August 2010
Fall Reigns
I have always enjoyed the fall season more then any other. I grew up in New York and the month of October there is the prettiest place on earth. I could feel Autumn sneaking into the air this past Tuesday, and I really did not have that melancholy feeling that once attached itself to going back to school. Quite the opposite as an adult.
Beautiful land on...
My bags have been unpacked for five days now and it seems more like five minutes. Everything is happening quickly and slowly at the same time. I am sitting looking out the window at the blackness that surrounds the farm with a hot cup of tea, after a bath, and thinking of the many times over the last year that I dreamed of hot summer evenings with the dogs around. The TV is non existent and music set perfectly for the hard of hearing. It is playing " New Orleans suite", a Duke Ellington masterpiece I first heard at the Jazz Fest 2 years ago. Wynton Marsallis played it in the blues tent with full orchestra, and it stuck with me.
There is so much romance in the air here. Perhaps its the overwhelmingly pungent smell of black krim, brandy wine, green zebras, mortgage lifters, prudens purple, sungold, and striped German tomatoes fighting it out in the bowl over who gets to mount the burrata first. Such is young love, and the beginning of the harvest season. I admit to a slightly early season stop at Wallse in the Village that turned out very well indeed. I am so happy to be in Stanfordville after a wonderful trip. Time and space are the greatest luxuries, and at the moment I have both under a thin veneer of dog hair.
Posted by varney on 08/21/2010 in |
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Everything Must Go
I have just finished walking around the Concours d'Elegance car show in Carmel By The Sea. Full disclose dictates that I reveal myself as knowing nothing about cars and having very little zeal for learning about them. However this really is a surreal experience. Everybody is selling everything with wheels, there are more Ferrari, Maserati and other glossy cars then your average overexposed Yankee has ever seen. Getting stuck in traffic coming back into town made me yearn for my bike, but the show is really special. I have reestablished my belief in the ability of humans to make rolling metal look like art. Some of the lines of the post war sports cars were inspired. I love the surprises.
Posted by varney on 08/13/2010 in |
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Westerner
Apologies for borrowing the name of a European champion horse for the title of the blog. However Westerner was a Gold Cup winner at Ascot and a superb stayer for a small horse. I did breed a mare to him this year, that my brother gave me, so there is bit of bias name-wise as I travel west. Today was by far the most beautiful drive I have ever done. It started in Aspen and ended in Nevada, en route to Tahoe. I could not stop thinking about how tough the early settlers were for taking their families through and over the rugged canyons on horses and wooden wheeled wagons. They were the ultimate stayers and had the good fortune to cross the most beautiful country on earth however difficult it was. The light was extraordinary and regardless of my immersion in the desolate country was able to catch up with friends from my past. I think that the cell phone can be considered a miracle if looked at the right way. There is a lot of romance in the texture of the canyon country. It's hard not to think so when the dirt your standing on is 50 million years old. Did you know that it is iron oxide that makes the soil and cliffs red? The same mineral is responsible for the unique and exquisite color of tourmaline from Mozambique - perhaps my most favorite new color coming out of the ground in gem material. It's the soft purple that comes through as a secondary color that gives it its depth. Lots of neon here in Nevada. Kind of like it. The honkey tonk never disappoints. Great day! I will go back to Moab with a bit more time, and a bike.
Indian Paintbrush
This has really been a wonderful week. I have spent time with a number of my friends and by extension gotten some really good ideas for new pieces. The most exciting of them is an Indian Paintbrush ear clip which I promise to include in this blog once finished. There are so many different places to go hiking in Colorado that vary in topography, yet there is one constant during the last days of July and the beginning of August. That is the afore mentioned flower that I have photographed for the uninitiated. The color of the flower is suprisingly diverse, going from the firey orange you see to a magenta, red, and purple vermillion. The Tabor Lake hike, which I LOVE, will boast this flower in all of these colors sometimes mixed togeather. I consider it one of the most spectacular natural collages I have ever seen. Sometimes it looks like the grasses are on fire. I do apologize that I did not include pictures of the other colors, however I did not want to hike up to higher altitudes this morning to take the pictures, it seems like the orange ones occur at lower altitude, yet not in the towns. In any case, I have been facinated by these colors and shapes in the petals for quite some time and just recently realized how perfect they would look with the Mississippi River pearls I have long championed.
Posted by varney on 08/09/2010 in |
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