It is what is said between the lines…

A steely gray New Year’s Day. 2025. The landscape outside my little house on the hill is void of color. A black and white photo still processioning days later. Fondly, I remembered how I once would dodge and burn developing images in a RISD darkroom…

A cold virus or possibly the flu has kept me quite close to home the past few days. Annoyed by the inconvenience of illness I have had to slow down after a very busy number of weeks and months. I do appreciate the time to reflect on the “what next” and settle into winter in Vermont. Read some books. Work on the one I am writing and of course, painting…

A small stack of yellowed letters loosely tied with a thin dark cord lies next to my laptop. My great grandmother must have collected and saved them, yet they travelled to my parent’s home with my grandfather’s belongings. Handwritten letters in pencil from my maternal grandfather to my great grandmother. Elizabeth. My namesake. One or two random letters also tucked in and those were written in ink. Cursive on lined paper. A nostalgic form of communication…

My grandfather employed two different letterheads. No rhyme or reason just availability I would imagine. Standard issue pads of paper displaying the following:

YMCA

Army and Navy