Blog

One of the things I love to paint in my long lineup Still Life paintings is a group of vintage cans I’ve accumulated—tobacco cans, powder cans, baking powder cans. I love the look of their graphics, their beautiful colors, and the way they remind me of another time: childhood...

Many years ago, my sister and I went on a house tour, a walking exploration of some of the great old houses in Oyster Bay, on Long Island, the peninsula that extends east from New York Harbor, sitting in the Great South Bay where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. The house tour was something I was less interested in than was my sister, but it was a way for us to spend time together...

The winter challenges me in this woods place where I live. Once the snows come, the fog—fogged in, iced in, or waiting for the plow to clear my driveway, the sander to free me—I am here, awaiting people I’ve come to depend on to free me. People who are so reliable they are like family. Gratitude becomes very clear to me in winter...

A semicolon has been used to punctuate complete thoughts within a sentence; it is somewhat arcane, I’ve thought, and been replaced by a period or an em dash (—). The above sentence could also be written this way:...

What words come to mind when I think of the Center? What words do I want to come to mind for others when they think of the Center? Creativity. Inspiration. Self-expression. The action verbs are create, inspire, express. That’s what I want our writers to be able to do, the action I want them to be able to take. I think that desire, which all Center teachers share, makes us different.

The bears are asleep now that the temperature has dipped into the single digits, nights in these foothills of the Catskill Mountains. So, I’ve put out the bird feeders. I acquired this wisdom soon after coming here 23 years ago, when my sturdy feeder, made so that squirrels couldn’t chew it through, disappeared...

I’d visited a writers’ group in a nearby town. This is a rural place. Nearby is an hour’s drive. But the weather was still good, I’d heard they were serious writers, and there is no group nearer home...

Fall is late in coming this year. Our leaves, here in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, are usually blazing reds, yellows and oranges by September— two, sometimes three weeks in. Branches are bare by mid-October. But the trees in my woods are as full and green as summer, even after first frost three nights ago...

When personal computers were brand new, in the late 1970s, a friend showed me exponential progression on his computer screen. “Look at this!” he said. I was awestruck...

Two nights ago, sitting by the open window in the quiet country woods, late July, I heard a bird sing—chirp! Chirrup! Chirrup! I listened and heard it again. Then it must have moved on. Startling to hear a bird at night—full dark...