Festival of Flowers

The Springfield Museums' wildly popular monthly series "Culture and Cocktails" always has seasonal themes, but this month's could not have been better planned. March this year came in like a lion and went out like a lion. Winter lingered so long in Massachusetts that I seriously wondered whether spring would ever come. The last two days of March brought bitter cold, snow, sleet, and Arctic winds, and then suddenly this week it's April, the sun is out, the air is soft, and the crocuses are up. And the Museum is having a Festival of Flowers. 

Local florists and garden clubs were invited to submit floral arrangements inspired by various works in the museums. The arrangements are scattered throughout the four museums, placed near the pieces that sparked them. Patrons can pick up a diagram identifying the locations and then it's like a scavenger hunt, roaming around the Quadrangle looking for all of them.

My favorite is the arrangement by Sherry Williams of the Springfield Garden Club, interpreting a glass and bronze Tiffany Studios lamp from 1910. She's spot-on, not only with the colors and the form of the lamp, but with the overall feel of the piece. What amuses me the most is that the lamp is botanically inspired, with its base in the form of a trunk and leaves, and she's taken it back to the original plants. Plus it's pretty and I could totally picture it in my house.

The design team at Flowers, Flowers! took over the entire Blake Court in the Museum of Fine Arts, and did a bang-up job. The interpretation of Herman Herzog's "View of Niagara Falls in Moonlight" has huge cascades of white flowers, frothy moss and a beautiful palette of greys and greens. The interpretation of Joseph Whiting Stock's "The Fisherman with His Dog" is very large, like the painting itself, with a dangly exotic flower to represent the fishing rod and line, and a mirror so that you see yourself as the fisherman. Very whimsical. The interpretation of "Evening at Low Tide, Manomet" has rocks, seaweed, and tight chrysanthemums which look like some form of sea life. Gorgeous.

In the French Impressionist Gallery, Tara Northway Ostrosky had the courage to tackle the Degas, "Rehearsal Before the Ballet," with success I might add. The gorgeous pink parrot tulips, delphiniums, Queen Anne's lace, plum blossoms, combined with sage green leaves,
are the essence of spring.

Soul Trees

You can expect just about anything up at Richard Richardson's place. Tonight was his annual solstice party, with a Goddess band, another, bluesier band, fire dancing, a groaning board of interesting food (like simmered collards, homemade ravioli, wild rice with sweet potatoes, red tomato pie) and drink (umeshu plum wine, raspberry cheesecake pudding shots, mead, and of course plenty of merlot), etc., etc. Perfect opportunity to wear your feathered headdress, your kilt, your vest made of leaves, or your entire scarf collection. Richard had an arresting new shirt--you could spot him from two football fields away. Brighter gold than his newly-painted house (see above) with a mesmerizing pattern which resolved itself, once your eyes adjusted, into a tiger staring out at you from his midsection.

We didn't stay too long. I had already spent a full day in Connecticut before heading up to Goshen, Alma had poison ivy in her eye from working on the set of Labor Day, and Chris was worried about leaving his dog alone for too long. We had eaten and drunk our fill, danced, sat around the fire pit with old friends, scored a couple of deep massages, seen Richard's latest installations, and watched the moon rise. We were picking our way carefully in the pitch dark, trying to find our car, and this is what we stumbled upon. A woman watering metal trees in the moonlight with a big watering can.

The woman is Antoinette Reed of Cummington and the sculptures are part of her exhibit of "Soul Trees," with Robyn Cummings. They're mostly copper, with glass, marble, and found objects worked into them. Anyone who's been up to the Three Sisters Sanctuary will understand how well these fit into the landscape there. And anyone who hasn't visited really should. There'll be an opening June 30, catered by Bread Euphoria (yum), Blue House Café (yum), the Old Creamery (yum), and Sherry Berry Catering (don't know them, but I assume yum). The event's from 2 till 8, so you won't need a camera flash to see what's in the garden.

Live Painting with Josh Oliveira

Interesting event just four blocks from my house tonight. As a fundraiser for the Springfield Arts Initiative, the Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield had a nice little cocktail party inside the lobby of the Sovereign Bank Building. There was a bar, there were hors d'oeuvres, there was loud and peppy music spun by DJ Mike Grant, there was plenty of mixing and mingling. The focus of the evening, however, was a paint-in by artist Joshua Oliveira, who created the work on the easel during the event. In fact, the music and everything else is what gets him in the zone to paint. He draws his inspiration from the vibe of the crowd.

"I had no idea what I was going to paint tonight until I picked up my brush," he told me.

I asked him if he names his paintings, and he said he does. The paint hadn't even dried on the canvas, however, when I asked the question. He'll have to "sit down and have a conversation" with the work before he figures out its name.

That's Josh Oliveira in the Mona Lisa shirt, and Evan Plotkin talking to him. Plotkin owns the building and donated the space for the event. You can see other art on the walls; there's always some kind of exhibit up in that lobby, thanks to Plotkin. Anyone can walk in and walk around during business hours. I don't bank with Sovereign, but I treat the lobby like an extension of my own living room.

I liked this event because it reminds us that art isn't made in a vacuum. It's not just about some tortured genius alone in his garret. It takes more than an artist to make art: you also need a patron, and an audience. In Springfield, we have plenty of all three.

Dumb Irishwoman Goes to a Party

I never partied with the Shah, or with Andy Warhol, or with Malcolm Forbes. But hey, they're all dead, and I'm still here. The tent city of Persepolis has gone back to sand, the Palais Mendoub is a government residence, and the Factory's been torn down. Fortunately for me, the Three Sisters Sanctuary is going strong, Richard Richardson throws amazing parties, and I'm always on the guest list. This time it was a St. Patrick's Day party...a couple of days late, but that was more than made up for by its being Saturday night AND the night of the Supermoon.

I can't think of a better place (that I could get to without a jet) for watching a full moon. Richard's land looks to be a former cow pasture, in the middle of nowhere with no other houses or streetlights or other signs of human habitation. One of the draws, particularly of the warm-weather outdoor parties, is the darkness. You stumble around on paths lit only by torches or jack o'lanterns. You can hear the drum circle or the bluegrass trio, but you can't figure out how to get to it. You huddle by the fire-breathing dragon for warmth, and see eerie shadows flickering over the visages of your fellow revelers.

But this wasn't that. This was a comfier, cozier party, with the Guinness flowing freely and the tables groaning with food. The magnificent woodstove was stoked at one end of the great room, and Phyllis LaTaille was playing Irish music at the other. Two of Richard's recent creations, "Birch Boy" and "Festive Empress," eyed each other shyly from opposite sides of the room. Leprechauns abounded. A multigenerational family of females came dressed as colleen pageant queens, their winning years proclaimed on their banners. I was in green from my hair ribbons to my boots, but my outfit paled before Richard's gem-encrusted green top hat, tie, jacket, and felt leprechaun shoes.

When the moon rose, the party moved outside, and a spontaneous group howl erupted. I howled along enthusiastically. Sorry, Mr. Lussier. I'm just a dumb Irishwoman, I guess.

New Venue in Town: Artist Square Group Gallery

Although the gallery has been open for a few weeks, today was the official "Meet and Greet," a.k.a. official grand opening, for the Artist Square Group Gallery in Tower Square, downtown Springfield. My friend Alma had some items on display, and Tracy Woods had asked to borrow my punchbowl for the event, so of course I had to drop by.

In this photo (taken by me) I recognize artists A. J. Juarez, Awilda Oxios, Paul Midura, Morocco Flowers, and Jerry Barry, plus director Tracy Woods front and center. Not sure about the two ladies on the far right, or the lady seated next to Tracy. I chatted with a number of people: the artists I've named, some of the artists not pictured, plus several friends. I didn't get to meet everyone.

Jerry Barry's work is my favorite. He has painted a "park" series: landscapes of Central Park plus a couple of other parks. Two were hanging in the gallery. I recognized both spots immediately. The framed pieces I saw were prints; the originals hang in his home. I asked him why he painted, and got a disquisition (he's a teacher). One of the things he said was that when you're tired at the end of the day and want to relax, it's nice to contemplate a beautiful painting. He likes parks, and wanted to bring the park into his home. Literally! The originals are huge: 4 feet by 6 feet or 4 feet by 8 feet, and cover the walls of his home like murals. It must look like Monet's water lilies in the Orangerie.

I like the gallery, but the place I'd really like to go is Jerry Barry's house.

Close Your Eyes and Look As Far As You Can See

A visit to Real Art Ways packs a double whammy. It's a cinema (with reasonably-priced indie movies you frequently won't find anywhere else besides NYC and SF) and an art gallery. Once you've paid for your movie ticket, the gallery is free. And they have wine!

I saw several exhibits there this weekend. In the main gallery, Olu Oguibe has built a beautiful, traditional New England stone wall. Does putting it inside an artspace, as opposed to a field, make it art? Well, it begins a dialog at least. Oguibe fantasizes about people heatedly discusses this question while viewing his piece.

In the Real Room is an exhibit by Ryan V. Brennan called "Close Your Eyes and Look As Far As You Can See." It consists of four pieces of "cinemallage"--elaborate, colorful sets which look like pop-up books. Each piece has a tiny screen on which plays part of a stop-motion animation fantasy. The animations were filmed using the sets. Cinema + collage = cinemallage. Get it? It's accessible and cool.

Artist Square Group Gallery in Tower Square

When I was a kid growing up in the Forest Park neighborhood of Springfield, "downtown" was a magical word. Thursday evenings my mother would sometimes take my sister and me on the bus to Forbes and Wallace (the big department store), Peerless, Brigham's, Johnson's Bookstore...even the bank was exciting, marble and imposing, with a guard who would slip us each a Hershey's kiss while our mother was at the teller's window. Dinner on the twirly stools in the Meridian cafeteria, or the very proper Top o' the Town restaurant, then home on the Dickinson or Dickinson/Elwood bus to inspect our treasures. On other occasions, I discovered the Canton Restaurant, the Capitol, Bijou, and Paramount Theaters, the Christian Science Reading Room, the Nuttie Goodie Tea Room, and Symphony Hall.

Then I grew up and moved away, the malls came, and downtown sort of died. Forbes, Steigers, and many of the smaller, elegant brick buildings were torn down. All the theaters closed. Kennedy Fried Chicken, Subway and Sneaker World moved in. Plenty of people worked downtown, but then fled home. Restaurants and shops couldn't lure very many of them back.

Now I'm back in Springfield, living right downtown, and witnessing a bit of a renaissance. The Falcons hockey team, the MassMutual Center, and Symphony Hall provide entertainment and culture. Looks like the Paramount/Hippodrome is reopening. Theodore's has great no-cover live blues and rock shows, plus great food...even my recent visitor from Mississippi gave it two thumbs up.And the art scene just got a boost with Tracy Woods's new venture, Artist Square Group Gallery in Tower Square, opening soon.

I was down there today and Tracy was setting up with photographer friend Morocco Flowers helping out. Several artists have signed on, others have shown interest but not yet signed a contract, and there's room for a few more. Artists in all media are welcome. The gallery has a great location, upstairs across from the food court and next to non-profit Valley Photo Center's gallery.

Tower Square Management Team has pitched in to help, and law firm Bacon Wilson, P.C. donated services, too. The governor is championing this venture, as well he should. There's plenty of art being produced in Springfield and all throughout the Pioneer Valley, as well as a bigger market for it than most people realize.

Tower Square's food court is mobbed at lunchtime, but pretty much deserted the rest of the day. A number of storefronts are empty, and it's a shame. The one place everybody can get to with public transportation is downtown. Tower Square is a nice, convenient space and is underutilized. The Artist Square gallery will give people one more reason to visit.

The Unveiling of Teatro Vida

Art is good, maybe the best thing there is. Having several museums full of it within a block is pretty cool. The only thing better than easy accessibility to art hanging on the wall of a museum would be world-class art hanging on your own walls--but budget constraints make that option impossible for most. Even if you could afford it, the hassle would make it almost not worth the bother. Some lucky folks, though, get to treat the museum from time to time like their own homes, and without any expense or fuss.

Tonight friend Alma and I went to one of those lovely receptions at the Museum of Fine Arts that makes me feel like I'm in my own living room. The Blake Court, with its monstrous painting "Historical Monument of the American Republic" by Erastus Salisbury Field dominating a whole wall, was reserved for the reception. In a corner of the gallery, lovely Lorena Garay played classical, Spanish and Latin guitar. In another corner, a table was heaped with bright fruits, cheeses, and other appetizers. A bar was set up under Field's masterpiece. Smartly uniformed servers threaded their way through the crowd with trays of hot amuse-gueule.

My new best friend Magdalena Gomez had invited me to this "unveiling" of her latest venture, Teatro Vida. All the bigwigs who had donated money to her program were there, plus a good cross-section of the arty types in town, with strong representation from the Latino community. Alma found somebody to talk antiques and set design with, and I wandered around sipping my wine, taking notes and amassing quotes for an article I'm writing on Magdalena's venture.

Magdalena's from New York City. She moved to the Valley years ago and loves it here. From Springfield, New York is only three hours away, so you can get there pretty much any time you want. And sometimes you might want to: for an opera at the Met, for example. But six days out of seven, Springfield suits just fine. A lovely evening like this makes me think I've got the best of all possible worlds.

A Lake I Like

One of my very favorite places in Springfield is just about four blocks from where I'm now living. J. H. Miller Picture Framing was established in 1890 and has been getting my business for almost 30 years. Just about everything hanging on my walls that's not a hubcap was either bought at J. H. Miller or framed there.

J. H. Miller does more than framing. They sell framed and unframed art, as well as a few collectibles. Tonight was a reception for a fundraiser they're doing for WGBY, the local PBS station. There's almost nothing I like better than being able to walk over to some cool little gathering in my neighborhood, so I went over.

There was wine, of course, and cheese, and the featured prints, and a number of people I knew. One of the prints was by an artist I like very much, Mallory Lake. She's a Vermont artist who works exclusively in pastels. Almost all her pastels are landscapes of Italy, Tuscany and Venice predominantly. Pastel is the ideal medium, I think, for rendering the luminosity of her subjects.

For $10, I can get a Mallory Lake print, unframed. For $120, I can get one in a rather generic frame. For a bit more than that, I can get a print in a nicer frame. But what I'd really like is a Mallory Lake original. Of a canal in Venice. I've got the one I like already picked out. All that stands between my dream and the reality of an original on my wall is a fair-sized wad of $$$.

Creepy Newborn

My daughter never liked dolls or clowns. She had quite a few beautiful ones, the kind that are too fancy to play with, and too expensive to give away. At one point, she had them lined up on a high shelf in her closet, facing the wall. She was too afraid of them to destroy them, but didn't want to look at them, either. At one point when she was older and an art student, she lay them on the grass and photographed them through filters of Saran Wrap for maximum distortion. That's the way she really saw them.

A booth I visited at a recent craft festival reminded me of those days. A couple of artisans were displaying their "Angel Babies," one of which is being held here by a photogenic young festival-goer. It's a "reborn" doll, an ordinary factory-made doll painstakingly customized with special body parts and paint. The hair and eyelashes are individually rooted human hair or mohair. The doll is stuffed and weighted with pellets and fiberfill to feel just like a real baby. Some reborns even have battery-operated beating "hearts" and expanding and contracting "lungs." Pretty creepy.

According to the artisan, these dolls are great for people with Alzheimer's. They become much less agitated when given "babies" to hold. Handouts in the booth explained the results of a study done in the U.K. supporting this discovery.

The young woman posing with the newborn "reborn" giggled with her friends for a moment over the lifelike nature of her "baby." But soon she began mischievously shaking it. I'm telling you, dolls are evil. Granted, sometimes they're therapeutic. But sometimes they can bring out the worst in people.

Exercise in Fugality

Two weeks ago, I dropped a married couple of my acquaintance at Logan Airport in Boston. Today I returned to fetch them back. Their plane was an hour late leaving London, but I couldn't assume their arrival would be delayed by a corresponding amount. Flights traveling west frequently make up time in the air. I wasn't sure how early or late they'd be exiting customs, so I had to pay Logan's outrageous rates to park and go inside.

The plane was, in fact, an hour late. I spent about half of that time people-watching, trying to guess from passengers' footwear what country they were from. The rest of the time I spent watching a mesmerizing kinetic sculpture in the hall. It's "Exercise in Fugality" by George Rhoads, constructed in 1986.

This playful motorized sculpture uses a variety of mechanical devices--levers, pulleys, gears, inclined planes, and so forth--to send balls of various sizes and materials around a track. Bells, xylophonic tiles, and other percussive devices are used to produce sounds as the balls roll along. The pinging, dinging, whirring and clicking draw people as they proceed through the concourse.

Similar sculptures by this artist may be seen in other airports (LAX or Philly, for example), in the Port Authority, in several children's hospitals around the world, in malls, science museums, and at least one ballpark. They range from tabletop size to mammoth outdoor rooms. Although most famous for his rolling ball sculptures, Rhoads also paints, designs clocks and other types of sculpture, and has recently authored a book.

"Exercise in Fugality" had people clustered around it, hypnotized, most of the time I was there. Children had to be dragged from it. At one point, two girls of about five or six, one speaking English and the other Dutch, made friends by running around and around the plexiglas case which housed the piece. Now that's kinetic!

Open Studio

The Indian Orchard Mills is a contemporary mixture of manufacturing space, warehousing, and artist studios. A few years ago, when my cousin Geri was running Recycle for Children next door, lots of artists dropped by to see her and to scrounge for materials to use in their work. She used to sell the same mat board supplied to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Gorgeous stuff....her price: 3 dollars. Sometimes free to me. Cordelia at that time needed lots of mats for her photographs, so we were always running over there. I met quite a few artists from the Mills just by hanging around Recycle, and I'd always go to their gallery openings.

At that time, most of the artists were in the back building. Now they've spread into the front building, where the books I catalog for Dan Wyman are warehoused. Last year my own cousin Marc took a studio two floors under Dan. I had dropped by a couple of times, but no one else in the family had seen his stuff. So in a show of family solidarity, Cousin Geri and I went over to the Open Studio today. We've seen so much of the artists in the back that this time we confined ourselves to the newer people.

Marc was a printmaker years ago, but has recently decided to teach himself to paint in oils. This past year has been a process of learning to handle the medium. Somehow he's managed to fill the walls with older prints and newer line drawings and oils. The old dog is learning some pretty decent tricks.

Is That a Painting Under Your Kimono?

This afternoon I attended a little party one of my neighbors threw to celebrate 30 years living on Elliot Street. Bob McCarroll, nominally the Treasurer, is more like the Dean of the Mattoon Street Historic Preservation Association. One of the first to invest in the neighborhood when it was rehabbed in the 1970s, Bob worked for the city planning board and has run the Mattoon Street Arts Festival for years.

Next to the doorbell Bob had stuck a photograph of the exterior taken before renovation. Sagging porch, peeling paint, cockeyed clapboards, the whole bit. Inside were similar pictures, posted near the portions of the house they depicted. Broken fixtures, a stairway littered with trash and dirt. It looked like a crack house. In fact, it had been a crack house.

The person who had bought it in that condition, and Bob after him, worked hard to bring the house back to something like it must have looked when it was first built. Painted and papered, rubbed and polished, overflowing with furniture, paintings and bibelots in the fussy manner so common to the Victorian era, it's show house material. For the occasion, Bob had added a bowl of champagne punch and several beautiful cakes on the dining room table, plus a mysterious object shrouded by a silken kimono.

Bob is active in his church, city affairs, and many historical and cultural organizations. As might be expected, he knows lots and lots of people. It seemed that all of them wanted to join him in celebrating this anniversary.

When the party was well underway, Bob called for everyone's attention. He explained that, after the last Arts Festival, the neighborhood association had given him a painting to be commissioned by Susan Tilton Pecora, a local watercolorist. After much debate (his house? his lakeside cottage? the cherry blossoms in the park?), he had decided on a view of the Henry Hobson Richardson church seen from Mattoon Street during festival time.

He then introduced Susan and whisked the kimono off of the mysterious object, unveiling the finished watercolor. I had a very nice conversation with the artist, not about painting but about the various dogs we have adopted. I had some pink punch and some pink cake. Then it was back to the twenty-first century to write write write and keep the wolf from the door of my Victorian money pit.

Painting I Like

Spotted in the powder room of Nordstrom's in Connecticut. Note the black strip along the bottom edge. Big improvement over the usual flowers and seascapes.

The Rescue Artist

Tonight was the monthly meeting of the Downtown Book Ladies. We met at Anna's. We read The Rescue Artist. It was too long. It was boring. We learned a lot about stolen art. Every year, lots of paintings get stolen. The Scream got stolen, but it got rescued. The Scream is painted on cardboard. Part of it is drawn in chalk. The men who stole it climbed up a ladder. After they stole the painting, they left the ladder behind. Charlie Hill was a famous painting rescuer. He finally found the painting. Next time we will read The Calligrapher. Cicily picked it out. Maggie already finished it, and she hates it. We have time for one more book. No matter what, Cicily is not thinking up any more ideas.

Astonishing Apple

Cézanne is perhaps my favorite painter. It doesn't hurt that I lived for a time in the south of France, and also in Paris, very near each of his studios. Since painting (representational, anyway) is the rendering of visual perception, light is essential to the artist. Being in the place where an artist worked, observing the quality of the light in that place, fosters an understanding of exactly what the painter was seeing. If he's a genius to begin with, such proximity can't help but engender a deep appreciation of his oeuvre.

Cézanne's favorite subject was Mt. Sainte-Victoire, the stark peak of which can be viewed from many points around Aix-en-Provence. Cézanne painted 44 oils and 43 watercolors of Mont Sainte-Victoire alone.

But he liked to paint portraits and natures mortes (still lifes) as well. He has this to say about fruit:

"Les fruits sont les plus fidèles...Ils aiment qu'on fasse leur portrait. Ils sont là comme à vous demander pardon de se décolorer. Leur idée s'exhale avec leurs parfums. Ils viennent à vous dans toutes leurs odeurs, vous parlent des champs qu'ils ont quittés, de la pluie qui les a nourris, des aurores qu'ils épiaient. En cernant de touches pulpeuses la peau d'une belle pêche, la mélancolie d'une vieille pomme, j'entrevoie dans les reflets qu'elles échangent la même ombre tiède de renoncement, le même amour du soleil, le même souvenir de rosée, une fraîcheur....Avec une Pomme, je veux étonner Paris!”

I translate this as:

The fruits are the most trustworthy. They like having their portraits done. It’s as if they’re apologizing for their colors fading. Their idea is exhaled with their perfumes. They come to you with all of their scents, speak to you of the fields they’ve left, of the rains which have nourished them, of the dawns they have witnessed. Outlining with supple strokes the skin of a beautiful peach, the melancholy of an old apple, I can’t help but notice in their reflections the same tepid shadow of renunciation, the same love of the sun, the same memory of the dew, a freshness….With an apple, I want to astonish Paris!”

Still on the List

The mail has been full of interesting things lately--cards, letters from old friends, checks, notices informing me that some of my money is being refunded, and so on. I was especially excited to receive this Christmas card today from "le Conseil d'Administration, le Comité de Direction et toute l'équipe du Centre Vinicole - Champagne Nicholas Feuillatte."

What originally intrigued me about the champagne house of Nicholas Feuillatte was its affiliation with artists. Being very young for such a company (NFCVC celebrated its 30th birthday on October 12th of this year), and also a cooperative (very untraditional for this business), NF early on decided to align itself with youth and modernity in building the company image. Accordingly, each year a contemporary artist is selected by NF to interpret a theme chosen for that year. Effervescence, terroir, and skin contact are examples of past themes. The artist produces one work which is installed in an art gallery in the Chouilly cellars. He or she also designs marketing materials for the year, including a Christmas card.

When I visited the cellars last November, I got to see the art gallery--very cool. And I was given the lovely bottle of pricey vintage champagne. I wondered if perhaps I'd get a Christmas card, but I didn't. Oh, well. Getting a little greedy, I thought.

But I began receiving lots of other mail from their PR agency--press releases and little gifts. A CD of world music, a neat little picnic carrier with room for a bottle of Beaujolais. And of course, an invite to an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy and France. Unfortunately, I was not able to pay them back in the manner they hoped, in the form of a glowing published account of the trip. None of the editors I was working with had any interest in articles about champagne, olive oil or Beaujolais.

Which means, I guess, that I should get myself some different editors. And, in fact, I do have a new editor for my weekly column. Her former post was managing editor of the lifestyle ( i.e. food, wine, travel, and so on) section of Springfield's The Republican. We've got a plan to meet after the Christmas rush. Perhaps she'll be willing to help me get my foot in the door with some food, wine, or travel articles.

I still have a chance to redeem myself with Nicholas Feuillatte and with their PR agency in New York. I got a Christmas card....that means I'm still on the list.

First Christmas Card

I don't get a lot of Christmas cards, so the ones I do get are especially treasured. The first card I usually get--and this year was no exception--comes from Stochastic Press, the imprint of a talented brother/sister team of my acquaintance. Christopher is the writer, and Carolyn is the artist. I don't know too many other people who design their own cards from scratch, even in this age of DIY when computers make such projects a snap.

Christopher, like me, was raised a Roman Catholic, and cheerfully celebrates Christmas, even though on the Belief-o-matic quiz (http://www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html) he ends up something like a Mahayana Buddhist. (Belief-o-matic, btw, rates me a Unitarian Universalist, and puts Roman Catholicism dead last on my list. Sorry, sister Scholastica.) I can't speak for Carolyn's current beliefs.

Every year Christopher invents a fable, and Carolyn illustrates it. This year's story concerns the three Magi, and follows them on their trip to Bethlehem and back. Chris gives each magus a distinct character.

Right there is the difference between the two of us as writers. Chris has just finished writing a historical novel, and will soon begin editing it. I have no doubt the book will find a publisher, as Chris already has several books in print and other impressive writing credentials.

I, on the other hand, have trouble making things up. I've got a great idea for a historical novel myself, but as I sketch it out, I keep coming up against elements about which I feel I'm insufficiently knowledgeable. I worry excessively about anachronisms, for example, although, if they were okay by Shakespeare, why should I care? I struggle over creating a fictional reality at a point in time and space where, unbeknownst to me, something else entirely actually existed.

I guess I'm underestimating the power of narrative on an audience. All that other stuff goes out the window when you're in the grip of a story. Skeptic that I am, I don't understand how we can ever know anything at all for certain. But maybe, as a writer, I should try writing my way out of this problem. Starting with something small and harmless, perhaps, like a Christmas card?

Out of Town

Because people know I'm a book cataloger and a bibliophile, I'm occasionally given old books by friends and relatives. Books acquired for little or nothing, which the donor doesn't quite know what to do with, but thinks might have some value.

"Hmm, maybe Cicily would want this decrepit but kind of interesting old book."

That's how I came upon this copy of Out of Town by F. E. Weatherly. One of my cousins picked it up at the Goodwill and passed it on to me. "It's falling apart," she said, "but the pictures are nice, and maybe you could cut it up and frame them."

Her place is tiny, and she shares it with one of those guys who's really talented but not at all ambitious...one of those guys who'd rather be fishing or smoking weed than working. Every square inch of the place is covered with his aquariums and his marionettes, or has a cat draped over it. I, on the other hand, live with my two minimalist sons in a cavernous Victorian. Loads of 10-foot-high walls on which to hang framed prints from picture books.

Of course, I checked the value of the book when I got it home, and sure enough, it 's worth some bucks. The cheapest copy for sale on the net is $90, and they go up to almost $200. None seems to have the poor binding that my copy has, but that's not really a huge issue with old books, as many people don't realize. It's more important for the interior to be in good condition. Underlining, evidence of library ownership, bookworm damage, water damage and so on are more serious flaws--things that can't be rectified by rebinding.

Frederic Edward Weatherly was an Oxford-trained lawyer, but more famous as a songwriter. He was prolific, with over 3000 songs to his credit. The one everybody's heard of is "Danny Boy." Out of Town is a book of poems, lyrical, as one might imagine. It was published in 1880.

This book has not one but two illustrators. Linnie Watt, a painter who's not totally lost to history, did the lovely chromolithographs. Ernest Wilson did the monotints, which are charmingly integrated with the text. In the poem "Two O'Clock," which begins, "Sing a song of two o'clock, Tadpoles in a pool," the capital "S" is a tadpole. The "Y" which begins "Gentleman John" is a rake. Leaves and branches twine all around the text; a crab hangs by a pincer onto a poem about the seashore.

I haven't got the heart to cut the book to pieces, and of course now I know it's worth more money in one piece. Anyway I've got literally dozens of paintings, photographs, and mirrors yet to be hung--I don't need any more. Out of Town has come to the right place--a creaky old house where everything, including the owner, is vintage, and being old and a little worn out is just the way to be.

Enseignes en Fer Forgé de Hautvilliers

A year ago last November, I was in France, visiting the Champagne region. Everything is beautiful there. Everything. It's the most picturesque place you can imagine, because the champagne grape has been cultivated there for centuries. Champagne families are often dynasties, passing on the land for generations. What's old is venerated, respected, lovingly preserved. The only industry I spotted there, besides wineries, was wine-related: a manufactory for making the special thick champagne bottles.

Of all the picturesque towns, Hautvilliers is perhaps king. This hilly little town is classed premier cru, along with neighboring Avenay and Ay. Dom Pérignon is buried here, in the abbey church of St. Sindulphe. He's the monk who accidentally made wine with those pesky little bubbles. The rest is champagne history.

Hautvilliers is also notable for its forged iron signage. You'll find these signs sprinkled throughout France and other European countries besides, but in Hautvilliers, it's really signs gone wild. Almost every doorway in town sports an iron sign hanging above it. These pictorial signs, of course, were originally designed for the illiterate majority, and gave a clue as to what was inside. Since champagne is the only business in town, the signs of Hautvilliers are an endless variation on the themes of grapes, vines, bottles, casks, flutes, and--occasionally--happy couples celebrating.

Last year's trip was all about champagne. I didn't have the time or money to figure out where all those signs came from. I didn't notice any businesses in Hautvilliers except dozens of viniculteurs and one café.

In nearby Montier-en-Der, I learned later, is a forge called Fer et Traditions where signs, weathervanes, and the like are made. It's run by a man named Richard Brouard. Next time I'm in the neighborhood, I plan to stop by. I wonder if he'd be willing to take a break from all those iron grapes and tendrils to make something for an American. Maybe a shelf of books with cockador rampant?