When you’re bogged down with writer’s block, creative fog, even brain freeze, what do you do to break free from its hold? Here’s one way to purge the hive of such impediments. Go to an opening, an art exhibit, perhaps one which deals in a medium that you know little of. In my case, think fabrics, paper and ceramics and other materials—either in combination—or crafted exclusively with fabric. An oversimplification, but a few photos can better illustrate the creations displayed at the exhibit, Beauty is Resistance, our Fall Art in the Barn Exhibtion. I was impressed with the inventiveness, originality, concept development, creativity, and overall execution of the various pieces.
At browngrotta arts, co-curators Tom Grotta and Rhonda Brown have managed original art, crafted by internationally recognized artists for more than 3 decades. My “introduction” to the pieces of art at this exhibit was an A-1 engagement of diminishing my brain fog, creative block and so on. Neither words nor photos can describe the pieces. This is a case of what I actually see and feel is amazing, because of what is physically in front of me. A demonstrative be-in-the-moment activity, to say the least. So, please take a moment to peruse a small sampling of what was on display.
A special thank you to Tom Grotta and Rhonda Brown for their hospitality and sharing their knowledge about the artists, the scope of this exhibit and their anecdotes of life in international Art. Photography: courtesy of Tom Grotta. All rights for the images and the Art are those of the artists.
Home artist Lija Rage; mixed media, wooden sticks, linen and copper [2-panels; detail shown in second image].
From Chaos to Reality artist Aleksandra Stoyanov; sisal, cotton
Shred dollar artist Chris Drury; US currency [detail shown below]
Female Husk II artist Anda Klancic; torso [from Momento Mori composition] with cone; palm tree bark, synthetic filament, acrylic, and metal wire
Ce qu’il en reste IX artist Stephanie Jacques; willow, gesso, linen thread
Flower Colors artist Mary Merkel-Hess; paper, cord, paper
Rhonda Brown co-curator
Tom Grotta co-curator
Photography a professional photographer, Tom Grotta created a display showcasing some of the literature and gear he has used through his ongoing career.
Back in the day, “soliloquy” was a word associated with theatre. There have been some powerful, mindful soliloquys, many found in English Literature. William Shakespeare and Robert Browning come to mind; the former for his plays, Browning for his poetry.
I find myself tuning into my inner self with soliloquys. These are not conversations to me, but a way to be honest with myself. In the process, I voice [in my head…..not out loud]. the deepest feelings which need to be brought out from the inner sanctum of my soul. These sentiments, perceptions and more, represent a personal unspoken anthology of emotions which remain exclusive to myself. Everyone should try their own form of soliloquy. You become the subject as well as the audience. The orator speaks to the most relevant, but private person in his/her life.
A recent trip to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art [MassMOCA] located in North Adams, MA is one location that gave an opportunity for reflection and acknowledgement. Come to think of it, most any museum makes a strong location for a soliloquy. Other alternatives abound: a beach, a park, a forest, a solitary space, even a space filled with people. The options are varied, but I do believe, like the soliloquys expressed in plays, poems and so forth, a place relatively quiet proves hospitable to many. A calm atmosphere is a priori given the breadth of one’s soliloquy.
Where ever you stand, and what ever you see, there lies a confluence of provocations that may come to the forefront of your thinking or introspection. The time stamp—from which these thoughts come from—depends on its significance: an early relationship gone awry; a current relationship that seems too good to be true; the unknown realm in choosing one option over another; the challenge of working through options in light of a chronic condition that will not stop let alone disappear. There’s a universe of profound feeling and thinking we can only imagine.
The above photos are from the MassMoCa’s permanent exhibit, The Boiler House. When you walk into the building, you’re visually overwhelmed with the scale and the number of boilers, pipes, connectors and vents that course over the entire space. If there ever was a place that made me feel Lilliputian, this is at the top of my list. The Boiler House is the facility that provided heat to all the space before it became MassMoCa. There are several floors, though I believe only the first 2 are open for visitors.
Suspended on tracks next to the Boiler House is an Airstream trailer. A walkway takes you to and from the Airstream to the Boiler House. This is the work of Michael Oatman, entitled “All Utopias Fell.”
A common theme in my soliloquy is this search for order and purpose, or a clarification of both. This is a challenge as I tend to overthink, excessively evaluate one over the other. Upon entering the Airstream, a myriad of visual elements reach out to you. It’s as if each photo, drawing, sign, piece of paper, object and so much more want to make mental impressions on you, as in right now. This is sensory overload and perhaps a metaphor for the soliloquy stirring in your thinking. It’s as if each piece could be a catalyst for a specific thought process. And once that piece or pieces enters your thinking, you start that introspection or make it progress to another level.
There are several “Why this?” and “What ifs?” within the profound, introspective construct of choices and decisions that are created. The certainty of being your own person, unique and unduplicated by any other, is that choices and decisions you make create the questions that begin with “why” or “what.” And while you and others are individuals in that singular sense, the framework of questioning is common for everyone, but ancillary circumstances are bound to differ between people.
Dr. Faustus, the play written by English dramatist Christopher Marlowe, revolves around the angst of Dr. Faustus agreeing to surrender his soul to the devil in exchange for magical powers. His soliloquy in the last hour before that exchange, is one which poses questions and conditions had the choices Dr. Faustus made were different. Once made, the commitment is binding, non-negotiable. There are no pause, stop or rewind buttons in life.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the quintessential soliloquy in my opinion. With new realities [and previous uncertainties] playing out today, themes of life & death, the meaning of our purpose and existence, mortality and vengeance are wonderfully distilled into words that examines all that can detract or enhance our existence.
I came across the last photo as I finished my visit to the Boiler House. It dawned on me that this effigy is a personification of someone covered with details that make up her/his soliloquy.
In our current state of dystopia, many of us choose to distance ourselves from news media in all its forms. All that noise creates too much anxiety, along with all the other discomforts that accompany “news and information.” We are exposed to a colossus of news briefs, articles and “breaking news at this hour” enough to ignite [or bore] the minds of writers/authors well versed in our state of fear, hopelessness, frustration, suffering et al.
Misery knows no bounds, but so does hope and happiness.
Relevance and purpose can hold both good and bad in thoughts and actions, but your choice in one or the other adjectives relies in your beliefs and values that help you deal with your day-to-day. You may not realize–or even think about–your own stoic qualities.
Consider the opening paragraph of Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
When you realize you can’t control everything, but manage the ones you can, then you’re in a better place than many others.
It happens each year: Spring. It is perhaps the season that celebrates its affinity with renewal, new starts, opportunities, hope and personal rejuvenation. For the past 12-years, The Springfield Museum has held a unique exhibition that acknowledges some of these nuances of change, transitions, challenges, renewal et al.
courtesy Michelle & Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts
In each of the four museums that make up the Springfield Quadrangle, members of gardening clubs and florists based around the area created arrangements of colors, textures and other details in a manner that would intersect with a selected painting or other creation within the museums.
The creativity range was as eclectic and electric as anything I’ve seen, simply because of the relationship that attempted to “unify” two discreetly different pieces of art.
The juxtaposed subjects provided depth, perspective and of course relevance through the use of color and hues, manifestations of the blending of material, thread size, color, props, textures and so forth.
Some arrangements did not have a direct connection to a piece of art in the gallery. My sense is that such arrangements–such as the one displayed above–were created to compliment art already sitting in that room.
From headwear and accessories to…..
….gowns made entirely of real greens and flowers, the creativity was beyond words! Next April 2026, should be an interesting installation! See you then.
I’m not alone on this one, but it seems that many channels of communication [discussions, social media and various online postings, news media, e.g.] are quite inhospitable. Of course not all content is an incorrigible exaggeration, but it does seem that we’ve gone myopic of a rule that involves interaction and in particular, discussion, between different POVs. Essentially, such discussions are cleaved in 2. There are some instances where discussions cannot abide with the adage, One can disagree without being disagreeable.
Ironically, much of what we do that makes us feel lost, infuriated and misunderstood is, indeed, something that’s very human. And of course, we can be intractable and obstinate just as we can be manageable and flexible. It’s been said that politics and elections are catalysts to conditions of inflexibility, among other reactions and situations.
Consciousness Fine Tuned
Being aware of yourself and how you think about everything around you is uniquely yours. There are a few theories which attempt to explain consciousness, but one written by a researcher at Boston University School of Medicine is one which mortals like me can comprehend. The end of October has rendered our landscape into a wonderful palette of autumnal colors: the reds, orange, yellows and hues in between are as beautiful as I’ve ever seen. I share this because watching and/or listening to the news is taking the wind out of my sails. So, to fine tune [or tune out] the bad vibes plaguing airwaves, print, and online, I retreat to places where I can hear my thoughts and submit to various feelings coursing through my consciousness.
You could say that I’m “rebooting” my consciousness, but I feel it’s more like a “recalibrating” effort to keep my sanity more or less where it’s supposed to be. The quiet and calm of places such as these act like a rheostat where mood, color, the smell of the air and so on can be dialed up or down or not at all. In doing so, I’m reminded that the angst raging between factions entrenched in ideologies are obstacles for realizing a common good. The greater good lies dormant, restrained with indifference and the stubborn personas that make life uncomfortable.
There’s no denying the subjectivity of consciousness, but there are constructs within it which allow for common ground. Without those common constructs co-existence would be, in a word, Sisyphian.
I look to writing and chasing the light, feeling immersed with either one or both, to purge distress, sadness, loss of concentration, etc. Certainly, when your mind is busy with something good, a good that pulls you away from angst, then jump in. I won’t be chagrined by situations beyond my reach. It’s a waste of energy and time grinding about things I cannot control. That’s easier said than done, but I remind myself to ruminate less on what weighs me down and instead examine alternatives that have helped me before.
Can anyone deflect dissonance long enough to find even the smallest gesture or comment that closes distance and transforms distraction into possibility?
I relish the 4-seasons here in New England. I have preferences for the times in a year that are cooler and less humid, but I also welcome activities and distractions that come with the other seasons: longer daylight hours, trips to Cape Cod in Massachusetts [salt water and salty air are genuinely therapeutic], visits to the Berkshires and so forth.
How do you take care of your sense of–or even recalibrate–consciousness?
I’ve come across a lot of A-words lately: amazing, atomic, artificial, augmented, abstract, auspicious, audacious, accountable, admirable, apathy, appreciation, affection, accomplished, alarming, Arctic, Antarctica, abysmal, appalling, anachronism and so forth. Like a daisy chain made of paper, these words are linked and yet each easily broken free by the slightest of tension. And while some connections may not make a whole lot of sense, there are reasons however small, that connections take place. Anxiety, lack of focus, melancholy, fear, joy, anticipation, distraction, etc. etc., the Yin-Yang of this is that the very same attributes that prompted the connections can be the same to break them. It depends on time and place. Context is everything.
Audacious. Approx. 35-degrees on a starboard bank.
The words come from various sources, anything and everything that shapes our life experience. With this exercise, the empirical nature of each word puts aside the rational, and instead embraces sentience, that ability to feeldepth of things experienced. It’s certain that others who feel existential—rightfully so in our fractured society—may feel embarrassed yet genuine. What could be more human than to feel concern about our current state of affairs [macro] and our relationships [micro]?
Anachronism. At the stable. The Mount: Edith Wharton’s summer residence.
I’m feeling abstract [visualize Cubism Art] and yet oddly auspicious because many things in life and living are not rational. We are prone to rely more on our senses, the very emotions that can either ruin or celebrate moments in our lives. Yes, I’d rather feel embarrassed and genuine versus being stymied with self-serving, deductive reasoning. The former brings a sense of order, the latter a chance to improve our emotional intelligence and increase a capacity to further understand each other.
Abstract: The Slave Market & Disappearing Voltaire.
Life imitates Art, or is it Art imitates Life? Similarly in marketing, it’s not what you’re getting, but what you think you are getting. Perception is everything and even more so in the here and now. It’s a refrain that frequently echoes in my thinking.
Admirable.Augmented.Appreciation.Arctic-Antarctica: an aftermathAuspiciousAugmented.Affection…with my favorite “cup-of-tea”
There will be no “B” collection, existential-word-dump, involving any other letter, or a character for that matter. An exercise with one letter is enough for me, and probably for you as well.
In conversations, and things written, a question posed usually prompts us to reconsider a position we hold, maybe a perspective quite different from what’s already been established in our own thinking. This collage, this tapestry-of-a-post may not mean much to anyone, but it could be provocative enough to slightly encourage another perspective. Why not?
The seasons are moving quickly and as I get older my own temporal reality is based on just how fast time seems to go by. I lean towards the empirical and the sentient qualities of the here and now to help me keep it all together.
I never thought I´d grow up so fast so far. To know yourself is to let yourself be loved. Do you ever get me? Shower me with affection and I’ll return in kind. I have no hidden motive, I am blind. Do you ever get me?
It was home back in the day. Situated on 48 acres, the “cottage” contains 44 rooms.
Have you ever tried to look at something right in front of you and discern one particular detail. It could be anything: color, shape, texture, scale/size, any specific object and so forth. I’m referring to a single element that piques your attention, whether the element is large or small, plain looking or colorful, simple or complex by design. Naumkeag offers history, a feast for your senses and options to indulge in a location that’s an antithesis to our present-day way of living. So, with an unhurried pace, walk the grounds, examine the gardens, enjoy the vistas and of course the house that was the summer home of prominent lawyer, Joseph Choate and his wife, Caroline. They referred to their residence in Stockbridge, MA as a “cottage.” You don’t need to be a cognoscenti to appreciate landscape design, flowers, stonework, or architecture. No agenda, just a dose of quiet time in a locale that puts you in the Housatonic River Valley, a place in the Berkshires as pastoral as any you’ll find across New England.
Naumkeag is a cornucopia of details. You’re offered a buffet of elements that rightfully distract you from monitors, traffic, deadlines, meetings along with other indeterminate noises. Granted the elements–or distractions–are innocuous, there’s a realization that having these very details shrink the less important, stressful elements that occupy your mind. Well, at least in my mind.
Where’s my focus? Is it obvious to you? Can it as much be yours as it is mine?
You might say this is an exercise in discernment, a way of sharpening perceptions, a means to refocus on other details/elements that may lead you to another level of thinking. The process is still your own, but this time, you’ve given yourself the beginnings of a map that’s genuinely yours.
A benefit of these sorties is this sense of life copacetic; in spite of the routines and doldrums, there are moments that are the opposite of what ails us. In the world of art and the written word, we can see and feel just about anything. Having a sense of place, in this space and time, not in your past and where the future is not promised to any of us, the now matters. That’s it. Don’t waste it. Appreciate don’t pontificate.
The exercise of pulling a detail out and away from everything else pushes me to consider and associate with another perspective of whatever detail I look at. The reds and yellows in the tulips appear even more intense when surrounded by the middle greys in the photographs. The broadleaf in one corner of the greenhouse looks healthy, in large part because of the depth of its green color. Nothing has changed really, and neither have the proprieties of the object or the surroundings. What’s changed is the manner in which you deconstruct details.
Those with a proclivity to capture details can notice more than what meets the eye. Beyond colors, tendrils of an iron chair, the gradation of a solid color to one of a lesser though similar hue, I tend to go toward an object, experience or what have you, that’s relevant to my personal history. You might say it’s akin to a word association game, a yin-yang of opposites as well as things similar. The associations can be personal, simple or complex, a source of light-heartedness or burdened echoes ruminating within your memory.
This is a modification of the immemorial saying, Stop and smell the roses [or tulips]. Instead, reframe your perspective: You can see the big picture, but details bring you closer to the value of the picture.
The Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC has a special exhibition of Edward Hopper, the American iconic painter of urban realism. The exhibit [October 19, 2022 to March 5, 2023] has a strong focus on the art he created during his years in New York City, a place he and his wife, Josephine, called home for six decades. Art in its many forms gains additional attention when a curated exhibit or installation comes to life. This exhibit in particular, has an energy, an aura all its own, and rightfully so. It is the amalgam of place, time period, subjects & themes, and of course the painter, that creates this palpable energy. Attending such an exhibit was made more interesting by the number of visitors who specifically chose Edward Hopper’s New York. For me the cacophony of conversations [often in a foreign language], the reactions and expressions all added to the experience. Out from the windy, brutal cold and into a cocoon of life, the next couple of hours felt theatrical.
The changing seasons has a way of rebooting my perspectives on life’s moving parts. It’s also an opportunity for me to find, even create, connections that could lead me to alternate choices about work and family, problems and challenges, as well as my own professional and personal goals. The fall suggests possibilities with a palette of colors where each one suggests a sentiment to whatever I’m feeling or thinking. More often than not, I make one, perhaps 2 attachments of color to an idea, an attitude, or even a condition that’s been entrenched in a mood of some sort which I cannot correlate or let go of. However, when the maples, birch, oaks and other trees reveal their once covered limbs, I see a “wireframe” ready for a season of open air, of white space and a period of quiet and rest. Once again, it’s a reboot of sorts given the visual clues of autumn.
From a distance these bare trees take on an innocuous albeit familiar appearance. You realize that these wireframes silhouetted against a grey forest floor or an overcast sky has the potential to stimulate your way of visualizing beyond the obvious and the rote. Late fall and bare trees are midwives to modified or new byways to thinking and feeling.
Such possibilities make bare trees special. True, this past autumn the colors were fantastic, vibrant, even spectacular, more so than years past as far as I can tell. That festival of color has its own cathartic energy. Compared to just a few weeks ago, these now dormant, quiet trees are a type of dopamine, a suitable follow-on for my busy “monkey-mind.” There’s a levity and sense of calm with bare trees that’s akin to starting anew and refreshed. The trees are steadfast and immobile and yet there’s a fluid-like form that draws your attention. And because you can see between the branches, openings of various shapes and dimensions become apparent. That white space becomes a cocoon for imagination and emotion, of things improbable that feel possible if only in theoretical form. What can you jettison from your mind into those spaces now in front of you? There are things each of us can let go of.
Many of the trees are straight up and down although the oaks and maples have a grace manifested by the sweeping reach of higher branches. The silhouette of these branches appear as arms with a soft curve, its ends like fingers gently reaching for the sky.
Late fall and bare trees are markers of change. In its most obvious forms, it means shorter days, cooler temperatures, fantastic light and shadow and a time change. The latter is likely the least wanted change this time of year. And yet the markers also remind us that still more change is to come. Some welcome winter [like me] and others can’t wait for spring. In a personal way bare trees are anthropomorphic. They go through cycles of change just as we do with our life stages. And as in life, some of the bare trees will remain so in the months ahead. Just as some of us will, our own thoughts and feelings leaving our physical selves. Bare trees can mirror our own life qualities season to season. Or maybe it’s the other way around; after all, trees have long existed before we arrived.
The most dedicated, most creative, most influential.
It’s fair to say that the Berkshires has a depth of culture, arts, eateries, education, health care, outdoor activities, community outreach and more, that can be as strong as other like-minded communities. The diversity of such offerings is all-encompassing and that’s clearly reflected in this year’s Berkshire 25. This is Berkshire Magazine’s annual selection of 25 individuals who have made life here feel more special, complete and worthwhile. That may seem like an exaggeration, but that’s due to the contributions from folks like the Berkshire 25 that make the region “the most beautiful place to live.”
Examine the roster of recipients. Their talents, soft skills, areas of expertise and so forth are as varied and diverse as the individuals themselves.
Honoree Ms. Laura Brennan [L] with editor-in-chief, Ms. Anastasia Stanmeyer
Ms. Maud Mandel, PhD, president of Williams College [below], graciously opened her home to host the event.
courtesy: Williams CollegeHonorees on the couch: L-R, Mr. Jack Brown; Marge & Ed BrideHonoree Ms. Mia Shephard [L]Honoree Ms. Candace Morey Wall [r][L] Honoree Ms. Wand HoustonRep. Smitty Pignatelli, an engaging & entertaining MC.Honoree Ms. Rachael Plaine
The cynics among us may feel that such occasions are self-serving, each designed to stroke egos or expand bragging rights. You can think that, but I believe no one that evening felt that notion at all. At the conclusion of the event, Rep. Pignatelli mentioned that these individuals represent the best of what people can do, that such care and outreach nurtures the magnetic vitality of the Berkshires. Lightheartedly, he added that politicians like to think that they drive a lot of what’s positive. However, he quickly reinforced that a lot of what makes a community/region attractive and inviting has to do with the very people who understand what it means to be selfless.
Time, energy and focus are 3 KPIs [Key Performance Indicators] for mulitasking. And likely there are other indicators, and for those, I’ll need an ombudsman to help reset my already overloaded brain. In any one of these factors, you either have it, lose it or want it. For the most part, I’d say most people want them all, or to at least hold onto whatever’s in you.
However, multitasking is not really multitasking.
Ms. Nancy Napier, Ph.D. and contributor to Psychology Today identifies it more as “switch-tasking.” For decades we’ve heard that new electronics and computers and software are supposed to help make our professional lives much easier and faster, that’s rarely the case. Many of my marketing projects are open—actually minimized—on my screen. Perhaps “minimizing” those open windows and apps is in actually diluting the strength of your project[s]. Dr. Napier points out switching between projects is counter productive. In fact, it takes a good amount of time and energy to realign your mental details jumping from one open project to another. All of this creates stress [but we already knew that].
As Dr. Napier puts it, multitasking is mentally and physically rough on anyone. The mode of working start-stop-start-stop-restart becomes a catalyst for mistakes, inefficiency and time lost. As the saying goes, “Well, there’s 30-minutes I can’t get back.”
Did you happen to notice the bee in the first photo [the sunflower]? No, well, were you multitasking….excuse me, “switch tasking?”
What a strange, odyssey we are on. Are we in the initial stages of a pre-dystopian epoch? That’s an unnerving take on our tomorrows. I am as guilty as the next for failing to live in the moment. Thus you could–and perhaps should–interrupt my ruminating about the past while also worrying about the future.
No one can undo history and the future is not promised to any of us. So, it’s the here and now, the very present moment where we consciously or rotely go through our lives with purpose or with routine motions of day-to-day life.
Fly fishing for many, for me, is part of life. Time spent on the water delivers familiar notions of preparation, anticipation and the knowledge that the day is, quite frankly, a gift. With all that’s going on in the world, I would say most readers looking at this are doing much better than many others. And having the gift, a day such as being able to go fly fishing is one that should not be taken for granted. Getting to a favorite spot–whether somewhat new or all-too-familiar–jump starts my awareness for the here, for the right now. For those few important things that are usurped by the ephemeral things that entangle us, yes, we all need to live in the present moment!
So, on this Independence Day weekend, take a chance. Make the most of whatever day you have. Any one is a gift. Even when things go awry [I fell into the water moments after releasing this trout!], or not according to plan [I could’ve left the water empty handed but for the wet clothes that chilled me to the bone!] , don’t dwell on what might’ve-could’ve-should’ve happened. That’s done.
I think you’d be much better off acknowledging how far you’ve come.
And for the aspiring fly-fisher, that beautiful brown was caught and released on an an unusually cool late June, mid-morning [10:00 am?]. The details: o I used a #16 pheasant’s tail nymph I tied with a barbless Partridge hook [unweighted]; o tied to a 5X fluoro tippet about 2-to 2 1/2 -feet in length; o attached to a tippet ring on a 6-foot furled dacron [?] leader; o to a 4WF fly line; o spooled onto a Grey’s cassette reel with #20-backing o all collaborating with a Winston Biiix 9-foot 4WT fly rod
Carlo Centeno 