Graceful Interplay – Wyeth Walk #36

Managed to sneak a walk into the sunshine as a break from non-stop writing today.  The music of Philip Aaberg and Chick Corea (songs from my upcoming April concert) was the perfect graceful backdrop for the crisp snow, deep mud, warm sunshine, soft air.  I managed to look up and be amazed at the ease with with these birds circled and soared, dancing with each other and the landscape below them, and yet probably not aware of their path – it unfolding gracefully under their wings.  I wonder how I might let musical lines of different instruments in a composition have their own graceful interplay like this.

The group of birds reminded me again of Andrew Wyeth’s Soaring – which had been painted on the back of masonite, used as a train table for his kids for 8 years, then resurfaced.  In an essay in Rethinking Andrew Wyeth edited by David Cateforis, Alexander Nemerov compares the imagery of turkey vultures circling above a homestead in the painting to that of World War II bombers.

February 28, Chester County PA, temp 28F