Notebook 2007 to 2008

Date: 2007-2008

Notebook 2007

Well well well
I have lots of small
note books which I
can carry easily in
a pocket wherever I
go.

March 19, Monday
Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall

given me by Ulla Dydo

G B D F A
Printed lower case
fl and fi
M is a double N
even in sounding

                have
R D P B   are    the
same stem

C O Q

W as double V

My cousin, when he said
Architect,
he pronounced the first
syllable, arch -- with a
soft ch sound.
He told me he wanted
to be an arschatect. I
told him that he would have
a lot to learn.
He used the same
soft ch when pronouncing
orschestra.

M is an
emphatic N


When she went
on vacation
she hid her
diamonds in
a vase of water
where they were invisible.

Pearls in milk
also has a way
of disappearing the
pearls.

***
Carefully arranged
songs though
not good for the voice

Marvelous scenic
splendors though
not good for the eyes

from out of nowhere
there came a lift
of energy

a sudden blast of
horizontals

warming up with
a fiddle

everywhere is far away

***
The Frick is
uptown

I'm uptown, I've
been to the Frick

Uptown is far
away, but while
here, look around

Madison Avenue is
brown this month

It's the avenue
it's the windows
filled with
imagined
placement of
jewels

Then I saw your car.

It was your car
I could see the torn
registration

I could see the
seat where I
sit.

Purple and orange
combinations can
go too far. transparent
blue mounting
surrounded by diamonds

You don't often come
up here.

When not
wearing them
put her diamonds
into a crystal vase
filled with water
where
they disappeared.

Opals could go
into oil
pearls into milk.

emeralds in green
mouth wash

rubies in blood

What's the occasion

is this what's out of the blue

If we didn't have
one and one equaling
two,
We would still have two

The entrance to
the Frick Collection
is so simple, there
are few steps, and
you are there.
Go to the Fragonard room
and stand in the middle
and stop. Don't let
anyone notice that
you plan to do three
turns. Slow turns
which can hardly be noticed.

***
It was the doorknob
on the door to the
bedroom, right off
the kitchen.

It's not what counts
It's what has been
counted.
Everybody joins hands
and a circle is made

Anderson ran off
without having
his dinner, not even
telling his sister.
She looked into their
secret box, and found
no note nor any
hint of where Anderson
could have gone

He was hiding high in
the apple tree and his
sister walked right
under the apple tree not
seeing him. When she
got to the end of the lane,
she couldn't find him,
and thought that
he must have been
kidnapped by the gypsies,
then ran back to the house
in tears.

Maxwell lowered
himself from the apple tree,
caught up with his
sister and he never forgot
the embrace his sister
gave him, the pain in her
face, then the relief that
came to her teary eyes,
after she explained her
fright.

At breakfast the
following morning, no one
talked about Maxwell's
absence

This happened during the summer, when there was no school.

Because he lived in the country, Maxwell never learned to roller-skate. What a strange idea, attaching wheels to your feet and finding a way to move from one place to another.

Forget the story about the long journey and just catch up on those you are visiting. Everyone is so busy getting everything ready and talking about what is going on I didn't realize I no longer knew most of the people there. The women had mostly been married so they had changed their last names to their husbands' names.

It's gotten to images
that are not new.
Images recalled.

It's gotten down to experiences remembered. Remembering is now the new thrill: the experience that was yet to happen, the idea that an anticipated moment could actually happen, is now a memory.

The calmer the beat,
the truer.
Acceleration can include
lies. Are you old
enough to lie? Are you
too old to lie?
Is this the day of salt?

        June 8   795

1st   June 9   647

2nd   June 9

Speaking of roller skates
I've noticed What hard
work roller-skating is

Later in the day, after all the hollering and screaming, we quieted down and began talking about my new painting of Vermeer's Woman in Blue Reading a Letter.

The plan is to paint a copy actual size, about 18 x 15 inches, then including the frame in the composition. It would be the frame that is on the painting which is in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

The canvas will measure a few inches larger than the frame, making the stretcher 29 x 26 inches. This allows for the shadow of the frame to show on the (painting of the) museum's wall.

The satisfaction in obtaining  this plan is to have an image of that painting being seen the way it is seen--  no longer the usual reproduction, which is usually a print. This will be a painting of the Vermeer with a painting of the frame with its shadow (cast on the wall). Photo-realism comes to mind -- having a photograph of the Painting in the frame -- yet there is a turn: It is actually a painting; a copy of the original with a frame painted around the picture, which is the frame holding the original in the Museum in Amsterdam.

This is a moment of gaze toward deciphering what is seen -- a moment.

Moments of this kind are found in trompe l'oeil, but this isn't real trompe l'oeil because of the absence of the visual re-focusing. It is more of a mental re-focusing, part of a thought. What you see is what it is, yet it is a painting of what is seen. This is how to see a painting.

John Cage
each the occasion
when
things as they are


twenty
backwards:
ytnewt
back word
backword is
drowkcab

silence
ecnelis

sonata
is this in red

repeat
taeper

"The Woman in Blue Reading a Letter" becomes an icon in a frame. Here there is no point in analyzing Vermeer's painting because it is not his painting, but a copy.

this is not what Duchamp did, and I do not know if Duchamp's treatment of the Mona Lisa is the kick-off of my idea.

The painting in the frame cannot be any other painting because that painting image is the story.

It is not a Vermeer, and

Without this painting in Vermeer's oeuvre, Vermeer would be lesser known. All of his works depend on "Woman in Blue Reading a Letter." Any painting of Vermeer has some reference to this painting.

Now if I make it into a public stamp, it becomes another thing.

this is not what Duchamp did, and I do not know if Duchamp's treatment of the Mona Lisa is the kick-off of my idea.

It is not a Vermeer, and

Woman Reading has always been a public image and used for purposes other than what is called a masterpiece but I am returning it to that category by including its frame.

"The Woman in BLue Reading a Letter" is the key painting in what is known of Vermeer's paintings: the most thorough essence in what is a Vermeer. Without this painting known, any of his other works lessen. Of course, some of Vermeer's claim to importance is the limited amount of his known works. This makes it simple to weigh the
oeuvre of his work

Paris France
give it a chance. Paris
has the Authority.
Pendleton skirts
artificial eyelashes
Constant comment
News Letters

Sometimes as time passes a simple occurrence happens that explains the way things are. Such a simple occurrence can change the day.

Stepping out of the Frick
I saw your car
forgetting what I had seen
I stepped back into the Frick
I reviewed the two
Veroneses
again I went through
the Fragonard room
and into the hall
of Bouchers
though you and the car
was on my mind
and art had gone
astray.

Anytime I'm at the Frick
I am dazzled at the Ingres
but there is a certain George Washington
Stuart
It's a wondrous
moment walking through
that Great  Hall that Contains
the Goya, Rembrandt and
Bellini
then the French rooms
with the
properly colored walls
it was your car
I sat on the marble bench
and looked into the pool

I can't see painting
well with two things
on my mind.
It's a Honda

We can no longer
refer to the past
Yet we have not
learned a lesson

There has never been a
war like this war,
the only similarity is
the word war.


I had lots to say but the
rush has gone away

Not thinking of the problem
does help the problem

If it works better on the
right than on the left
do it on the right it
helps the left: Merce

Waiting for the right
moment is wrong.

Having had time to
consider, there is that
chance of making up
my mind.

The Holbein portrait of Sir Thomas More is so complete that one never tires of looking at it. It is so complete that one realizes there cannot be anything to do about it but look at it.

It's possible to see into the actual life of Holbein, his position of where he sat to paint, his quiet process of painting, and his having already chosen the color. This work is all proven theory.

There are 32 steps
to the entrance
of the Metropolitan
Museum

Wondering about the
event is not the event

Anticipating the event
has nothing to do
with the event because
arriving and being
there makes it into
something other
than what was
anticipated.

Holbein rendered his conception, he filled in the drawing. What is so pleasant about this painting is the solidity of detail, and upon noticing brutal lighting on it I can realize its permanency. I can measure the timing of paint application. I can realize how applying the paint absorbed time. Holbein needed to be painting most hours of every day in order to complete the work he did. This complete concentration makes the quality of this portrait, which is painted on wood, and wood panel, because it is not porous, demands a different drying time than canvas. It is easier (more simple) to paint on canvas than to paint on wood panel. Canvas was discovered to be a painting surface after the properties of paint were known. Wood panel, or even wooden board, was once the only paintable surface around, and those who painted soon found that out -- but the wood surface was available before the painting medium was perfected.

Because wood was the original surface to paint on, it became common to suppose it was ideal, but in actuality this all should be put aside. What should be most respected is the best use for the best result that holds the chosen medium.

So, the medium takes the lead.

***

May 17 2008
How to use a Vermeer. There is a framed painting on the wall behind the standing woman. The top of the frame is not fully depicted, but half of it ends the painting, and I wonder why. When I use the painting I look towards extending its sides, but there is no reason to extend the left side, it would go nowhere. It's the other three sides. The left has a window which can continue, thus becoming more than a detail, the lower part of the painting can be extended by finishing the woman's skirt and adding more tile floor, then the top of the painting which seems to quit suddenly, have only half of the top of the picture frame.

The tightness of this composition is in the fact that all sides are cut back, having incomplete articles.

Surface the crowd
Surf the crowd
With no one
to know.
It's a deep trench
which becomes more
narrow as it continues.
It's made of living
substances and so
it continuously changes.
Breathing causes
a sigh

When writing it out
is it described the way
it should be described
or is it described the
way you want it read
Describe it the way
you want it read

END