FEATURE ARTICLE

Artists on Winter: In Their Own Words

There ain't no use for the wintertime blues

O Winter, king of intimate delights,
Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturb'd retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted ev'ning, know.

-- William Cowper, "The Task"

Winterlude, Winterlude, my little daisy,
Winterlude by the telephone wire,
Winterlude, it's makin' me lazy,
Come on, sit by the logs in the fire.
The moonlight reflects from the window
Where the snowflakes, they cover the sand.
Come out tonight, ev'rything will be tight,
Winterlude, this dude thinks you're grand.

-- Bob Dylan, "Winterlude"

by Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Jan. 16, 1997)-- For hundreds if not thousands of years, poets have romanticized winter as a time of respite, sleep and death, as well as a time for inward pursuits. But when the rest of us ordinary slobs are faced with the grim reality of a frigid, gray, New England winter like the one we are in the midst of right now, how are we supposed to get out of bed and go about our everyday lives?

On the theory that artists and creative types are tuned into different frequencies from the rest of us, and that their highly-refined, wintertime coping mechanisms might be of some use to ordinary people, we spoke to about a dozen of them _ poets, painters, musicians, a dancer and a filmmaker, Berkshirites all _ in an effort to divine how artists themselves, who often rely on their environment and surroundings for inspiration, go about fending off this annual dose of darkness at the break of noon.

As you will soon see, the uniformity of their responses to our desperate queries for help and guidance was striking. For those with the ability to see beyond what the average person sees, winter is far from being a time of mournful desolation, emptiness of spirit and barren landscapes.

Winter is, as it turns out, a richly productive time for artists, when the creative harvests of summer and fall bear their greatest fruits. Far from being drab and colorless, a snowy landscape is rich with subtle shades of natural tones that are often overwhelmed by the gaudy brightness of summertime. And with the distractions of the Berkshires' frantic summer cultural life a distant memory, the serenity of the surroundings makes winter the most productive season for many local artists.

Ultimately, what these artists reveal is that the secret to surviving winter _ indeed, in thriving throughout the bleakest season _ is to see it in an entirely different light, both figuratively and literally. "If you look you can find and discover things you don't see in any other season," says landscape painter Mary-Sipp Green, summing up what appears to be the unlimited potential for inspiration in winter. Here is winter according to artists, in their own words:

Diana Gala, painter, Lenox: "I find that winter _ and especially the kind of winters we have here in the Berkshires _ is probably the best time for me to paint. I find that competing with Mother Nature in the summer is kind of hard to do. Winter gives me a perfect excuse to be indoors, stretch canvas and think about things I want to put on canvas. For me winter works wonders in that sense. It's an opportunity to actually put some work down that maybe you wouldn't have a chance to do other times of the year when there are so many distractions.

"It also helps to get out of here, to go away and get some sunshine. We're all ready for a short vacation _ a short break in February and March _ and a jolt of sun."

Larry Chernicoff, composer/musician, Great Barrington: "I think there's something very natural and organic about a period of the year where your attention is turned inward. I love winter. I think it's beautiful. When everyone else is complaining about the weather in February and March, I don't mind it. What I like to do is stay home with the fire going in the woodstove, stay warm, take a nap, and write music on the piano. Cook, make pancakes, make soup. Or go cross- country skiing.

"From an artistic point of view, one of the things that I've always had a special love for is the wind. I wrote a composition in second grade called `Why I Like Windy Weather.' And there are certain days when there are certain types of snow which reveal the motion of the air in ways that you cannot see at any other time. If you have light snow drifting around you can actually watch how air moves. That's one of the things as an artist I like about wintertime: it makes the invisible visible.

"The other thing I like about winter is there's no yard work to do."

Lawrence Raab, poet, Williamstown: "What I like to do is to make a fire around, say, four, and put some music on and read. I probably end up reading the magazines that have come in the mail, rather than poetry....I think the worst thing is feeling that you have to go out on the roads when it's terrible.

"I suppose the idea is to turn the necessity of being inside into a kind of coziness. For me what's more difficult is when you can't feel cozy like that, when it's terribly windy or mean outside."

Mary Sipp-Green, landscape painter, Stockbridge: "Winter for me has a very inward quality, something I find very appealing. It gives me a chance to explore ideas and to work in my studio. It creates this sort of space of time that is almost nourishing for a painter.

"While I don't paint winter landscapes _ that's not my season _ I still really like looking around in the winter. A lot of people don't realize there's a lot of color out there. It's just a lot more subtle.

Of course the skies can be full of color at sunset. And if it snows you get all those reflections. It creates a really magical world. I love the way snow transforms everything, gives you another world.

"After a snowfall, during the twilight, for a short amount of time, you can see a color blue you never see in nature at any other time. It's so unusual. It's at the end of the day, only for a short time. But it's really worth looking for it."

Olga Dunn, dancer/teacher, Great Barrington: "I'm running a school and a dance company. January could be a real letdown after the holidays. How do you pull yourself up by the bootstraps and feel positive about a momentum that started nicely in September but because of the holidays was interrupted?

"For the last six years we set up this fantastic artist-in-residence program. We get three or four or five out-of-town people to come in and completely take over for between two days and a week's time. Generally they set a piece. The younger students will watch rehearsals and get inspired. And they'll teach. Classes are open to the public as well as students. It's a fantastic influx of freshness. We are really buoyed up by that outside influence.

"So January is a month I look forward to. But if I didn't bring in those outside artists, January would absolutely be the pits. I couldn't walk into the studio. It would be unbearable. So lonely and winter-heavy."

Steven Masters, landscape painter, Williamstown: "Wintertime is a nesting time. There's a feeling of warmth, ironically. It's a time when you can collect thoughts and meditate on works in progress. For me it's quite a fruitful time. Summer's the gathering time for information, from a practical standpoint. But I paint in the winter, standing in the snow. I find that invigorating, because there's a limited palette. The atmosphere has less local color and more reflected color. You become more aware of the the warm grays and the cool grays, because the landscape has an abundance of grays.

"Sometimes I think there's almost too much light in the winter. I see a rainbow of colors in the snow. Anyone who paints white in a representational sense will include all the colors in it. If I mix just a little bit of red in the white and a little blue, or a light glow of yellow, and you put all that into your white, you get this luminosity that kind of supports the idea that light is all the colors of the rainbow, and so the whole thing glows. It's much more obvious in the winter, when we're blanketed with snow.

"Standing in snow and painting outside is exciting. Painting cold just isn't the same when you're not cold."

Janey Goldenberg, animator, Richmond: "The light change is definitely hard to deal with, the days being shorter. I think I usually function better when there's light. But the way to deal with winter is to embrace it. I do a lot of outdoor winter sports: downhill and cross- country skiing, sledding with the kids. When there's not snow and it's mud like it has been lately, it's depressing.

"But that snowy, idyllic New England look is inspirational. The other thing I like about it is it gives me the opportunity to do what I otherwise wouldn't do when the weather is beautiful. I cook a lot, make soups and bread. I do things I'd feel guilty about doing if it were gorgeous out. Sitting by the fire with the New York Times crossword puzzle just doesn't feel the same in July as in January."

Barbieo Barros-Gizzi, collage artist, Lenox: "I live in a tourist town and work at my day job a lot in the summer. The solitude of the winter affords me the time to do my own work.

"I don't ski or do anything outdoors. I watch the winter from the window. It's very picturesque, but I don't want to touch it. But I like the winter palette. It's really beautiful. Those colors, the grays, and whites and blues and purple shadows, the brown, they look so soft. Those are the colors I most prefer. They're the ones I dress in. The neutral tones.

"You look and see how the shadows are incredibly rich on the white snow and the brown branches. It's picturesque."

Bernice Lewis, singer-songwriter, Williamstown: "My recipe for winter is as follows:

(The author has never worn a pair of skis in his life, and vows never to do so until the day he dies. Nor does he enjoy skating, sledding, tobogganing or any outdoor, winter activities. Winter is, nevertheless, his favorite season, albeit one to be enjoyed inside, not out. "It's a womb thing," he says.)

[This article originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Jan. 16, 1997. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1997. All rights reserved.]

Seth Rogovoy
rogovoy@berkshire.net
music news, interviews, reviews, et al.

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