JAV's quilts are hung in a very nice gallery setting in a quilt shop in town. They are up a flight of open stairs in a banistered loft, nicely lit with halogen spots which make their complex color fields really shine. Hanging with them are some very nice examples of Mountain quilts past. One dating from 1972 which features the words "I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto The Hills" Done in calligraphic letters with a little lift to the line, just as in a small church we know. All in all a lovely show, which is certain to attract the attention of the, surprisingly large, community of local quilters. Such a pleasing art form in so many ways, and such a perfect time of year to appreciate it. A good time of year to pick colors to bring into a home, which we also did. Thanks for that JAV.
By the by. This week saw the majority of work go into the Northwest bedroom in Allies Place. She has received two coats of flexible, moisture proof primer on the old plaster ceiling and walls. Quite a prep job. Multiple layers of venerable wallpaper whose adhesives qualities had long given up the ghost in some spots and in some spots still clung with very unseemly determination. Plaster chunking out in spots. This place had a severe leak at some time, it might have been a rough spring before the new roof went on. All wooden trim also got prepped, and two coats of very good quality alkyd primer.
Work went on with The Pipe in Question. It is finally buried, bedded well I think, by Orv. He advised waiting a few days of rainy weather to let it settle before back filling, and I can say that, with the sand and fines gently washing in around it, it had definitely sort of firmed up to its trench. Jim stopped by to pick up his pipe vise, which he had loaned to Orv (though Orv doesn't use a pipe vice. He is of the old school, over the knee, freehand cutting, with an old, whipped out saw). He also wanted to get a billing address, and look at the work of course. He stayed for some minutes and passed the time in a friendly manner with Alison and I. We spoke of electricity; the Three Gorges Dam, windmills he had seen in Spain, small hydro plants in Maine. I may have mentioned... I was also pretty satisfied with the way that the cellar wall rocked up, the mortar set up good and strong, though it cut the hell out of my hands. Now it's just a question of spreading out the flag stones and letting everything settle in over winter. In the spring, I told MK, we can brush some seed mixed with soil into the gaps; two or three varieties of nice, vigorous thyme I should think.
If one begins with the premise that all great art is devotional, and this is a good premise, for great art infuses spirit into itself through the artists sense of devotion, through her sense of the sacred and her acute awareness of the profane; one begins to look for the sacred influence in all art, not just that which is explicitly spiritual in its foundation. And, one becomes often aware of the deficiency of a potent spiritual force in work when it is, sadly, constructed by mere technicians. Any draughtsman may produce fine, pure art. Every artist is on some level a draughtsman, but, art without spirit is a poor, weak draught. :-)
One can find the sacred element in all beautiful works and, happily, this brings us to Cowboy Songs. What are the sacred underpinnings of a cowboy song? I would say a diffuse devotion to those things wild and free. The animals, the people, and the ferocious natural forces of the wide plains. Wild horses figure easily as one facet of the cowboys devotion, so too do rebels and outlaws, the beauty of simplicity, the devastating beauty of heart breakin' women. Cowboys share a deep sense of transience and mortality as well. Bob Dylan wrote a cowboy song called "Knockin' on Heavens Door. It's a cowboy song because he wrote it about an outlaw, some say a lawman At least he was thinking about outlaws when he wrote it. It is an outlaws lament and plea for redeeming. It is the prayer for redemption entwined in the words, as well as the presence of the outlaw himself, which makes this song sacred, a cowboy devotional. Which, of course, makes it great. Note how its devotional quality is picked up and amplified as it is reinterpreted, as it has been, and will be, so many times.
Interpretation can take an endless variety of unique forms.
