my search for Beauty and Helena for her exploration into the world of Truth.

But for now this---a note from my daughter was surely a highlight of the evening:

Dad, Great show! I'm so proud of you and happy for you! So glad I could be home to make it. Love always, Dano

Monday 20

The Sixth Sense. A friend is working on the screenplay for his novel, "Resurrection Angel". Asking himself what screenplay writer he could study for inspiration, he writes: "I came to Shyamalan, who seems to be uncannily able to walk the tightrope between reality and fantasy, between illusion and hallucination, between straight story and mythical elements of fable quite nicely." And he came to read this:

LYNN
You see ghosts, Cole?

COLE
They want me to do things for them.

LYNN
They talk to you?

Cole nods, "Yes."

LYNN
They tell you to do things?

Cole nods "Yes" again. Lynn becomes upset. She nods with grave
understanding. Cole watches her.

COLE
What are you thinking, Momma?

LYNN
...I don't know.

COLE
You think I'm a freak?

Lynn's eyes moves to Cole.

LYNN
Look at my face.

Cole gazes at her intense expression.

LYNN
I would never think that about you
... ever... Got it?

COLE
Got it.

BEAT. Cole smiles a tiny smile. Lynn glances down.

LYNN
Just let me think for a second.

She drowns in her thoughts. Beat.

COLE
Grandma says hi.

Lynn looks up sharply.

COLE
She says she's sorry for taking the
bumble bee pendant. She just likes
it a lot.

LYNN
What?

COLE
Grandma comes to visit me sometimes.

Lynn becomes still. Her face is unreadable. When she speaks,
her words are extremely controlled.

LYNN
Cole, that's very wrong. Grandma's
gone. You know that.

COLE
I know.

Beat.

COLE
She wanted me to tell you--

LYNN
(soft)
Cole, please stop.

COLE
She wanted me to tell you, she saw
you dance.

Lynn's eyes lock on Cole's.

COLE
She said when you were little, you
and her had a fight right before
your dance recital. You thought
she didn't come to see you dance.
She did.

Lynn brings her hands to her mouth.

COLE
She hid in the back so you wouldn't
see... She said you were like an
angel.

Lynn begins to cry.

COLE
She said, you came to her where
they buried her. Asked her a
question... She said the answer is
"Everyday."

Lynn covers her face with her hands. The tears roll out through
her fingers.

COLE
(whispers)
What did you ask?

Beat. Lynn looks at her son. She barely gets the words out.

LYNN
(crying)
Do I make her proud?

Cole moves closer to Lynn. She cradles him in her arms. Mother
and son hold each other tight.

And then he writes in his journal:

And I read that, and I cried. I literally cried right then and there, because it's a question that also haunts me. Even though the times are rare, I sometimes do think of my late mother, who passed away when I was six years old, and I wonder - I wonder - is she proud of me? Have I become the man she wanted me to be as she gently caressed her extended stomach? Have I become strong, have I become loving, have I become someone she could look up to? I was born two months premature, weighing in at a mere 2 pounds, 4 ounces; my birth probably almost killed her. But she wanted me, oh how she wanted me. Her bird thin frame wasn't really built for childbirth and after a prior miscarriage, I wasn't supposed to live either, but she and the nurses at Clark Air Force Base in Manila, Phillipines, probably culled their cumulative will power and forced me to live. Their love became my energy. Their stamina became each beat of my little heart, their touch, through the incubator I lived in for close to six month, was the first I would know. Have I measured up so far? How would she answer that question, if young Cole Sears was sitting here, in front of me? God, how I hope she would say that she was proud of me. As I move into this part of my life, I try each day to become a better man, whether its about my writing career or my new relationship with someone I dearly care about. I feel as if a new page is being turned in the book that is my life. ......I am not afraid. A new chance at a career that I would never have dared to imagine, one that innately capitalizes on all my strengths as a writer, and my love of film and the rich mythology contained therein. I gave up on this dream years ago and didn't see this resurrection coming, but I am not afraid. I struggle, I try, I succeed, I fail, I try again. Yes, I think she would be proud of me.

And I, too, cried when I read the screenplay and then his words. I have worked so hard the past five months, the five months Betsy and I have been either separated or divorced, to get to this point: the art gallery and my fine art photography business.

And I wonder: Have I measured up so far? And: God, how I hope she would say that she was proud of me. And, yes, I think she would be proud of me. My mother. Shirley.

And I wrote to tell him I was moved and he wrote back:

Awwww......Bruce....... I'm glad it touched you. You're a good man, and a great artist, don't ever forget that. Your photos and self-portraits brighten my day more than you will ever know. I envy the fact that your are living your art, but it's a good envy :>

Change. To everything there is a season.

Sunday 19

Placeholder. Katharine Tillman.

Saturday 18

Placeholder. Helena Kvarnstrom.

Friday 17

Helena Kvarnstrom.

The news release (written by me and Katharine Tillman):

Studio 19 Presents  Helena Kvarnström, New Photography  From September 17 to October 15, 2004, Studio19 is honored to present the premier solo photographic exhibition of Helena Kvarnström.  Kvarnström, who was born in Sweden and now lives in London, began taking photographs when she was seventeen years old. While her early images were concerned with gender and performance, she now explores the ideas of home and intimacy, environments, relationships, and the body as a site of memory and trauma.  Writing in the exhibition catalog author Katharine Tillman states:  “In Helena’s landscapes, cityscapes, and bedscapes alike, we are given flowing organic spaces broken up by large weighted masses: lonely bodies amid plains of bedsheets, lonely houses set in large expanses of land and sky. The tips of tree branches reach out into pools of empty space. Collectively, her work contains a subtle psychological study of edges. There is always a disconnection - between subject and environment, subject and itself, and/or observer and subject. The viewer is visually or emotionally denied the “whole” picture, yet this incompleteness is not jarring, but adds to the beauty and intrigue of the shot, and sometimes, oddly, adds comfort. Within the realm of these images, boundaries and limits are put into place. When figures appear, faces are often missing, hidden, or obscured. Roofs and towers of buildings are divorced from their foundations; treetops are cut off from their roots. Even in images of intimacy - the ultimate blurring of the edge - a sense of essential emptiness remains. In a series of photos of a woman lying on her bed, the sense that she is quite alone remains even when a male figure joins her. “  Kvarnström’s photographs have appeared in numerous gallery group shows in Australia, Los Angeles, Portugal and New York City. Her work has also been featured in magazines, including Venus and Kiss Machine. A photo of Kvarnström’s illustrates the cover for book In the Heart of the Country by J.M. Coetzee (1977b and 2004, Krakow, Poland; Znak)  Studio 19, directed by Bruce Barone, is located in Easthampton, Massachusetts, and is dedicated to showcasing the talents of young photographers from the around the world whose work demonstrates original ways of seeing. It is called Studio19 as it is inspired by the ground-breaking gallery opened in 1908 by Alfred Stieglitz at 291 Fifth Avenue, NYC.  All images in this exhibition are printed on archival paper with archival inks and are available for purchase at $600 each.

Katharine and Helena resting during the exhibition opening.

Thursday 16

Company.

Wednesday 15

Blank.

Tuesday 14

What if? I have an art opening and no one comes........

Monday 13

Note To Self:

Whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life
keep peace with your soul.
With all its shame, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be Cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Seventeenth century - anonymous

Autumn arrives:

Sunday 12

The Visitor.

Down the hill, in the field of sweet alfalfa, they’re

freezing each other, the children

playing tag and I’m up at the house, I’m
in the picture window, thin
and distant like the glimpse

of a surfacing fish. What dark waters
the house is, behind me, settling
into evening. Dusk

and there are, of course, fireflies. Tell me,
what was your name? When you visited once,

by the backroad where the stones glowed pale
in the moonlight, I was too young, I still thought
I belonged to the world. But now

quartered in this house, watching the neighbors’ children
turn to dusk, I feel
I’m ready. Come back

and bring your finest wine, the oldest bottle.
Bring that strange dusty book you were reading.

—Kate Northrop

Saturday 11

Flight. Early this morning I heard a whooshing  sound outside my window; I rose and saw:

Friday 10

New Site. Pulling my hair out; can't get two new sites to upload. Meanwhile, Daryl's finger continue to heal:

Thursday 09

A Poem.

Lost Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you, If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you. ~ David Wagoner ~

Wednesday 08

To Every Thing There Is A Season. Maybe it is now time to reflect upon  an old journal entry.

Years ago I wrote the following and it is more true today than ever:

Emerson said "Every great achievement is the triumph of enthusiasm." And in old wallet today I find these "Seven C's of Success," principles for success from Brian Tracy one of America’s leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness, a dynamic and entertaining speaker (I gleaned these seven c's from an audio tape); and an avid believer in controlling one’s own destiny, daily goal-planning, hard work, and perseverance. One of his favorite sayings is, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly at first!” 

Clarity - Eighty percent of success comes from being clear on who you are, what you believe in and what you want. Competence - You can't climb to the next rung on the ladder until you are excellent at what you do now. Constraints - Eighty percent of all obstacles to success come from within. Find out what is constraining in you or your company and deal with it. Concentration - The ability to focus on one thing single-mindedly and see it through until it’s done takes more character than anything else. Creativity - Flood your life with ideas from many sources. Creativity needs to be exercised like a muscle, if you don't use it you'll lose it. Courage - Most in demand and least in supply, courage is the willingness to do the things you know are right. Continuous learning - Read, at the very least, one book a week on business to keep you miles ahead of the competition. And just as you eat and bathe, organize your time so you spend 30 minutes a day exploring e-mail, sending messages, going through web sites, because like exercise, it's the only way you can keep on top of technology. If you get away from it, you'll lose your edge.

In the November-December 1998 issue of Harvard Business Review, author Daniel Goleman writes in his "landmark article" that effective leaders (coaches, too, I might add) are alike in one crucial way: they all have a high degree of emotional intelligence. The five components of emotional intelligence at work are:

Self-awareness. The ability to recognize and understand personal moods and emotions. It drives their effect on others. Hallmarks of self-awareness include self-confidence, realistic self-assessment, and a self-deprecating sense of humor. Self-regulation. The ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods, and the propensity to suspend judgment and to think before acting. Hallmarks include trustworthiness and integrity; comfort with ambiguity; and openness to change. Motivation. A passion to work for reasons that go beyond money and status. A propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence. Hallmarks include a strong drive to achieve, optimism even in the face of failure, and organizational commitment. Empathy. The ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people. A skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions. Hallmarks include expertise in building and retaining talent, cross-cultural sensitivity, and service to clients and customers. Social skills. Proficiency in managing relationships and building networks, and an ability to find common ground and build rapport. Hallmarks of social skills include effectiveness in leading change, persuasiveness, and expertise building and leading teams.

Tuesday 07

Nerves. November, three years ago (and then again this past January) I wrote about A Dream:

To open my own Art Gallery and promote the work of painters, sculptors, photographers and writers who I admire and respect; people I love and who inspire me.

To be this century's Kahnweiler.

Kahnweiller because he was one of the major gallery owners of the 20th century. Kahnweiler, the German-born French art dealer, collector, writer and art publisher--a key figure to modern art. Kahnweiler's first gallery opened in 1907 when he bought works by the completely unknown artists Derain and Vlaminck at the Salon des Independants, and by Van Dongen and Braque. In the same year he met Picasso, in 1908 Gris and 1910 Leger. 1912-14 he contracted the 4 great Cubists: Braque, Gris, Leger and Picasso. Kahnweiler was one of the earliest supporters of Cubism and its most effective spokeman (through his Der Weg sum Kubismus, 1912-20). He wrote the major monograph on J. Gris (1943) and was also an important art publisher, the 1st to publish the writings of Apollinaire and Masson, among more than 40 titles.

I might not "be" Kahnweiler, but certainly I am helping to promote artists from around the world at Studio19.

Monday 06

Where To Start. Here, with a quote:

We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn that it is God who is shaking them. -  Charles C. West

I went for a long walk today, a day, Labor Day, usually in my past life associated with mowing the lawn and then having a barbecue with neighbors. No barbecue today. Earlier, a neighbor, David,

Sunday 05

A Good Meal. Danielle and Daryl will be here soon and I

The purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts. -His Holiness The Dalai Lama, "The Good Heart"

Saturday 04

New Friends. Old Friends. Two old friends. Strange friends in that they are not my friends; Betsy gave them to me. Bless her---truly. They are good models and don't complain much. And I continue to make many new friends both here where I live  and in town.

Someone once said to me,

Friday 03

Levity. Which reminds me of that kid's saying, "one potato two potato........"

Here are the top nine comments made by NBC sports commentators during the Summer Olympics that they would like to take back: 1. Weightlifting commentator: "This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing." 2. Dressage commentator: "This is really a lovely horse and I speak from personal experience since I once mounted her mother." 3. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: "I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father." 4. Boxing Analyst: "Sure there have been injuries and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious." 5. Softball announcer: "If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again." 6. Basketball analyst: "He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn't like it. In fact you can see it all over their faces." 7. At the rowing medal ceremony: "Ah, isn't that nice, the wife of the IOC president is hugging the cox of the British crew." 8. Soccer commentator: "Julian Dicks is everywhere. It's like they've got eleven Dicks on the field." 9. Tennis commentator: "One of the reasons Andy is playing so well is that, before the final round, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them...Oh my God, what have I just said.

In this case it is one tomato two tomato three tomato four

Thursday 02

Something My Sister Said.

Wednesday 01

Thinking of Danielle and a List of Things To-Do.