Montpelier and Burlington, Heroine's Journey catch up, 8/8-9/2014

My nest in Theo's room...thanks for sharing, Theo

Another cool VT house in Montpelier

Montpelier Saturday Farmer's Market...I bought some syrup for David Hastings. If I weren't a born Vermonter myself, I'd think that the scenery and characters were provided by Central Casting...to me it will always be the most beautiful place in the world, even though I love my home in the cool blue Northwest.

My cousin, Holly, the grandma biker

I should publish this on my Hot Flash Women Blog, too. I met my cousin, Holly, in Vermont's state capitol as she and a group of fellow motorcycle riders came to present toys to the Shriners for sick children...almost a thousand bikers, and Holly on her red Harley...what a sight!...and Sound! and a very, very polite and kind group of people.

Bikers bring toys up the State House Steps

David Carris tells me that VT has a State House, rather than a State Capitol building...we are a small and unassuming state. The requisite politicians gave speeches.

Below, Friday, 8/8/14 after the antique art at the Shelburne Museum, I visited the current arty section of Burlington on Pine Street. Everything is jazzier and busier and prettier than when I lived there in the Eighties. Montpelier is more my speed now. Arts Riot has the food cart and music event in Montpelier on Saturdays...where I got the amazing lobster roll that will long live in my memory.

Brass, eagle, fabrication....I hear that on Arts Walk it's an amazing scene

Driving through the secondary roads in SW Iowa yesterday, I saw how I love landscapes that remind me of the ones of my youth in VT...Is it that way for everyone, resonating with their formative backgrounds? I know people whose primal landscapes are Arizona...Tonight I'll be sleeping in Wyoming...I see more dryness creeping in already in Nebraska. I anticipate some mountains...or rock formations...I'm trying not to load my car down too much. I'll be building some kind of homage to my journey in the back yard with the sculptures and rocks I've collected.
 

Portraits: Alice Neel in Bennington, VT, 8/10/14

Tonight I'm in North Platte, Nebraska. After a strange time in Indiana, when I couldn't find the place I'd reserved through Booking.com and found an angel instead, who saved me from a place I learned that a TripAdviser reviewer had said not even to go into the parking lot.

Goldie is going to have a radio talk show in Fort Wayne. She wants me to write her biography...stories everywhere

I know that my Art Works have been cooking in the back of my mind throughout this whole trip, but today, when I left my last familiar stop and headed into the last week of my journey, I really see the portraits blossoming. 

Annie let me know that there was an Alice Neel show going on in Bennington, pairing her paintings with an itinerant portrait painter of a century earlier. Even though I have seen photos of these paintings before, it's a special treat to examine the brush strokes up close, see how much of the canvas is bare, study the outlines....

This one was sliced up by a jealous lover and then put back together

I'm on the home stretch of my journey now...Tuesday evening now, I'll be home Sunday. Get back to painting....Excitement!
 

Travels with Charley. 8.18.14

My little mother, in front of what was Blacks Department Store, Waterloo, Iowa

I have fallen further behind in my trip documentation, spending a few days with Mom on my way home from the East Coast. I am learning my/our way around a Waterloo, Iowa, vastly changed since I last lived here in 1965. I am experiencing how men sometimes/often get thrust into a position of dealing with the cars and unfamiliar places and situations, and feeling compelled to act confident for the sake of others.

Normally I read huge amounts all the time, and use daily writing to help me see and process...This is pure exhaustion-generating experience. Steinbeck's slim volume has been keeping me company all along the way...as I head off into lots of unknowns. I see my future self in my mother...but also where my life has differed. I flash on all the scenes from the past mnth, the people, the experiences. 

I admit, I'm a little nervous about Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon...when I reach the left coast on Saturday, it will be more familiar territory for the run home, the stop at Ruby Beach to ceremonially join the Atlantic water with the Pacific...I'm reaching out to friends to join me in spirit along the rest of the way home.

West Side of VT, Shelburne Museum, 8.8.14

 

Shelburne Museum...round barn like I saw in Passumpsic

Never-ending fun and absorbing images/ideas. I started out Friday morning, not knowing exactly where I would end up...since I had not driven up along Lake Champlain as I used to do to visits friends in the state, I headed toward that area. I love that VT is small enough to travel to all parts of it easily.

The Shelburne Museum is a town-sized collection of buildings and experiences collected by Mrs. Webb--what fun she must have had! I visited as a child, and several times over the years, but it was a perfect  brilliantly sunny, but not too humid, for walking around, looking, and talking...the docents in each building are happy to discuss their charges. Nancy Crow had been for the opening of the show of her new work. The Northeast Fibers person I met in Williston...Jennifer? Told me to go and see the hooked lamb rugs...A beautiful place to spend the day.

Part of the automaton collection...interesting multiple images

Hooked Ewe Rugs

Patty Yoder

Variations on a theme allow deeper investigation

Nancy Crow monoprinted textures

Classic Prosperous Vermont barn

Nancy Crow color play with MonoPrinting

Nancy Crow 6-foot tall tryptych. The Docent showed me all the obsessive stitching for dimension

I wonder if I got my 4-legged doll idea from the Shelburne

Another perfect scene toward Lake Champlain from the Shelburne

Classic Round Barn...revolutionary way to tend cows with less work, dropping the feed through from the top level

Lighthouse with the ship Ticonderoga in the background

I want to do some red lips for my yard..these are a molded plastic seat...I'm thinking of coated papier mache, imbedded with mirror glass...more for the small planes flying over to see

Cool Figures...inspiration abounds!

Weather vanes...outlet for creativity

A flying automatron...a video shows them in motion, but the actual images are so Surreal! Inspirational

This is the lovely Shelburne Beach. A very kind teenager let me come in to take a photo...do all the gorgeous places in the world belong more and more to the rich and privaeedged?...

 
Driving around VT is like being in a calendar...it's SO pleasing in color, shape, texture, arrangement. My younger brothers spent most of their formative years in Iowa, and they appreciate it's subtle beauties more than I ever could.

The people I've met everywhere, especially the Midwest, are very very nice, from the man who fixed my windshield on a Saturday (seems so long ago now) to the women at the Red Roof Inn in Fort Wayne, Indiana, last night who took in a confused and weary traveler and made everything good.

Message: Be nice to everyone...never knowing when and where you will get it back.

Yet another day in Maine! 8.7.14

8.7.14 The trip back to Montpelier from Maine. 

Yet another cute café with possible authentic pressed tin ceiling for breakfast, paintings on the tables, a breakfast blintz. We both love books, and can spend hours browsing…I found a bunch, and if the WiFi doesn’t get fixed and I can’t post tonight, I can play with new books. (I’m still a week behind in posting). I was sucking up the sight of all the gorgeous and quirky Maine houses of varying pedigrees…Apparently I didn’t take many pictures of them. At times it’s better to visually suck up than to take pictures…and pictures would not have been the same as being there. And even if I don't remember every detail, I know I was there...the northern northeast will always be my heart home, even though I love living in the Northwest...especially when winter comes...or I want to spend time at one of my many un-crowded beaches...or when I want to spend time with the three of my brothers who live there....but this is being an AMAZING trip!

 

Cafe, pressed tin ceiling, art imbedded in the table tops

My trusty companion...I'll think of you when I drink out of the red and black mugs at home

Breakfast blintz and berries

Inspired book cover, layered painting

Inspiring paintings top and bottom

I can't wait to see what will come out when I finally get back to my studio...first I have to finish pieces and hang a portrait show.

Later that same day, another great cafe with interesting sandwiches

Enthusiastic Red Sox fans at the book store

The Gumby boys supervise the drying of my shoes that I wore into the Atlantic surf. The water seemed warm, although the surfers wore wet suits

David in the second cafe, receiving messages from Ella about possible used Volvos for her

Back to Montpelier a slightly different way, of course, stopping in a charming café to eat delicious food. Lots of driving for DC, all the while texting with Ella about potential used Volvos for her…David wanting his girls in Tanks. It's fun traveling with a compatible companion

I think David may have come home and cooked that night…always plenty of kids and friends around his house to feed. The Summer in VT front porch living.