My New Love

This is it, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Misti Alpaca Chunky Hand Paint in Urban Autumn

Who's laughing now? Hmmm?

Forebodings, all

Here is a scan of Homer's Forebodings in its entirety. So much more to the story than the detail shown below. Now we can see that the women and children are huddled together, so small in this vast stormy landscape. It gives a sense of what the men returning from the ships might see, although the red trims in the original were so much more vibrant in person, like a punch to the heart. Also, we see more of what the women see, the shapes and shadows in the fog, waiting for one of the shapes to become a boat, or the ship. This very second is so important. They're just on the edge of waiting, where waiting meets knowing, where the ocean meets the beach. They're on that shore, and we're right there with them.

Forebodings and Perils of the Sea

Moving on to Forebodings (detail shown) by Homer, I imagine the story to be women going to greet their men on shore. They've dressed their babies in their best, most cheerful clothes---red trimmed, so Daddy can see them through the fog...but maybe he isn't coming, isn't returning. The ship has arrived and he isn't on it.



To me, Perils of the Sea tells a story with body language. The horizontal lines and leaning of the woman in the middle ground say she is filled with longing for whoever might be on the ship we can't see. Is she waiting for her love to return? The woman next to her, who I imagine to be older, is more reserved...she's seen this all before and she's not getting her hopes up...sometimes they don't come back.
Again, the story of the men is happening off stage. We can't see what the women see. I felt that they were all waiting for a returning ship, the man pointing toward its approach. When I searched for the images, I read something about a shipwreck...so my invented stories probably have more to do with seeing these works together, thinking they were more tightly unified in theme than perhaps they are. But the story ideas I get from them are just as thrilling as what Homer intended. Women waiting at the edge of the sea...

Watercolors and Etchings by Homer

I liked Homer as much as the next guy, then I saw these etchings of women in an exhibit of Homer's prints at the Hyde. Men are the subtext, just off stage. These are women in the English fishing village where Homer lived for a time, and they are waiting for men in some form or another. (You can't see it on the computer version of the print Mending the Tears, but the shadow of a boat is emerging from the mist.) These two women must be passing the time waiting for men at sea to return, no task is too tedious when waiting.
I love how the knitter is captured in that moment that belongs to no other craft, the slackening of the yarn! When I was a little girl, I thought that was a gesture unique to my mother. She would raise her arm that way to punctuate a thought, or to pause and form a reply, usually "I'll think about it." It is a self-conscious moment for a knitter, returning to reality after the privacy of one's own thoughts.

Cover for the Keening?

Also at the Hyde, Mary daughter of Thayer.

Sugarlift and spitbite

I first heard of Sean Scully from the mason-dixon blog which I especially enjoy because Ann and Kay are Gee's Bend and Denyse Schmidt fans, and translate their admiration into handknits! This is impressive in intention and scale. So, when I read about Scully, I just nodded and thought, Someday...yeah...like when my kids are grown, or when self-cleaning houses are invented, or when I visit museum-y locales on book tours...someday I'll see his work.

Imagine my surprise when we casually walk up to the door of the Hyde Museum in Glens Falls, having no idea what exhibits might be there (just something to do before we check into the hotel)...and serendipity has crossed my path with a show of the prints of Sean Scully. (This image doesn't do it justice, of course.) And the methods of printing, which I know little about, were like found art poems themselves: etchings, aquatint, sugarlift, spitbite.

Slouching Toward Bloggingdom...

Not hard to imagine how a girl like me would become a writer of historical fiction: we visited every historical site and monument and museum and landmark in the contiguous United States when I was a kid. When your parents are teachers, every school vacation has the potential to be a family vacation. Everybody piled in the old paneled station wagon...This Car Climbed Mt. Washington...Where In the Heck is Wall Drugs? We saw houses with plaques that said who slept there, lots of chamber pots, bed warmers, wool cards and spinning wheels...and then we left those crafts in the past tense and joined the crafters in the present, keeping fiber arts alive. My mom was a weaver and we went to every show, although I feel like I lived through the Battle of Gettysburg, we went to the Mannings so many times! Most of my childhood nightmares involved vivid details and the very real feeling that I was a soldier in the Revolutionary or Civil War. Past lives? I don't know, does it matter? Maybe I just have finely tuned empathy.
One of the very best things to come from one of my mother's three looms was this apron. I wore it in my school picture in the first grade with a long navy calico dress (see below). Today my Grace wore it on a field trip to the Old Schoolhouse here in town. They wrote with quill pens, and played with Jacob's Ladder. She was enchanted with the whole experience. In fact, I had to sew buttons on her t-shirt the night before because she didn't have any blouses or tops that were pioneer-y enough. She took her snack in a basket, and drinking water in a glass jar. Somedays she says she hopes she'll be a writer when she grows up. I wonder if she'll write historical fiction...I'm pretty sure she'll be my favorite author.

A Time to Blog...

This is so much harder than writing something I know will be private for as long as I want it to be...I guess I'm basically very private. I've managed to stay under the radar lo these long years since Al Gore invented "the Internets"---you could even search me with "the Google" and just get people in Europe from the olden days, or a misspelling. But now, with a book coming out in 2010 (Three Rivers Rising, Knopf), an almost-done draft of book #2, the first waves of #3...it is time to get the name and the face out there.

I did a reading in May in Boston when I accepted an award ...I hope to figure out how to post the video of that. I had my author photo done (www.jennifermay.com)---one of my favorites is on the sidebar. Also, hoping to get started on a website.

Just yesterday I heard that Brain,Child will publish my humorous piece "The Barebutt Undressa" in their parody section, so I'm writing a bio and update for that.

This weekend I will be at the Chronicle Book Fair in the Adirondacks. My dad will have his book about our ancestor Judge John Richards and my mom, the SassyOne, will have her new book Sassy Pat Knitting: A Memoir (sassypatknitting.blogspot.com). I'm so over the moon about it because I've been the editor/designer/production coordinator and IT IS DONE!! Done done done like dinner! I mean...I'm really happy for my mom, of course. So come on by if you're up that way...she'll be speaking about blogging (I think) and I'll be knitting and offering technical assitance. Buy a book...or two...they make a great gift for the knitter in your life. Or hop on over to her blog to see how to order.