Some quickie sketches during our traditional family outing on this day, to celebrate the USA’s birthday along with local dancers and drummers, librarians and launderettes, politicians, piping policemen, and puppy dogs. Happy Fourth of July, everyone!
Melinda
Writer Richard Meryman speaking at the National Gallery of Art. Excerpts from recordings of years of conversations with Andrew Wyeth, and others, are woven into Meryman’s latest book, Andrew Wyeth: A Spoken Self-Portrait.
Think of the now-passed-away artist you greatly admire, and imagine being able to listen to him/her voicing thoughts about life, art, work.
Father Larry Madden
For Mothers Day, the family is obliged to go on an outing of my choosing, and this year it was the beautiful gardens of Dumbarton Oaks, all dressed up in their spring finery. Here my husband and daughter find an unusual rest stop above the cutting garden west of the Prunus Walk.
And also for Mothers Day, a poem by George Bilgere, “Laundry,” of which I did none today.
My mother stands in this black
And white arrangement of shadows
In the sunny backyard of her marriage,
Struggling to pin the white ghosts
Of her family on the line.
I watch from my blanket on the grass
As my mother’s blouses lift and billow,
Bursting with the day.
My father’s white work shirts
Wave their empty sleeves at me,
And my own little shirts and pants
Flap and exult like flags
In the immaculate light.
It is mid-century, and the future lies
Just beyond the white borders
Of this snapshot; soon that wind
Will get the better of her
And her marriage. Soon the future
I live in will break
Through those borders and make
A photograph of her-but
For now the shirts and blouses
Are joyous with her in the yard
As she stands with a wooden clothespin
In her mouth, struggling to keep
The bed sheets from blowing away.
—George Bilgere
Martha
Two weeks on call for the U.S. District Court. One of the principal benefits of jury duty is that the courthouses are all in the neighborhood of the National Gallery of Art.
HallieHere is a sketch of our snowy spring garden—but it’s unfortunately not enough of a snowfall to “hide wholly from view” our newly delivered city trash and recycling bins, freshly painted by my husband and son with the house number.
Let the old snow be covered with the new:
The trampled snow, so soiled, and stained, and sodden.
Let it be hidden wholly from our view
By pure white flakes, all trackless and untrodden.
When Winter dies, low at the sweet Spring’s feet
Let him be mantled in a clean, white sheet.
Let the old life be covered by the new:
The old past life so full of sad mistakes,
Let it be wholly hidden from the view
By deeds as white and silent as snow-flakes.
Ere this earth life melts in the eternal Spring
Let the white mantle of repentance fling
Soft drapery about it, fold on fold,
Even as the new snow covers up the old.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Lauren
A December tradition in our family is the Linn Barnes and Allison Hampton Consort Celtic Christmas concert at Dumbarton Church in Georgetown, where our Christmas season is annually launched by beautiful music for lute, harp, flute and drum, accompanied by Robert Aubry Davis’ readings. This ballad is a favorite. Merry Christmas, everyone. May joy, love and peace fill us all and “drive the cold winter away” from our hearts.
When Christmastide
Comes in like a Bride,
with Holly and Ivy clad:
Twelve dayes in the yeare,
Much mirth and good cheare,
in every houshold is had:
The Countrey guise,
Is then to devise,
some gambole of Christmas play:
Whereas the yong men,
Do best that they can,
to drive the cold winter away.
When white-bearded Frost,
Hath threatned his worst,
and fallen from Branch & Bryer:
Then time away cals,
From Husbandry Hals,
& from the good Countrymans fire:
Together to go,
To Plow and to sow,
to get us both food and array:
And thus with content,
The time we have spent,
to drive the cold winter away.
—English Ballad, 1625
Ann
Stephanie
Noah
Tony
Nevin
How did our baby girl come to be FIFTEEN? Yet here she stands, strong, quick-witted, lovely, and nearly my height; by spring she’ll be taller than I.
For her birthday today I post a sketch made on a summertime bike ride. I see it now symbolically, as her gazing into her future: shining, expansive, full of promise. (I hope that doesn’t mean her parents are the two old stumps on the riverbank.) Here also is a tender poem by Mark Jarman, “Prayer for our Daughters.”
May they never be lonely at parties
Or wait for mail from people they haven’t written
Or still in middle age ask God for favors
Or forbid their children things they were never forbidden.
May hatred be like a habit they never developed
And can’t see the point of, like gambling or heavy drinking.
If they forget themselves, may it be in music
Or the kind of prayer that makes a garden of thinking.
May they enter the coming century
Like swans under a bridge into enchantment
And take with them enough of this century
To assure their grandchildren it really happened.
May they find a place to love, without nostalgia
For some place else that they can never go back to.
And may they find themselves, as we have found them,
Complete at each stage of their lives, each part they add to.
May they be themselves, long after we’ve stopped watching.
May they return from every kind of suffering
(Except the last, which doesn’t bear repeating)
And be themselves again, both blessed and blessing.
—Mark Jarman
Eileen
For the the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi today, I post a painting from the series of Washington National Cathedral, where this coming Sunday you can take your pet to be blessed in honor of that kindly friend of all living creatures.
I also post below the well-known Prayer of St. Francis, which might come in handy at this time if distributed among the less law-abiding members of Congress.
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
—St. Francis of Assisi
Dominique
On my way back from the Library of Congress one morning, it was such a beautiful day that I took my time strolling through Capitol Hill, and I came across this mysterious garden—completely fenced, with no apparent connection to any of the surrounding houses, and bearing no sign, yet obviously cared for.
Often I carry my sketchbook without taking the opportunity to use it, but this time I justified my delayed return in order to sketch a subject so suitable to the season. Happy Mothers Day, all you Blessed Mothers everywhere, past, present, and to come!
For the birthday of William Wordsworth (1770-1850); I post an excerpt from “Poems on the Naming of Places,” accompanied by a sketch made on a family bike ride. Not while pedaling though.
It was an April morning: fresh and clear
The Rivulet, delighting in its strength,
Ran with a young man’s speed; and yet the voice
Of waters which the winter had supplied
Was softened down into a vernal tone.
The spirit of enjoyment and desire,
And hopes and wishes, from all living things
Went circling, like a multitude of sounds.
The budding groves seemed eager to urge on
The steps of June; as if their various hues
Were only hindrances that stood between
Them and their object: but, meanwhile, prevailed
Such an entire contentment in the air
That every naked ash, and tardy tree
Yet leafless, showed as if the countenance
With which it looked on this delightful day
Were native to the summer…
—William Wordsworth
You can read the poem in entirety here.
For a mini-bio of Wordsworth, please see My Heart Leaps Up. For another painting and favorite poem, please see Dancing with the Daffodils.
Frank
