Journal: An Online Notebook Updated By The Artist
Posts related to Astronomy
2010-06-07 03:59:22 | Views of the World
Views of the World For many years I've kept framed prints by Andreus Cellarius hanging at either side of my studio window. The engravings from his 1660 Harmonia Microcosmica are not rare, probably modern reprints of plates adapted from the volume. The subjects fit well among the small group of astronomical charts hanging my studio and also bear a private significance. As I sit looking out my window, the Ptolemaic theory, placing the earth at the center of the universe hangs to my left; while the Copernican theory depicting a Sun-centered universe is to my right. I like being ensconced between these viewpoints; I believe my drawings are continually proposing options for viewing the world. The photograph above shows the current state of my drawing window. We recently decided to paint our house and the windows are first; most have never been properly prepared and coated. The project involves removing everything in the vicinity of the windows, including my favorite drawing table. I rarely do a thorough cleanup, so such a task is massive with piles and piles of materials, tools, letters, papers, and drawings to dig through. The buildup is largely due to my reluctance to throw things away, leaning on the hope that everything can be used someday. Yes, I'm resourceful and I do reuse lots of things, however I've collected far more material than I will ever be able to employ. I learned many years ago that cleanup is an important component in the creative process. The activity can be like paging through a journal where pieces of your life are reviewed, sorted, categorized, reclaimed or discarded. In my cleanup, I am rediscovering a thousand ideas left unrealized; in particular abandoned works-in-progress that deserve a second chance. I've found at least twenty sheet ...Read More
2009-10-31 06:15:03 | New Work / New York
Photograph of the artist’s journals, Book 123 through Book 132, 2004 – 2009. The foreground journal is open to a study for Self-Portrait with Night: Pieced Panels I with the drawing in progress visible in the background. New Work / New York BravinLee programs, located in Manhattan’s Chelsea district, has opened an exhibition of my works on paper that includes twenty-three drawings, two prints, and eight journals. Created within the last five years, this body of work in many ways summarizes ideas that have percolated through my recent oeuvre while endeavoring to push into new territories. Fourteen drawings in the show relate to my Pages series, a project that emerged around 2002. The images are executed on paper approximately the size my journal pages (4 x 6 inches) and are inscribed with notes that attend the drawing’s construction as well as dreams transposed from my journals (for an example, see Self-Portrait with Planets and Moon). Such texts spring from inner discourse that parallels my scrutiny of the visual world. Multiple layers of writing may be erased and overwritten before the final inscriptions are inked. Some observers might imagine these drawings are pages extracted from my notebooks and framed, however they are formed independently. A sustained dialogue between these works and my sketchbooks is critical to their development and is evident in the journal sketches that are on view in the show’s display cases. The Self-Portrait with Night series is represented with five works. These broad-format images are developed from a consistent viewpoint looking out of my studio window. Set at night or twilight, refection and transparency are evoked to compositionally merge interior and exterior spaces. While my own visage haunts these works, it is of ...Read More
2009-09-27 13:18:18 | Memory
Beach Walk, Part 1; Book 132 Pages 58 and 59. Beach Walk, Part 2; Book 132 Pages 60 and 61. During my summer retreat, I occasionally get up well before sunrise and walk down the beach with my journal. Carrying a pencil in my right hand, I hold the book in my left; the pages are spread open with clamps and a very small booklight is attached that I can turn on and off as needed. Occasionally I stop to make a rough outline of something of interest, letting the pages evolve intuitively; roughing out several potential compositions across the spread of pages before I move to the next. These spare graphite notes are occasionally augmented with written abbreviations: “y” for yellow, “r” for red, “b” for blue, etc. as a jog for my memory when I later fill in color and tone back in the studio. My most memorable walk this summer began at 4:15 am when I slipped barefoot down the street to a black ocean. It was low tide and the beach broad and I was completely alone. The moonless night heightened brilliance of the stars. I immediately recognized Orion and the attendant stretch of bright constellations that prefigure winter rising out of the water ahead of me. The brightest star among them, Sirius was low to the horizon. Just to the north, lights of the pier flickered in agitated water. I knew Hurricane Bill was offshore, but too far out to make much of a difference yet. As I meandered up the strand, in and out of the edge of the waves, I eventually escaped the lights of the pier and began to note the subtle variations of lighting from the unseen streetlamps as they cut across the mostly darkened beach houses far behind the dunes. Cumulus clouds swept the rooftops, low enough to catch and reflect a little light from the beach town below. As I looked toward th ...Read More
2009-03-13 17:02:52 | A Mix
A Mix I will soon have to put away my landscape drawings. Tiny red, green, and white buds now cloud my window as bare winter topography fills in and a leafy view evolves toward a different set of drawing challenges for spring and summer. I am committed to making my art directly from my subjects; photographs and sketches just aren’t enough for me, so I follow the dictates of the season and have come to enjoy turning over drawings with the calendar. If I don’t finish these winter drawings, I will bring them back out again next November. Before I switch to the next batch of drawings in mid-April, I have my eye on finishing several pieces, but I won’t force closure. One way I do this is by rotating a mixture of drawings across the worktable, keeping many elements in flux so that I can‘t develop an attachment to a single work, nor get too involved with the inevitable stumbling blocks that arise within particular pieces. When I’m getting stuck, I move to the next work, not stopping to think much about my difficulties. Often, upon returning to that drawing, I find the blockage has evaporated, and I can see the image more clearly due to of the distance and experience I have placed between myself and the perceived entanglement. Regardless, I always ramp up the energy before disengaging at season’s end. One current drawing has been a particularly interesting challenge (image above). Created on the same paper that I use in my journals, a 90 pound hot press Arches watercolor paper, the support is thinner than the 140 pound Fabriano hot press paper that I commonly use for drawings outside my journals. On such lightweight paper, the heavily worked surface undulates, as if it were vellum or thin leather (this relief is probably best visible in the photograph at ...Read More
2009-02-04 11:35:21 | Intuition and Intersection
Charles Ritchie, three sequential states of Moon and House [work in progress], 2009, watercolor and graphite on Fabriano paper, 3 1/2 x 1 1/4″. States were imaged (left to right): 15 January, 17 January, 3 February. Intuition and Intersection Each November the dense foliage above our old neighborhood drops to reveal the celestial dome; as a result I’m much more likely to be in tune with the heavens in winter months. Several weeks ago I saw a waning moon hanging in twilight blue-black sky and since that moment I’ve been rolling that image around in my head, especially as I work at my studio window these early mornings. As is often the case, the memory became so persistent I began a drawing of the subject, responding not only to the image, but a casual event; as I dug through a pile of drawing paper, a very tiny piece appeared. The sheet seemed like it was made for a tiny moon in a vertical format landscape. Three stages of the drawing, which is still in progress, can be seen above. It’s been said that Michelangelo studied the quarried marble, trying to see the figure to be carved in the material. I can’t say that my discovery of the right sheet of paper for this moon image came about the same way Michelangelo recognized the stone for one of his sculptures; but I am intrigued by such mental leaps that associate image with material. I can’t say that I understand it, but at the same time, I think that Michelangelo’s recognition of possibilities inherent in a particular stone was essential to the creation of the David; or in my own modest case, the association I made between the image I was carrying in my head with a particular size and format piece of paper. For me, the reaction feels subconscious; I instantaneously know I’ve found a solution before I ...Read More
2009-01-19 10:00:14 | Antares and an Old Moon
Charles Ritchie, Journal entries for 15-16 January, Book 131, featuring watercolor and graphite sketch of Antares rising, page size 4 x 6″. Antares and an Old Moon My first sighting of Antares this season was the early morning of 16th very low in the southeast sky shining out of the bare treetops above the white brick side of the house across the street (see on line journal entry for 23 February 2008). A harbinger of spring. Like looking in the yard and seeing the first snowdrop or the daffodils tips prick through. Antares will sweep slowly west through these winter mornings and when it reaches the center of my window among the budding trees it will disappear. The red heart of the Scorpion fades into spring foliage and reminds me my winter landscapes have to rest. On approximately the 15th of April I’ll put them away until next year. Antares itself is not the subject of a drawing, at least not right now. It’s more of a timepiece. One of the pieces that I am currently working on features an old moon coloring the twilight sky (see sketch at left below). A deep blue morning above sparks of window lamps. Saw the subject a month ago and I’m happy to see that same phase of the moon will come around again this week. I’ll study it closely, especially to see the color of the dark side away from the crescent, which is such a different tone than the blue of the twilight surround. So many pieces going now I’m getting confused but I want to stay open to all of them. I wake and write my dreams and then just look up and pick the one that hits me first. Don’t seem to work on the same one sequential nights; trading around so that everything stays fresh. I’m excited about all of them and each is testing me in a different way. I’ll just have to accept th ...Read More
2008-05-27 04:09:39 | In the Country
Book 130, Entries for 25-26 May 2008 with studies of a tree at midday and the bright star Vega reflected in the pond at night, watercolor, graphite and pen and ink on Arches paper in bound volume, page size 4 x 6″ In the Country I hiked along a freshly asphalted lane through woods and fields past the occasional dirt driveway. Sprays of white blackberry and yellow buttercups brushed my legs. After a long walk the trees opened to a vista of red earth jumbled with roots and stumps. Recent lumbering had left acres of devastation. Beside me of hillock of stumps rose out of the wreckage. I was surprised when a sudden wind seemed to aim right at the point where I was looking. The small cyclone raked a single trunk and the bark scattered all around as if there had been a blast. I was showered in bark. A strange moment; I had to laugh out loud. That evening I stepped out into the clear night; the sky brimming with stars. Yellow Saturn sat beside Reglus in the constellation Leo above. I made my way through the pitch black down a familiar dirt trail to the pond. Feeling the way with my feet, I turned slowly toward the frogs and other creatures clicking, creaking, and shouting in the brush. Moving closer, the sound became so intense it pelted me, shaking my bones. I looked into the pond where bright Vega sat, brilliant, undiminished in reflection. That light left the star 27 years ago, a point near the beginning of my journals. I laughed again and felt a small part of the pantomime. Hats off to Wallace Stevens; see Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, III. ...Read More
2008-04-27 05:00:45 | Millet's Falling Star
Charles Ritchie, Study after Starry Night by Jean-François Millet, 27 April 2008, watercolor and graphite on Arches paper in bound volume, sheet size: 4 x 6″ Millet’s Falling Star The Painting: What a thrill to finally see Jean-François Millet’s painting Starry Night. I had known it previously only through a poor black and white reproduction. When I discovered the work hanging with the In the Forest of Fontainebleau exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, I was stunned to see its boiling darkness. But the more I looked at the subject the more something seemed out of place. In Millet’s picture, we stand in a dark road with fields on either side. Trees are silhouetted against a glowing horizon that bleeds upward into a dark sky of accurately observed constellations. To the right, the belt and sword Orion are prominent and Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky follows at upper left. What troubled me is that another star stands just to the right of Orion’s belt, challenging Sirius. No bright star is in this location nor do bright planets tread there. What a terrible inaccuracy for Millet, an artist who prides himself on truth to observation. In the left center are two streaks of falling stars; one with a fiery head and another, a vaporous streak. It suddenly became clear to me, that by reading a right to left sequence, we see three stages of a single falling star: the bright flash of the meteor’s encounter with earth’s atmosphere (the misplaced star in question), the flaming rock’s descent (at center), and the vaporized trail still illuminated (at left). When we consider the image this way; the metaphor is clarified; individuals are no more than a single falling star in the night. The dark road where we stand is transient ...Read More
2008-03-30 06:18:28 | Night with Orion
(above) Charles Ritchie, Night with Orion (work in progress, 27 March 2008), 11 1/4 x 15″, graphite and pen and ink on Fabriano paper My passion for the constellations of the night sky began as a young child. I learned names and tried to orient myself by their locations very early. Orion was one of the first constellations I grasped and it remains an annual benchmark for me; Orion rising again: it must be winter. Orion setting again; it must be spring. I remember a very cold, starry night in high school walking over to my friend’s house and thinking to myself, I’ll be looking at that same constellation as an old man. Funny, how I think of that almost every time I spy Orion again. It reminds me of the poem Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens. I buried a symbolic jar walking down the road that night, and from that moment on Orion takes dominion everywhere: I’ve always wanted to engage Orion as a subject in my art, but have had a hard time finding the right context. One evening several years ago, about this time of year when the trees are just about to fill with leaves; I stepped out on my deck and looked up to see Orion hanging in tree branches. I moved from study in my journal to a graphite drawing of the subject whose composition expanded to include the familiar panorama of houses on my street (see Night with Orion, first state, 12 December 2007). The subject is the same as my drawing Blue Twilight, but seen in late winter rather than summer. I’ve been working three years now, building up layers of graphite on my Night with Orion drawing. Just this winter I added another layer to the image; a full winter’s dreams inscribed in tight horizontal bands across the image with pen and ink (see images above and below). This layer of writing added depth and valu ...Read More
2008-03-01 11:05:28 | Flying Home
Book 130, Sketch of northern sky above illuminated towns, 7:20 pm, 27 February 2008. Flying home from a trip this week I leaned my head against the window and drifted, blinking awake occasionally to see the light of the tumbling sun spread into pale rainbow bands above a plain of stratus clouds. I had been reading Jeff Warren’s recent book The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness, a fascinating study about the many levels of consciousness; not limited to waking and sleeping. I must have taken a subliminal cue from my reading because soon I was drifting into the afternoon with closed eyes. When I blinked awake it was darker. The sun had slipped further down and the color bands lifted higher. Another blink and I was gone. I awoke surprised by blackness. At first my disoriented eyes struggled to find anything. Then, out of the darkness emerged the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) balanced by winding stars of the Dragon (Draco). Below, the clouds were gone and I saw the patchy glow of several towns floating in the void. Words popped into my head, “This is where the dragon lives” the opening line of Wallace Stevens‘ poem The Auroras of Autumn. I had the strangest sensation; was I asleep or awake, was this dream or reality, imagined or real? Is this a dragon or is this air? ...Read More
2008-02-23 15:26:42 | Antares Rising: Drawing Seasons
Self-Portrait with Night XI: Graphite, first state of drawing as it looked on 26 March 2007.Graphite on Fabriano paper, sheet size: 5 5/8 x 12″ My studio hours begin well before sunrise. While sitting at my window in late winter, I can see Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius, rise ahead of the sun. Deep red in color, its procession toward the zenith means that spring is coming. When Antares becomes centered in my morning window and finally obscured by foliage I put away my current group of drawings and I won’t pick them up again until the leafless landscape reappears in late November. Self-Portrait with Night XI: Graphite (link shows second state of drawing as it looked on 24 January 2008) is among my current investigations. The drawing was begun in December 2006, was put away for the summer of 2007 and returned to my focus last fall. The images seen above and below represent stages of the drawing almost a year apart. I’m content with slow growth. In this drawing I am learning how to use graphite as a tonal medium rather than as an outline for watercolor as I have used it in the past. Building graphite in layers using a eraser coated in graphite to smear and burnish is unlike anything I have done before. I may finish the work this season or I could put it away for another year. Drawing in cycles asks me to lose something and forget all of the things I was thinking about it. When I rediscover winter drawings after six months of summer I return with new experience. Seeing a drawing after an extended break is a real spark. Like the surprise of finding Antares in the window once again. Self-Portrait with Night XI: Graphite, third state of drawing as it looked on 22 February 2008. Graphite on Fabriano paper, sheet size: 5 5/8 x 12″ ...Read More
2008-02-17 06:37:07 | Mapping the Night
Figure 1. Digital photograph of the north wall of the artist’s studio displaying a Celestial Map plotted and drawn by David W. Teske in 1972. Note that the astronomical illustrations have been added to the sides of the map, echoing the panel arrangements in maps pictured in Vermeer paintings. Astronomical charts hang in my studio. They often appear in my drawings as dark rectangular fields; like windows into some parallel night. For example, the one at center of my drawing Self-Portrait with Long Night is a large star map with hand-plotted points marking stars of different sizes on a deep indigo field (Figure 1). What a labor of love for the cartographer who marked the heavens by hand with 5,172 dots of light, noting brightness and inscribing beside each a reference number. Another chart that is seen in my drawing Daffodils with Astronomical Chart, dates to the mid 19th century and was originally used to teach astronomy (Figure 2). In it, comets and other celestial phenomena are reduced to striking minimal shapes in black and white. The engraved images are arranged in a grid, much like my night drawings pervade the grid of the window. Author Peter Turchi first drew my attention to the phrase “private astronomy”, once used to describe jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke who was seen “gazing off into his private astronomy, blowing something pretty.” The phrase seemed on the mark to me; I do feel I am a private astronomer mapping my way through the night. Watching the lights move and grow and die through the seasons and years. The maps that surround me echo my search that starts locally and stretches out into the night as far as one imagines. Figure 2. Digital photograph of the west wall of the artist’s studio with two framed pages from the Atlas Designed to ...Read More
2008-01-06 02:09:46 | Stars
James Gordon Irving, Front and Back Cover of Stars: A Golden Nature Guide, Herbert S. Zim, author, St. Martin’s Press, New York. Originally published by Golden Books, this paperback edition published 1956, 1951. Stars. My own copy of this book worn from love and misuse is pictured here. When I was young it taught me the patterns of the constellations, their names, the movement of the sun, phases of the moon, and other celestial and planetary phenomena. This knowledge still informs my work. Artist James Gordon Irving’s images were seminal; his pervasive indigo night and passion for geometry certainly influenced me. I see a clear echo in my print Pegasus, for example. However, rather than articulating the mechanics of the heavens as Irving did, I have leaned towards imaging fictions; or at least the houses of the sky beside the ones we build on the ground. Above all this book sparked a love of the miniature collection. Here the largest things you can think of: planets, stars, galaxies, nebulae are compressed into a tiny volume; a universe that you can slip into your pocket – like a journal. James Gordon Irving, Auroras or Northern Lights from Stars: A Golden Nature Guide, Herbert S. Zim, author, St. Martin’s Press, New York. Originally published by Golden Books, this paperback edition published 1956, 1951. ...Read More