swan off patuisset

pocasset

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peace at hen cove

pocasset

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aspiration

Pocasset

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with thanks to S., who taught me to see panoramas

at the post office

pocasset

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hen cove between two cedars

pocasset

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ready for summer

patuisset island

pocasset

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houses in the sun

hen cove

pocasset

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2012

January - "Skiff on Ice" - Hen Cove, Pocasset 

February - "Winter Crossing" - Woods Hole 

March - "The Bridge is Down" - Bourne 

April - "Menemsha Memory" - Martha's Vineyard 

May - "Sun, Blue Sky and my Favorite Cedar Tree"
 Hen Cove, Pocasset

June - "Well-Stowed" - Quissett

July - "On Guard" - Chapoquoit, West Falmouth 

August - "Sail on Phinney's Harbor" - Bourne 

September - "View of Quissett Harbor Boatyard"  - Quissett

October - "The Harvest" - Thomas Landers Road, Falmouth 

November - "Sunset in Gold" - Monk's Cove, Bourne

December - "Pastor's Office" - Christ Lutheran Church, Falmouth

For the last five years I have published a calendar of scenes from "my backyard" on Cape Cod.  The 2011 calendar is just about gone, and it is time to go to the printer's for 2012 (gulp !).  I have just decided on what pictures I want to put in the 2012 calendar, and I have told the printer to go ahead and order the paper.  

ps.  there are a few 2011 calendars left.... just in case you would like one, here is a link   2011 calendar

one

done

"The Harvest"

24" x 48" archival pigment ink print on rag paper

varnished with acrylic varnish, mounted on aluminum panel,

in a cherry wood frame.

 the steps in mounting and framing a large print....
I never did this before.

winter light

cedar in ice

hen cove, pocasset

january

skiff in ice
Hen Cove

sunset

mounting and framing a large print

This is a picture of some work in my studio.  The reason it is here is that I am in the process of making and framing the biggest print I have ever made, two feet by four feet (61 cm x 122 cm).  It is the cranberry bog panorama shown in the middle, and I talked about this at the Cataumet Artists Circle last Saturday night.  An image file of this is on the blog under the tab "harvest".

This print has been made on Hahnemuehle photo rag paper on an Epson 7600.  It has been soaked in acrylic varnish and is now a composite of paper and acrylic.  I am planning to put it in a cherry frame that will be of the same molding design as the light maple frame shown below it with the picture of the nun walking in Florence.

I have ordered the frame and an aluminum panel to mount it on.  I am experimenting with archival mounting adhesives, and right now my two top candidates are Gudy O or V and Beva 371.  If anyone has any good experience with these or has a good idea please email me at rmanzpho@cape.com.

I have lots of experience mounting acrylic-varnished prints on stretched canvas and canvas board,  but I decided not to use this approach for this large print.  I am worried about sag in a stretched canvas, but more fundamentally that the water-based acrylic "glue" I use on the canvas will warp the four-foot print.

The panel should arrive in January, and if I succeed :-))  I will put up a picture of the final result.

winter porch

sand, ice and sea grass

in the sun

hen cove sunset

My Bodhi Tree

Sometimes we all have to pull back and look inside of ourselves in order to be true to anyone and to everyone. We all know this, and we all know how hard it is to do. So when someone takes that decisive step, it is clear that we must support them and it is also clear that we must thank them. Only when someone is not there does it become more clear how wonderful it is when they are.

This is an image and a message of thanks but it is not in fact dedicated to anyone, it is dedicated to everyone. It is dedicated to everyone because this need to withdraw and seek ourselves is a universal need, and it is dedicated to everyone because everyone and everything is connected.

This is my cedar tree on Patuisset. Of course it is not my tree, it is everyone's tree. it is the tree of all those wonderful people in this little paradise and it is connected to trees everywhere. It is connected to my grandfather's cedar a few miles north; it is connected to a cypress tree in Crespellano; it is connected to a Bodhi tree in India. it is connected to countless trees that I do not know.

I personally discovered that here, at this tree, I could touch the ground and ask it to bear witness to my own quest, and with Sile's help I found the technique to both touch the ground and reach for the sky in one image.

I put this tree here as a sign of thanks and as a return to the universe that bore it and me. The file is there. Anyone anywhere is welcome to do anything with it.

I, personally, will be here, touching the ground and asking it to bear witness to what is good, and searching the sky for dreams to dream.

Thank you.

New Studio

In January I decided to buy a studio space in the town of Bourne on Cape Cod.  It is off MacArthur Boulevard (Route 28) near the village of Pocasset.

This is a pretty big step, as my studio has been our condo.  But the condo has sort of filled up with frames and mat board and foam core and pictures.  The computer and printers are in our bedroom, and my stepdaughter's bedroom fills up with prints just varnished.

The real reason I bought the space is that when I saw it, it spoke to me.  I just knew this would make a good studio.  It has big picture windows with a north view, a good front space for an office/reception and a huge back space for work tables.  One corner in the back space, near the pair of windows, should make a good corner for doing portraits.   Around both rooms there is plenty of wall space to put up pictures for a gallery.

The location on Route 28 pretty much means that anyone from Bourne to Woods Hole to Martha's Vineyard drives past.  And, for the time being, that is the community I hope to serve.

Buzzards Bay, the Canal, Gray Gables, Mashpee, Back River, Monument Beach, Tobey Island, Monk's Cove, Pocasset, Hen Cove, Patuisset, Cataumet, Squeteague, Megansett, Old Silver, Chapoquoit, Black Beach, Sippewissett, Wood Neck, Quissett, Woods Hole, Naushon, Robinson's Hole, Pasque, Quicks' Hole, Nashawena, Cuttyhunk, Menemsha.  I have been up and down the Buzzards Bay east shore since before I can remember and gone a bit beyond to the Vineyard -- I hope to do more.  

And I hope that my sign on the road will reach out to anyone with some part of their life in these places along the Bay shore, and you will stop in and see what I have to share.

Here are some pictures of the studio space before I move in.