“Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” — Henry James, quoted by Edith Wharton, “A Backward Glance”, (1934)
While painting outside, the constant sound of buzzing, clicking, chirping of bugs and birds can be heard in between the alarming ka-chun-king start-up whirr of a giant air conditioning generator. Men shout at each other as they maneuver a gravel scraping machine, weed-wacker, and pipe laying backhoe. The library ledge above them shelters my landscape easel under the eaves. The eight-year-old daughter of an employee, smartly coiffed in her new haircut, deems my painting efforts “Okay.” A librarian wishes the director could see my painting but she’s gone home with a headache as a crew arrives to fix the generator. Work abides.
ABOVE: Main Street circa 1934, 10 x 8 inches (25 x 20 cm), 7/27/11
Geraniums, no. 2, 9 x 12 inches (23 x 31 cm), 7/27/11