Nature Writing Reading

 Hey, all,

I have been reading a lovely tome every morning for several months. I sometimes stop at one of its brief entries, and I sometimes read two or three. I found it quite randomly, perusing the shelves at a local treasure--the Rhino Booksellers about a mile and a quarter from our home in The Nations, here in Nashville. Rhino's does have some social media identities, and a (single page) website, but seriously, the only way to "get" Rhino is to visit it. Make sure you have plenty of time.

I had been looking for anything by Tristen Gooley, having read and thoroughly enjoyed his Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs. That accounts for my being so investigative of the nature section; but though I didn't find any Gooley, my explorations proved to my advantage when I discovered this hardcover edition of The Oxford Book of Nature Writing. It had been marked down from 11 to 10 dollars, the 11 on its liner page lined through with pencil and the 10 entered (in the same handwriting) in pencil beneath it. Whoopee! 

So I opened the book and read its brief introduction by editor Richard Maybey, a celebrated nature writer in his own right, and scanned the first few pages. They include several paragraphs from Aesop, and nearly two pages from Aristotle, 344BC. I flipped through and saw brief writings by folks like Darwin, Emerson, Thoreau, GM Hopkins, along with many from authors unknown to me. The final writing is from Primo Levi in 1985. The book is arranged in chapters, each roughly identifying with one of seven historical periods chronologically.

But I digress. Imagine that. 

Anyway, when I read these passages, I sometimes find myself reading aloud, because the language, oh, the language. The varied voices, some in translation, come alive in the reading, so so vividly and with such detail. I recorded a few of them to see if they sound as delicious as they read, and I think one could make that argument. Here's a just under 6 minute reading of one of them, credits at the end. I'm slowly creating a collection of them, and though they may sound better read by a digital voice in Speechify or another speech to text app, they are so much fun to read aloud that I'm going to share one here. I highly recommend this little book!

Nature Writing Reading 5

The Oxford Book of Nature Writing

My Americana Fest 2025!

It was a blast. I took a few minutes this morning to slap together a single image summary of my travels in my home town this year:

I cannot recommend this experience any higher. This is, I think, my fourth year of spending nearly a week (5 days and nights) exploring known and unknown venues in my hometown of Nashville, TN, and what do you know? I was better at maintaining notes on where I went and who I saw. 

A few of the names of solo performers and groups are those I saw only a song or two because of scheduling, or perhaps I was not taken enough by their presence to hang around when there were so many other talents abounding about, but I think I did a pretty good week of turning my C note and a quarter into a big bucket of memories and experiencing live new music to add to my Spotify. 

Yeah, I'm still on Spotify. Why? I actually LOVE the algorithm that brings me new music attuned to my listening habits. Which are considerable. I love that my own work with The Last Frontier Band is there (ancient history, but fun), as well as my solo instrumental offering from a decade or more ago. I also like the playlist feature with its access to pretty much anything:  One thing I like to do is create lists containing every cover of a song I can find. There's a folder of these at my account, free to check out at will.

Just google any of the names or venues above to learn more, which, friends and neighbors, I did in abundance this past week. It's now Sunday, the day after, and I'm a happy puppy, listening to one of my new found faves, the Aussie artist Falls.

This won't be long, but quick takeaways:

In the new to me category, from Tuesday to Saturday, I was completely taken by:

• Sister Sadie
• Fancy Hagood
• The Carlile Family Band
• Lisa LeBlanc
• Macon Music Review
• Jackson and the Janks
• Cat Clyde
• John Cragie
• Bek Brooks
• Vanessa Jade
• Jordy Lane
• Falls

In my already-known and can't get enough online or off category, 

• Amanda Shires
• Brandi Carlile
• Kathy Matea
• Suzy Boggus
• Sista Strings
• JesseWelles

And, almost without exception, everyone I heard and saw. I walked, in totale, maybe 4 miles those 5 days, not of course to mention my daily strolls with Lemon, my canine girlfriend. Here's a pic of her:

Lemon dawg

I had very few regrets. I'm glad I added everything I would have liked to see into my "My Schedule" portion of the AmericanaFest app, so I could pick and choose on the fly. In a festival like this, spread out all over the city (and beyond), one is at any given time missing more than one is seeing, but that's just an embarassment of riches. I'm happy to have had so many great conversations with so many good people in so many venues, some of them new to me. I smile to myself, and will for a good while, when I think back on the musical highs I experienced all week. 

I regret missing Amanda Shires (again :) at Musicians' Corner in Centennial Park, which I left early to get to Basement East for Craig Finn. He was good, but Amanda is, well, Amanda; and she slayed at Exit/In on Thursday night. I'm on pins and needles for her new album drop the 26th of this month. I regret leaving The 5Spot Aussie BBQ to hit one of my favorite places, Joelton Hardware, for their two stage venue, their first venture into AF. There weren't many attendees there and though the performers I saw there were good, there is no one on my "newly found" list above from that venture, and everyone I saw at The 5Spot made that list.

I told ya it wouldn't be long. Did you have your own AF2025 experience? Comment here if'n you did. 

But before I sign off, I want to mention you can watch some of the best of the best shows archived at the NPR Music Channel on YouTube. I did not make the Americana Day Stage from WMOT at all, partly because I watched a couple performances at YouTube and loved the groups but didn't think I wanted to sit in what looks like a church auditorium (why? it was formerly a church auditorium) in a folding chair all day, row by row filled by fans. I'll watch each and every one online.

I loved the awards show, even though it came across like the stage manager called in sick, with all the dead moments in transitions, and John C. Reilly died multiple deaths onstage as host. I think he's a good actor, but his hosting skills can only improve if he watches the thing, though I don't otherwise know why he'd want to live through it again. I had seen Jesse Wells the night before and he always seems to get a tear or three from me. The awards show, and his eloquent and simple acceptance speech for winning the new "Free Speech in Music" award from the Americana Music Association was no exception. He closed with the stirring comment, "Life's too short not to always say exactly what you think, all the time." You go, Jesse. You go.

Thank you to the Americana Music Association and to the whole AmericanaFest staff and volunteers for making my week, hell, making my year, at least in music!

Fall Fall Fall

 To everything, Fall, Fall, Fall, there is a season, Fall, Fall, Fall...

And so here we are, October 6, a full 15 days into Fall. There's a lot going on, there's nothing going on, and everything in between. I'm up before dawn, after a lovely night's sleep beside my honey, with our dog at my feet and Google still laboring away to "play the sound of the ocean." I got up to use the bathroom and when I returned to bed my place was taken by pooch Lemon, who had relocated to locate her whole 85 pound furry self sideways across my pillow. No room for the old man, eh?

From Forbes Magazine: "Comet A3 will now dip from dawn into the sun’s glare, getting closer to our sun until it passes through to the other side — sunset. It will re-emerge in twilight around Oct. 12 for those in the northern hemisphere and should be easily visible — and possibly super-bright — for around two weeks."

That's one thing going on, for sure. 

I hope to get out for a night or two camping in order to view this thing. It's rare, I gather, and I also intuit, since I've never really viewed a comet in the sky and I'm approaching my 75th trip around the sun. 

I've got a couple musical adventures this week. My brother-from-two-other-mothers, Rocky, has been invited by his friend Don Henry, songwriter extraordinaire, to attend his party at Vinyl Tap Records, to which one must wear some attempt at Halloween appearance, and he has in turn invited me to come along. I saw Henry at an event just a couple weeks ago, one which was not officially connected to Americana Fest here in Nashville but coincided with it. The event took place at the Roof Top lounge downtown, and its purpose was to honor Rocky for his songwriting accomplishments, including creating the music for the Grammy nominated "The Mighty Sky" science-themed record. On the little stage in the corner Beth Nielsen Chapman, Don, and Matraca Berg, took turns singing songs, some from Mighty Sky but also others of their choice. It was an endearing performance, each singer singing maybe 4 or 5 songs, and Matraca Berg's husband, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Jeff Hanna, got up from his hors d'oeuvres to sing "Mr. Bojangles,"  the Jerry Jeff Walker folk classic his band helped make a standard.

Honor event for my dear pal Rocky Alvey (orange cap)

The Wonder Women of Country at WMOT Americana Fest Day Stage, Eastside Bowl

Nielsen Chapman presented Rocky with a bangin' glass trophy to mark the occasion, and the proud brother Scott exited to the street to head out on his second night of Americana Fest 2024.

Ah, Americana Fest. I had hoarded my Festival Pass ticket for months, purchasing it like back in March, very soon after they became available. I was most excited about two performers, Madi Diaz and Chris Smither, the first of whom I did not see for reasons I will reveal, and the second of whom I saw perform two substantial sets and two venues over the September 17-21 time spread. I saw but a fraction of the performances at only a handful of the venues where they were taking place, but friends, this was the best ~100 dollars I spent last year. 

See the full schedule here.

When I look back at that, it's pretty amazing that I only saw a few shows, but then I'm old and I was just the other side of a pretty nasty bout with Covid. 

In order, though, I saw:

• City Winery main room: A Tribute to Mary Gauthier, Mary Gauthier, Jaimee Harris, Rodney Crowell, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Creekbed Carter Hogan, Emmylou Harris, Gretchen Peters w/ Barry Walsh, and more...

  Silver and Festival Passes Only

• City Winery main room: "25 Years of "Drag Queens and Limousines", Jaimee Harris, Mary Gauthier

  Silver and Festival Passes Only

• Vinyl Tap: Oh Boy! Records "Independents' Day" afternoon hangout 

• At home, the fantastic 2024 Americana Music Awards live from The Ryman Auditorium. I was just a bit beat from earlier activities, so I jacked up the stereo Google Hubs in the living room, poured me a bourbon, snuggled with my fluffy Grand Pyrenees mix, Lemon, and listened to the show from top to bottom without any Mother Church columns in my viewing path (I had no viewing path, though I later learned it was livestreamed). I enjoyed simply immersing myself in the audio in my living room, but I highly recommend you view the entire night's events at WMOT.org -- it includes performances "from award-winning legends, buzzworthy new artists and longtime fan favorites, including Blind Boys of Alabama, Brandy Clark with SistaStrings, Charles Wesley Godwin, Dave Alvin, Dwight Yoakam, Fantastic Negrito, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Jobi Riccio, Kaitlin Butts, Larkin Poe, The Milk Carton Kids, Noah Kahan, Sarah Jarosz, Shelby Lynne, Sierra Ferrell, Turnpike Troubadours, The War And Treaty, Waxahatchee with MJ Lenderman, and Wyatt Flores."

• Eastside Bowl: WMOT Day Stage 12 to 5 pm, featuring Chris Smither, Leyla McCalla, Melissa Carper, Sam Morrow, Uncle Lucius

• City Winery Lounge: Betty Soo, then Chris Smither.

• Basement East: I really wanted to see Madi Diaz so after Chris Smither finished, above, I took a Lyft over and managed to get inside the venue, only to judge it a veritable Covid cesspool. I swear it was body to body packed with sweating 20-30 year-olds and also older folks like myself, and the stage fog hung unmoving in the stage lights and in the room--a clear clue the air circulation was dysfunctional. Spotlights played on the performer onstage (not sure who it was, a young dark haired male rocker) and after finding myself just inside the door and, daunted by the huge clump of sweat-dripping humans between me and the bar, I reluctantly turned tail and took the next Lyft home. 

• Alisa Amador, Amy Helm, Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore with The Guilty Ones, The Cactus Blossoms, and Wonder Women of Country again at the Basement East WMOT Day Stage. 

There were shows Saturday, but I, ya'll, was done. I really only wanted to attend the Americana Music Association meeting that morning, but I had an epiphany based on an old (not original) axiom from my teaching days: "The best way to make your next meeting productive is to cancel it." I stayed home, caught up on some rest, and embraced the next stage of my future. 

You can see nearly all my photos, with some short video snippets, at my Google Album, "Scott's Americana Fest 2024" anytime you want to. 

Heck, let's embed that Honors Award show at the Ryman, to save you a click or two (via YouTube):

Still Waiting. revisited

 Hello July. This year, my 74th trip around the sun, has already been a thing. I'm ignoring the absurdist play that politics has made ours, and instead focusing on crawling out of the mourning pit which this past Thursday night's debate dropped me unceremoniously into, and sharing something that made my day, just yesterday.

Yesterday began as a home-based workday, with loads of laundry piled in two rooms, remnants of our little aside journey into heaven the previous week. I may post on that soon, but maybe not. Suffice it to say that our 9 days at Jumby Island Resort, Long Island, Antiqua, Antigua and Barbuda.

Jumby Bay Island teaser

My main reason for posting today, however, is due to my afternoon yesterday, which began with yard and housework then joyfully deteriorated into grabbing a mid-day Mexican snack at Don Julio's in Joelton  with my friend Rocky, and then retreating to Rocky's own little heaven, his farm office, to sit in the air conditioned tiny home watching all manner of birds feed from the flower garden and the feeders out his big Northwestern picture window. He had picked up a couple of nice cigars and we each had one while sipping whiskey and working our way slowly through those together, chatting and sharing music. 

He introduced me to Erika Lewis and some wonderful other singer/songwriters who he had discovered on Spotify, and we talked about how much we both like the app's suggestions features. For the one or two people who may not know, I can, for example, play an album (Rocky and I are both unicorns who prefer listening to a record beginning to end) and then let it continue to play other songs Spotify's algorithms determine we will like based upon that. It's a feature that can be turned off but we both agree it is one of the app's best features, despite the well-known usury of artist's and its nation-mimicking economic unfairness to the less-famous creatives. Both of which we are.

Rocky snuck a song of mine I did not expect to hear. I hadn't listened to it, I swear to you, in years. It was kind of good. He proceeded to tell me that it had played after he had listened to another artist, and he had checked in to see who it was. "I said, 'Is this the Scott Merrick I know?'" And then he told me the album was in his morning rotation of music to start the day with his morning coffee, looking out upon the same garden view we were sharing. "I listen to it once every week or two." He also said the he thought "This is your masterpiece," and "I would love to get this in a studio with some really good players after running it by a producer who knows what he's doing. Orchestration, strings, an upright bass on "Strumsticking..." (on which I allude to bass with a tuned down acoustic six-string, ha).

So I listened. It's the first time I have ever listened to it with another human person. I like it. Some of the songs are instrumental versions of songs I sent out in 2004 with my Last Frontier Band live compilation, some are just instrumentals, titles suggested by musical themes within them. Rocky's favorite is one of the latter, "Flying Dutchman," a ghost ship song created in Alaska after reading about it somewhere, I don't recall. It's 12-string so it must have been recorded before my honey and I left Nashville to work and live in Florida in the mid-80's. But maybe read the Flying Dutchman's Wikipedia entry whilst listening to the song.

I share it all here. Hear...

Chris Smither at Finally Friday!

I had a great experience yesterday at WMOT Roots Radio's weekly Finally Friday. Here's a snippet of video from the legendary Chris Smither that demonstrates why. The Youtube description describes a lovely happy accident of weather, setting, and talent :)

The entire set should be available for viewing/listening in a day or two at WMOT's "On Demand" website. Kudos also to FF stagemates Mustangs of the West and Pi Jacobs!Pi Jacobs

Chris performed Finally Friday solo acoustic, and his new record, All About the Bones, which released the same day, is a remarkable pleasure to listen to. Nuance of phrase, tidy and seemingly effortless fingerpicking, and fatherly voice makes me smile and cry at the same time. Give it a listen. If you want the record or CD, hit up his website. I'm running out to Great Escape as soon as they have it in stock. It's already on Spotify if'n that's the way you roll. 

Read about the recording and personnel and such at Grateful Web.

Art Classes, Charles, and Painting

 Okey dokey. It's almost the end of September and I'm pretty good. (Cue the John Prine song).

I want to celebrate the patron's party opening for my painting master Charles Brindley's show at the exclusive private Montgomery Bell Academy this past weekend. I'm so missing his classes, even though with my cushy studio setup and fairly regular painting I'm making progress. Here's my latest finished "lakescape" from my 2nd home in a boat on Marrowbone Lake (don't I wish! What fun it would be to have a docked houseboat there, but it's a Tennessee Managed Fishing Lake, no docks, just rental boats and your own if you have the gear--no gas motors), from a photo I took in early fall of 2023. I'll also share an abstract that I finished this past week. More details at scottmerrick.me.

"morning marrowbone"

"that very moment"

All that said, I'm missing seeing him once a week for a full day of open studio, he having lost his lease at Scarritt-Bennett Center, right across from the school where I taught for 14 years, USN. It's a long story but suffice it to say his scores of students are disappointed in that property's handling of the situation. He's been there for over 10 years, y'all. 

Anyway, we've all been looking for locations for class locations, and I gather from our discussions that Charles may be sneaking up on one. Fingers crossed.

The opening was wonderful. There were probably 200 people attending, maybe more, and I got to see many of my fellow students, all of us pretty much in the "older" category, all them creative and filled with life and curiosity and a drive to make. Love all of them. We didn't stay long, but the show runs through March 2, though it's "appointment only" entry. I'll sure as hell make an appointment and go back. There are also a bunch of events that I will be attending. I have an iphone snap I took to share with my pal Rocky that details them. Hope to see some friends and you, if you can make any of them and are interested in the painterly arts. I don't believe rsvp is required for those, but if you read the fine print you'll see that you need an appointment to view the exhibit. I HIGHLY suggest you do so. 

That's all for this morning. Rocky just texted me to join him for breakfast at Mama D's in Ashland City and I have to get out of my jammies and into the car. Darn it and yay, I say. Be well.

water, a jigsaw puzzle from the nations nashville neighborhood

 The Nations Nashville "water"

Just found a neat way to indulge a strange habit of mine! I walk my dog every day and we love to see patterns in our neighborhood. It can take dozens of finds to compile a single montage of a theme, and the first one I've compiled features what I believe the next world war will be fought over. I worked hard on it and sent one to Shutterstock for printing, but the iPhone resolution can't be made high enough to do the montage pixel justice. Just today, I found Jigsaw Planet; and here's the first installment , the pics compiled in Powerpoint and saved as a .jpg. More to come on this blog. I remain in search of a platform that doesn't require that I yield rights to my work, but it's really just a fun hobby at the moment and I'm not really concerned with that at the mo'. I also think that those folks deserve whatever they can earn for creating such a fun and easy to use content creation platform!

Tip: Challenge yourself (or make it easier) by changing the number of pieces with the "Play As" function on the site!

30

Chilly Saturday Morning at Chez Merrique

Well well well. Early Saturday morning and I'll be taking out o' here in a couple hours to do deliveries for Tinwings, the glorious gourmet grab-and-go market conceived and made golden by my lovely wife. I'm the back-up delivery guy, and her former delivery person is herself taking off for a 3 month chef gig in Greenland (!) tomorrow. It'll be fine, and the sky is blue and though it's chilly outside again I do love to drive all over my hometown and leave amazing, delicious food fare on doorsteps of some of the hundreds of clients who partake of her scrumptiousness regularly.

Tinwings in The Nations Nashville

We went to a live performance in the tiny Basement venue Thursday, to see and hear a solo performance by Tommy Prine, and we were treated to one song featuring guest star Amanda Shires. What a treat, the whole thing. Tommy's first LP will release in late June and we were lucky to have heard many of its songs. I'll tell you this: Tommy has inherited his father's gift for storytelling with metaphore, irony, and humor, but he has already proven that he has his own distinct voice, and it's beautiful and I am now a hardcore fan. I taught him every week for years in my University School of Nashville computer lab and I am so proud of hisgrownupself. As we were leaving after he said, "Mr. Merrick, thank you for coming," and I responded, "Ha, you can call me Scott." Made me smile. And I did say hi to Amanda just before leaving, introducing her to my honey. Amanda sometimes comes by to work in Charles's open studio class and she is, besides being a powerhouse superstar musician and singer, a hugely talented painter. She is also one of the nicest human beings it has been my pleasure to meet.

I'm currently working on a couple paintings, and I made good progress on my 16x20 painting of my best pal Watson last week. Charles Brindley's painting class at Scarritt Bennett Center has been on break for a few weeks and starts up next week, so Wednesday I took the hour or so at his invitation I drove up to his home in Adairville, Kentucky and spent a few hours painting under his supervision/tutelage. I got home with this improved version of mah boy (note that some of what you see is visual "notes" for me to revise, but I'm increasingly happier with it):

"Watson", in progress

And Charles gave me some great ideas for directions I can pursue on this abstract, which I am thinking will be dubbed "metronome":

"metronome", in progress

Lastly, for now, I've been doing some recording, and this one below kinda fun, I think. I'm not happy with my melody line yet, or the recording quality (Audacity with a USB mic on my Dell All-in-One computer) but I'm confident it will get there. Here's the lyrics I'm working with. Can you envision a melody for it? I may just keep what I've got and enhance it with other instruments but I'm open to hear a rough recording. Post it here in a comment...

Goin' Somewhere

by Scott Merrick

We're walking in the morning
Breathing in the freshest air
We're walking in the morning
Looking 'round to see what's there
And in the sky
a jet plane
flying high
Somebody goin' somewhere.
It's all of life we're livin'
We laugh we cry we don't give up
Whatever we are given
Reachin' out to scoop it up
And in the sky
a jet plane
flying high
Somebody goin' somewhere.
Somewhere a baby cries
Somewhere a lover sighs
Somewhere laughter
Somewhere tears
Somewhere a song begins
Somewhere a train comes in
Somewhere hope
Somewhere good cheer.
BRIDGE
Somewhere the darkest night
Somewhere the sun is bright
Somewhere you're home
Somewhere it's time
Somewhere friends arrive
Somewhere no compromise
Somewhere alone
Somewhere just fine.
 We're sitting on the back porch
Talking out the day's events
We're sitting on the back porch
Wonderin' where the weekend went
And in the sky
a jet plane
flying high
Somebody goin' somewhere.

That's it for this morning. Gonna feed Watson, toss on some warm layers, and drive around Nashville.

Happy Birthday to my magical godson, Seamus. I miss y'all but we'll be gettin' out your way someday soon

March, Coming Up on an Anniversary

I don't mean we are marching towards it, but maybe in a metaphorical sense. It's just 36 years of being legally married. She is my best friend and my life's love. More, please.

I'm doing my things, painting, fishing (not much on accounta the weather), playing some music, taking care of the hacienda, walking my doggy. Lee Ann's working on work, continuing to make Tinwings better in all ways, and maybe keeping a big announcement to herself for a while. No, she's not preggie. 

I completed another painting in what I foresee will be a little series of "vivid rorschach" paintings. I cleverly call it "vivid rorschach 2".

vivid rorschach 2, acrylics on stretched canvas, 16x20 inches, by Scott Merrick 2023

These are fun, especially when planned to mirror color relationships of one another. And I am really enjoying playing with the palate knives. Feel free to click on over to the original to think about what the hell this guy is doing with them. 

I'm going to head down to downtown Nashville this morning to see if I can find some painting-worthy images for my collection of iphotography. Then I'll do lunch at 3rd and Lindsley, timed to enjoy WMOT Roots Radio's "Finally Friday" trifecta of great emerging (and experienced) musical talents. If you are anywhere nearby, or you plan to visit Nashville, this is a must do. The chili and beer is good alll by itself. If you are not in our fair city (Tennessee's liberal bastion now under state administrative attack in an unprecedented way), tune into 89.5 FM from noon to two pm every Friday to listen. A gem always.

See ya.

 Hello.

The mid-February Nashville weather is just plain weird. Here on Valentines Day 2023 it'll reach a high of 65 degrees today. And...

HERE it is on Friday, the 24th, and it reached 80 degrees yesterday. I went to my art class in a short sleeved Orvis shirt and cargo shorts. It's now 41 with a predicted high of only 52. It's Spring, it's Summer, it's Winter again. The plants are going "hell yeah" and budding and even blossoming. Little do they know. 

On the bright side here's the entry into my online Gratefulness Journal today: "Nashville weather, for its perfect mix of moderate and surprisingly otherwise." 

I started that journal during the pandemic and, a lot like my blog, it suffers periods of neglect but I always come back to it. It's private to me, but maybe some inquisitive spawn of mine will discover it and share it one day after I've floated away. I am convinced it is good to me to reflect on my blessings, though I remain unconvinced that society has it right on who/what is doing the blessing.

I finished a painting yesterday that I estimate represents maybe 50 or 60 hours of devotion to light, color, texture, and reflection. It's called "reflection on the ridge" and owes to its existence my friendship with Rocky Alvey and if I counted the hours of light-watching in camping chairs at his home and photographic opportunities there (which most often required putting down my cigar and/or my glass of bourbon on the rocks), okay, maybe 100 hours. Maybe 200. Hmmmmm...

"reflection on the ridge", acrylics on stretched canvas, 2023 by scott merrick

I want to post an abstract in progress and I want you to look at it very closely and will welcome any advice in comments. I for one am leaning toward calling it complete. I'm calling it "vivid rorschach" for now...

"vivid rorschach", acrylic on stretch canvas, by scott merrick 2023

There. I've addressed the blog neglect issue for this day, and I hope you have a good one, whenever you may be reading/viewing this. Peace out.

Brrrrrrr December

 Okay, it's not nearly as cold as most years at this time but I'll repeat that Tennessee cold is colder than any other because of the omni-present humidity. That humidity is cursed in the summer and the winter with equanimity. 

On a happier topic, I'm beginning work on a new painting, another dive into another arena of complete inexpertise (there is some uncertainty if this last is actually a word, but apparently Wictionary approves).

I had a chill (in every sense of the term) experience at my friend Matt Melon's detached garage workshop in Madison a few weeks ago, sitting with mutual friend Rocky Alvey, smoking cigars, drinking some Green River bourbon, and watching Colombo episodes on Matt's laptop while Matt worked (see https://www.magicmetaldesigns.com/ for how truly magical his metal artistry is). I snapped some pics and one of them is this one:

Matt Melon making magic

There are soooo many angles and objects in this image that I may well tame it down. On the other hand, that is what gives it its interest, so I may lean more toward realism than I have really yet to do. It's never boring, largely because if it seems to be getting that way, I will veer away onto other paths of decisions. Stay tuned.

I recently finished a pic I alluded to in my previous post (https://scottmerrick.blogspot.com/2022/11/december-2022-looks-to-be.html) and I'm pretty happy with it. Anyway, here are two stages of it--the first is what I brought into the workshop, and the second is what I consider the finished piece:

UPDATE 121622:

I attended the awesome Blended/Broken Color full-day workshop led by sensei Charles Brindley yesterday at Scarritt Bennet Conference Center and Charles made some suggestions for my "rocky's ridge" painting that I spent the whole afternoon implementing, (pictures above). Luckily for me, ten feet away from me in the full-to-capacity painting studio the amazing beautiful and amazing Amanda Shires was working on several absolutely beautiful abstract canvases. I got to meet her at the end of the day when Charles gathered the artists around my easel to view the final painting. I laughed when he told them "this guy came out of nowhere" to learn painting. Amanda was painting with her mother, Lisa, also a very capable artist, and both were really, really nice human beings. New adoring Amanda fan, check.

On another topic--Yesterday my brother Ed and I sat in on a Zoom meeting with our first cousin twice removed, Kathy M., who lives in California and who recently tracked me down via this blog. Her mother, the daughter of our half-aunt (nothing is simple), recently passed away and left behind what appeared in Kathy's background to be a dozen or so bankers boxes of letters and photographs. I won't be sharing these as they come my way, but childhood pictures of our dad, baby pictures of us with our mom, and the like  are exciting to look forward to. As of now the only baby pic I have of me is on the cover of my novel, Lives, and Kathy has already sent me another one. Who's that grumpy baby?

Mom and me at 4 months old

I look forward to continued correspondence with this distant newly in-touch cousin!

Finally (let's just go for it--is this the randomest blogpost ever?) I'm hitting The Blue Room Bar at Third Man Records Friday night, with my pal Rocky, for a show featuring the Lockland Strings, a group of East Nashville musicians who get together and perform a concert once a month or so. I am all giddy and expectatious (sic) to see Madi Diaz live, as well as to be introduced to a tidy handful of other performers I have not heard, until I put together this playlist on Spotify with one "record" from each artist who will be there. Feel free to listen, and I do recommend randomizing, if you can't make the show. (Note: Peter Mulvey will not be there, but it was the album with SistaStrings I found that features the most of them.)

Cheers! Have a lovely Winter Holidays season! 

Wait! I want to share that Thursday night we'll be attending "A Sonos Christmas," live at the Parthenon and getting to hear our marvelous, beautiful, talented, and, well, perfect daughter Miranda sing. She auditioned for the choir a couple months ago and was embraced into it, happily. Although I had the pleasure of attending the Timbre Cierpke Christmas Concert at a Nashville church this past Thursday and got to hear her sing, my honey has not and I couldn't be more excited to sit at the base of the golden Athena and share that experience with my life's love. Well, I couldn't be more excited until Friday at the Blue Room!

Now go be good and have fun!

December 2022 Looks to Be...

 ...a fairly normal month. Which is to say that, yes, anything can happen.

It's thickly foggy outside my studio window this morning, Saturday, 26 November, 2022. I have been delivering food orders for my dearest's business, Tinwings, for a couple weeks now and despite that twice-weekly addition to my schedule I do miss my painting classes with graphics master Charles Brindley, which are suspended until the first week in January. I took a lovely full day Brindley workshop on underpainting and paint application techniques a couple weeks ago, and did enjoy the drive up to his home in Adairville, Kentucky to do so. I'm just rambling here so stop me anytime. 

I finished my penitentiary painting (because at some point you just have to call it done) and I'm pretty good with it. 

After a still frame from Brian Siskind's brilliant video portrait of the abandoned Tennessee State Prison, "On the Inside"

The day of the painting class in KY I started a new canvas, which is an attempt to capture the mood of a photo I took up at my friend Rocky's ridge. Here's the photo:

Sunset on Rocky's ridge

The colors are beginning to work, as I apply layer after layer to the canvas. I think this will be a long effort. Yes, I expect it will. One pervasive challenge is implementing the transition between what is seen and what is not seen until it is painted. Charles says "We artists paint what is seen and what is unseen" and has said that "visual literalists must be the unhappiest people in the world." I smile.

My Life's Love Lee Ann and I went out last night! We were invited to go downtown on a Friday night, and though we don't normally venture out on weekend nights, our friend Michael Sharpe's Sinatra tribute set in the gorgeously decked out bar within the Hyatt Holston House last night was early in the evening, and we wanted to see the show mainly to support him. We were thoroughly entertained! Michael's voice is perfect for the iconic Rat Pack crooner style. Technically on target, he pays effective respect to his phrasings and is pitch-on throughout. I believe that those long pitch-perfect word endings can only be achieved by hours of rehearsal and a perceptive and self-critical ear. The trick in that is to do the trick without it sounding like a trick, and he's certainly mastered it. Michael also brings an infectious joy to his show--a little self-deprecating banter here, a sizable helping of music trivia there, the well-placed prop; he's got it all.

Michael Sharpe in a li'l Happy Holidays pose with my sweetie, Lee Ann

I have a rare day off with my honey today--Tinwings is traditionally closed on Thanksgiving and the following weekend. We have ambitious plans to relax around the house. A little day-drinking may well be involved. A nap. Certainly a nap. 

I hope things are well in your world and I say come on, December, come ON!

did I waste 20 YEARS trying to "GO PRO"?

Hey.

My second son (technically my son-in-law, so as always kudos to his birth parents) Tim has created a short but fascinating video about music. If you are a musician, which you are if you make music, even if it's singing in the shower, you must watch. I promise it will make you feel good about yourself, in addition to exposing you to his own 20+ years career and all the promise it holds for the next decades. Do yourself the favor:

Painting and Learning

 So. I'm very excited about visiting renowned painter Charles Brindley's class at Scarritt-Bennet Center here in Nashville, across from the Peabody at Vanderbilt Campus I attended 'way back in the early '90s . I first met Charles at University School of Nashville's Artclectic, which my wife, Lee Ann, was leading (she did so for 10 years of its biggest growth). I taught at USN for 14 years, and Lee Ann was deeply involved in both, in part because both our beautiful children attended school there and in part because USN was her alma mater. I was immensely impressed by Charles' art--who could see and not be so?

I am not going to copy and paste evidence here, it's copious at his website: Get lost in the man's mastery of visual imagery at his online gallery at cbrindley.com. 

Charles' class info is at https://www.cbrindley.com/classes if you want more information about that. I am at least tentatively planning to enroll in one for the Fall semester to learn from the master and I'm buzzed about it. I haven't taken a class of any kind since graduating from Vanderbilt in 1995, and I am visiting tomorrow to see how they work and to assuage a little anxiety about doing so. We'll see.

I first started painting, again, during the pandemic, of course. I walk my dog every day. Just about to go out after jotting this down. There is a great deal of construction going on in my neighborhood, just like in virtually every neighborhood in Nashville, and people are moving in and out all the time. I keep an eye out in the construction lots and alleys for useful throwaways, and I started making Kountry Kraft signs for my front porch out of discarded 2x10s a couple years ago, first using Sharpie markers and graduating to a beginner's set of acrylic paints. Here's an example:

Hoppy Holidays, yes, a beer reference

Other signs include "Love Trumps Hate," "Only Love," REIMAGINE HOW SCHOOLS WORK," "Happy" (4th of July), "BOO!," "BeKind," and...you get the idea. I recently discarded my "Back 2 School" sign because, well, I ain't never going back. 

I am, however, going to class tomorrow and beginning regular participation twice a week starting September 8, barring some jolting turn-off during tomorrow's recon mission. I don't anticipate that. 

I take a lot of photos. Some are well-documented on my Facebook album, "ThingsOnTheGround." In November of 2021, I had to stop the car on the way down the hill from my dear buddy Rocky's home on the ridge above Little Marrowbone Creek Road to take a photo:

Some time later, likely around December, I took one of my reclaimed 2x10s and spray painted it flat white enamel, then spent the next maybe 3 months painting. On January 8 it looked like this:

and when it was "done," it looked like this:

I sketched it out in pencil, threw a plethora of color at it, mixing as I went, and just kept going until it satisfied me. I also extended its field to the edges of the lumber:

Since then, I've finished paintings from a photo of an ancient cinderblock building a couple blocks from my home and from a pic of a great blue heron perched solemnly atop a condo rooftop in Destin, Florida. I'm now working on a panorama view overlooking the grassy field of Brownland Farm horse ranch in Franklin, TN. I don't see an end to it. I've found the zone a few times where I am one with the brushstroke, intuitively understanding when something is right, or right enough, and smiling. I want that feeling again, often and deep.

Examining Charles Brindley's vast body of work at his website, I see that my own crude work with paints is just that, lacking realism, which is okay, and rudimentarily color mixed, which is understandable; and I know that anything I can learn from him will strengthen my experiences. I also believe I may be onto something with my choice of canvas. Building something meaningful and artistic from a discarded piece of lumber imbues it with something a little magical, I think.

That's all today. Watson is getting a little cranky and it's only getting hotter outside. Rain today though! And thankfully not flooding rain. Climate change is. Peace.

Scheduliberated!

 Happy birthday to me, celebrating 72 trips around Old Sol. AND happy retirement, only 2 days away as I write. I want to say a few things about retirement, or rather about the generally accepted social descriptor for it: "retired."

Thinking about actually being it, I began letting friends and colleagues know my plans a month or two ago. It took a good long while to jump through the hoops a "retiree" needs to master, but I was generally feeling pretty darned good about it all. Then I began noticing:  Nearly everyone who discusses it with me brings a number of negative connotations into our communication. 

"What are you going to do?" "Won't you be bored?" "You'll be looking for a part-time job, won't you?" "I'd be so bored." Or, from several folks' personal experience, "I got tired of sitting around at home, so I got this job/volunteered here. It keeps me busy." That's the  story I have heard from a tenured now 120 day former retiree in my school, from a clerk in a liquor store in Chattanooga, and from a dear man who brings meals to my school (soon my former school) on a weekly basis. I am certain that I'll hear it again.

Well. My dear old daddy used to tell us whiney boys, "If you're bored it's your own damned fault." Really, he did. And I took it to heart, I guess. 

1. I will not be looking for a part-time job. Or a full-time job.
2. I do not get bored. 
3. I love my home and keeping it a nice place to be (which is work, by the way). 
4. And I will be just as busy as I want to be. I'll fish, I'll write, I'll get better at my mandolin and my guitar and my  bass guitar. I'll draw and paint. I'll spend more time enjoying my life with its one true love, Lee Ann; I'll be more available to my beautiful children--Miranda and Tim and Colin and Kat; I'll explore Tennessee; I'll travel frequently/ I'll, I'll, I'll...God knows what, you can bet if it's interesting I'll be doing it.

What is a way to refer to retirement that does not drag in all the negatives? 

A search for synonyms at Thesaurus.com yields 29 synonyms for "retired." These are arranged in three tabs for one's viewing pleasure, according to that respectable resource. The next time a new aquaintance asks me the most common question any adult asks a new aquaintance, "What to you do do?," how do you think I might reply? Should I choose to respond with one of these? 

• The first tab is "adj. having withdrawn from active life." Ow. Its examples are:
• elderly
• resigned
• superannuated
• emeritus, emerita (I kind of like that one)
• in retirement
• The second is "adj. having been withdrawn, with
• detached
• removed
• secluded
• sequestered
• apart
• isolated
• retreated
• seperated
• withdrawn
• distant
• The third? "adj. done working"
• discharged
• humble
• sequestered
• withdrawn
• inactive
• retiring
• immured
• shy
• cidevant
• otiose
• cloistered
• secluded
• superannuated
• emeritus
• unfrequented

What the hell does "otiose" mean, anyway? Further investigation brings up "idle," "indolent," "listless," and "slothful" as synonyms for otiose. Dig this: its definition at Dictionary.com is 

adjective

1. being at leisure; idle; indolent.
2. ineffective or futile.
3. superfluous or useless.

So friends, I'm over it. That may be a little odd, since, really, I'm just beginning it. But here, I'm coining a word. Right here, right now. Ready?

New acquaintance: "So, what do you do?"

Me. "Oh, I'm(image from cooltext.com).

There. And, from my dear friends Matt amd Anitra, a birthday treat: