'when the white stars talk together like sisters'

I went out at night alone;
The young blood flowing beyond the sea
Seemed to have drenched my spirit’s wings—
I bore my sorrow heavily. 

But when I lifted up my head
From shadows shaken on the snow,
I saw Orion in the east
Burn steadily as long ago. 

From windows in my father’s house,
Dreaming my dreams on winter nights,
I watched Orion as a girl
Above another city’s lights. 

Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,
The world’s heart breaks beneath its wars,
All things are changed, save in the east
The faithful beauty of the stars.

Sara Teasdale, 1884-1933. From Flame and Shadow, 1920.

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Charles Burchfield:

Winter Moonlight, 1951. Watercolor on paper. 40 x 33 in. Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kansas.

Orion in December, 1959. Watercolor and pencil on paper. 39 7/8 x 32 7/8 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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Post title: from Thomas Merton's 'A Christmas Card.' Originally posted 12/27/2010.

odds and ends / 1.3.2019

Theodoor Willem Nieuwenhuis: January page from a calendar for 1896.

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Bode beaded tab jacket at Neighbour.

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Bug, bird, and flower tiles in stylist Maude Smith's London bathroom — she painted each one herself. (The kitchen encrusted in wine corks and seashells is also beyond.)

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Pretty Kamawanu Wafu furoshiki to brighten dull days from Moth.

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Charles Burchfeld: Tree Ghosts, 1919.

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At Granta: the best books of any year.

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Do you have a working definition of love? 

It’s a verb. That’s the first thing. It’s an active engagement with all kinds of feelings—positive ones and primitive ones and loathsome ones. But it’s a very active verb. And it’s often surprising how it can kind of ebb and flow. It’s like the moon. We think it’s disappeared, and suddenly it shows up again. It’s not a permanent state of enthusiasm.

Esther Perel, in conversation with Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker, 12/9/2018.

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The afterlife of broken art.

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The ugly history of beautiful things: perfume, angora. (I loved Katie Kelleher's color stories so I was thrilled to find her new-ish essays on Longreads.)

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So: what is glitter? 

A manipulation of humans’ inherent desire for fresh water. An intangible light effect made physical. Mostly plastic, and often from New Jersey. Disposable by design but, it turns out, not literally disposable. A way to make long winter nights slightly brighter, despite the offshore presence of Germans. An object in which the inside of a potato chip bag meets the aurora borealis.

Caity Weaver, 'What is Glitter?' NYT, 12/21/2018.

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The idea of the mind as a palace or church, whose individual rooms can be explored with training, is familiar from the memory treatises of antiquity and the Middle Ages. The “memory palace” as a mnemonic device was widely used before the advent of printing to organize and remember vast amounts of information. By memorizing the spatial layout of a building and assigning images or ideas to its various rooms, one could “walk” through the imaginary building and retrieve the ideas relegated to the separate parts.

Aysegul Savas, 'The Celestial Memory Palace.' The Paris Review, 12/7/2018.

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A business with no end. (NYT)

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The very worst fantasy of Zero Waste is that we can neatly atone for humanity’s destruction with these individual rituals of purification. That by purging our homes of single-use grocery bags, plastic toothbrushes, and disposable razors, we can breathe a sigh of relief. But truly imagining a Zero Waste world, one in which we don’t merely displace our trash but rather work toward a circular economy where trash is no longer produced, might guide us toward a more holistic vision of environmental justice.

Madeleine Wattenbarger, 'Waste Not, Want Not.' The Baffler, 12/19/2018.

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How to fall asleep in two minutes.

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Sweet potato toast.

this weekend

In Boston until Saturday. So, away:

• old books
• fried clams
• spoon fruits 
• helping a friend with his halloween costume

Then home:

• a happy dog
• Metropolis
• Baldessari
• cardamom coffee

Image: Charles Burchfield. Autumn Wind, 1952. Lithograph.

wallpapers

Charles Burchfield wallpaper designs for M. H. Birge & Sons Company:

1. Lithograph design for wallpaper with water snakes.
2. Sunflowers, 1921.
3. Robins and Crocuses, 1929.

watercolors

 

Charles Burchfield.

1. At work.
2. Decorative Landscape, Shadow, 1916. Watercolor with pencil notations on paper, 19 7/8 x 13 7/8 in.
3. Sunflower, August 15, 1915. Watercolor and pencil on paper, 20 x 14 in.
4. Trees, 1917. Watercolor on paper laid down on board. 26 x 20 in.
5. The Insect Chorus, 1917. Watercolor with ink, graphite and crayon. 20 x 15 7/8 in.
6. Rail Fence, 1916.
7. Late August Sunset, 1916. Watercolor and gouache over graphite. 19 7/8 x 13 7/8 in.
8. Two Ravines, 1934 - 1943. Watercolor on paper.

I'm so glad I got to see the Burchfield show at The Whitney before it closed.

I like to think of myself - as an artist - as being in a nondescript swamp, up to my knees in mire, painting the vital beauty I see there, in my own way, not caring a damn about tradition, or anyone's opinion.

Charles Burchfield, journal entry from February 8, 1938.