December Notes - 2024
Frost on my studio window.
I wanted to write something about making oneself cozy as we head into winter. But I have to admit, that my mind kept turning to darker thoughts of winters past. I live in a rural part of upstate New York, and when I first moved here in the 1970s, it consisted almost entirely of struggling dairy farms. Most of the homes were over one hundred years old, and were frequently uninsulated. My studio is in such a building: originally an 1887 seed company (once the largest in the world). On my floor, not only was there no insulation, there were no wall boards. It was thick wooden beams, two by fours and clapboard. It was as cold inside as out. I made improvements over the years — insulation, lighting, sheetrock — but the windows that still show the wavy striations of having been cylinder blown glass, remained untouched.
About twenty years ago, the landlord and I repointed and caulked them, but the caulk dried out and fell off the windows. I sometimes come in to find that a pane of glass has slipped its hold and crashed to the ground four floors below. Repairing the windows is becoming less and less possible as the sashes have turned to dust. As dire as the window situation has become, there was a silver lining.
It seems you need these very conditions, windows in a cold room without storm windows, to produce wild and varied frost on the windows.
During Covid, the frosted windows became the subject of my painting.
This week, my landlord is replacing the windows, and as pleased as I am about not having to worry about patrons falling out the window, I do feel a bit sad that I will miss the frost.
Learn more about the frost paintings HERE
HISTORY SPOTLIGHT: Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916)
Vilhelm Hammershøi,
-
But the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) is one of the few that also imbued his paintings with the chill atmosphere of a window in winter.
In many of his paintings of interiors, his windows and doors serve as portals. These are not rooms to stay in, they are ones to pass through. You sense that one might dissolve into their wintery light.
FROM THE LIBRARY : ERIN FRENCH - FINDING FREEDOM
I’ve always been a fan of “food lit,” ever since Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential.” Chef’s and artists have much in common - drive, perfectionism, madness, struggle, bliss, as well as, inner demons.
“Long before The Lost Kitchen became a world dining destination with every seating filled the day the reservation book opens each spring, Erin French was a girl roaming barefoot on a 25-acre farm, a teenager falling in love with food while working the line at her dad’s diner and a young woman finding her calling as a professional chef at her tiny restaurant tucked into a 19th century mill. This singular memoir―a classic American story―invites readers to Erin's corner of her beloved Maine to share the real person behind the “girl from Freedom” fairytale, and the not-so-picture-perfect struggles that have taken every ounce of her strength to overcome, and that make Erin’s life triumphant.”
AT THE MOVIES: THE SQUARE
‘The Square Starring: Claes Bang , Elisabeth Moss and Dominic West and directed by: Swedish director Ruben Östlund . . . is a wicked and sometimes hilarious satire on the world of contemporary art and museums, raising questions concerning personal responsibility and humanity, treating them as comic fodder.’ Roger Ebert
Personally, I am just happy to see what happens when you put Elizabeth Moss and Dominic West on the same screen.
ART SPOTLIGHT: MELTING FROST
Melting Frost, 62 inches x 44 inches, oil on canvas, © 2020 Leslie Parke
Melting Frost is one of the paintings of my studio window that I did during Covid. As our world shrank I chose to make my immediate surroundings the source for my paintings. The ancient windows served me well for the nearly a year and a half we stayed in lock down. See more frost paintings HERE