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The Artist’s
Almanac
August 2007
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Mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun
- Noel Coward
This is the month of
The Great Rain Lottery.
Unless a tropical
storm rises from the Gulf, the best our browning lawns can hope
for is a thunderstorm. The best conversation opener is did you
get any of that rain yesterday? More didn’t than did. August
makes rain spotters of us all.
Towards midday
the heat index and humidity rise. As cumulus clouds tower to the
west we wonder if this will be our day.
As my columnist
friend Elmer Hinton wrote several years ago
August seems
like the tail end of things. Nature is at her worst. She deals out
some of the hottest days …when you’d like to do nothing but sit
and doze on the shady side of the house. But she won’t allow
anything like that. She fixes it so flies bite the hardest, pond
water stinks and sweat bees multiply.
Air conditioning has
changed all that. Now we can shut August out, turn on the TV, and
learn about the heat index from the Internet. We have conquered
nature by isolating ourselves from it.
But much is lost.
August has superb nights, with the mysterious choirs of katydids
in the dark trees, and clear nights turning cool after a sultry
day. The Persiad meteor showers on the night of August 12th open
our eyes to the glories of deep space.
Starry Night - Vincent Van Gogh
As a boy, I
slept by an open window at the opposite end of the house from an
exhaust fan, which pulled cool night air across my face and all
the night sounds through my dreams.
Few choose this
month to go traipsing through the woods, and those who do return
sweaty, bitten by ticks, infested with chiggers or itching from
poison ivy. Creeks are isolated pools and the fish lie low. Even
inside the house, we feel languor and, like our sleeping cats,
stretch supine. The stupor of August heat kills our initiative.
To the artist
willing to accept its heat, August offers great opportunities for
painting outside. These include dry weather, hayfields, children,
cattle, boats, magnificent skies and the famous August Light.
Light in spring is thin and blue, but August’s is rich and golden.
By mid-month heat inversion sets in and distances disappear in a
haze - what my teacher Gus Baker called Venetian light. Late in
the month we get a foretaste of fall, with wind from the north and
high fleecy clouds on parade across the bluest of skies.
The clouds
pile higher and higher. We hear the distant rumble of thunder and
the leaves rustle nervously. We try to estimate distance and
bearing and wonder whether we will be winners today.
Safe Harbor - Bill Puryear, Artist
Local rain spotters
trump the Internet; afternoon storms are spotty, springing up and
disappearing without any seeming pattern. Yet there is one, for
yesterday’s storm that came through us and missed our neighbor a
mile away creates an invisible channel for today’s. This means
tomorrow’s storm is more likely than not to follow today’s – the
meteorological equivalent of a gambler’s winning streak.
The sky
thickens; the wind shifts and the leaves of the maple tree reverse
and show white. Lightning cracks and the cats flee as the first
big drops splat hard on the patio. This is when, as a young child,
my mother would run about closing all the windows as my nurse
would hide with me under the bed. I was too young to be marked by
her terror of storms but still remember her warning not to talk on
the phone or pat dogs.
The excitement of an
approaching storm is seasoned by danger. Who has not pulled to the
side of the interstate or under a bridge to escape the fury of
successive waves of rain lashing the windshield, blinding the
driver, and slicking the road with sheets of water? Lightning
killed the golfing father of my friend after he thought the storm
had passed.
Once, in a roofed
shelter with a dozen golfers we found ourselves the target of a
crackling lightning storm with explosions dancing all around. The
shelter lacked walls, and we all managed to wedge ourselves into
the interior restrooms as lighting struck nearby trees.
Afterwards, feeling more alive for being shot at and missed, we
finished the round on a course sparkling in sunshine with gushing
streams. Storms that thrash us may also refresh us, it seems, just
as the rain does the earth.
I secure the
top on the hot tub and linger outside, facing the oncoming storm,
savoring the electric excitement, until the first furious wave of
rain advances across the field from the barn. Minutes later,
Nature, to prove she is still in charge, strikes a transformer
somewhere, the air conditioner groans to a halt, and the computer
goes dark.
I sit a long
time in the darkened library and listen to the pulsing hammering
of the rain on the roof. Rain yesterday; rain today. Maybe we’ll
get rain tomorrow. Maybe we’ll win the Trifecta.
Upcoming Events
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October 5th-7th – Fall Into Art Show
– Hendersonville High School, Juried Show of 40 Regional Artists
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October 13th – Benefit Show and
Auction, New Gallatin Public Library
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November 30th-December 2, Twelfth
Annual Fine Art in Brentwood Show and Sale, Brentwood Academy
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