New Paintings

I continue to make time to paint and collage although my work schedule makes this quite difficult. Here are a few new works. The most recent was an all night painting. 

At the Exposition  (acrylic paint, pencil, graphite, ink, paper, September, 2021)

Dawn (acrylic paint, found papers, tissue paper, August, 2021)

Twilight (acrylic paint, found papers, August, 2021

Summer (acrylic paint, found papers, tissue paper, graphite, August, 2021)

Before August 9, 1945 (acrylic paint, watercolor, photograph, found papers, August, 2021)

Untitled (acrylic paint, graphite, newspaper, found paper, August, 2021)

#PoetryBreak: Anything Can Happen by Seamus Heaney

 

On the road to Teller, Alaska (M.A. Reilly, 2021j

Anything Can Happen

Seamus Heaney - 1939-2013

after Horace, Odes, I, 34.  

Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter
Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head
Before he hurls the lightning? Well, just now
He galloped his thunder cart and his horses
 
Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth
And the clogged underearth, the River Styx,
The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.
Anything can happen, the tallest towers
 
Be overturned, those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune
Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,
Setting it down bleeding on the next.
 
Ground gives. The heaven’s weight
Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.
Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.
Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.

#PoetryBreak - Summer Silence

 

Night Sailing (MA Reilly)

Summer Silence

            - e.e. Cummings

Eruptive lightnings flutter to and fro
Above the heights of immemorial hills;
Thirst-stricken air, dumb-throated, in its woe
Limply down-sagging, its limp body spills
Upon the earth. A panting silence fills
The empty vault of Night with shimmering bars
Of sullen silver, where the lake distils
Its misered bounty.—Hark! No whisper mars
The utter silence of the untranslated stars

Looking at Nome

Definitions of place come slowly and just when you begin to name thinking you understand, new doubts rise. Geography is a complicated matter. This is what Nome looked like for three days in late July to an outsider.

Just outside the town of Nome on the road to Teller, windmills. 

This photograph was taken just minutes before the previous one. Fog rolls in and dissipates, sometimes quickly, most often not. 

Homes and business are quite close to the Bering Sea. This is Front Street and a storm was happening.

Most mornings we saw folks walking the beach. The last morning it was in the high 30s at the start of day. 

A small group work during the day to remove the display of flags along Front Street. 

About 40 miles south of Nome is the Eastern edge of the Bering Land Bridge.

The Bering Sea is changeable within minutes. This is about 40 miles south of Nome where the sea and bay meet. 

Closer to the town of Nome. The sand from the beach washes across the dirt road.

Work is largely a matter of local pursuits. 

In this photograph, you can see the dirt road leading up the hill. Travel must be an amazing challenge in fall until there is snow. 

This dirt road leads to to Teller, Alaska. One of three dirt roads that lead out of Nome. The day we tried it we got about 20 miles and had to turn back as the rain had made such a mess of the road. 

This is an outhouse, and Heidi and I each used. No one was home there or anywhere along the long stretch of road. Locals told us the weather was more like early fall than summer. I was lucky to find earmuffs in the local food store the first day there. I wore them constantly. 

This stretch of marsh is along the road the runs south from Nome for about 70 miles. These arctic blooms  can be found growing wild. 

All along the road that runs south from Nome along the coast, summer shacks can be found.

On the road leading out of Nome. This is still close to Nome though. You can tell by the poles carry electricity. 

On the road to Teller.

Muddy road.

About 30 miles south of Nome, there is a bar. Heidi and I stopped in one afternoon and met the two people running the bar. 

Within Nome. 

On the Way through Denali National Park

Mount Blackburn

Mount Blackburn (at a distance)

August 9, 1945

Across the years, I often have wondered about the moments before the Atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. I wanted to convey some of that imagined landscape in this collage. This date is one of the most tragic days in recorded human history. 

Before  (collage, M.A. Reilly, August 2021).

Four Horses by David Whyte

 

Blind Faith (M. A. Reilly, West Milford NJ)

FOUR HORSES

          —By David Whyte

On Thursday 

the farmer

put four horses

into the cut hay-field

next to the house.

Since then the days

have been filled 

with the

sheen of their

brown hides

racing the fence edge.

Since then I see

their curved necks

through the 

kitchen window;

sailing like swans

past the pale field.

Each morning

their hooves fill my

open door

with an urgency

for something

just beyond my grasp

and I spend my whole

day in an idiot joy,

writing, gardening,

and looking

for it

under every 

upturned stone.

I find myself

wanting to do

something 

courageous,

wide ranging

slightly stupid 

and lovely.

I find myself

wanting to walk up

and thank

the farmer for those

dark brown horses 

and see him stand

back laughing in his

grizzled and

denim wonder 

at my

innocence.

And I find myself

wanting to ride

into the last hours

of this summer,

bareback and

happy as the hooves

of the days

that drum toward me.

I hear the whinny of

their fenced 

and abandoned

freedom

and feel happy

today

in the field

of my own making,

writing non-stop,

my head held high

ranging the boundaries

of a birthright

exuberance.

Blue Sea: A Dozen Photographs Made in Kenai Peninsula, Alaska

 

Blue Islands (M.A. Reilly, August 2021, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska)

Serenity I (M.A. Reilly, August 2021, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska)

Serenity II (M.A. Reilly, August 2021, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska)

Serenity III (M.A. Reilly, August 2021)

Serenity IV (M.A. Reilly, August 2021, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska) 

Sailboat (M.A. Reilly, August 2021, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska)

 Islands (M.A. Reilly, August 2021, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska)

 The Boat and the Glacier (M.A. Reilly, August 2021, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska)

Sailboat in Redemption Bay (M.A. Reilly, August 2021, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska)

Fishing (M.A. Reilly, August 2021, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska)

Turning (M.A. Reilly, August 2021)

Tugboat (M.A. Reilly, August 2021, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska)