Townsend Mews (Thursday Doors)
each building, each element
sovereign in its own way
yet blended to rights–
a coherent whole–
look closely—the flow
interrupts itself
with slight variations–
the echo altered
above and between
the windows and doors–
confident in its place,
a solid geometry
of curves and angles,
rooted to the street–
a shelter of permanence
and simple beauty
Townsend Mews, a row of five buildings on West 85th Street, was built in 1890 and landmarked in 1991. Named for its architect, Ralph S. Townsend, it is not really a mews, which implies a former stable or carriage house. The name seems to be something made up by local real estate brokers to enhance the sale of its one bedroom apartments.
In the Landmark designation, the author states that the house originally had stoops with stairs to the arched opening above the current rather bland door-and-awning structure. That would have located the guardian above the original front door, where it properly belongs. Still, they noted the beauty of the buildings, eclectic in the style of the Aesthetic Movement, which blended a variety of elements to create both consitency and surprise. I especially like the pagoda-like roof details.
Always on the lookout for guardians, I was delighted to see that the ornamentation of each building was slightly different, and photographed them all. You could easily miss the guardians if you are not always, like me, scrutinizing buildings and their doors.
Ralph Townsend designed many buildings all over the city, including quite a few brownstones on the streets surrounding where I live. He lived in two of his larger buildings and also one brownstone on the Upper West Side and is probably best known for designing the Kenilworth on Central Park West–I’ll definitely have to go take a look at that one.
The poem was written for the W3 challenge prompt, where Ami asks that we respond to her poem using the words sovereign and rights. I’ve had enough of Supreme Rulers and the things they keep taking away.
And as always you can find more Thursday Doors or join in yourself with host Dan Antion, here.
Arches with Wooden Doors (Thursday Doors)
vaulted tree spirits
bridges of transformation
gateways of between
There is something solid, welcoming, and protective about a wooden door, made even more inviting by an arched doorway.
These are just a few I’ve collected while wandering around the Upper West Side.
I really like the ornamentation on the bottom of the stair railings here.
Find more doors and join in with your own with host Dan Antion, here.
The Kick-About #56 ‘For Drummers Only’
This week’s Kick About explores the drumming of Sandy Nelson.
There’s something stripped back and uncompromising about the paintings of Basquiat, the prompt for our last Kick-About together. Likewise Sandy Nelson’s For Drummers Only, a 12 minute drum solo from 1962 that has likely had a few of us bopping about our respective work spaces or reaching for saucepans and wooden spoons to make a noise with…
Vanessa Clegg
“I closed my eyes and let the music fill me up… legs and feet jiggling to the beat, memories of the 606 club on the New Kings Rd..the doors opening just before midnight, musicians arriving after their various gigs and ‘ jamming’ ’til the early hours, alcohol in coffee cups and cigarette smoke hanging low, climbing the stairs at dawn. A quiet response to an exhilarating disc and time travel.” Watercolour and graphite on gesso.
James Randall
“Loved the track and immediately went to motion and hit on…
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Father’s Day weekend
We had a nice quiet weekend. My husband is doing better and we took a walk yesterday. This is my last week of Family Leave. It was good to take some time off and it helped a lot.
I posted this one last week but here it is finished. I’ve had more time for art lately. I have a few others started.
Have a good week! Nina
Green Man: Thursday Doors
Green Man first appeared as an architectural element in ancient Rome, where he was associated with Pan and Bacchus. As a symbol of resurrection, Green Man was incorporated into Medieval Christian architecture along with other Pagan images. Victorian architects began adding representations of Green Man, along with other decorative elements, to secular buildings, where the Guardian of the Forest now protects the doors and windows of both public buildings and private homes.
many hands
gathered in circles,
tree dancing
illumination–
crossed over, bridged
When I began looking at my door guardian photos, I was struck by the recurring face of Green Man, a figure embodying the relationship of humans and nature. A spirit occurring in many cultures, he has been resurrected as a symbol of the Green environmental movement in modern times.
I did a collage of him in 2016 for Earth Day.
I like the way the paired doors, of two adjacent brownstones, work together. The doors themselves are different, but complement each other.
My poem is in the tanka prose form for Colleen’s #TankaTuesday.
And, as always, find more doors with host Dan Antion, here.
My Sister’s Birthday Weekend
Jane would have turned 69 yesterday, June 12, 2022. I love this picture of her in Greece, 1964, with my mom in dad in the rear and her friend next to her. This photo captured my sister’s essence: sassy, tall, good looking. All that and a bag of chips.
Jane in a contemplative mood. My sister was a smart and troubled young lady. In retrospect I believe she struggled with mental illness all her life. She had a lot of bad luck due to illness. A dancer, she began having terrible leg cramps around age 17. Later diagnosed as Myasthenia Gravis, the damage had been done to her body and it kept progressing.
Jane towards the end of her life. She was incapacitated to a great degree but never lost her inner spirit and great love of people. She helped many of Paterson’s children in her work on the child study team and always called them “my kids”. My sister is greatly missed.
I did some art work this weekend but I’m not sure these are finished. My new larger table area has made it much more convenient for working.
Have a good week! Nina
The Kick-About #55 ‘Basquiat’
A color and form explosion inspired by Basquiat.
Our last Kick-About together was characterised by a whirl of ingenuity, with our community of artists reaching for ad-hoc materials and digging out old tools by which to produce their ‘new works in a short time’. With Jean-Michel Basquiat’s paintings as this edition’s start-point, the range of work is no less inventive, and in common with Basquiat’s Untitled (1981), offers up an intriguing x-ray of the creative mind.
Graeme Daly
“Some expressionistic ramblings for this Basquiat prompt, feeling very much cathartic and automatic. I am sure there’s some hidden meanings in there somewhere!”
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.blog
Francesca Maxwell
“I always find Basquiat fascinating, mostly because I cannot paint like him, so it is a sort of magic to me. To try and paint something inspired by him was a challenge, and, at the same time, it gave me a sense of freedom I haven’t felt…
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Thursday Doors: Zen Garden
the entrance is an enso a glowing blue light
a form that contains nothing inside of the whole
spirit absorbed by essence emptied of ego
in silent simplicity opening, complete
My younger daughter took a few days off from work before Memorial Day, and one of her requests was that I take her as my guest to early morning member hours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which are on Thursdays from 9-10 am. I had told her and her sister about visiting the Winslow Homer exhibit that way.
One of her favorite places in the museum is the Zen Garden. It wasn’t open in the early hour, but even after the museum opened to the public at 10, we were able to visit without any crowding–it’s tucked away among the Asian art, and if you don’t know where to look, you probably only discover it by stumbling upon it. It’s a bright open empty room with a rocks and a koi pond with a waterfall on the edges.
I used to post about my museum visits a lot, and perhaps in the future I’ll do a post on the Homer exhibit and also the paintings of Louise Bourgeois which were inexplicably hard to find. We asked directions three times, and only found it by accident in the end. But that meant that only one other person was there so we could really look at the art.
The museum also has many wonderful doors and door-like structures, such as the tiled niche above.
My poem is in the Japanese imayo form, which consists of four 7/5 syllabic lines. There is a planned caesura (or pause) between the first 7 syllables and the final 5. Another feature of this form is that it makes three poems–the whole, and one each with the 7-syllable lines and the 5-syllable lines, similar to a cleave poem, except that somehow it seemed more natural to me and easier to construct. I’ve included the color blue for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday #tastetherainbow prompt.
You can read more about the enso here.
And, as always, find more doors with host Dan Antion, here.
unknowings (draw a bird day)
a motion so finely tuned
it vanishes
in a shiver of light,
appearing as a hush,
an exchange of intersections–
a motion so finely tuned
it enters your breath,
singing your weary bones,
infusing your tired blood
with heartbeats, dancing–
a motion so finely tuned
and completely useless
that it fills you with hope,
measureless and heartbreaking–
whirling you alive inside
a motion–so finely tuned
For the Kick-About #54, “Whirligig”, I made a bird mobile by adding sky and bird collage to three different sizes of wooden rings and hanging them together. It was hard to get good photos, but Phil cleaned up the ones I sent him to give a clearer idea of the mobile in motion.
Here it is flat. I have it hanging in my living room where the ceiling fan keeps it moving.
My poem is in the quatern form, except it doesn’t rhyme, using words from Merril’s random word list that she posted on Sunday. I was inspired by Rumi’s poem “Whirling”, and, of course, birds.
When you dance the whole universe dances.
All the realms spun around you in endless celebration.
Your soul loses its grip.
Your body sheds its fatigue.
Hearing my hands clap and my drum beat,
You begin to whirl.
Monday, June 6, 2022
Things are settling down here, I think. My husband is home, still has the oxygen, still coughing and fatigued, but he’s here and doing better. We took a walk yesterday and he wanted to do some grocery shopping, which tired him out. Right now he’s resting.
This piece is something a little different for me. The upper left image was cut out of another painting. Then I painted in the other two to look like that. I’m going to do more like this.
Have a good week! Nina
method two madness 
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