Eliot Hodgkin, painter

I stumbled on the painter Eliot Hodgkin by way of a blogpost by my FB friend Stephen O'Donnell, also a painter. (I wrote about Stephen here a while back.) The post in question is called "Random XVIII," and it is indeed a random and yet deliciously connected array of paintings and photographs. Just fascinating. (And this one is XVIII? There are seventeen more of these collections to wallow in? Oh, my heart!)

What stopped me, though, in a stream mostly of images of human beings, was this painting, One Lemon Quartered, from 1972:

Exquisite! (I do love still-life.)

Eliot Hodgkin (1905–1987) was a British artist. There is a great website devoted to him, his life, his work. He worked first in oils, and then in egg tempera. His subject matter is wide-ranging.

Hodgkin said, "I try to look at quite simple things as though I were seeing them for the first time and as though no one had ever painted them before." I think he succeeds. See what you think. (Click on the images to view them large on black.)

A Christmas Present, 1963

Five Oyster Shells, 1961

Milkweed Seeds, 1941? 1964?

Two "Lady Derby" Tulips, 1948

Gulls Eggs in a Box, 1957

A Solitary Boot, 1943

Three Nectarines in White Paper, 1957

He also did (wartime) landscapes.

An Old Stump near Panbourne, 1947

Villars-sur-Ollon, n.d.

The Valley of the Shadow, 1945

St. Paul's and St. Mary Aldermary
from St. Swithin's Churchyard, 1945

St. Paul's from Fell Street, 1944

I have not begun to get to the bottom of what-all Eliot Hodgkin painted, but so far I am mightily impressed. I am very glad to have discovered this new-to-me artist.

Michael Kenna, photographer

I wrote about Michael Kenna a few years ago, and shared some photos. Today he popped up on my Facebook feed, which prompted me to check out his page. He does such beautiful work! I thought I'd share him again. Why not? As always, click on the images to view them large on black.

 

 

Fishing support, River Po, Italy, 2017
Single boat, Kerala, India, 2008
Seaweed farms, Study 3, China, 2010
Tunnel of poplars, Boretto, Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2017
Beach path, Hastings, England, 1984
Night shadows, St-Malo, France, 2000
Toliman Volcano, Guatemala, 2003
Apple trees, Dornach, Switzerland, 1993
Chariot of Apollo, Study 2, Versailles, France, 1996
Line of trees, Japan 2002

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Current Covid-19 numbers for Monterey County: 4,082 confirmed cases—up 80 since yesterday, 129 since Saturday; 255 hospitalizations (up 4); 23 deaths (up 1). Last week Frontline featured a good documentary about Monterey County and Covid-19, specifically in agriculture and meat-processing. Those people are the ones being especially hit. The documentary is called "Covid's Hidden Toll." It's worth a watch.

Stay safe. Stay healthy.

Another Day of Geocaching

The following will likely not be of interest to anyone but myself, but I wanted to save a record of a delightful day. 

Some travelbugs I hoped to drop,
as well as a couple of replacement
containers "just in case"

Yesterday, David (aka FifiBonacci) and I (annevoi) went out with our geocaching friend Alastair (Mimring) for a day of adventure. It started out straightforwardly: we had our sights set on a 6.2-mile hiking loop in Santa Clara County, at the recently opened Bear Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve—the reason being a new challenge posted by one Ullii (Julie): the 100-Mile Hike. This challenge involves finding ten caches, on ten hikes, and ultimately putting together keywords to find the "prize" final. (Yeah, yeah, yeah: geocachers are silly.) We chose this loop because it's the shortest—Mimring claiming he's out of shape (so are we all, what with Covid-19, sadly)—and because of its subtitle: "The Albino Redwood." Mimring "collects" albino redwoods; this was his eleventh.

It is, granted, difficult to discern
the albino redwood; it's just
above the middle of the shot

And yes, we did find the albino redwood! It was high in the air, growing out of an impressively gnarly branch. We also found the cache, launching us on the 100-Mile Hike. And we found sixteen other caches on our loop. We were suitably chuffed.

But then it was only noon, and we had no plan. I pointed out a couple of puzzle caches I'd solved by a certain (now deceased) cacher, 50sumtin, over near the UC Santa Cruz campus. The three of us are trying to find all of 50sumtin's caches—which amounts to 157, though many of those have been archived (fortunately!). We decided to go for those, and any nearby caches.

Okay! Off we set! But when we neared Highway 17, which would take us back over the Santa Cruz Mountains to the UC campus, it was crawling. I was driving, and I don't like sitting in traffic. So instead I set off along a twisty road that (I hoped!) paralleled the highway. And of course there were geocaches along the way, as Fifi and Mimring started announcing as they scanned the map (though too often, the announcement came when we were already past the spot. "Give me a little advance warning!" I grumbled).

At one twist of the road, David, reading the map, uttered the words "Holy City" just as, on the left, I spotted a long, low, empty building and, on the right, a sign: "Holy City Road." "Hey!" I yelled. "There's a cache here!" "No there isn't," two voices in unison assured me. "Yes there is!" I pulled over, and explained.

I had studied the puzzle cache "Green, Green Wall" a couple of weeks before, but was unable to determine the exact coordinates and so forgot about it. While considering the problem, though, I had summoned up Google Street View and seen the building mentioned in the cache description. It was that building: the long, low, empty one we had just passed. (Fifi and Mimring didn't see the cache on the map because a puzzle cache uses false coordinates. The symbol for this one is on the other side of the highway.)

If you know what you're looking for
(kind of like with the albino redwood)
you can make out just a bit of one
of those green, green bricks—really!

To make a long story short, there was much wandering around. We found dilapidated walls. We found a telephone pole to which a strange set-up involving compressed nitrogen was attached. We found an apparent contemplative sanctuary featuring the Virgin Mary on a bench (and more walls, these in good shape). We finally went to the building in question, took a bearing, and started pacing off—as instructed to do in the cache description. Eventually we actually saw some green, green bricks (per cache title and the photo above)—but they are now very much covered by berry vines ➶. While the boys tiptoed through the thorns, finding more and more green bricks, pointing over there—I followed their directives (and my geosense) and poked around "over there." And voilà! There it was!

This sort of adventure is what I love about geocaching. Chalk another one up for the excellent-memories album. As Mimring commented in his log for the cache, he learned a few things from this one, among them: serendipity is a good thing; and finding a cache collectively when each contributes a vital piece makes for a really fun adventure. Also, "I really do like geocaching."

Found a traveler! And its offspring!
(Actually, there was nothing but a
bloodshot eyeball in the egg. I left it.)

We finally made our way over to the UC, but there every single turnout along the road from which we might have accessed the two puzzle caches we had in mind was signed NO PARKING. Grrrrr. We were (reluctantly) heading slowly home when David commented that a cache was coming up, right on the road. So I pulled over and, minding the No Parking signs, sat in the car while they searched.

I watched as a couple of young women walked through the large dry-grassy field nearby, dressed in cycling clothes; two helmets, but only one bike. As one of the women climbed over the stile, she held her arm awkwardly, gingerly; her shorts were covered in dirt. An accident? They waited a short while, and then a large white pickup pulled up and took the injured cyclist off; the other one jumped on her bike and rode away.

Historical marker for the
"town" of Patchen,
named after a race horse

And then when Fifi and Mimring got back (empty-handed) and I turned the key: nothing. Or rather, a brief flash of every light on the dashboard. But no engine. Tried a few more times, until all I got was literally nothing.

Turns out, I'd left the key in the ignition, turned on. And I'd been told at my last service that the battery needed replacing. It didn't take much to drain it completely. 

So we called AAA. After an aggravating interaction with their automated system, and failure to locate ourselves on an uninteractable-with map, we got shunted to an actual person (yay), a pleasant young woman who took down all my info and then said, “A technician will be with you within 90 minutes.” Oh. Oy!

So the boys went back out to look for the darned cache some more while I sat in the car. Soon, the fit cyclist reappeared, in a car, the bike on a rack. We chatted. She said her friend was at urgent care, and she needed to go fetch her bike, which was a good distance away and had a flat tire—so no riding it. It would take her quite a while. Given that there's NO PARKING there, she was worried about getting ticketed, but saw no options. I wished her luck.

Just as she took off, I got a text message from Rossi’s Garage: help was on the way! And then I received the URL to a map, and I could actually watch help coming, in the form of a big yellow truck navigating the streets of Santa Cruz. Once it turned onto High Street, I knew he was close. I looked up, and there he was! I waved! He waved! It was like a miracle.

"Bear-ly Hidden," a local landmark
along a narrow little road

He jumped the car—offered to sell me a battery, but we figured the long drive to Monterey would be enough to charge it, so no, just a jump, thanks. He was very pleasant. His name was Kendrick. He wore a blue mask. He was yesterday’s superhero.

Before we drove off, we tucked a note under the cyclist's windshield wiper, explaining her predicament to anyone who might stop to investigate. I hope she didn't get a ticket. It was the last thing she needed.

All in all, it was a day of delights. Even including the flat battery, since it turned out just fine—and only took 20 minutes out of our day. Though the boys never did find that cache…

The day recharged me and my personal flat battery.

It's good to get out. And have adventures. With good friends.

10-Day Challenge

I've posted photo challenges here before. This one was of travel photos. Ten days. The boilerplate that I ended up with, after first inviting two specific individuals to play along, who then ignored me, was this:

I was chosen for the 10-day favorite travel picture challenge by my friend Barbara Moritsch 
 Every day I select an image from my pictures of places I've been--a place that made a big impression on me--and post it without an explanation. This is #X for me.
 If you'd like to post ten (or however many) of your own photos from wherever, with or without an explanation, I'd sure love seeing them.

One friend actually did bite, based on this general invitation, and posted a first photo of her, me, and three other special people at the Women's March in Washington on January 21, 2017. So yay. I think it's fun—to play along, in what ever fashion. Play is good. So are good memories. 

Here are the photos I posted for the challenge (with some explanation):

Petermann Island, Antarctica, this February

Acre, Israel

Niagara Falls, NY

Venice Beach, CA

Sitka, AK

Pic du Midi, the Pyrenees, France, a year ago right now

On Hwy 27 between Ringebu and Folldal, Norway

Cat Tien National Park, Vietnam

Gustavo, our birding guide at Sacha Lodge, Ecuador

Half Dome from the John Muir Trail, Yosemite NP

And here's my friend Thelma's picture of us on that glorious day:

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Covid-19 stats for 7/25 at 11 a.m.: confirmed cases stand at 3,953, up 88 from yesterday and up 408 since I posted on Wednesday; hospitalizations are at 251, up 14 since Wednesday; deaths are at 22, up 1 since Wednesday. Monterey County has one of the worst rates of Coronavirus infection in the state, owing (probably) to two things: tourism and agriculture. A majority of cases are among Hispanics (74%) and people in the Salinas Valley (83%). But rates along the coast are rising too. We can't be too careful.

Stay safe. Stay healthy.

Mary Oliver yet again

Today I offer not just a poem, but a musical rendition of it: choral. The music, written by my husband. Go to this link, and you can hear it performed. And you can see the score here. (Okay, the score is also at the first link. I'm just trying to have something to say here.) At the link, he also explains what he was thinking as he composed the piece—which might benefit you if you choose to listen.

(After a while the link may not work, so if you can't find it, just read the poem! But for now, it's up.)

And now I'll just let Mary Oliver speak—with . . .

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today's Covid-19 numbers for MoCo (oh, how I'd love to see them start dropping): 3,545 confirmed cases, up a whopping 166 since yesterday (so much for my wish); 237 hospitalizations (up 10); and deaths remain steady, for now, at 21.

Stay safe. Stay healthy.

Giovanna Garzoni, painter

Per Wikipedia, "Giovanna Garzoni (1600–1670) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. She began her career painting religious, mythological, and allegorical subjects but gained fame for her botanical subjects painted in tempera and watercolor."

Per the J. Paul Getty Museum, "One of the first women artists to practice the art of still life painting, Giovanna Garzoni pursued her career with intensity. Garzoni's paintings were so well liked that, according to one writer, she could sell her work 'for whatever price she wished.' One of Garzoni's earliest works, a 1625 calligraphy book, includes capital letters illuminated with fruits, flowers, birds, and insects. These subjects were to become her specialty, and tempera on vellum was her preferred medium. Garzoni's refined interpretation of plants and animals suited the taste of her aristocratic patrons, like the Medici family, and could be found decorating their villas."

I don't remember how I stumbled on Giovanna Garzoni (this seems to be the story of my life lately—though I don't think I'm getting demented). Some of her works, however, have been adorning my desktop for months now. It's time to move them from there to here.

So, for your viewing pleasure: a few Garzoni still-lifes.

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Today's MoCo Covid-19 stats: 3,379 confirmed cases (up only 36 since yesterday, up 151 since I posted two days ago); hospitalizations, 227 (up 6 and 10, respectively); deaths are now at 21, up 2 since yesterday, and 3 since Sunday. Whew.

This shitshow isn't showing any sign of letting up anytime soon. But the law-and-order commander-in-chief has restarted his Covid-19 daily briefings. Oh, ain't that a relief!

Stay safe. Stay well. Vote in November. And yes, observe the beauty all around us. It's still here.