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May 2016, Tod / The Presence of Absence

5/4/2016

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​Many people think the landscape painting ‘Tod/The Presence of Absence’
​(this month’s image in the 2016 Calendar) is a view of ocean and mountains. It’s actually of one of my favorite places – a farm just outside Philadelphia’s city limits.
Picture
It’s a working farm with sheep and cows, and at this time of year you can see baby lambs in the pasture. Because it’s an expanse of open space, contiguous with a chain of green spaces that includes Morris Arboretum (one of Philly’s gems), it is part of a greenway stretching all the way to the Schuylkill River. 

​
This makes it an ideal place for bird watching, as well as a good place to see field birds in an urban area. I’ve seen flocks of hundreds and hundreds there, swirling and moving in waves across the sky, not the norm for a city dweller.
The painting’s major colors, scarlet lake, permanent rose, various turquoises and blue-greens, have been favorites since childhood. Those were always the crayons worn to nubs while plain old green and red languished in the Crayola box.
 
The image you see in the calendar is a detail. As you see here, the complete painting has an antique Hopi teaching Katchina in it, with characters from different languages exploring aspects of grief.
 
At the time I painted this, the farm was in danger of falling to development. It was a fate avoided through the complex negotiations and hard work of conservancies, land trusts, benefactors, and the township.
 
I knew the farm’s presence would always stay with me, but my heart ached at the thought of seeing sprawl in place of those wide fields, hence my linguistic explorations.
 
A delightful collector out on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State owns the original watercolor of Tod/The Presence of Absence.
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Walking in the world

8/13/2014

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Picture
On my walk today I heard rustling in the London Plane trees that hinted of Fall. It’s comforting to know it will come, even though I know we’re not done with Summer yet. I was thinking how fragile we all are, about Anne Lamott’s piece triggered by Robin Williams’ suicide, and about my dear friend Claudia who ended her beautiful life in the same way. I've enjoyed Anne Lamott's writing for a long time, and posted her piece on my Facebook page. 

This little piece of calligraphy came to mind. I made it a long time ago to hang on my wall as a reminder. I did another version that’s floating around my flat files who-knows-where. If it turns up I’ll scan and post it.

Yesterday I was listening to an On Being podcast of Brené Brown about Shame, the "not good enough", the "who do you think you are?" and other similar internal chants that certainly plague me. I can't speak for anyone else. Lately I've been tuning into a different internal radio station, one that broadcasts different messages like "Try it. It could fail, but what if it may succeeds?" and "Are you really the best judge of the quality of your own work?" They feel like better questions to be sitting with, walking with.

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Sara Steele
sara@sarasteele.com
P.O. Box 4002, Philadelphia, PA 19118