Meryl Streep

I come to every project thinking I don't know anything ... It serves me to begin blank and to try to forget the 900 other movies, and my reputation, and the training, or whatever horrible obstruction there is to creating a new character. I put myself in a state of anxiety - to become blank and to start by starting.
-Meryl Streep

Moose Antlers

. . . help them hear.

Nature

Lily, Bill and I were walking along the pond on Monday when we saw four baby wood-ducklings drop out of a huge tree and land smack in the middle of the road. They waddled around, stunned. Bill guided them across the street, and mama duck, responding to the peeping, appeared from behind a house. They all made it safely to the pond.

Then on Wednesday we were walking Lily along the pond upstream of the causeway, and we saw a painted turtle on the path. Lily was very intrigued, and we had to hold her back. Bill picked the turtle up, and we saw that she had been laying eggs. They were like large white jellybeans in a hole she had dug in the sandy soil with her back legs. So we put her back so she could finish her work.

William Blake

Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
―William Blake

Modern Times

A painting of mine called Modern Times has been accepted into a juried show called Statewide: Works From RISD Rhode Island Alumni. The show runs from Thursday, June 14, through Sunday, July 1st, at the Jamestown (RI) Art Center. There will be a reception Thursday evening, June 14th, from 6:30 until 9 PM. Come and celebrate!

You can see the painting here.

By the way, check out the work of poet Nin Andrews. She has been creating a series of writings inspired by my paintings, including Modern Times.

John Muir

I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
-John Muir

I Dreamed

I dreamed I was visiting a sculptor friend. I was wearing a long brown skirt and I was standing outside. I noticed the bottom of my skirt was burning. It had caught fire from a nearby candle. I was alarmed but managed to stop the burning by dipping my flaming hem into a pail of water. My friend asked me if I would like to meet his friends from the Dominican Republic. Three people with exquisitely black skin showed up and sat in aluminum beach chairs. They were each wearing a small live alligator on top of their heads. Then it was a party and I saw a friend of mine lift her four-year-old daughter up by her two long braids. I thought, oh no! She's living through her daughter!

Thomas Moore

Simplifying the externals allows us to create a rich inner and outer life. A cluttered existence may keep us busy, but busyness doesn't mean that we are fully engaged in what we are doing.
-Thomas Moore, Original Self

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Under every deep a lower deep opens.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wendy Wasserstein

Maybe producers as well as audiences need to be reminded that attending the theater is an inimitably life-affirming experience, especially during difficult times. In England, for instance, most of the theaters famously remained open during the Blitz. In 1941, Noël Coward wrote ''Blithe Spirit'' in a week, and it ran longer than any of his previous plays. There is nothing like a catharsis in times of high anxiety. There is also nothing as humane as sharing a laugh with strangers in the dark.
-Wendy Wasserstein, Where You and I Become Us, NYT Spring Theater