I discovered McNally's work last year when I went to a one-night exhibit at Castle Hill in Newport. Her work is large and the room was packed, but I squirmed my way through the crowd many times to see the work. I missed her show this year because I was so frantic about getting mine delivered on time, but I'll have to be satisfied with visiting her excellent website.
It does feel good, if a bit strange, to look out my office window and see my truck in the parking lot loaded with paintings, and know that most of my work of the last 4 years is ready to deliver.
The invites to my show are labeled and ready to be sent out, after I buy a bunch of stamps and sit in the RISD library to sort and stamp. I'm also sending out my press releases, awfully late, but better late than never. If you're not on my list, send me your address at EMAIL and I'll send you an invite.
September started out strong for painting days, but I've had to change into framing mode for the last few weeks, and have had to think about all the promotion stuff as well. Sometimes I dream of delegating some of the practical matters of having a show, but as the date gets closer, I find it seems easier just to do it myself. The invitations were sent off to Modern Postcard this morning though, so that's done. Now to get my mailing list in shape. I'm going to design a web invite as well, and will post the link when I've finished it. If anyone who isn't on my list would like an invite when they come in, send me your address (email or actual) and I'll add you to my list.
As much as my day job interferes with my studio work, it's a bit unnerving when the safety net it provides begins to sprout holes, which is what happened last week. A round of layoffs at the newspaper where I work has affected me, which may or may not result in my joining the growing ranks of those without a weekly paycheck. In theory, (and fantasy) it would give me more time to paint, but like most painters I can't make a living from my brush, and don't want to lose the health insurance my job provides. So I'd have to dust off my resume and hit the streets, which would be even more of a distraction than the 9-5 grind, so I'm hoping to keep the job in one form or another, unfortunately.
How the shoomakers stole away Saint Hugh's bones and made them working tools thereof, and the vertue that they found in the same; whereby it came that when any man saw a shoomaker travelling with a pack at his back, they would presently say: "There goes Saint Hugh's bones."
Upon a time it chanced that a company of journeymen shoomakers passed along by the place where Saint Hugh's dead body was hanging, and finding the flesh pickt cleane off from the bones, they entred thus into communication amoung themselves:
"Never was Saint Hugh so bare", quoth one, "to carry never a whit of skin upon his bones."
"Nor thou never so bare", said another, "to beare never a penny in thy purse. But now seeing you talk of Saint Hugh, it brings me to remembrance of his legacy that he gave us at his death."
"What was that?" said the rest.
"Marry", quoth he, "I will tell you. When the gentle prince saw that the cruelty of the time would not suffer him to be liberal to his friends, but that his life was taken away by one and his flesh given to others, he most kindly bequeathed his bones unto us."
"Tush", quoth another, "that was but to show his mind towards the shoomakers, because he had received of them so many favors; for alas, what can the dead man's bones pleasure the living?"
"No", quoth another, "I can tell you there may be as great vertue found in his bones as the brains of a weasill or the tongue of a frog."
"Much like", answered the rest, "but I pray thee shew us what vertue is in those things you speak of."
Quoth he, "I will tell you: the braines of a weasill hath this power, experientia docet, that if the powder be mingled with the runnet wherewith women make their cheese, no mouse dares touch it. In like manner the tongue of a water-frog hath such great force in it that if it be laid upon the breast of any one sleeping, it well cause them to tell whatsoever you shall demand: for by that meanes Dick Piper knew he was a cuckold. Againe, I know that those that are travellers are not ignorant that whosoever puts but six leaves of mugwort in his shooes, shall nere be weary, though he travell thirtie or fourtie miles on foot in a forenooon."
"That, indeed, may be true", quoth one, "for by the verie same hearb my last dame kept her ale from sowring. And it is said that where housleek is planted the place shall never be hurt with thunder. Pimpernel is good against witchcraft, and because my sister Joan carried alwayes some about her, Mother Bumby could not abide her. Therefore, what vertue a dead man's bones may have we know not till we have tryed it."
"Why, then", said the third man, "let us soon at night steal Saint Hughe's bones away and, albeit the tyrant will be displeased, yet it is no theft; for you say they were given us, and therefore we may the bolder take them. And because we will turn them to profit and avoid suspition, we will make divers of our tools with them; and then if any vertue do follow them, the better we shall find it."
To this motion every one gave his consent; so that the same night Saint Hughe's bones were taken down, and the same being brought before a sort of shoomakers, there they gave their opinion that it was necessary to fufill the will of the dead, and to take those bones in as good a part as if they were worth ten thousand pounds. Whereupon one stept out and thus did say:
My friends, I pray you, listen to me,
And mark what S. Hughe's bones shall be:
First a drawer and a dresser,
Two wedges, a more and a lesser.
A pretty block, three inches high,
In fashion squared like a die,
Which shall be called by proper name,
A heel-block, the very same.
A hand-leather and thumb-leather likewise,
To pull out shooe-thread we must devise;
The needle and the thimble
shall not be left alone,
The pincers, the pricking-aule,
and the rubbing stone;
The aule-steele and tackes,
the sow-haires beside,
The stirrop, holding fast,
while we sowe the cowhide;
The whetstone, the stopping-stick,
and the paring-knife --
All this doth belong
to a journeyman's life:
Our apron is the shrine
to wrap these bones in:
Thus shroud we Saint Hugh's bones
in a gentle lamb's skin.
"Now all you good yeomen of the Gentle Craft, tell me now", quoth he, "how like you this?"
"As well", replyed they, "as Saint George doth of his horse, for as long as we can see him fight with the dragon we will never part from this posie."
"And it shall be concluded that what journeyman soever he be, hereafter, that cannot handle his sword and buckler, his long sword or a quater-staffe, sound the trumpet or play upon the flute, and bear his part in a three-man's song, and readily reckon up his tools in rime --except he have born colours in the field, being a lieutenant, a sergeant, or corporall -- shall foreit and pay a pottle of wine, or be counted for a colt." To which they answered all, viva voce: "Content, content"; and then, after many merry songs, they departed. And never after did they travell without these tools on their back; which ever since were called Saint Hughe's bones.
from
The Gentle Craft
By Thomas Deloney, Alexis Frederick Lange
Published by Mayer & Müller, 1903
Yesterday I took an unpaid day off work to paint, so I can afford to make today a catch-up day, with a break to take my mom down to Flo's for some fried clams as a last summer treat before resigning myself to the idea that summer is ending. It actually feels more like fall now, it seems in the last few days the light has shifted, and I've put on socks and a jacket a few times already.
Tonight I'm taking a break, instead of staying up late painting and torturing myself listening to McCain's acceptance speech, I'm going to grab a drink with a friend at the local watefront watering hole, right next to these guys, Reliant and Resolute (painted in 1988)."Barack Obama's excellent adventure to Europe took his campaign for change to hundreds of thousands of people who don't even vote or pay taxes here. It's not what he took there that concerns me. It's what he brought back. Lots of ideas from Europe he'd like to see imported here."OOh, scary Europe, best to stay home where it's safe...
