Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/us/death-and-disarray-at-americas-racetracks.html?hp
photos: Eadweard Muybridge
nytimes
photos: Eadweard Muybridge
nytimes
Friday, March 23, 2012
EARTH ~
There's too much of a day
She thought.
I must find the last light,
she thought.
My kitchen needs cleaning,
she thought.
I'm old. No, I'm not,
she thought.
My house needs dusting,
she thought.
My face needs washing,
she thought.
My hair needs combing,
she thought.
My dreams need a dream,
she thought.
Suddenly, it was tomorrow
and dark,
and the man she lived with
would be home
out of the dark, out of tomorrow.
He would come to her careful waiting,
stretch his arms to the last of her lives,
and make truth of the lie.
How many times would he die for her?
Sometimes she liked to sit and count.
Because he died only for himself,
because she was himself,
and his deaths counted her in.
Inward.
She thought of Garrah,
and she wept.
I'm not an old woman.
Got corns on my toes, a few bunions,
but sweet young women have that. My
life gets across to me, even if it don't
to nobody else. Even if my legs are
wiggly and my arms don't hold things
tight no more. He likes me that way, he
says. But when was the last time I
heard him speak? I mean without a
warning in his voice, without me
listening with a humming in my head.
Without my life hollering and screaming
down my belly even as I give him
my softest smiles and purest pain. Oh,
how it gets across to me: that kind
of love that wants redemption in a man's
body, or even in his words and say,
"come here" and "don't go" and
"don't leave me" and "you'll stay"
and "here, a gift", and gentle gestures
of satin and perfume, that sweeten you
up for a night on the town.
He's the fourth one for that.
I'm just learning to count
with my eyes.
Pale the Prince!
Garrah is prowling
through her dreams again.
I met a man yesterday, Garrah says.
He called your name.
They always call my name, she says.
But this man was a stranger, Garrah smiles.
They are all strange, she whispers,
out of the dark.
No. He came with life, and gave me
an onion to eat because I am
out of the dead.
You are strange, Garrah. Stop singing
like that. You talk in songs that
I can't remember, she says.
Here. For you, Garrah sings.
Take the onion and eat. Soon he will
meet you at the well.
Phelia awoke. No one was beside her.
No strong suggestion of his presence
pressed upon the sheets.
He hadn't come home yet.
A bad dream, she thought.
This one will take centuries.
Strange.
She was always rather strange.
She knew it and loved it.
Sometimes she thought people coveted her strange-
ness,
her manners, her opinions, her laughter,
even her afterthoughts.
People wearied her.
I'm dying, She'd think.
Do they want that, too?
They can have it !
I'll just take myself to Suppie's
He serves good molasses cake.
(He should, I gave him the recipe ! )
Sit there for awhile, make my peace with Him.
They sit on the stoop and talk.
There are so many things
I want to tell you, Garrah.
the way things go, the walk
of every little memory
going down the street before me,
you know, like the backs
of people steadying themselves
before their feet catch in cracks
of concrete when the wind blows
against them. You, Garrah, so tall
and high above.
My memories are all I have.
Garrah listens.
Stop dreaming about me dead,
Orphelia, I ain't dead.
Go about your business.
like the woman you are, don't be led
by no dreams, no nightmare either.
I'm here, beside you. I'm Garrah,
your sister, late and never.
You're escaping. You don't know
the rules or maybe you've never tried them.
Be good to yourself, ever good.
Nobody's going to do it for you.
Take my hand, now.
Hold onto it.
Phelia hesitates.
Beans jumps in his sleep.
Garrah gets up,
leaves the stoop,
opens the screen-door,
vanishes.
Phelia sits with the palm of one hand open,
her empty grasp lingers in the autumn breeze,
disembodied, breathing.
She remembers her mother's stories about Jo,
her ancestor, a slave woman, who refused to leave
the plantation and follow her husband
in his escape from that life, but kept close
to what she knew, what she had earned, while blessing
his departing footsteps, Jo survived ninety-three years,
died a goat-looking woman, kept the hell of her life
in her apron pocket and dared it to burn or touch her
flesh.
And she never saw her husband again,
and she never kept the lamp burning,
and she never forgot how she loved him,
and she never raised her children
to remember anything but a good father,
for that she was to the day he left.
How Phelia smiles as she indulges
the strange memory, and the smile
is not exact ; it does not ask much
of her. It merely pauses, casts a silken shadow
passes.
She prays to Jo: you had the best,
that kind of abandonment,
it left you whole. Mine is different.
He never left. His abandonment is to stay,
and sometime tonight, he'll come home,
to this house,
our only kinship,
and select something else to take to the pawnbroker
to keep us going. Oh, if only we both could leave
the plantation and really keep going!
But why should I worry?
He ain't mine anyhow,
just somehow I borrowed.
He never wifed me.
In this she abandons her prayer,
in this she finds abandonment safe,
in this Jo's blood quickens in her memory,
bites a little, causing a shivering,
a need to go for a walk
outside the impatient, brooding house, away from her
summoned ancestor who, she knows,
no longer listens,
but waits by the well.
DOLORES KENDRICK
Why the Woman Is Singing
On the Corner
(a verse narrative)
Peter E. Randall, Publisher
2001
Native Washingtonian, Dolores Kendrick was appointed Poet Laureate of the District of Columbia on May 14, 1999. She is the second person honored with this title, following Sterling Brown, who was appointed in 1984.
There's too much of a day
She thought.
I must find the last light,
she thought.
My kitchen needs cleaning,
she thought.
I'm old. No, I'm not,
she thought.
My house needs dusting,
she thought.
My face needs washing,
she thought.
My hair needs combing,
she thought.
My dreams need a dream,
she thought.
Suddenly, it was tomorrow
and dark,
and the man she lived with
would be home
out of the dark, out of tomorrow.
He would come to her careful waiting,
stretch his arms to the last of her lives,
and make truth of the lie.
How many times would he die for her?
Sometimes she liked to sit and count.
Because he died only for himself,
because she was himself,
and his deaths counted her in.
Inward.
She thought of Garrah,
and she wept.
I'm not an old woman.
Got corns on my toes, a few bunions,
but sweet young women have that. My
life gets across to me, even if it don't
to nobody else. Even if my legs are
wiggly and my arms don't hold things
tight no more. He likes me that way, he
says. But when was the last time I
heard him speak? I mean without a
warning in his voice, without me
listening with a humming in my head.
Without my life hollering and screaming
down my belly even as I give him
my softest smiles and purest pain. Oh,
how it gets across to me: that kind
of love that wants redemption in a man's
body, or even in his words and say,
"come here" and "don't go" and
"don't leave me" and "you'll stay"
and "here, a gift", and gentle gestures
of satin and perfume, that sweeten you
up for a night on the town.
He's the fourth one for that.
I'm just learning to count
with my eyes.
Pale the Prince!
Garrah is prowling
through her dreams again.
I met a man yesterday, Garrah says.
He called your name.
They always call my name, she says.
But this man was a stranger, Garrah smiles.
They are all strange, she whispers,
out of the dark.
No. He came with life, and gave me
an onion to eat because I am
out of the dead.
You are strange, Garrah. Stop singing
like that. You talk in songs that
I can't remember, she says.
Here. For you, Garrah sings.
Take the onion and eat. Soon he will
meet you at the well.
Phelia awoke. No one was beside her.
No strong suggestion of his presence
pressed upon the sheets.
He hadn't come home yet.
A bad dream, she thought.
This one will take centuries.
Strange.
She was always rather strange.
She knew it and loved it.
Sometimes she thought people coveted her strange-
ness,
her manners, her opinions, her laughter,
even her afterthoughts.
People wearied her.
I'm dying, She'd think.
Do they want that, too?
They can have it !
I'll just take myself to Suppie's
He serves good molasses cake.
(He should, I gave him the recipe ! )
Sit there for awhile, make my peace with Him.
They sit on the stoop and talk.
There are so many things
I want to tell you, Garrah.
the way things go, the walk
of every little memory
going down the street before me,
you know, like the backs
of people steadying themselves
before their feet catch in cracks
of concrete when the wind blows
against them. You, Garrah, so tall
and high above.
My memories are all I have.
Garrah listens.
Stop dreaming about me dead,
Orphelia, I ain't dead.
Go about your business.
like the woman you are, don't be led
by no dreams, no nightmare either.
I'm here, beside you. I'm Garrah,
your sister, late and never.
You're escaping. You don't know
the rules or maybe you've never tried them.
Be good to yourself, ever good.
Nobody's going to do it for you.
Take my hand, now.
Hold onto it.
Phelia hesitates.
Beans jumps in his sleep.
Garrah gets up,
leaves the stoop,
opens the screen-door,
vanishes.
Phelia sits with the palm of one hand open,
her empty grasp lingers in the autumn breeze,
disembodied, breathing.
She remembers her mother's stories about Jo,
her ancestor, a slave woman, who refused to leave
the plantation and follow her husband
in his escape from that life, but kept close
to what she knew, what she had earned, while blessing
his departing footsteps, Jo survived ninety-three years,
died a goat-looking woman, kept the hell of her life
in her apron pocket and dared it to burn or touch her
flesh.
And she never saw her husband again,
and she never kept the lamp burning,
and she never forgot how she loved him,
and she never raised her children
to remember anything but a good father,
for that she was to the day he left.
How Phelia smiles as she indulges
the strange memory, and the smile
is not exact ; it does not ask much
of her. It merely pauses, casts a silken shadow
passes.
She prays to Jo: you had the best,
that kind of abandonment,
it left you whole. Mine is different.
He never left. His abandonment is to stay,
and sometime tonight, he'll come home,
to this house,
our only kinship,
and select something else to take to the pawnbroker
to keep us going. Oh, if only we both could leave
the plantation and really keep going!
But why should I worry?
He ain't mine anyhow,
just somehow I borrowed.
He never wifed me.
In this she abandons her prayer,
in this she finds abandonment safe,
in this Jo's blood quickens in her memory,
bites a little, causing a shivering,
a need to go for a walk
outside the impatient, brooding house, away from her
summoned ancestor who, she knows,
no longer listens,
but waits by the well.
DOLORES KENDRICK
Why the Woman Is Singing
On the Corner
(a verse narrative)
Peter E. Randall, Publisher
2001
Native Washingtonian, Dolores Kendrick was appointed Poet Laureate of the District of Columbia on May 14, 1999. She is the second person honored with this title, following Sterling Brown, who was appointed in 1984.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
EARTH ~
NOMAD'S UTOPIA
Movements
1
he moves as the season permits
every place has laws dictated by the climate
in inclement weather he sets up his defenses
he moves from place to place to survive or live
in winter he'll work undercover
knowing the uses of many places
food will be given to him in return
2
hands are the first wealth and intelligence
the second wealth the rest comes by itself
he can return to the same grazing places
change itinerary and repeat his circuit of the land
at the end he comes back to a place agreed on from the start
3
he will have children by one or more women
he spends the time necessary to teach them
what he knows the woman or women provide until the father
comes back to see if the children follow the father
they speak without roles
4
he turns his back on a plundered land
surrounded by boneless men saying
without lying that the wealth is elsewhere
5
just standing still in greeting
roots from the feet sprout and sink in
upon parting they rip up without harm
6
the city named Image has neither boundaries
nor centers it can model itself on itself
place where you meet it is not therefore
a city but a point of protection
porches or tents vegetable and animal place
place of waters and human cultivation
they meet there or leave as they wish they show their
thoughts language which is taken literally
systems of planes and curves for going down and coming up
behind women behind children and animals
ownership of the soil doesn't exist
7
they leave the plain occupied by Industry
men without being big shots he's no boss
abandoned territories mountainous habitable
they learn to do without what the Rich One has
the one that disappears plunder hole in the earth
Chemical Cathedral
[tr. Paul Vangelisti]
ANTONIO PORTA
Piercing the Page
selected poems 1958-1989
Otis Books | Seismicity Editions
http://gw.otis.edu
NOMAD'S UTOPIA
Movements
1
he moves as the season permits
every place has laws dictated by the climate
in inclement weather he sets up his defenses
he moves from place to place to survive or live
in winter he'll work undercover
knowing the uses of many places
food will be given to him in return
2
hands are the first wealth and intelligence
the second wealth the rest comes by itself
he can return to the same grazing places
change itinerary and repeat his circuit of the land
at the end he comes back to a place agreed on from the start
3
he will have children by one or more women
he spends the time necessary to teach them
what he knows the woman or women provide until the father
comes back to see if the children follow the father
they speak without roles
4
he turns his back on a plundered land
surrounded by boneless men saying
without lying that the wealth is elsewhere
5
just standing still in greeting
roots from the feet sprout and sink in
upon parting they rip up without harm
6
the city named Image has neither boundaries
nor centers it can model itself on itself
place where you meet it is not therefore
a city but a point of protection
porches or tents vegetable and animal place
place of waters and human cultivation
they meet there or leave as they wish they show their
thoughts language which is taken literally
systems of planes and curves for going down and coming up
behind women behind children and animals
ownership of the soil doesn't exist
7
they leave the plain occupied by Industry
men without being big shots he's no boss
abandoned territories mountainous habitable
they learn to do without what the Rich One has
the one that disappears plunder hole in the earth
Chemical Cathedral
[tr. Paul Vangelisti]
ANTONIO PORTA
Piercing the Page
selected poems 1958-1989
Otis Books | Seismicity Editions
http://gw.otis.edu
please click onto image to enlarge
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
EARTH ~
please click on images to enlarge
The Basic Con
Those who can't find anything to live for,
always invent something to die for.
Then they want the rest of us to
die for it too.
These, and an elite army of thousands,
who do nobody any good at all, but do
great harm to some,
have always collected vast sums from all.
Finally, all this machinery
tries to kill us,
because we won't die for it, too.
Lew Welch
Ring of Bone: Collected Poems 1950-1971
Edited by Donald Allen
Grey Fox Press (Bolinas)
Those who can't find anything to live for,
always invent something to die for.
Then they want the rest of us to
die for it too.
These, and an elite army of thousands,
who do nobody any good at all, but do
great harm to some,
have always collected vast sums from all.
Finally, all this machinery
tries to kill us,
because we won't die for it, too.
Lew Welch
Ring of Bone: Collected Poems 1950-1971
Edited by Donald Allen
Grey Fox Press (Bolinas)
please click on images to enlarge
LONGHOUSE! ~
Heathcote Williams
Being Kept By A Jackdaw. Longhouse, 2012. First edition. Three color unfolding concertina format with photograph and one long poem. Well known British writer, poet and activist puts his keen eye to Mother Nature. New and limited. A signed edition is available upon request.
$8, unsigned
Buy now (U.S. addresses with $2 s/h) with Paypal:
Inquiries, please write the Bookshop with thanks
please click on image
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
LONGHOUSE! ~
Gerard Malanga with Archie
photo credit: Asako
Janine Pommy Vega, 1942-2010. Longhouse, 2012. First edition. Postcard. Noted poet, photographer, artist, archivist shares a companionable eye to an old friend, the poet Janine Pommy Vega. Three color approximately 4-1/4 by 6 card. Ideal for framing. New and limited. A signed edition is available upon request. $8, unsigned
Buy now (U.S. addresses with $2 s/h) with Paypal:
Inquiries, please write the Bookshop with thanks
Janine Pommy Vega, 1942-2010. Longhouse, 2012. First edition. Postcard. Noted poet, photographer, artist, archivist shares a companionable eye to an old friend, the poet Janine Pommy Vega. Three color approximately 4-1/4 by 6 card. Ideal for framing. New and limited. A signed edition is available upon request. $8, unsigned
Buy now (U.S. addresses with $2 s/h) with Paypal:
Inquiries, please write the Bookshop with thanks
EARTH ~
The FSG Book of Twentieth Century Italian Poetry, An Anthology
Geoffrey Brock, editor
Farrar Straus, 2012 First edition, first printing
__________________________________________
BEGGARS
It's nice to play beggars at Christmas
for the rich then are kind;
it's nice the manger at Christmas
where the lamb lies down
among lions.
ROCCO SCOTELLARO
trans. Cid Corman
___________________________________
Fine and bright as new white boards in decorative dustjacket with crisp bright text throughout. A mammoth breath of fresh air and book, well over 600 pages of an illuminating collection. Bilingual, Italian and English with some of our finest English language poets involved including Ezra Pound, William Arrowsmith, Samuel Beckett, Cid Corman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Fitzgerald, Allen Ginsberg, Seamus Heaney, Geoffrey Hill, Thomas Lux, Marianne Moore, W. D. Snodgrass, Felix Stefanile, Paul Vangelisti, Rosanna Warren, Charles Wright and many others. The Italian poets include the legendary and the brave from F. T. Marinetti to Ungaretti, Montale, Pavese, Pasolini, Scotellaro, Porta. Already a hallmark with complimentary card from the author tipped in.
Poetry / Anthology
Geoffrey Brock, editor
Farrar Straus, 2012 First edition, first printing
__________________________________________
BEGGARS
It's nice to play beggars at Christmas
for the rich then are kind;
it's nice the manger at Christmas
where the lamb lies down
among lions.
ROCCO SCOTELLARO
trans. Cid Corman
___________________________________
Fine and bright as new white boards in decorative dustjacket with crisp bright text throughout. A mammoth breath of fresh air and book, well over 600 pages of an illuminating collection. Bilingual, Italian and English with some of our finest English language poets involved including Ezra Pound, William Arrowsmith, Samuel Beckett, Cid Corman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Fitzgerald, Allen Ginsberg, Seamus Heaney, Geoffrey Hill, Thomas Lux, Marianne Moore, W. D. Snodgrass, Felix Stefanile, Paul Vangelisti, Rosanna Warren, Charles Wright and many others. The Italian poets include the legendary and the brave from F. T. Marinetti to Ungaretti, Montale, Pavese, Pasolini, Scotellaro, Porta. Already a hallmark with complimentary card from the author tipped in.
Poetry / Anthology
Sunday, March 18, 2012
EARTH ~
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/fashion/in-the-womans-movement-who-will-replace-gloria-steinem.html?hp
Gloria Steinem
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/fashion/in-the-womans-movement-who-will-replace-gloria-steinem.html?hp
Ai-jen Poo
Navi Pillay
ny times
EARTH ~
THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
Sara Teasdale
Flame and Shadow
(1920)
THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
Sara Teasdale
Flame and Shadow
(1920)
Saturday, March 17, 2012
SONIC ~
ny times
Davyd Betchkal, sound catcher, in Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska.
~
IS SILENCE GOING EXTINCT?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/magazine/is-silence-going-extinct.html?hp
photo:
Peter van Agtmael/Magnum, for The New York Times
ny times
LONGHOUSE! ~
please click on image
Malcolm Ritchie
when the poem's out a sense in the body
like the energy left in a twig
after a bird has flown
when the poem's out a sense in the body
like the energy left in a twig
after a bird has flown
Some Small Lines on the Great Earth. Longhouse, 2012. First edition. Three color unfolding accordion booklet with thirty new poems. Poet, Buddhist and Japanese scholar, from his steward on the Arran Island of Scotland. New and limited. A signed edition is available upon request.
$10 unsigned
Buy now (U.S. addresses with $2 s/h) with Paypal:
Inquiries, please write the Bookshop with thanks
$10 unsigned
Buy now (U.S. addresses with $2 s/h) with Paypal:
Inquiries, please write the Bookshop with thanks
please click on image
Friday, March 16, 2012
EARTH ~
small town —
the span
of the radio dial
small town
my big words
are gone
small town
the smell-of
everyone's wood
small town
the print shop owner closes
for a walk
even
in the small town
the questions find me
love
in the small town
almost too big
preface ~
these are my small observations of
a small town in a brief time in a
brief life. a town i've come to
cherish because of the fact that it
always is exactly what it is. a
lesson for us all.
vincent tripi
winter 2003
the span
of the radio dial
small town
my big words
are gone
small town
the smell-of
everyone's wood
small town
the print shop owner closes
for a walk
even
in the small town
the questions find me
love
in the small town
almost too big
preface ~
these are my small observations of
a small town in a brief time in a
brief life. a town i've come to
cherish because of the fact that it
always is exactly what it is. a
lesson for us all.
vincent tripi
winter 2003
Thursday, March 15, 2012
EARTH ~
Ian Hamilton Finlay
There's Ian trying to row his way out of the photograph, by leaf cover, a man in motion.
This is a superb collection which is a must for everyone's library. Or kitchen table. The poems are all tools, food, bits of fruit, colored leaves, messages. Thoroughly human.
The book is edited by someone who knew him better than anyone possibly could ~ his son Alec, and the long and luxurious introduction by Alec Finlay is a true gift of revelation and respect. Highlighted with photographs and stitches, as Alec calls it, from Ian Hamilton Finlay's letters.
The complete works will one day be twenty volumes, since Ian was poet, artist, builder, sailor and warrior, but this volume of over 300 pages is a wondrous start.
IAN HAMILTON FINLAY
SELECTIONS
Edited and with an introduction by Alec Finlay
University of California Press
Ian Hamilton Finlay
There's Ian trying to row his way out of the photograph, by leaf cover, a man in motion.
This is a superb collection which is a must for everyone's library. Or kitchen table. The poems are all tools, food, bits of fruit, colored leaves, messages. Thoroughly human.
The book is edited by someone who knew him better than anyone possibly could ~ his son Alec, and the long and luxurious introduction by Alec Finlay is a true gift of revelation and respect. Highlighted with photographs and stitches, as Alec calls it, from Ian Hamilton Finlay's letters.
The complete works will one day be twenty volumes, since Ian was poet, artist, builder, sailor and warrior, but this volume of over 300 pages is a wondrous start.
HOW TO BE HAPPY
They take all their rubbish
Down to the sea-shore
And the sea comes and
It takes it away
Twice every day.
They take all their rubbish
Down to the sea-shore
And the sea comes and
It takes it away
Twice every day.
IAN HAMILTON FINLAY
SELECTIONS
Edited and with an introduction by Alec Finlay
University of California Press
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
EARTH ~
George Ault, January Full Moon (1941)
The Cleveland, Ohio born painter George Ault (October 11, 1891-December 30, 1948) seemed to have a most excruciating life — born into wealth, with education in London — things began to unravel for the artist after the death of his mother in a mental institution, then each of his three brothers took their lives, two due to personal losses in the stock market crash of 1929. His father gone to cancer, George Ault was without family, penniless, brushes in hand.
By now Ault would be back from Europe living between New Jersey or New York (Woodstock) where he would spend the rest of a reclusive life painting (beautifully), struggling and drinking. His alcoholism became most severe as he almost blinded himself drinking poisonous bathtub gin. His erratic and strange behavior began to keep artist and dealer friends away.
In Woodstock he would turn out many of the paintings that made his reputation, none better than "January Full Moon" with its breath taking face of isolation. To view a clear representation of this painting will send a shiver up your spine, the snow shadows of the moonlight are that clear.
The painter's hardworking second wife Louise Jonas, and her income, kept the couple's heads temporarily above water while living a spartan existence in a tiny Woodstock rental without electricity or indoor plumbing. They would live there ten years, the artist soaked in his obsessive behavior of requiring order in all facets of life. His widow writes, Both studio and house needed to be perfectly clean before he could sit down at his easel. Ault would do the chores himself, Louise recalled, shining the small house each morning to its permanent brilliance before starting to paint. Outside, Ault knelt with grass-shears and trimmed on either side of the path, close and neatly, cutting back the wildness to leave a park-like strip.
Perhaps his finest paintings show his great eye for lighting — night time landscapes and buildings and its light of darkness — Bright Lights at Russell's Corners is a painting to look for.
Whether he took his own life or not, he was known for his night life drinking binges. Some days after Christmas in 1948, broke, no one calling for his paintings, George Ault was found drowned in a Woodstock creek.
George Ault
France 1924
George Ault, January Full Moon (1941)
The Cleveland, Ohio born painter George Ault (October 11, 1891-December 30, 1948) seemed to have a most excruciating life — born into wealth, with education in London — things began to unravel for the artist after the death of his mother in a mental institution, then each of his three brothers took their lives, two due to personal losses in the stock market crash of 1929. His father gone to cancer, George Ault was without family, penniless, brushes in hand.
By now Ault would be back from Europe living between New Jersey or New York (Woodstock) where he would spend the rest of a reclusive life painting (beautifully), struggling and drinking. His alcoholism became most severe as he almost blinded himself drinking poisonous bathtub gin. His erratic and strange behavior began to keep artist and dealer friends away.
In Woodstock he would turn out many of the paintings that made his reputation, none better than "January Full Moon" with its breath taking face of isolation. To view a clear representation of this painting will send a shiver up your spine, the snow shadows of the moonlight are that clear.
The painter's hardworking second wife Louise Jonas, and her income, kept the couple's heads temporarily above water while living a spartan existence in a tiny Woodstock rental without electricity or indoor plumbing. They would live there ten years, the artist soaked in his obsessive behavior of requiring order in all facets of life. His widow writes, Both studio and house needed to be perfectly clean before he could sit down at his easel. Ault would do the chores himself, Louise recalled, shining the small house each morning to its permanent brilliance before starting to paint. Outside, Ault knelt with grass-shears and trimmed on either side of the path, close and neatly, cutting back the wildness to leave a park-like strip.
Perhaps his finest paintings show his great eye for lighting — night time landscapes and buildings and its light of darkness — Bright Lights at Russell's Corners is a painting to look for.
Whether he took his own life or not, he was known for his night life drinking binges. Some days after Christmas in 1948, broke, no one calling for his paintings, George Ault was found drowned in a Woodstock creek.
George Ault
France 1924
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
LONGHOUSE! ~
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Eero Ruuttila
Today Poems. Longhouse, 2012. First edition. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and poems. Noted poet, activist and vegetable farmer shares his outdoor eye to many landscapes with poems and his photographs. New and limited. A signed edition is available upon request. $8, unsigned
Buy now (U.S. addresses with $2 s/h) with Paypal:
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Today Poems. Longhouse, 2012. First edition. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and poems. Noted poet, activist and vegetable farmer shares his outdoor eye to many landscapes with poems and his photographs. New and limited. A signed edition is available upon request. $8, unsigned
Buy now (U.S. addresses with $2 s/h) with Paypal:
Inquiries, please write the Bookshop with thanks
please click on image
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