Engaged!

On a happy front, we have some new news for our cyberfriends near and far...

Bruce proposed! We are engaged!

A positive step for everyone—we all are doing remarkably well after the passing of his father, and Bruce also couldn't wait any longer! Bruce wanted to turn a page if you will...the next chapter after the summer and look to the future.

The story:
I had wanted to go apple picking and he did it there at Shelburne Farm in beautiful Stow (after picking my favorite apples, empires). He thought of a several other ways, but this summer going the way it did, nothing seemed to work out and nothing fancy seemed right. He wanted a simple fun thing in nature (as we oft do) and wanted to do it before he went back to school. It was a beautiful hot day, the last day of summer.

We were sitting down in the shade to cool down after picking (he had been hiding the ring in his camera bag). The ring is an antique, he said he wanted simple and sparkly (and not pointy as I do a lot of riffling around at work). We went out to eat afterwards on the garden patio at the wonderful Oleana. It's very odd, same, but different.

The date:
No date yet. I've never been a one to go a regular route and we've been together for so long, so no rush. Likely, 2 years, as I would like to aim for the late summer. We want to get Bruce finished with Uconn first and I simply am too behind and too swamped to start planning right now! I will however, in my true fashion, do a goodly amount of research for fun. It could be sooner, but we are just going to enjoy the moment for now!

Fun in the Berkshires

This weekend, Bruce and I are meeting up with some friends at Tanglewood to attend a live performance of A Prairie Home Companion. This is the 3rd or 4th time we've traveled to Lenox for the show and this moment really signals summer for us. Although the weather looks less than stellar, we'll still lay out a nice spread of food, cheese, and wine. I was thrilled to see that the special guests are The Del McCoury Band, amazing bluegrass greats we saw perform at the original Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium. It's funny, when my father used to listen to APHC when I was a child, I never got it, but now I love it. I've often thought that your enjoyment of NPR is proportional to your age - it just keeps increasing! I hope you can listen at 6pm this Saturday on your local station.

After APHC, we'll shoot up to North Adams and Willamstown town to see exhibitions at the Williams College Museum of Art, Clark Art Institute, and MassMoca. I am very excited to see the landscape show at MassMoca, Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape, which has several interesting artists and photographers of note. Woohoo!

ABOVE IMAGE: from tunlover's flickr stream

A New England poem by a New England poet

Inspired by the current PRC exhibition, New England Survey, and a recent sharing of a Frank O'Hara poem (and perhaps my humble attempt to fill the vacuum left from the Poem of the Week), I share with you a poem by Amherst poet Robert Francis (1901-1987). This landscape photography show was inspired by Francis's poem "New England Mind" (you can read my essay and see images from the show here as well as check out the opening reception snaps here). In addition to his gentle approach to nature, Francis used rhyming, puns, and humor in his work, as demonstrated in the title of autobiography, The Trouble with Francis. Below, I present another Francis poem, the wonderful "The Two Lords of Amherst."

As Bruce is traveling often to Amherst for his memory panoramas and reading lots of Francis himself, I feel like I am getting to know this New England town and alternative to the other Amherst poet quite intimately. For those that aren't familiar with Amherst's town center, you might enjoy knowing that Francis is referring here to a tavern/inn and a church that are actually across a street from one another. Lord Jeffery Inn is named after the founder of the town, Jeffery Amherst; the "Jehovah" named below is Grace Episcopal Church. Both are still in operation today. Enjoy!

"The Two Lords of Amherst"

The two Lords, Jeffery and Jehovah, side by side
Proclaim that hospitality lives and Jesus died.

Jeffery in whitewashed brick, Jehovah in gray stone
Both testify man does not live by bread alone.

From sacred love to bed and board and love profane
One could dart back and forth and not get wet in rain.

How providentially inclusive the design:
Here are the cocktails, here the sacramental wine.

Here is the holy, here the not-so-holy host.
Here are the potted palms and here the Holy Ghost.

Tell, if you can and will, which is more richly blest:
The guest Jehovah entertains or Jeffery's guest.

- Robert Francis


"To make anything interesting," Flaubert says, "you simply have to look at it long enough."

For those interested, we're working with a local writing non-profit, Grub Street, to co-present a workshop in and about the current exhibition on May 3rd. Called Staring and Wonder, the workshop will discuss ideas of staring and looking in literature to kick start the day and then turn to the photographs in the shows for expository inspiration. I am terribly excited by the whole idea and intend to sit in on the first half of the day. More information here.

Dispatch from graduate school

We're midway through Bruce's first semester in the MFA program at UConn. He is swamped, but he loves it. I don't see him much, maybe Friday through Monday, but even that has been decreasing. Is there a support group for significant others who have a loved one in graduate school - i.e., grad school widows? (The tables will likely be flipped when I *hopefully* venture off myself someday.) On another note, it's pretty fascinating to watch a close one go through such a transformation.

Today, Bruce had his midterm crits and I drove down for dinner when they were done. It went well! Above, I have posted some of his critted work and below, one of his newest images on the 40th parallel, 97 West. Bruce recently was a visiting artist at Metropolitan College in Nebraska (this community college has over 200 photo majors!). While there, he visited 4 points on the 40th (95,96, 97, and 98) and the sixth principal meridian. They are some of the best 40th pics he's made yet--all made in the rain. A new looseness pervades them, especially this one in which he didn't clean the rain drop off of his lens (on purpose).

Oh, and as you can see above, these images are all single images; there is only one triptych/panorama, and it's a vertical one! In school he is investigating other, more emotional issues, but with the same signature Bruce preciseness, yet in a different way, such as a series of all the men in his family and view FROM the 16 place he's lived in Massachusetts TO where we live now. Congrats to all! Maybe I will see him at Christmas...