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The Artist’s
Almanac
April 2006
download and print this installment as
a PDF
(you will need Adobe Acrobat reader to open this file, you can
get
it here free)
As no man is born an artist, so
no man is born an angler.
- Izaac Walton
Two things get a small
boy up before dawn. One is Christmas; the other is going fishing.
The fishing bird sings
in April. However forgotten was its song in dead of winter, it is
unmistakable in early April. The truant officer is busiest now.
Creeks are sparkling
and the lusty high fins run upstream to spawn. Their fine bones make
the eating of them a picky process. Yet fishing is not about food;
it is about nature most glorious and how we connect with it.
Its essence is
mystery. The fluid gracefulness of a school of minnows at the head
of a riffle invokes our awe, as does the dread of the bow wave of
the bass aimed towards them from downstream.
The sun dances across
the sparkling ripples hiding the mysteries below. The first bob of
the cork send shivers of anticipation of the unknown and unseen.
First Catch – Bill Puryear, Artist
Perhaps artists and
fishermen are the happiest men alive. Never are their passions fully
spent, and theirs are the most innocent of pleasures. Neither of
them is ever fully learnt, Walton, the gentlest Englishman who ever
wrote, allows, in The Compleat Angler, Good company and
good discourse are the sinews of virtue, adding, I love such mirth
as does not make friends ashamed to look upon each other next
morning.
Perhaps it is no
accident that our Lord chose as his first companions Peter and his
fellow fishermen or that he proved his bodily resurrection on the
lakeshore one morning by eating a breakfast of fish.
Upcoming Events
The Harding Show
– An Exhibit & Sale of Fine Art Presented By Harding Academy, 31st
Annual Show, 170 Windsor Drive, Nashville, 37205-3794, Opening 5 PM
Thursday May 4th through 4PM Saturday May 6th.
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