Decisions, Decisions: The van Gogh or the Homer?

It felt today as if autumn was serious about its arrival. After yesterday’s crisp blue skies and plentiful warm sunshine, today was a cool, almost brooding reminder of this being a transitional time of year. The sounds of football and smells of fall’s heartier fare drifted out from windows all over New England today. And while I’m not prepared to completely pack away my summer clothes or take my always-at-the-ready beach supplies out of my car’s backseat, there are important changes to be made: yes, it’s time to change the wallpaper image on my BlackBerry.

The BlackBerry wallpaper decision is, for me, never quick and rarely simple. I love many artists and there are some paintings that buoy my mood just by appearing on the inch-and-a-half square screen each time I turn on my electronic brain. I’m not one of those girls who can just choose a pre-loaded image, no, I’m rather fussy (read as: slightly obsessive) about what graces my little screen.

All summer I’d had Edward Hopper’s The Long Leg (1935) as my background. I love the sea and the palette of the work is so marvelously blue that it is the perfect summer painting. The small sailboat passes close to the shore, dunes, and lighthouse, but at no point does the viewer feel anything but freedom and relaxation—the way the best summers feel.

The Long Leg, 1935

Prior to the beautiful calm of the The Long Leg, I’d had a few spring wallpapers that I’d rotated between. A favorite for the early spring was Grant Wood’s The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (1931). For me it’s a wonderful, if simplistic, painting that gives a wink and a nod to the tradition of Longfellow and the cult of Revere. Even though the piece is somewhat naïve and utterly inaccurate historically, I do love the rolling hills, the classic New England structures and the rocking-horse-like figure of Revere’s fleet and fearless steed.

In rotation with Revere was a much less artistic image, but one that always brought a smirk—a tgreat Montreal Gazette/The Sporting News photograph of Ryan O’Byrne upending Sidney Crosby. This happy image carried me through the entire Habs run in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Seeing “Sid the Kid” horizontal never fails to elicit a grin and moment of schadenfreude.

Houses of Parliament, 1881

So what to do about early autumn, then? There are a ridiculous number of Hoppers and Homers that I love, seascapes and moonlight images, are always favorites and there’s an exceptional Homer watercolor, The Houses of Parliament (1881) that would fit perfectly into the tiny screen. And then there’s dear Vincent. How could I go wrong with a van Gogh? There are few artists of any medium who have the power to move me as consistently as van Gogh.

Hopper, Homer, Wood--maybe a Breughel? There’s a wonderful autumnal Kandinsky, hmmm. So much wonderful art, such a tiny screen. Of course I could change my wallpaper more often, but I like my mostly seasonal approach. This way I get to look forward to a new season as well as a new image to pore over on my BlackBerry.

So who won out…

Mulberry Tree, 1889

Of course, Vincent did. It’s Mulberry Tree, 1889. The fiery, unruly warmth that emanates from the tree and the swirling blue skies seem to me an ideal representation of what I hope autumn will be. 

The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon Writ Large(r)--Part 1

Last night I was having a discussion about, of all things, the history of mining in Nova Scotia with two friends, @heritagemuse and @maineroots (aka Ryan and Rob). Never mind why we were discussing that particular topic on a Friday night, suffices to say it has everything to do with my silly fantasy of running away to Sable Island and living amongst the wild ponies on the beach.

Are you thoroughly lost yet? Baader-Meinhof, Sable Island, mining in Nova Scotia? Right, well, as the evening wound down the talk turned to the elegant moments of synchronicity or fortuosity that we all experience from time to time when a place, theme, or symbol seem to randomly appear in our daily lives. The romantic in me likes to think of them as little nudges from the universe or instances of the fingerpost (with all due respect to Iain Pears) that point us in the direction of some subtle clues or hints. Perhaps an idea or bit of information that deserves more consideration, even.

I can hear you querying, “whatever is she on about?” So say you’re having lunch with your friends and after a couple of drinks (hey, this is MY example…no judging) someone at the table begins to talk about the Baader-Meinhof gang. You’ve never heard of them, but there it is now, part of your consciousness. Then, a few days later, you notice a small newspaper article on the Baader-Meinhofs and think to yourself, hmmmm, I just heard about that at lunch the other day. Not too long after that you’ll overhear a conversation about terrorism and they’ll reference the Baader-Meinhof gang. And the synchronicities and coincidences can start to snowball from there.

Here’s a full write-up on what is generally meant by the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (and why it is so named) http://wikibin.org/articles/baader-meinhof-phenomenon.html that for me started with the often ridiculously funny Bulletin Board column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

So what about these Baader-Meinhof moments? Most of them don't lead us to great discoveries or breakthroughs, but sometimes they do. Occasionally they are pivot points or connectors that point to more information or even, for other writerly types out there, a research breakthrough. If you’re researching a topic or even say, a family tree, if you start to notice a theme, a place, or name popping up, your gut instincts/intuition probably urge you to investigate further in that direction, right?

I’ve had this experience with a few projects lately and I’m consistently surprised where even seemingly incongruous threads can lead. A few days ago I wrote a post about a Dr. Who episode where The Doctor and Amy visited with Vincent van Gogh in Auvers, France. While it is always the art that really impacts me with van Gogh, what I found most touching in this episode was the artist’s well-known and well-documented fragile mental state. And truthfully, the whole issue of van Gogh’s tortured psyche was at the forefront of my mind as a result of two recent outings.

Not long ago I stumbled upon a couple of architectural shells—the Harlem Valley Psychiatric Hospital (Pauling, NY) and the Fairfield State Hospital (Newtown, CT) while I was out traipsing around. Here were these large campuses that had been left, as it appeared to me, just as they were the day they closed. (And not surprisingly, both sites exude a very sad and rather haunting vibe.) I became more than a little interested not only in what happened to the patients once these institutions closed down in the 80s and 90s, but I wanted to know more about the history of treatment for mental illness. So many questions began to nag at me.

(Fairfield Hills State Hospital)

What began as two utterly undirected country drives grew into curiosity about both campuses—they are each architecturally very interesting—and then into an interest in the people who lived and worked there. Seeing van Gogh’s pain so poignantly expressed just added fuel to the fire for me to learn more about this topic that now seemed to present itself to me with a certain frequency. My curiosity was practically begging me to investigate further. 

So, reader, investigate I did. Over the next few weeks I’ll post a couple of follow-ups to this post with some background on both hospitals, etc. I think it is curious how we become interested (or obsessed) with certain ideas or questions and how we are compelled to learn more about a subject from the smallest nugget of information. Inspiration is to be found if we but look for it, even in the unlikeliest of places.

I do hope you’ll stay tuned!

How Dr Who Made Me Cry

 I'm not a real sci-fi kind of girl. I much prefer nearly any other genre of film or book to be perfectly honest, but now and then even I am drawn to aliens and time travel. I'd noticed on the BBC that Dr Who was featuring a plot wherein the good doctor and his ginger assistant, Amy, would be visiting Vincent van Gogh in France for an upcoming episode. While I may not be an aficionado of Dr Who, I am fanatical about van Gogh and so I had to watch.

I remember very clearly the first time I saw a real live (you know what I mean...) honest-to-goodness van Gogh at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I'd never seen anything like that before but I knew I loved it. His frantic, swirling brushstrokes, his love of color and the passion that absolutely flooded out of the painting--it was overwhelming. I then looked at pictures of his other works in the library (no internet back then, kiddies) and learned more about his life and grew to respect him even more. I do love a tortured genius (TE Lawrence is another of my favorite people ever) and van Gogh was certainly that. 

Anyway, back to the doctor. The episode opened with an exhibit of van Gogh pieces at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris with an uncredited and (as always) brilliant Bill Nighy as an art historian leading some tourists through the show. Dr Who and Amy recognize an alien within the window of one of the paintings (The Church at Auvers) and the travel back in time in the TARDIS to rural France ca1889. 

You'd be correct to assume that while things didn't go exactly according to plan, Dr Who, aided by van Gogh did eventually neutralize the capon-ish looking alien thereby making countryside safe for the villagers once again. But the twist--and what got me all choked up--was the end. Van Gogh was famously unappreciated during his lifetime so during the episode his friends from the future resolve to take him back to 2010 and show him how much his work has meant to the world. It's a little Capra-esque device that might sound cloying, but it wasn't, it was quite poignant. Once in the Musee d'Orsay van Gogh sees the throngs of people gathered to view his work and Dr Who himself even engineers it so Bill Nighy's character speaks to the great humanity and passion he sees in Vincent's work. Upon returning van Gogh to his own time, now knowing how beloved he will be, Amy believes that the artist will now not take his own life at 37 and will accumulate a large, new body of work. Dr Who knows better but they rush back to the museum to find nothing changed...van Gogh having died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the young age of 37. When Amy lashes out that they didn't save him or help him after all, the doctor replies to her with the comment that all of us have piles of good things and piles of bad things and that the trick is to not let the bad pile outweigh the good one. Dr Who reassures Amy that they definitely added to van Gogh's good pile.  A lovely sentiment, to be sure, as to how we impact on others, and vice versa, in large and small ways.

So there I was, all choked up over Dr Who--of all things--and half thinking how brilliant it would be to be able to go back, meet and spend time with artists or writers that we admire; the other half of me thinking how wonderful it would have been for van Gogh--and so many other talented artists, writers, poets, dreamers--to have known while they lived that someday the world world would come to appreciate their talents. As with van Gogh, I'm not sure that knowledge would really change anything, but it is an intriguing thought. 

I'll leave you with a little Vincent then, and a little Henry...The Olive Trees by van Gogh and A Day of Sunshine by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Two of my very favorites and I think they go very well together...van Gogh's painting, in some ways, bringing to even more realistic life, Longfellow's beautifully worded poem. Enjoy, and have a safe and happy Independence Day weekend!

(The Olive Trees)

A Day of Sunshine 

O gift of God! O perfect day,

Whereon shall no man work, but play;

Whereon it is enough for me,

Not to be doing, but to be!

Through every fibre of my brain,

Through every nerve, through every vein,

I feel the electric thrill, the touch

Of life, that seems almost too much.

I hear the wind among the trees

Playing celestial symphonies;

I see the branches downward bent,

Like keys of some great instrument,


And over me unrolls on high

The splendid scenery of the sky,

Where through a sapphire sea the sun

Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,

Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,

Whose steep sierra far uplifts

Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms

The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms!

Blow, winds! and bend within my reach

The fiery blossoms of the peach

O Life and Love! O happy throng

Of thoughts, whose only speech is song

O heart of man! canst thou not be

Blithe as the air is, and as free?