In case these escaped you —
Plus: Spot the Cat take a roadtrip with his pack of poodles.
Holiday Greetings, friends!
The editor of Insight (aka Art All Around Me’s direct-to-email feature) fell down on the job this fall. She sends her apologies! So — here are the most recent stories about art I love, along with a fun one about the beautiful, ridiculous creatures I love just as much, probably more.
First, since ’tis (barely) still the Season:
Rorof in the Somr
published December 19
Many of the ornaments our children created in kindergarten and elementary school have unraveled, unglued, or disintegrated over the years, but a select few stick around — and pull every nostalgic cord around my heart. Decorating the tree without our now-adult children at home tugged hard this year, calling for a little levity.
That’s better.
Now, possibly the most perfect holiday decor ever (and framed to endure):
I found this picture left on the table where my daughter had been coloring during the long, lazy heat of July. I laughed out loud, and I still do, every Christmas it comes out.
Somehow, nostalgia doesn’t complicate this one, perhaps because Rorof appeared outside the memory-laden holiday season. It is lightness and play; a child’s mind wandering to her (still) favorite season, wishing it sooner and imagining where Rudolph might be biding his time.
Behold, the energetic swoop of the bridle looping around Rorof’s jaw and muzzle! The complex branching of antlers, the boldness of that red nose!
The sky depicted as a blue line across the top of the page (a favorite developmental marker):
In pre-first grade, Rose Pickel, the dearest art teacher of all time, knelt down by my child-size chair to look at my picture (with the blue line across the top). She pointed out the window.
“Where does the blue stop, Kate?” she asked, forever transforming my view on the world.
This relatability makes children’s art refreshingly accessible. Many folk art traditions are similar, even as art professionals ascribe them depth and sophistication to secure them serious regard. Too often, though, these narratives dilute the art’s impact. The older I get, the wiser such unstudied instincts show to be.
We know that play is essential for learning and flourishing, not just in children but for adults, too: cards, puzzles, games, and such. But our minds are more than intellect. Play as making music, cooking, gardening, needlework, and crafting, for example, tap into and feed our native creativity without stumbling over the block that the word “art” can be. It’s ironic, and sad, how intellectualizing art to assert its importance has alienated so many and disconnected them from vital, creative parts of themselves.
I was lucky to grow up in a family where the arts were lifelong pursuits, not youthful entertainments to abandon for the real work of of adult life. Your level of accomplishment was only relevant insofar as it made the playing more fun.
First a litigator and then an Episcopal priest, my paternal grandfather was also a sculptor. I’m not certain when he began, but in the last quarter of life, he made portrait busts, full-body figures, and other creatures using all kinds of media. Most often he worked in gray-green modeling clay, casting some pieces in bronze. The scent of Roma Plastilina modeling clay takes me right back to what was called the Jungle Room of my grandparents’ house (I don’t know why). When I was about four or five, Gramps was using it as his studio. While he worked on a portrait bust of my cousin, I fashioned the mouse made by many children, rolling a long, skinny tail and tiny, round eyes between my plump little palms. I was so proud to see my mouse kept on the shelf next to his work.
Gramps also tried carving in soapstone and wood; he fashioned airy, leaping dancers from bits of screen and wire; and like many of us at elementary school, he took up styrofoam balls, paperboard, and sewing scraps stiffened with starchy paste and spray paint. Two of these creations are favorite Christmas decorations:
The angel stood on the newel post of the front hall stairs in our home, and the praying woman commanded the same place at my grandparents’ home, with pine roping looped about. Now they stand together in my home.
Gramps’ angel and praying woman cue cherished memories of Christmas with family, but like Rorof in the Somr, they carry no wistful sting — only happiness. Their construction, visible on the undersides, is clever and surprisingly durable, considering the rather flimsy materials. It tickles me to think of my grandfather contentedly sifting through crafting scraps to make something beautiful — simply for the joy of it.
These decorations keep drawing my attention this year, as if they have something to reveal I’m only now ready to see. I have a feeling that the whimsical art of my little girl and my grandfather, closer to life’s end than anyone realized, is inviting me to loose my grip on the complex feelings that often come with this season. Let them rest in peace, and take joy in play. I hope you will, too. Happy Holidays!
In November, Art All Around Me featured a pair of tree portraits by Charles Brindley:
We all would’ve been spared my 1000+ words of bumbling, if only I’d encountered this poem by Mary Oliver sooner:
It is perfection, yes? But if you’d still like to learn about the art of Charles Brindley and the Glen Leven Farm in Nashville, read on!
Tree Portraits
Rooted in time and transcending its limits
I was driving across Massachusetts in late October, listening to an interview with Katherine May about her book, Wintering. When she read a passage describing “trees blazing out the final weeks of autumn” before winter, the surrounding miles of vividly hued forest transformed before my eyes. I didn’t see nature’s beauty succumbing to wintry death, signaling the fast approach of another year’s end. Rather, I was surrounded by a glorious, raucous celebration, nature’s own Mardi Gras parade.
This got me thinking about trees, which I do quite a bit since The Overstory by Richard Powers and learning about Canadian ecologist Suzanne Simard’s Mother Tree findings. I no longer regard trees as important for “our” air and “our” planet, but as fellow earthlings with intelligence and behaviors both shockingly familiar and intriguingly foreign to our own. Native American peoples knew it. So did the Druids. Is it more apt, then, to call a picture of a tree a portrait, rather than a landscape? I suspect artist Charles Brindley thinks so.
I first saw Brindley’s drawings of trees at the Belle Meade Country Club, of all places, where the golf course also happens to be an arboretum. Commanding a spacious entry hall were three drawings of magnificent, centuries-old trees from the course. They stopped me in my tracks before drawing me in to study their lines, sinuous and staccato. The pictures were large, staking a bold claim for graphite-on-paper, typically reserved for preliminary studies or smaller works. Committing so much time to a less lucrative medium takes confidence — and intuition for what humble materials can do. What’s more, these pictures hummed with the trees’ ancient and awesome energy. Only an artist deeply attuned to the subject can effect this, instilling it with gravitas rather than sentimentality. I took note of his name.
Charles Brindley began drawing as a child, and he knew at 17 he wanted to be a professional artist. His focus on monumental trees began with woodland pasture specimens in the 1980s, expanding over the decades to include trees in Southern coastal regions, old growth forests, and other landscape settings. Ancient rock formations and historic residential architecture have also captured Brindley’s eye, and the results are exquisite, meditative drawings and paintings, often moody or mystical. In an essay for the Charles Brindley: Trees of Myth and Legend exhibit at Cheekwood in 2015, esteemed art historian Robert L. McGrath identifies Brindley as “one of the most complex and interesting artists in today’s American South.”
His aged trees and lithic stones speak with a voice, prophetic at times, that demands of us the deepest regard for things older and more rooted to the earth than ourselves.¹
A lifelong resident of the Nashville Basin and south-central Kentucky, Brindley is often credited with sensitivity to a distinctly Southern sense of loss, longing, and history. His attention to the architecture of old homes in the South supports this interpretation, but to my eye, Brindley’s sensibility isn’t explicitly Southern. It reflects a feel for the noble vitality of trees and the elemental nature of his surroundings, wild and cultivated alike. Works recently produced in Northern California bear this out.
In 2013, the The Land Trust For Tennessee announced a special exhibit of drawings and paintings of the Glen Leven Farm property. Before reading the invitation, I recognized the featured work as Charles Brindley’s. He was contributing a portion of the art sales to The Land Trust’s campaign to stabilize the antebellum house and farm outbuildings, listed on the National Register for Historic Places and also, a designated arboretum.
Historic architecture and sites — grand, humble, or crumbling — and the stories of those who design, build, live, and love them are a lifelong interest of mine. I couldn’t believe I’d driven by this extraordinary 65-acre site tucked behind towering trees on Franklin Road for my entire life without even knowing it existed. Brindley knew because he had fond childhood memories of delivering groceries there with his grandfather. He’d spent much of the last year drawing and painting on site, producing what appeared to be hauntingly beautiful work. I was going to see.
Generous overgrowth concealed the stone entry pillar from the road. It was chilly and relentlessly gray, threatening rain, as my car bumped along the patchy gravel and past tangles of brush and woods screening the Franklin Road traffic. Parking alongside a few other cars in a clearing, I marveled at how far away this place seemed, tucked smack in the middle of Nashville.
The house and outbuildings were no less gorgeous for their dilapidation, standing proud if weary amidst towering, gnarled, and elegant trees. Everywhere, a patina of age softened colors, surfaces worn smooth, ragged, or rough. Even in that gray, leafless season, bereft of residents, the place hummed with vital energy.
As I entered the house, the wood floors creaked under my feet, squealing ominously in places as my eyes roamed up and around. High plaster ceilings stained with damp and webbed with the dusty filaments of spider generations crowned spaces virtually empty of furnishings, echoing with creaks and a few distant voices. Gray light filtered through grand, heavy sash windows. A particular old-house scent — wood polish and chalky plaster, a whiff of mold, layers of dust through seasons of smoke and damp — felt comfortingly familiar, stirring memories of old family houses rich with history, love, and decay.
Moving toward the voices, I began to see Brindley’s pictures hanging in plain black frames against the white plaster walls. I was moving silently from one to the next when a familiar tightness in my belly signaled rising apprehension about speaking to the gallerist. I know it’s harder to be on their side of the conversation. Even if you’re a natural — and I was not — selling on behalf of living artists is particularly hard. They’ve created often deeply personal work and laid it open for judgment and frequent rejection just to make a living. I felt responsible for helping them — but people don’t buy art very much.
Still, I dread being approached almost as much as I did initiating. It’s often a setup for other skills I lack, such as acting like I like something when I really don’t, or listening politely when I really just want to be left alone, undisturbed. For me, looking at art is personal. Seeing it, opening myself to feel moved by it, requires vulnerability that looking at cars or clothes or furniture simply does not. I don’t want to show my emotionally naked self to a gallerist I don’t know, or chat about where I’m from and why I’m there. I really don’t want anyone to help “find what I’m looking for” when that’s precisely what I’m not doing. I’m waiting, quiet and alert, so that it might find me.
I didn’t need to be anxious. The conversation was brief and easy; she was with the Land Trust for Tennessee, focused on educating folks about conservation easements, not closing art sales.
The exhibit featured pencil drawings and a few paintings, the former enchanting me most. Brindley’s connection to Glen Leven was palpable, his observations often scribbled in a corner, as if to capture a thought or transport him back to a moment after he’d returned to the studio. The handwriting pulled me deeper into the picture, tantalizingly close to the live current running from his mind to his marks on the page. I circled the rooms for a long time, soaking in the space and studying the pictures. Then I went outside to find the views inside them.
This could be my happiest place: moving slow and silent, eyes on stems and palms skimming surfaces, fingers alert, to sense the place an artist or builder transformed a vision into a created thing. It’s like hide-and-seek or a scavenger hunt, my curiosity humming like a live wire under calm certainty of some discovery. It could be a recognizable vista or detail, a foundation stone rough from the quarry, a carving in the unlikeliest corner, a craftsman’s mark on metal or wood worn smooth or splintered. Sometimes, the only discovery is within myself.
As I walked the grounds of Glen Leven, the subjects that inspired Brindley revealed themselves readily. It was like he’d just been there, hand sketching quickly, sharp eyes focused, alive to Glen Leven’s history and present moment all at once. I often felt myself coming upon the site of one of his drawings before I saw it definitively.
As closely as he observes the present moment, Brindley doesn’t confine his vision. Sometimes, he allows his imagination to expand upon what his eyes see — perhaps a branch emerging from that long-healed wound on the trunk — and offer a view into the past. Yet his work doesn’t stray into fantasy. Pictures of trees as relentlessly gnarled and fantastically colored as these (produced quite recently) remain firmly rooted in reality:
Every picture Brindley made at Glen Leven was hauntingly true, even these misty impressions of maple trees gathered on a single page:
That day at Glen Leven is like a dream to me, as timeless as Brindley’s pictures. A few of of his works kept calling me back — not just to the drawings but to their subjects on the property — and they stayed with me after I left. Two of them were tree portraits.
I probably sounded giddy on the phone, stumbling over my words, when I spoke to Eric that afternoon. He suggested we go back to Glen Leven after work. It was too dark then to walk around the grounds, but inside, Eric circled the rooms, quiet in his admiration of Brindley’s work. Eventually, he stopped before the same two drawings of trees that pulled me like magnets.
“These,” he said, turning to look at me. “Yes?” How he knew, and often does, will always be a mystery to me. It’s a gift unlike any other; feeling seen — recognized, not revealed — as if for the first time, every time. We brought the pictures home.
In this picture, I’m a child again, and this is my climbing tree. The crook of that lowest limb beckons like a lap, the broad branches reaching to settle me in for a while. The ground birds and scattered twigs are ghostly, their call and snap but whispers, if at all, but Brindley’s script pins the moment precisely in time:
old Sugar Maple at Glen Leven — atmospheric late in the afternoon mid-winter — random and multi-directional bark on trunk and major branches — soft light from west — house surrounded in mist. Thursday, February 7 ~ Monday, February 11 ~ Thursday, February 14 ~ Tuesday February 15 [sic]
The first tree I recall wanting to know about as a little girl was the Gingko. It was autumn (presumably its distinctive yellow caught my eye), and I was standing outside The Hermitage, home of President Andrew Jackson. It could have been a school field trip, or a visit with Mom and out-of-town guests. The shape and satiny texture of those leaves, like petals fluttering down to a gilded carpet, was magical to me. I’ve loved the Gingko ever since. On the far right is my Birthday Gingko, a gift from my family a few years ago:
So perhaps it’s not surprising that the other Glen Leven tree portrait that spoke to me was An Especially Old and Distinctive Gingko Tree, about which the artist notes:
tree located on a small mound — late afternoon wintry atmosphere — large grackles at base of an especially old and distinctive Ginko [sic] tree — Glen Leven.
I’m quite sure Charles Brindley was at the Glen Leven exhibit the evening Eric and I were there, but we didn’t introduce ourselves. He was engaged in conversation, others waiting nearby, and I admittedly like a chance to slip out. But of course, I was delighted to receive a letter from the artist shortly thereafter. Writing in pencil, Brindley shared this about making the pictures we enjoy every day:
The maple and gingko trees — classic trees in every sense — began with me being on site studying their structure and detail. Most of the finish and surface detail was completed in my studio. It seems like every time I was there, in front each tree a flock of large grackles would sweep in and sit on the branches or peck around for nourishment on the ground.
I love that Brindley spoke to the birds’ presence. Every time I look at the drawings, I hear a whisper of the birds’ fuss and chatter, and my eye goes to the solitary bird on the Gingko branch. Even if it is just a grackle, for me it carries echoes of the eagle in Karen Clarkson’s drawing, My Heart Soars.
Even on Instagram, highly realistic tree portraits have since come into vogue. Often done in pencil, pen, and perhaps watercolor, a single tree stands against a pure white background, offering a visually dramatic silhouette from a distance or an elegant series hung in a group. The artist’s presence seems muted. They are elegant and soothing pictures, offering serenity I associate with a pristine meditation room or yoga studio, a place of remove for respite or renewal.
Brindley’s pictures are often soothing and meditative, but distinctive, I think, in how they evoke timeless serenity in time. Brindley’s trees exist fully within the surrounding fabric of growth and decay, co-existing with birds, nature, and evidence of humans. They call me to slow down now, not when I designate the time and place to do so. To tap into the serene, living energy that roots us all in the world, behind our tangled layers of busyness and activity. The visible clues of Brindley’s doing so, channeling the tree’s life onto the page, help guide me. It isn’t a quick shot of serenity. It requires entering relationship, forging connection. As such, it rewards a richer, more sustaining nourishment. It reminds me to go outdoors; see, smell, and touch my trees; listen to the wind and the birds — and refill the feeder that invites them home.
¹McGrath, Robert L., “The Shamanic Art of Charles Brindley and the Re-Enchantment of and by the Natural World,” Charles Brindley — Trees of Myth and Legend, Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art, 2015.
And finally, an utterly un-artsy tale of the most perfect cat, his pack of poodles and overly ambitious humans:
Spot the Cat meets the beach
After a near-miss night in the Scamp
Last August, I shared a story about our eldest standard poodle: Augie Goes to the Beach: a Make-A-Wish Trip for our senior dog. Since then:
- Augie is going strong (apparently angling for more Wishes).
- We’re going to Cape Ann, MA, even more now, to a little house we call TuckedIn.
- For Thanksgiving, we drove there with all three of our standard poodles and our cat, Spot. Typically an 18-hour drive, it took closer to 24 with these rascals.
We are not, as one might think, willfully nuts — aside from being outnumbered by large pets who think they’re people, too. It was just as good a time as any to attempt this animal transport exercise, knowing we’d have to come summertime. Even if we wanted to fly, most airlines no longer stow large pets with the checked baggage; nor do our dogs stand a chance of being taken for support animals.
To review of our cast of characters:
Our biggest challenge — aside from surviving Dave’s relentless excited barking at cars, pedestrians, windshield wipers, and God help us, other dogs — was finding no room in any inn for this circus roadshow to pass the night. Even pet-friendly hotels have limits. Feeling clever, we decided to rent a little camper trailer and reserve a campground spot for the night.
As if either of us really knows the first thing about campgrounds, much less camping. Details.
Isn’t it cute? A mere Scamp, short the -er, and it suited our Jeep’s towing capacity just right. Better yet, it was super clean and cozy. Admittedly more cozy than anticipated, but surely we could spend one night in a mobile kennel, right?
“It’s good for us not to get stuck in our ways!” I chirruped. Eric didn’t reply. Nor did he look convinced, but he’s not one to bail on a challenge. He got online and reserved a spot at a KOA somewhere in Virginia that (I thought) reflected an aggressive driving schedule (to get this adventure over with?). I resolved not to take his lack of enthusiasm personally.
The morning of departure, it became clear we’d also forgotten to consider the space required for our luggage; pet gear rivaling the specter of baby strollers, car seats, and diaper bags; and a few chairs, boxes, and other stuff for our house. Not a problem! We put it all in the Scamp and planned to switch it to the car when we “made camp,” giving us a place to sleep.
It’s possible our planning failures resulted from our focused concern for Spot. We all agree he is the most satisfactory pet of all time, despite every one of us, to varying degrees, being allergic to him. Spot is unusually even-tempered, dog-friendly, and a superbly tolerant cuddler, while also being a highly independent hunter short some of his own allotted lives. This would be a long confinement going to a new place, and in 13 years, Spot has only been in his pet carrier for vet visits. We aimed to sweeten the prospect by using new transport seeded with cat treats.
Zipping the door shut behind him elicited a couple of pitiable moans, but then he settled right down. Good ole Spot.
There he is, tucked in his carrier next to the box of food, treats, and supplies and surrounded by his adoring pack.
And we were off — Dave barking (nearly) all the way.
The first stop for our pet parade went pretty smoothly. It was sunny and unseasonably mild. We even ran a few sprints with Dave for fun.
Spot cooperatively donned this snappy travel outfit, purchased in hopes of his adapting to the leash for stops along the way, but he drew the line with a sit-down strike.
After several more uneventful hours on the road, we let Spot out of the carrier to sit in my lap. He was mesmerized, never having been outside it in a moving car.
Things were going so well by nightfall, we left the animal gang in the car for a quick supper at the Cracker Barrel. But when we returned to the car 45 minutes later, it was pitch black, windy, and 25 degrees. After pulling on coats, hats, and gloves and firing up our phone flashlights, we quickly fed and walked the dogs around the parking lot as 18-wheelers pulled in, out, and around us. Fingers and toes numb, we loaded back into the Jeep. It was after 8pm, and we still had three hours to go until our KOA.
My adventurous spirit started to waver. When I envisioned moving our stuff to the Jeep so we could sleep, and having to crawl over dogs to get out of our kennel for my own freezing scamper to the KOA bathroom about 3am, it only held on by a thread of pride.
“So,” I said casually, “it’ll be nearly midnight when we unpack the Scamp to sleep. And if either of us needs to go, we’ll have to crawl over the dogs, exit without letting Spot escape, and hoof it to the bathroom.”
“Yes,” Eric agreed. “And it’s f*cking cold out there.” I was already Googling Hampton Inns on our route and confirming the pet-friendly policy we were going to bend and stretch liberally.
“It looks like there’s a Hampton Inn with room, just a couple of hours from here,” I said. “You could, if we wanted, check in with Isa and Dave and then let me in a side door with Augie and Spot.”
“Book it.”
And just like that, our Scamp Adventure was abandoned. With another full day of driving ahead, we told ourselves, getting a decent night’s sleep was simply the responsible move.
We arrived at our house in Annisquam late the following afternoon. Augie played it cool while Isa and Dave went bananas with curiosity and excitement, not to mention car-cabin fever. They seem to love the little yard that fits them like a playpen, the attention of our village neighbors, the sandy beach, salty water, and massive boulders for climbing. Spot hung out in the basement for the first couple of days, dispensing with any mice getting cozy for winter, before heading out to meet the neighborhood wearing his shiny new name tag. We all breathed in relief when he came back.
Late that night, we woke to cat screaming. Outside, Spot was unapologetically rejecting some neighbor-kitties’ welcome visit, sending them all packing. Territorial, yes, but also just a cat apart, which is what brought him to us 13 years ago. We were at the vet with Augie, then a puppy, in the waiting area baited with a crate of abandoned kittens. I firmly resisted the kids’ pleas until the vet tech described one kitten’s preference for curling up with dogs. Even I couldn’t resist that solid black Spot of a kitten, barely one pound, fur, dander, claws, and all.
Spot didn’t like the beach as much as Augie, Isa, and Dave, but he did pose for this portrait. We suspect he’ll stick to prowling the higher ground, looking for the next adventure. Stay tuned!
That, my friends, concludes this lengthy newsletter aka stories delivered to your inbox. Thank you for reading this far! I hope it’s been fun.
Happy New Year!
