7 Gosnold tucked up against Town Hall

down Bradford Street,

post Mussel Beach

Spin Euphoria

Law Street toward bay

Miller Hill at Bradford Street

I show the sequence because I fear it gets worse, or at least,

it makes me want to avoid the transparence feature.

(features are usually iffy)

Opacity demands clarity, precision with placement, distribution.

You see the construction, or lack of,

explicitly. Whether a move adds to the illumination of what is happening,

or whether is just sits there filling space.

Hawthorne's direct approach. Paint it out.

The overlaps of sky color interrupt.

In the iPad version of Brushes, there is a playback option.

It is always recording how you made the image.

Big to haul around though.

milling about town today

sitting opposite town hall looking toward Adam's Pharmacy

down Law Street toward Cape Cod Bay

BOLOS

Bolos are part of the reason I've taken up spinning here.

They are a Portuguese breakfast bread,

something between challah, brioche, a bialy, and an english muffin.

Folks at spinning call them portuguese muffins and

they send them to family members once they've gotten hooked.

Slice them long ways like a bagel and toast.

These have raisins, but the plain are better - hints of lemon.

Add morning tea, and for a start, it is hard to beat.

Ferret

Noticed today when I read further down the sign,

that the missing ferret’s name is Mousey and she is gentle.

She was last seen heading down Commercial St. toward town hall on November 20^th.

Hope she’s ferreted her way back home now.

another Bradford St. from the kitchen window

between the gap at Gosnold and Commercial

iStroking Time

Pilgrim Monument from dunes near Pilgrim Lake

Atlantic Ocean

wearing down

The sand swallows it all.

Dig deep enough or fly fast enough,

you might get to

do it all over.

Dunes near Pilgrim Lake

Pilgrims hiked all about here searching for fresh water.

Way back in 1620; they stayed for several hard weeks.

down Center Street across Commercial

Cape Cod Bay

Den Window

7 Gosnold Street

iphone collage

Hatches Harbor at Herring Cove

slivers and rivers of Hatches Harbor

bloated fudge bellies

Commercial Street

Hatches Harbor

the west end view back

from an empty porch at the red inn

from 7 Gosnold Street

Chasing Dickinson

From the window seat of 7 Gosnold Street

I’ve been looking at my new Edwin Dickinson (1891-1978) catalog. He lived in Provincetown from 1912-1937, taking in swoop of art development (including Eugene O’Neill’s first play production in 1916). He drew and painted on Pearl Street. His teacher, Charles Hawthorne’s method centers on the “premier coup” technique, the first strike. Work was accomplished in one sitting and not revisited in the studio. Direct observation is the core.

It’s a technique I try to practice. Henri Cartier Bresson had a similar attitude about photography. You can often see the edges of the film on his prints as a testament to his print what you take philosophy.

Dickinson's work has two distinct aspects: the immediate “first strike” images, and the hyper planned, fantastical compositions of bigger scale. I prefer the down and dirty.

Small paintings stretch their ragged beaches into neighbors’ yards. He makes quick knowing strokes of coarse texture, and in whose traces, individual bristle strokes jolt our sense of scale. Things become recognizable. Little tiny people picnicking, once lost in a brushstroke, let you breathe the ocean. His pencil drawings feel like paintings, soft wispy tones snapped into formal coherence by a single drafted line.

sunrise at Gosnold Street & Commercial

Reward for Missing Ferret

I saw the sign in a store window and now in a car.

Wonder if it’s the same errant ferret.

winter kicks back

Crocuses recoil under

graceful but rude early dusting,

yesterday's twinkle of spring's smile.

Time proves variable again when you live right under the chimes of Town Hall, reminding at those insistent intervals, of its steady passing. One for the half hour and the number of the hour on the hour, sweet sonic booms resonate through this old house, rattling clapboards and storm windows.

Swept into a drawing, I don't hear the chimes. Asleep at night, the waves dissipate into the pewter sky. They do not change, the beats of our lives, but sometimes they are hard to witness.

Marconi hoped we could outrun those sonic blasts and go back through time.

Wellfleet was his spot.

welcome spring

New England style

white like the clam chowder

Cape Cod Bay

a rainy dusk to dark transition

from the Mews.

tides

Where am I?

Yesterday you were an expansive beach.

Make no assumptions.

Pearl Street Again

Fudge Judging

No amount of spinning can swirl away gains from a complete Provincetown fudge comparison report, so I’ll break it out here at four. The prevailing flavor is penuche with walnuts or pecans - number one and descending: the Purple Feather; The Penny Patch; The Fudge Factory; and finally, Cabot’s.

Fudge should be dense, rich, not struggling to hold its shape as the Fudge Factory’s. It should not be waxy like Cabot’s. And the Purple Feather, I have to admit, technically falls out of the control of my scientific method since it was maple flavor. And maple is not penuche as one proprietor told me. penuche is brown sugar, butter and only vanilla flavoring. Maybe she thought since I was from the south I should go ahead and merge maple and penuche. One less thing to rattle around in that head.

(Note that these are off-season results.

Turnover may affect freshness, though I hear fudge lasts a long time)

What makes fudge, fudge? Cathy asks.

I hope the answer is not something like sweetened condensed or

partially evaporated milk products.

Ignorance is best in this instance.

I fear corn syrup is the winner.