Boxing Day

Some views of the golden slice of ochre in the field across from my home in Connecticut.

Currently listening to Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens, reading Jane Austen, fighting wanderlust, and looking forward to the hope in a new year.

Winter days are short, and my thoughts are long.





Boxing Day*
watercolor, salt, and silk thread on graph paper and Japanese rice paper
4 x 6"

Boxing Day Studies
watercolor and salt on graph paper
3.25 x 2.75" (L) 4.5 x 2.75" (R)

*I should note that Boxing Day is celebrated the day after Christmas, so this post refers to the pieces, not the date. Just to clarify.

copyright Kate Castelli 2008

To you and yours...

I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December,
A magical thing
and sweet to remember.

(Oliver Herford)

Winter Solstice

*I beg your pardon, to indulge me in a small philosophical trip.

(whatever comes before one)
You said there was no script for this. Until now I just didn’t realize how true that was.

(one)
Several weeks ago I was sitting at a cafe and a man asked me what I did. "I'm an artist," I answered. He seemed to contemplate this for a moment and then he asked me, "What are you starving for?" I had no answer. I'm sure he meant to be witty and not philosophical, but the question has been simmering in my skull for weeks.

(two)
I dreamt of polaroids the other night. I dreamt that I was following a trail of polaroids like breadcrumbs to an unknown destination. I woke up before I got there.

(three)
Tuesday. I was wandering around Fort Point in Boston. It was an exquisitely grey day, a day when the wind cut through your coat, a day you could feel in your bones. As I was standing on the bridge overlooking the channel I was suddenly and acutely aware that I was alive.

(four)
I have felt utterly and completely lost lately. How do you get from A to B? I don’t know. But it has recently occurred to me that perhaps it does not matter how you get to B. There is no answer. There is only getting up in the morning.

(five)
I used to like to walk up the middle of Mass. Ave at night, teetering on the median that divides the road. The cars blurred to a stream of light on either side of me. There is an elegant fluidity to the motion and the light and the indifference of the city.

(six)
I am wearing out the heels of my cowboy boots. This really has nothing to do with anything except for the fact that I wander a lot.

(seven)
I will find my own way.


Five Squares per Inch
ink and bleach on graph paper with hand-stitching
4.6 x 6.5"

copyright Kate Castelli 2008

You are here

How do you get from A to B?

Run

Pages VII and IX (Run)
enamel on paper with my regards to Eadweard Muybridge
7 x 5.5 " opened


copyright Kate Castelli 2008

The Rolling Stones

Anyone who knows me particularly well knows my love of the Rolling Stones.

I have been listening to them since I was a little kid, but it was only later in my life that I truly began to understand and appreciate what the Stones are really about. They don't apologize for who they are or who they were. They are as much a story as they are history, as much myth as they are men.

I've had the privilege of seeing these living gods of rock and roll in concert. Say what you will about their age or their habits or their history, but the moment they set foot on stage it is alchemy. You can see their souls, They become the myth of themselves, they become the music.

I've been nosebleed and I've been front row. And I can honestly say that every time I've seen them, I become utterly lost in the moment, in the music. It's not just a concert, it is a spectacle and it is beautiful moments. I remember when I saw them in Paris, after a particularly boisterous version of She Was Hot, all the lights dimmed and the big screens went dark, and Mick walked out on the catwalk with a guitar and a single spotlight. He proceeded to play a stripped down version of Waiting on a Friend that nearly brought me to tears.

I'm often asked what my favorite Stones song is. The truth is, I don't have one. I have many. I have some I love for the lyrics, some I love for the moments that they remind me of, some I fell in love with after hearing them live, some I merely loose myself in.

I know it's only rock and roll, but I like it.

But in the spirit of my frequent posting of playlists, I offer you a selection of my favorite songs (and the album you can find them on):

1. You Got the Silver Let it Bleed
2. Sway Sticky Fingers
3. Moonlight Mile Sticky Fingers
4. Slipping Away the Stripped version
5. Play With Fire Out of Our Heads
6. Sympathy for the Devil Beggar's Banquet
7. Rock's Off Exile on Main Street
8. Beast of Burden Some Girls
9. Star Star Goat's Head Soup
10. You Can't Always Get What You Want Let it Bleed
11. Wild Horses Sticky Fingers and for a gut wrenching version, Stripped
12. Dead Flowers Sticky Fingers
13. Can't You Hear Me Knocking Sticky Fingers
14. Waiting on a Friend Tattoo You
15. Ruby Tuesday Between the Buttons
16. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction Out of Our Heads
17. Ventilator Blues Exile on Main Street
18. Monkey Man Let it Bleed
19. Gimme Shelter Let it Bleed
20. Child of the Moon B-Side to Jumpin' Jack Flash

The above photographs were taken at Stade de France in Paris le 16 Juin 2007. Front Row... in Paris. I will remember until the day I die. I am one lucky girl.

It's Only Rock and Roll

I've lived my life in my own way and I'm here because I've taken the trouble to find out who I am. (Keith Richards)

Happy Birthday to Keith Richards. As the man himself says at every concert, "It's good to be here, it's good to be anywhere."

So play some Rolling Stones today ("You've Got the Silver" from Let it Bleed is my favorite Keith track) and toast the man who will probably outlive us all.

I know it's only rock and roll, but I like it.


A Guitar for Every Single Day of the Week (Except Monday)
pen and ink, sketchbook page
approx. 4.25 x 9 "

copyright Kate Castelli 2008

Lost

I have never felt so completely and utterly lost in my entire life.

Full Moon

The moon last night made me stop and pause. It was magnificent. The night sky always has the ability to make me feel insignificant in the grander scheme of the universe. The stars are humbling.


December Moon
ink, bleach, gouache and hand-stitching
4 x 6"

copyright Kate Castelli 2008

For Tom

Page V (for Tom)
from the Moleskin sketchbook
ink, china marker, and type on graph paper
3.5 x 5.5 "

copyright Kate Castelli 2008

Moleskin

We had written our history without leaving room to edit.


Page II and III
first spread from the Moleskin sketchbook which arrived in the post on Monday for the Sketchbook Project Volume III
7 x 5.5" opened

copyright Kate Castelli 2008

Recipe

Recipe for New Music

Take the turtles.
Place them on the keys of the piano.
Carefully, now.
Carefully.
Wait.
Wait for years.
Wait for decades.
Turtles live a very long time.

Wait, and the music will come.

Is that it?
Is that the new music?
Perhaps.

(Ian McMillan)
from "Ideas Have Legs: Ian McMillan vs. Andy Martin" 2006

photo taken at my favorite farm stand near my hometown in Connecticut, the greenhouse stands idle and cold in winter

Euclid

Separation

You absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its colour.

W.S. Merwin (b. 1927)
from New Poems on the Underground



Euclid
ink and bleach on vintage paper
4 x 7.75 "

copyright Kate Castelli 2008

Treasure (trash)

I like fragments and pieces and bits found on the ground and in between the pages of books and such.

I like leftover and forgotten things.

Here is a very random selection from my collected files of the aforementioned things. I have much more. Much, much, more.

(I would give anything for some Tim Tams right now.)