Art vs. Life

John Prophet a Cape Cod Original

And you are invited the a party tonight at 7 

The Studio on Slough Road is looking forward to a fun Thursday  evening gathering, 7 to 9pm this week.  Every Thursday in season we have a small party to give our neighbors and friends a chance to meet some person who contributes to our rich cultural life here on this fragile and beautiful penisula.  It never passes us by that this is a unique and historic habitat.

We are so blessed and truly unusual,those of us who are allowed to call Cape Cod home.

John Prophet is one of  the true gifts we have here.  He has contributes so much to our cultural life here on the mid Cape.   Come by and enjoy a moment listening to his fascinating  career, and his tireless work  toward a world class facility  in Harwich.   Read his blog, or go to our website under events and find more information.

We are a small,intimate studio in the woods, parking is limited, carpooling or walking down our dirt road is a good idea.  See you Thursday evening. 75 Slough Road, Brewster.

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The Saga of the Soarbird

It is an ancient urge to make sense of our own story, to relate what ever wisdom our circumstances have brought to our own lives. Artists feel compelled to give the metaphor of their own lives a form and space that is visceral and memorable.  Gerry Lambert , a boat builder, and lover of the sea took a life altering  journey around Cape Cod in a row boat. 

What he encountered and what followed this experience will be the topic of a short lecture at The Studio on Slough Road, Thursday evening, July 19 at 7 pm.  Come  join us  for the second of our Evenings in Paradise Events, 75  Slough Road.  The Studio is small , intimate and atmospheric.

Join the small group of art and culture lovers as we gather for a short evening of sharing and magic.  The gardens are so beautiful, and the subject and the art always fun and thought provoking.   Learn of this wonderful myth in the making and share with your neighbors the unique life of Cape Cod residents in their pursuit of culture and meaning as a way of life.

The parking is limited so you may want to park and walk down the dirt road to our special setting.   Enjoy an evening of art and conversation with all of us here on Slough Road.  We will have a wine and cheese reception for this talented creator of  kinetic sculpture, storying telling at its finest.

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"The Vain Destiny of Fleeting Images"

On a magical summer evening like this, the eve before the Fourth of July, reverie is everywhere.  The deep , Goya Blue , of the night sky with white hot stars like puzzles playing  in the galaxie, seems to bring us all to those moments of awe and wonder only Cape Cod at its most  unexplained beauty can.   As I walked outside tonight around 1030,to greet my youngest son, here from Syracuse for the holiday I was mesmerized for a minute by the full, almost, moon and the profuse summer garden that greets us at our front door these mornings. 

It occurred to me that most art and literature start somewhere in these moments when the beauty of the earth overtakes our fears and  uncertainty and starts us down the path of imagination.   I have been dreaming of new work I am about to start moving from sketches to canvas and Rives BFK paper. In those moments when I encounter some mystery, so compelling , so irresistable , that it takes my  reason away ,I begin to invent a response to  that  force .  Art is a gutteral affirmation to some universal voice I am suddenly only temporarily connected.  Not something I can summon at will.

This is not anything new  or original that has not been said by a million brilliant writers, philosphers etc.  Yet something worth paying attention to.  These sorts of moments usually head me straight to my library and they did tonight, to a wonderful summer book for those so fortunate to be close to the sea.  Water and Dreams by Gaston Bachelard .  The title to this short essay is from his works.  Get  a copy and indulge yourself while you are here near such  spectacular water.

Come see us at the Studio on Slough Road .  We will be featuring a fascinating man who will speak about his trip in a wooden boat around  Cape Cod.  He had an encounter with a white gull that lead him to produce a kinetic mobile of copper and marine plywood.  We  will have the details for you next week on our website. but mark Thursday evening July 12 on the calendar and come have wine and cheese and hear this great story as told by the man who experienced this awakening in his soul.  

Life vs. Art we will never solve the mystery, only celebrate it!

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Cross Currents, Embedded Art

One of the observations I made while visiting Budapest and Prague was the sensation that the art was part  and parcel of the cultural whole.  Not that galleries and museums were not present or important, but not more important than public art and art in architecture.

One of the boundries we are trying to amend and advocate for is the cross marriage of literature and fine art, the collaboration between food and fine art, the images derived from gardening and the wild world.  These and a thousand other edges or  definitions of art.   The stunning use of allegory and figurative sculpture and mythology were papable in Croatia.  This allows the viewer  a chance to question his own views of what fine art is and why it is valuable.   Aesthetics are a crucial element in Darwinian princples found in nature.  Why for the sake of commerce have we divided art from clothing or food or books. 

We have accepted some how that the only serious art is that found in retail galleries or museums.  Somehow the gorgeous show hung is the coffee shop is a hybrid,  or at least not as substantial and those in a gallery for only art. This seemed not to be the theme in Croatia.  I liked the indigenious feeling of art in public venues, for sale or at least a card say how it might be purchased.  It made the art seem more human and less about money, only money.  Of course Artist need money to create new work and maintain their  own lives.  But most of the artist I know feel more integrated into thier work.   Like breathing is part of living.  Making and living with art is requirement for the sanity of the artists soul.

To that end our studio, Studio on Slough Road is going to present fun Thursday night
gatherings of all sorts of creative people.  Not to as such sell their goods, but to make people
aware of their connection to art, the environment, to the mileu we have created here
on Slough Road.  We have a wonderful, fun ,evening this Thursday with Fashion and Art
put together by Pam Pryor of Gingies Boutique in Yarmouth.    A Ladies Night of Special
pampering and inspiration.  Come join us around 7 and relax in the beautiful garden.
Meet a neighbor for the first time and leave your cares and work behind for a couple of hours.
Have some goodies and champagne and dream for a while, be a little girl again for a short
time.  Celebrate summer and beautiful Brewster.    

Pam Pryor has created a beautiful evening for us in reaction to the images of  Kathleen
Sidwells paintings and prints.  Come by every  Thursday, look on our website and see
who is speaking or demonstrating and come enjoy a beer, wine or coffee and some
nibbles  and a good conversation with  all these interesting people.  Come join us and
and add to the conversation. 

We ,of course, sell art here, but that is not all we do.  We want to know our neighbors and
their thoughts.  We want a diaglogue about all that mutually concerns our community
and also that which we all share together to make Brewster what it is, and what it can
become. 

Come see us.

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Cape Cod, Poland, Prague and Budapest

We are finally back on beautiful Cape Cod after our incredible and educational tour of Croatia, Poland, and the Czech Republic. It was so unbelievably beautiful you could hardly imagine. It surprised us that we had such a slight grasp of World War I and World War II geography.

We went to Auschwitz which will never leave our consciousness. To actually go and see the geography and the gorgeous built environment was remarkable. Also it was educational to see what humans have accomplished , also what strange tendencies man has to create arbitrary boundaries is eye opening.  The urge to cultural and political identity becomes so real.

The professors who led the trip, lectured as we traveled up the coast. We traveled through Bosnia-Herzegovina up to the capital of Zagreb. The bus driver had lived in the areas bombed in the 1990s and had fought incognito for his homeland. His evening stories were spell binding and frightening. It is so seldom we see an area so recently destroyed by war. Dubrovnik was beautiful and had been rebuilt in the nature of the historic city. Look it up on the internet. It is one of the worlds most beautiful settings, with an ancient walled city, and a seaside charm on the Adriatic sea on the most beautiful Mediterranean destinations on a sea that seemed not real to us. The color aquamarine became a real idea.

We headed to Krakow, Poland for their festival birthday 750 year party. We spent one day driving the country to the concentration camp in Auschwitz, just too horrendous to imagine. Then we headed to Budapest and Prague. We saw a sculptor in Split that had become a known sculptor in our country.  Meštrović had taught sculpture at Syracuse and done public work in our country.

The when we arrived in Prague we  were located a block from the museum dedicated to Alphonse Mucha who had spent time on Cape Cod with his family. His big emergence into the public consciousness was with his poster for Sarah Berhardt. He was the master of Art Nouveau, along with Klimt he brought the new art with decorative sensibility to attention with other art forms. Cape Cod is such a vortex for art and artist.

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Gender and Destiny

The Mystery of Gender

Newsweek magazine ran a wonderful issue title The Mystery of Gender.  I was really touched by it.  Gender is at the core of all of our destiny.  Sometimes we don"t even realize how it forms our one life. 

I remember the story of a young woman who was accepted into a prestigious eastern womens college.  She was told that her essay was the deciding factor in her winning a spot in that years student body.  She was required to write an essay of 500 words. The essay was to describe the one single factor that had influenced her life to the present day.  

She used only one of those 500 words.  She wrote, BREASTS.   What a funny and brilliant answer as it most certainly possible could be the one factor that had sealed her destiny.

When we talk about marriage and divorce and lifestyles and religion, as we do on every newscast, everyday.  It occurs to me that the main public issues are gender oriented.  Marriage, lifestyle,health,professions,abortion,sexual abuse in the church, relgion and politics, even sports at the core are gender issues.

The place I go when I want to understand these issues is the bookstore,or the art museum.  The Art museum will show us all the images of women and men since life was first recorded.  Amazing what we learn just looking at the images of men and women through out time.

Some books that have enlightened me are also about the relationship of men and women. The first that comes to mind is The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.  This beautiful book is from a jewish point of view, about the old testament times.  It describes a custom of quarantine when I women was in mensus, considered unclean the women were clositered in tents. 

During this time they shared as they never were allowed to, the stories and pain of their married lives.  This is where they learned how to be what their societies required of them.  It was also where they learned from their elders how life had gone for them. 

The next book is Wild Swans, by Arthur Golden, a beautiful book of three marriages from different class distinctions.  It is a wonderful book for men, such poignant ideas of arranged marriages.  I gave it to my boys, to help them understand the chinese point of view historically of women.  I had taken my small boys to China right after Nixon went and before the western world had changed it so much.  Very beautiful a sad what so many people were required to live.  Yet so  beautiful as it was their world  not changed by others.

The third book is Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden.  This book became a very beautifully crafted film, but the book gave a deeper understanding of the ways of  the world then.  The expectations for men as well as women, written into the social code. The fourth is a book of a few years back The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini, about  a young boy.  It is a must read for our times. I am always amazed at how little many people know about the other people in the world.

Perhaps because many work so hard and have no time, or can rarely take time to see
how others live.

Part of the quest for world peace is reading what others believe and trying to walk a mile in thier shoes.

I have had the opportunity to study world religion, some of my favorite writers are from far away places with different ideas than my own protestant and espiscopal back ground.  

John ODonahue is a Celtic Christian who influences almost every thought I have about religion.  His first and most important book  for me I ANAM CARA, a gaelic word , for if you are looking for a book of comfort and soul take this one with you on vacation.

Another is Rumi (on right), the sufi poet, translated by Coleman Barks,  this a a beautiful place to begin to understand the sufi point of view.

Last  but not least is a collection of poems by the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath, Tagore, Gitanjali, find the version with the introduction by WB Yeats.  This is another summer reading gift. 

Wow, Gender leads us down strange and wonderful paths. It is the discussion of our
times, but such a great conversation. 

I am heading on a journey of discovery for my next body of work.  I leave Saturday for Croatia, to go from Dubrovnick to Prague.  I will miss my sanctuary in Brewster, but I am leaving in the hands a wondeful local treasure David Gessner, and his wife author Nina de Gramont.

I will check back in at the end of June.  Have a wonderful early summer.  

Kathleen Sidwell

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A Picture is worth a thousand words?

A picture is worth a thousand words or at least it use to be.  That was before Photoshop could create a false reality.

I had to laugh a bit at the divorce billboard, sorry.  Come on.  I remember when I was younger the shopping malls had a store called Glamour Shots. One day when my husband was at training camp, a long six weeks for football coaches wives, I went to the mall and went crazy with some glamour photos.  Those were the days of wild contemporary art feminism. Judy Chicago had just done The Dinner Party, a very provocative installation about the role of women in society. I know I am dating myself  but these were important social statements of the time. The last time I saw the work it seemed so dated to me. In my sixties now, I think I have aged appropriately, like most of my friends. I have a new slant on those photos and my role as a wife of thirty-nine years. I wanted so to look like the beautiful models, or at least to think I could hold my own. I had gone to art school in the late seventies when my children were in grade school.

Long before The Vagina Monologues, women were secretly talking to one another about the  anxiety of being married and wondering if you could compete with Madison Avenue hype, and create a really dynamic marriage. Now I have beautiful daughter-in-laws, who share  with me the ideas of their early marriages.  I have a beautiful blossoming ten year old grand daughter who calls me Mimi.  She looks to me to see what's ahead?

Men suffer too now, these silly images of six-pack abs.  Excuse me.  When I almost lost my husband to a brainstem stroke I couldn't have cared less about his abs. It was his life and his soul I worried about.  Marriage is a difficult, moving, thrilling, scary proposition. Like a raft ride down the Grand Canyon, it has its dips and turns.  We should all celebrate our long, silly, traumatic at times, lives with our spouses. They too have made some sacrifices. Long live marriage.

Cindy Sherman is a great contemporary artist who used provocative images of women and their stereotypes to describe the public manipulating of women's bodies for profit.   It is the way of the world.  Hello?  Life is short, so what does that have to do with divorce?

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Exceptional Women

Cape Cod's Ms. Wheelchair Massachusetts, Laurel Labdon, was honored once more in Boston on Friday at the remarkable Exceptional Women Event.  I was invited to come as a guest, and instructed to bring tissue to dry my eyes if I needed.  That was the understatement of the Century.

This remarkable program sponsored by WBZ radio, was a production of small docudrama shorts about the most remarkable among us.  Oh my, words will never describe this experience.   The awards were given in many categories, from Courage to Service, to Trailblazing.   The women confirmed my notion that the ordinary neighbor may be a true Hero, you simple don't know about.   They ranged from a MS survivor who is a world champion mountain climber, to a lung transplant survivor dressed in a Reebok running vest, who now runs competitive races like her donor had in life, to a beautiful immigrant from the Dominicon Republic who survived abdject poverty to arrive inBoston know ing no English.   She runs the boys and girls club in Lawrence, that saves the lives of hundreds of children a year from the same pain and suffering.

There was another woman who was the daughter of a holocaust survivor, who created a group to create healing and forgiveness between children of Nazi's and these victims of the Holocaust.  Can you imagine this group of women.  Another was the mother of a kidnapped and murdered teenager, who has recovered to  create a group to prevent any mother from such horriffic pain.

Laurel is a Brewster native who lived for one year sailing to South America aboard the Camelot, a beloved boat owned by her parents  Jane and Dr Bob Labdon.  Her promising and brilliant life was changed forever when she was paralyzed in an afternoon car accident down by Paines Creek at 19 A quadraplegic and truly gorgeous young woman at 37, she looks like a modern day Grace Kelley.  She has undertaken an entrepenurial venture as the director of an unusual new Contemporary Art Studio in Brewster.  The Studio is a new and very different contemporary venue, showing presently the works of Kathleen Sidwell, but looking to evovle she is now working as a consultant for other artists in the area.   The work is not just images of the Cape, but about the issues of the Cape and what takes up the emotional space of young professional people on the Cape and also serious and beginning art collectors  looking for sensous, exciting works with literary content and emotional impact.  If this bright, motivated young woman can teach us anything, its that you can overcome anything.   She would probably be one of the real stars in New York City at some famous gallery if her life has not taken such a unthinkable turn.   She never seems daunted by that as I work with her.  Like the field of dreams, she has worked to collaborate a space in which people will come to her for new exciting work.  Local collectors and visitors from around the  US and abroad will be invited into the woods of Brewster not a mile from her home to look at Contemporary Art.  Her most exciting idea is that the space be inviting to a whole segment of our community and the world community, those who love art but because they are disabled often cannot not find access to small, unique gallery/ studios.  

Laurel by her faith has been a true inspiration for our community.  I was so proud to sit beside her and see her honored .  

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New Orleans, Cape Cod , Jazz Connection

We traveled to New Orleans over the weekend to attend the Jazzfest.  Having lived there for almost twelve years and having many friends affected by the Hurricane we decided to go support the great effort to continue the world famous Jazz and this beautiful southern gem of a city.  We took longtime Chatham friends with us who had never been to New Orleans.   While standing in the lobby of the Riverside Hilton they ran into Chatham friends who told us that there is a huge contingent who goes to Jazzfest every year.

It was so wonderful to see the people from the far North and the far South connecting over music.  I have heard a lot of negative and bizarre comments about New Orleans from people who have never been there.  Ideas like it should just float off into into the ocean because the people are stupid to live in such a place.

It always made me furious to hear those things, but I felt if people really knew what a gorgeous old city it was they would feel more inclined to help our neighbors to the South.

It didn't disappoint either, it is still the most beautiful, unique city in the U.S.  They have their problems there is no denying  that.  I wonder if there were more education about the history,
the art, the music and the beautiful wetlands, people would  understand what is worth saving there. 

The Audubon Park, the Audubon Zoo, The world class City Park, The Art Museum, the remarkable Warehouse District Contemporary Art Scene among a few of the treasures worth
saving.   Seeing it through the eyes of  people who had only heard about it was the best.  It is a major port for the energy providers for us all.  It is the natural birthplace of Jazz, and a historical horticultural region for Sugar Cane.  Maybe we should start an Ethanol growing region to replace our dependence on foreign oil?  

At any rate it was beautiful as always even if it is limping along in recovery in many areas. It was wonderful to know what a connection it has to Cape Cod, and that people with a little vision
understand what we would lose if we no longer had clam chowder and lobster bisque, or cranberry bogs and old sea captains houses.  Gumbo and crawfish, creole seasoning and Gospel music, the Mississippi River and Great White Heron.  These are all the things that make America what it is.  We have to help save our heritage it is so remarkably rich.

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A real life hero in your midst, someone you should know

I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about a local woman who you
should get to know.  She is truly one of the most courageous individuals
I have ever met.  She just happens to be my business partner, but I have
known her almost fifteen years.  Let me introduce you to Laurel Labdon,
of Brewster.   She is one of Cape Cod's treasures.  She is now the studio
director of  The Studio on Slough Road.  Besides being a true miracle
she is one of the most beautiful women I have ever known.  She is a modern
Grace Kelley, with beauty and serenity that is palpable . She has lived her
whole life on Cape Cod except a year sailing  to South America aboard her
parents boat Camelot, and college at the University of Colorado.   She was
my nieces college roommate. 
Like most beautiful young women she had dreams for her life.  She embraced
life with gusto and worked to make her dreams come true.  One fateful night
while coming home in a rainstorm from the Land Ho in Orleans she had
a car accident .  In an instant her neck was broken and her life changed for ever.  She lay in limbo for a while in hospital and eventually spent months
at the Craig Rehabilitation Center in Denver.   If you could really imagine
such a totally engaged  teenager,suddenly sidelined like this, it would be
almost impossible to digest.  She has now lived her life for 17 years confined
to a wheelchair.   Unable to move anything but her hand and wrist, she is
totally dependent on others for the most basic needs and pleasure we all take
for grant it.  The total surrender to invasion of her private life, being handled
much like a three month old baby, she must accept being bathed and dressed
and eventually placed in a remarkable electric chair, from which she can now carry on a very contemporary life, until she returns home and is
again bathed and place in bed like a small child.  Unable to move she is now
stuck waiting until someone again in the morning will again place her in her
chair again.
The remarkable part of her life is her spirit which is totally normal like
every other person you have known.  She is bright, funny, engaging and
a shrewd business woman.   She has a real talent for public relations and
marketing, and a love for contemporary art.   
We teamed up  two years ago to open  The Studio on Slough Road.  She worked like a person with a life mission, using her skills from her Ms Wheelchair America  experience to write and implement a business plan
in which together we would create a unique gallery in the woods in Brewster
that would be handicapped accessible, very rare in  galleries in the area.
She educated me on the  immense demographic of persons with disabilities
who remain on the outside, on the sidelines of much contemporary life
because so many facilities are not ADA compliant.  We hired a builder
who took these consideration into the planning an entrance with a ramp
and a gallery space in which she could move about to show and explain
the art to patrons she had invited to the space.
We held our season open studio party this weekend and Laurel as always
was the vision of beauty, a star quality she possesses, that enlivens the
space and make the experience unique in gallery hoping.   Her bright
spirit and questioning mind bring a new trend to art viewing.  I couldn't
be more proud or inspired to be sharing this dream with her.  We had
three patrons who were disabled , stroke victims, who in spite of aphasia
are totally intellectually intact.   Such courage these people drum up each
day of their lives, only humbles me, and inspires me as a artist to create
work about the beauty, the human drama, and the miracle of life.  Rising
like the Phoenix, these bright spirits show us all the way,the courage
and the vision to live each day fully and accept the hand we are dealt,
and get on with the journey of engaging fully in our lives. You can
read about Laurel on our website.  The Studio on Slough Road.
Happy Brewster in Bloom, come meet this beautiful Brewster resident.

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