BirchLane.net
May 08
Friday 30
A Friend Writes. A note arrives this morning from an artist and friend, Alberto Mancini, who divides his time between Italy and Easthampton, recently returning to the United States for his exhibition at The Morrison Gallery in Kent, Connecticut:
Dearest Bruce ,
I saw the pictures you send to Ann.
They are wonderful! Sweet, intense and strong at the moment.
So.....I said to my self: how honored you are to have a friend like Bruce is! You have a big, BIG HEART, believe that!
I have been so touched from the images I have been looking that, as soon I'll see you again, I want to hug you with my best compliments.....love AlbertoLater, in the evening, at his loft in Eastworks, which he shares with his partner Ann, he introduces me to some of his friends as an artist who photographs not with a camera but with "heart and soul."
At their dinner party, I photograph the food and many guests, some of whom are old friends, others new friends, including Amelia:
Thursday 29
The Show Comes Down. Some sadness associated today with taking down my recent exhibition.
Wednesday 28
Your Heart's Desire.
Tuesday 27
Monday 26
Memorial Day.
Sunday 25
Saturday 24
Friday 23
The Salon. One week ago, tonight, at the Salon, Susan read (the two of us standing next to each other):
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:After she finished, I read:
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be......Thursday 22
Wednesday 21
We Are Holyoke. Most of the images from my art opening/event/performance, We Are Holyoke/We Are Family are now online.
A Holyoke canal:
Tuesday 20
Wistariahurst.
Monday 19
Nadine.
Sunday 18
Sunday Drive. After dinner today, which on Sunday's we always have at Susan's mom's house and always at one o'clock and always dinner is spaghetti and meatballs; today, though, I brought over two pork tenderloins which I had cooked on a bed of cherries and smothered with sliced apples and carrots--we went for a drive to a nursery where I found St. Francis.
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. AmenIn the yard this morning a baby Cardinal:
Saturday 17
Friday 16
Wistariahurst.
Thursday 15
Momentous Day.
Wednesday 14
Oh, Robert. Robert Rauschenberg, who time and again reshaped art in the 20th century, defied the traditional idea that an artist stick to one medium or style, died on Monday night at his home on Captiva Island, Fla. He was 82.
Tuesday 13.
Isabella.
From my Sunday/Mother's Day Art Opening/Event/Performance: "We Are Holyoke."
One of 35+ family portraits taken during the afternoon at the Wistariahurst Museum in Holyoke, Massachusetts.This morning the following message was waiting for me:
Monday 12
Ally & Eva.
From my Art Opening/Event/Performance yesterday: "We Are Holyoke."
One of 35+ family portraits taken during the afternoon at the Wistariahurst Museum in Holyoke, Massachusetts.Sunday 11
Mother's Day. I hardly slept. And when I did I dreamed. (drive to exhibit; dennis/debbie; dano/daryl; john/laura; ben; zigy/laura; those who did not visit)
My assistant, Nayana, an artist
Saturday 10
Getting Ready.
Friday 09
Nadine Takes Her First Walk Outside.
Thursday 08
Studio 19.
Wednesday 07
Open Square. Will Open Square make it? Will it work? I saw a beautiful space there--perfect for a studio and art gallery. The people, cdeVision, who designed Bruce Barone have an office there.
From today's Wall Street Journal:
In Chateaubriand's 1801 novel, "Atala," a character describes Niagara Falls: "As it strikes the shuddering rock, the water bounds back in foaming whirlpools, which drift up over the forest like the smoke of some vast conflagration. The scene is ornate with pine and wild walnut trees and rocks carved out in weird shapes. Eagles, drawn by the air currents, spiral down into the depths of the chasm, and wolverines dangle by their supple tails from the ends of low-hanging branches, snatching the shattered corpses of elk and bears out of the abyss."
Claudia Moscovici writes in "Hybridity and Ethics in Chateaubriand's Atala;" asking what kind of human being is best prepared to represent an ethical attitude toward cultural difference? In raising this issue, Atala challenges the emerging Romantic view, popularized by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that Western and native American cultures are ethical opposites.
Tuesday 06
A Beautiful Space.
Monday 05
Posted in the display case an updated artist statement.
Sunday 04
Saturday 03
Back to the Gallery.
Friday 02
Hanging the Exhibition.
Thursday 01
Beauty.
St Anne Shrine, Voltive Chapel
"If I was not sustained by love of Him and the love of my fellow-men, for whom He sent me back into the world, I should die of misery. Nevertheless, it is infinite comfort to me to know that I suffer what I do suffer: it is through suffering that I shall enjoy a more sublime vision of God. For this reason alone, my tribulations do not weigh on me; in fact they bring comfort to my soul, as you and the others who are with me can witness daily."
Catherine of Siena (d. 1380). The mystic and visionary C. was born in 1347, the umpteenth daughter of a Sienese wool-dyer and his wife. A professed virgin since childhood, she became a Dominican tertiary at the age of eighteen, living very ascetically and engaging in acts of charity to the sick and the poor. In 1370 she received a series of visions that impelled her to enter public life. C. then carried on a lengthy correspondence with pope Gregory XI, touching on many matters and urging church reform. In 1375 C. received the Holy Stigmata. In 1376 she was in Avignon and from 1378 until her death she lived at Rome. C. is buried in her order's church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. She has a very impressive Vita (BHL 1702) by her confessor, Bl. Raymond of Capua.
As that painting might indicate, C. was the subject of an immediately posthumous cult. She was canonized in 1461 by her fellow Sienese, Pius II.
While we are on the subject, outside early this morning:
"Hope" is the thing with feathers --
That perches in the soul --
And sings the tune without the words --
And never stops -- at all --
And sweetest -- in the Gale -- is heard --
And sore must be the storm --
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm --
I've heard it in the chillest land --
And on the strangest Sea --
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb -- of Me.In this poem, Emily Dickinson examines the abstract idea of hope in the free spirit of a bird. She shows how nature, hope, religion correlate. It is not just a bird but a spirit or inspiration that sits in the souls of us all. It is small in that we often cannot see it, but it is huge because it guides and inspires us. Hope rests in our soul the way a bird rests on a perch. Deeply analyzed, Hope could represent Christ. He is always in your soul, the singing never stops, the beauty is always there, within.
