A sketch for the nest and cottage series....

Taking yesterday's beginnings, sketching something to try tomorrow, thinking of the final stanza of my new favorite Wallace Stevens poem, "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour," which is

"Out of this same light, out of the central mind,

We make a dwelling in the evening air,

In which being there together is enough." 

The ideas of light, of making, of together, of air and having two as one... here is the newest drawing, crossing picking up rocks on east Beach at Watch Hill with a stay at Pacific Grove, East and West coasts:

A nest, a cottage...

I would like to quote a letter that Vincent Van Gogh wrote to Theo, but I am taking the quote, the sentences below, from "Every Painter Paints Himself," a very creative, thoughtful set of observations (posted August 26, 2011; please do go and visit http://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/ ). From that site, then, this idea:

"For a painter, it is probably twice as interesting if, while painting a nest, he dreams of a cottage, and, while painting a cottage, he dreams of a nest. It is as though one dreamed twice, in two registers, when one dreams of an image cluster such as this. For the simplest image is doubled; it is itself and something else than itself."

Now I know that Van Gogh didn't mean this literally. But I decided to give myself an ssignment and paint it, literally.  I was thinking of a bird in a nest, and stencilled in the word "BIRD" on my canvas. Then I sketched and painted, over and under that word, the recollection of our visit some years ago to Jane Austen's cottage and her writing-room.  The canvas is as tiny as the bird and the room, 10 x 10":

Thanks to Simon Abrahams, the blog's author, for the suggestion.