Goings-on in Swarthmore

Today, we got up at about 9:00a.m. and went to Harry and Sarah's for breakfast. Things were chaotic there because the building they live in was getting an exterior restoration - today it was new cedar shingles. Harry, who helps maintain the property and gardens for the owners,  had to be out talking to workers part of the time. But we had a good breakfast and good talk, and got in a good walk on the property, which is called Hereford Place. It is a bit of quasi-wilderness tucked into a busy urban/suburban environment. It's partly sort of junky, wild overgrowth, partly lovely landscaped garden. It's interesting to explore.

Foxglove at Hereford Place

An overgrown old foundation at Hereford Place

I got sort of intrigued by a book I found next to the breakfast table - a book about the archeology of "Old Europe," i.e., the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of the fifth millenium, B.C., remains of which are found primarily in excavated sites in present-day Romania. It was a very advanced culture. One of the features of this culture are figurines which one scholar, Marija Gimbutas, has identified as representations of an "Earth-Goddess," created for use in religious rituals in a matriarchal society. It has proved to be a controversial theory.

Presumed female figurine used in Cucuteni culture

After noon we met Wallace for lunch at the new Inn at Swarthmore, which just opened.

The Inn at Swarthmore

Sarah took us all out to lunch because the Inn had purchased a dozen of her photographs to display in the lounge and in the second floor hallway - a wonderful feather in her cap! It is a stunning display of her work. However, she was disappointed by the light fixtures chosen to illuminate her photographs. We could see them fine in the daylight, but at night, she said, the light is focused on the matting and leaves the photograph in the dark. Hopefully they will eventually fix that. Meanwhile we immensely enjoyed seeing her work, which in this case is made up entirely of photographs taken at different seasons looking out into the trees from their apartment at Hereford Place.

She describes her work in this way:

"The narrative impulse is strong in my work. I’ve always been torn between writing and visual art. For me the fundamental mystery is the passage of time, the invisible medium we live within. I want to arrest an illuminated point in time and encapsulate it in glazes of gum arabic and sensitized watercolor pigment with a veil of cyanotype cast over it"

Here is an example:

Patterned Early Spring by Sarah Van Keuren

We had a very nice lunch, and then came back to Wallace's house and talked for quite a while sitting out on the back patio. It was very pleasant.  Later, Wallace, Ellen and I went out for a pizza supper at nearby Swarthmore Pizza, an easy walk from Wallace's house. A nice day. Tomorrow, Ellen and Wallace will have a movie day, and I will have a library day.