David Hockney Views a Lane

As I've started observing, collecting, and savoring details from my daily life to use in my writing, I have become more and more interested to read what others say about how they relate to their environments. David Hockney, the British artist, lived in Hollywood from 1978-2005 and I've enjoyed much of his art reacting to that experience. But then he returned to Yorkshire. In an article in the New York Times, Carol Kino records how he described the scene to her as they approached a group of trees along a narrow country lane. "As we drew close to the trees, he fretted over the sun’s position. “The lighting is made for going the other way,” he complained. Then he slowed down so we had time to appreciate each tree individually, and began issuing orders about how to look.

“Watch!” he called out. “The ash tree now comes in — look at the shape of it! And now then on the right, another tree. There’s a point where each one stands on its own. There. Now. It’s surrounded by sky. Now the next one, and it stands on its own. You see?” It was as though he were giving director’s notes. " He told Kino he had seen this area many times and wanted to make a painting of it, but could not yet get it to work since he had to synthesize many perspectives into one. He said he hadn't yet figured out how to do it, but he would.

It's a new idea to me to take in an experience repeatedly and consider how to synthesize it. I like this concept a lot, and I'm thinking over how I'll use it in my writing. I haven't yet figured out how to do it, but I will.

Long, Slow Wave

A long, slow wave rolling in: does it matter if it’s in Newport or Capitola? Actually, yes, it matters a lot. My favorite spot in Newport is the back bay, where the tide rolls in with tiny wavelets, filling the muddy flats with shining blue sheets reflecting the sky, waking up the snails and the crabs, and exciting the prancing snowy egrets and the stalking avocets. In Capitola, it’s a big crest, out beyond the kelp beds, swelling above them and then beginning to break in a nicely shaped curl. Hundreds of seagull scream and circle into a thermal updraft. The wave entices the black-suited surfers to jump aboard and show their acrobatic switches and flips in and out of the breaking edge. Watching water is the only common thread.

Greened Up and Leafed Out

Now that it’s almost May, all of the slow coaches among the trees on my route have finally leafed out. Jacarandas and elms in the shade, plus a few oaks, were the tardiest. But they don’t see it that way; their time is just right to make leaves now. It wasn’t their time earlier. One tree is probably dead, it stands stark without even a swelled bud on its branch tips. My cherry has vibrant red leaves and the berries hide in them and splat on the sidewalk, where the bluebirds and crows pick at the remains. The hummingbirds love the sycamore in front, but some mornings they click so loud and long we can tell something is wrong. It’s a hawk, sitting on the other sycamore or on the ancient TV antenna, looking hungrily around for a tasty bite. When the hawk launches into the air and cruises away on patrol, the hummingbirds click far less, settle into a low volume, sound content.

Geography of Hope

Recently, a celebration of the life and works on Wallace Stegner was held in Point Reyes Station, CA. Stegner was a Western writer, Wikipedia called him the “Dean of Western Writers.” The conference was entitled “The Geography of Hope.” That comes from Stegner’s 1960 Wilderness Letter. Here is the text: “We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.” Does the natural world around us on the West Coast of the USA inspire you will a feeling that it’s the ‘geography of hope?”