David Denny Nominated for the Pushcart Prize

Shanti Arts is delighted to announce that it has nominated David Denny for the Pushcart Prize for his story "Gravidation," which appeared in the spring 2014 issue of Stone Voices.

David Denny is the author of Fool in the Attic (Aldrich Press), Plebeian on the Front Porch (Finishing Line Press), and the forthcoming Man Overboard (Wipf & Stock). His poems and short stories have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Sand Hill Review, California Quarterly, Iodine Poetry Journal, Pearl, and The Sun. He holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Oregon and an M.A.T. degree from Fuller Theological Seminary. Denny is Professor of English at De Anza College and former editor of Bottomfish magazine. 

Read "Gravidation."

The Elements of Art

I recently started reading The Daily Book of Art, a collection of 365 short readings about lots of different facets of art. The first reading is about the elements of art—line, shape, texture, etc. I've seen these referred to as the building blocks of art, as if we use them one-by-one to put together a work of art. But I think art-making is largely intuitive; it's probably not all that common for an artist to consciously think about line and shape and texture while making art. These elements of art, however, come into play when we step back to review, analyze, or interpret a work of art. They give us a common language that helps us understand art.

The first entry in The Daily Book of Art says to imagine the elements of art as components of a visual language. Surely I've heard this before, but it jumped off the page today and made me ask myself: If the elements of art are a language, what is my art saying? 

This is one of my favorite images, taken a few years ago on the shore of a lake in northern Maine. Looking at it now and thinking about art as visual language, I can see that this image is saying quite a lot. If I focus on texture, I see gentle ripples on an otherwise calm water surface covered with a shroud of mist that contributes to the calm and gentle feeling of the scene. Then there is the clear horizontal line signifying the movement of the ducks from left to right, breaking the stillness of the water, creating a crease of evidence that stays for only a few minutes and then disappears. Then there is the rock, a critical part of this composition. Without the rock, this would be an entirely different image. The rock is the counterpoint, a hard and edgy shape amidst an ocean of soft mist and calm water.

So what is this image saying? I think it is saying something about the general state of stillness, a state unencumbered by passing thoughts and solid impediments. This image evokes such a state and honors it. But, somehow, putting this into words doesn't work all that well. The image says what I have to say so much better than the words. And the most amazing part is that I wasn't consciously thinking about this when I took the picture; rather, the scene resonated with me in a very strong way and I was drawn to preserve it. By making this picture, I used the elements of art to make a statement—one that can't as easily be said with words, at least not by me.

Listen

A person's too weak to trust his own head, she told him. When you're in trouble, she said, don't listen to what your mind says. Listen to the faint voices outside of yourself—stones rattling at the bottom of a creek, the rustle of leaves. There's messages out there if you know how to look. There's more meaning in an owl's cry than in a shelf full of Bibles. Watch what the fish are biting, study how a dog sleeps, remember where the dragonflies gather to drink from the mud. 

~ Vincent Louis Carrella, Serpent Box

Serpent Box: A Book with a Soul

Serpent Box, a novel by our own Vincent Louis Carrella, who writes a column for Stone Voices, has been on my reading pile for a few years now. Earlier this month, while getting ready to head out to spend a few weeks in the north Maine woods, I snatched it from its temporary resting place and put it in my bag. It was a great decision.

The book is a gem. I love a book with a soul, a book whose words wrap themselves around me in a tight embrace and won’t let go, a book that greets me in the morning while I’m sipping tea, and a book that provides me with my last thoughts before falling asleep for the night. Serpent Box has a soul. Here's a snippet:

Baxter once said that a man in the woods was about the purest thing there was in the world, and the closest he could come to knowing God. A man can never buy with money this thing that the Lord gave him for free, he said. That sense of awe and respect one derives from the trees and the earth and all things that dwell in between them. He told Jacob that poetry was all around him, in the grass and on the surface of the leaves, and that the Bible was full of good words designed to mimic what could never be written, but could sometimes be heard and always seen—the rising water, the falling rain, the rush of river and wind, the passage of cloud banks and great ruminant herds, buffalo and elk and the trailing packs of carnivores, both man and wild dog, wanderers all, in endless migration to the grasslands that feed them. He told them that magic is neither myth nor mystery but that which cannot be explained or understood—which is how the world was and should always be. There’s magic in a caterpillar, he told him, and in an acorn and behind the stars. His ancestors had understood this. They worshipped the forest as some white men worship God He had only come to know and love God through time spent in the woods . . . .

Christine Cote
Shanti Arts 

This Is Abstract Art

Still Point Art Gallery's current exhibition is Earth Water Fire Air: Our World in Abstract. Jamie McHugh received the award for Best Photograph for his image, Untitled #17 (2007).

Despite the title, you most likely see this photograph as a picture of a beach and a wave receding back into the ocean. Waves rush rapidly onto the beach, their height and intensity becoming smaller and smaller as they move along. Then, all of a sudden, they begin to recede, leaving traces of water sinking into the sand. This happens over and over and over, and you can sense this rhythmic activity in this image.

Jamie McHugh, Untitled #17 (2007)

But, this image doesn't look like the beach; it doesn't look like the ocean. The "sand" is too yellow, and the "water" is too blue.

So, imagine for a moment that this isn't a beach scene. With your eyes you see little more than color fields of deep yellow and sharp blue meeting up with one another, merging with one another, and a line of tension exists between them. In fact, yellow and blue are known as complementary colors—colors that, when placed next to each other, create strong contrast and serve to reinforce one another. You can see the contrast between these colors in this image, and you can see the way the colors support and even intensify each other. 

Now, try to see this image without your mind. How does the image make you feel? What experiences in your life does it remind you of? Are you the yellow part of this image or the blue? Put the image in motion and, with your body, feel the movement. Notice how you and the image interact. Notice how you and the image can become one. This is abstract art.

Christine Cote
Shanti Arts

Fall...What a Glorious Season

It's been a good summer...not too hot, not too terribly busy. Time to enjoy everything around me...my new puppy, my beautiful flowering shrubs, the mounds of ferns in the woods, family and friends. But summer in Maine always goes so fast. Spring doesn't seem to end until July 4th, and then by mid-August, the shadows are long, the leaves start turning, and the cicadas are buzzing in the trees—sure signs that fall is almost here. 

Today was a glorious day, the kind of day that ends with a warmth in your heart and a smile of contentment on your face. I got some editing done, worked in my yard pulling weeds and clearing out brush, wrapped some presents and made a cake for my friend whose birthday we will celebrate tomorrow, and sat on the deck answering email and watching my dogs chase each other around in the woods. It was warm, but not too hot, and there was a strong breeze coming out of the northeast that felt so good. I can't count the number of times I said, "It feels like a fall day."

Then, no coincidence, I'm sure, I pulled up the website of one of our artists, Susan Landor Keegin. Susan has exhibited her work numerous times at Still Point Art Gallery, and her work was featured in the summer 2014 issue of Still Point Arts Quarterly. I went to her site today to check the titles of a few paintings that will appear in our upcoming winter issue, and saw this lovely image...

Glorious fall, with its reds and golds, crunchy leaves, cool temperatures, and earthy smells. Pure delight. I easily imagine myself in this splendid landscape, enjoying it with every one of my senses and breathing it into my pores. Fall...what a glorious season. 

Christine Cote

Shanti Arts

Stone Voices Loses Theresa Sweeney

I just received word of the recent passing of Stone Voices columnist Theresa Sweeney. Her mother phoned to tell me that Theresa fell in her home and died from her injuries the next morning. 

Theresa Sweeney
1962 - 2014

A huge shock. A terrible loss. Indeed, the world has lost a voice of wisdom. Theresa's insights into the interconnections between art, nature, and spirit were truly remarkable, and she had a gift for communicating the secrets of these interconnections in a way that was clear and accessible. Her wisdom would sneak up and gently take hold of you while enjoying a story about her grandmother's garden, a trip to Wal-Mart, or paintings of teddy bears. 

Theresa wrote a column for Stone Voices from the very beginning of the publication's history in fall 2011. Her column always offered a powerful message tucked inside a simple, but eloquent, story. Though I never met Theresa in person, I could always feel her radiant personality and vibrant energy when I read her work. So, thinking about her many contributions to our publication over the past few years, I went through her columns and extracted a few paragraphs that I particularly like. Theresa will indeed be missed by the entire Stone Voices community.

----------------

from "Child's Play,"  Summer 2013

It amazes me that in Nature, though every being has a job, no creature appears to work, and yet everything is accomplished. 

from "True Colors," Fall 2013

I remember learning in grade school that when leaves change color they are actually reverting to their original hue. Trees decrease the green chlorophyll in their leaves as they begin to pull energy inward for the coming hibernation of winter. Contrary to what many believe, the vivid shades that hold us spellbound each autumn are really the true colors of leaves. 

The season of fall calls us to reflect upon our own true colors. Like trees, we spend a lot of internal energy creating an artificial chlorophyll-type mask of our own that hides our authentic nature. Many of us grow up feeling insecure in who we are, and in an effort to fit in we sadly stifle our uniqueness. We become attached instead to a false sense of self, dependent upon other people and things to define us. Just as our attention to trees is heightened each autumn when they show us their authenticity, other people's attraction to us is strengthened when we drop our facades and show them who we really are.

Trees have no problem taking self inventory each year and shedding that which no longer serves them. They know that new growth is just around the corner.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving we can be appreciative for the lessons learned and be assured that our letting go will become food for our own greater nourishment.

from "The Art of Patience," Spring 2014

While it may benefit us in certain areas of our lives, I do not believe patience is such a virtue when it comes to creative pursuits. In fact, I think it can actually thwart creativity. Your best art comes through you, not from you. When you start to feel the need to summon patience to pull you through, it's a signal that you are blocking the flow. When your art begins to stress you and you start criticizing it and noticing mistakes and flaws, when you start hating it and wishing it were something other than it is, when you feel the need for patience to persevere, you've hijacked the bus. You've fall our of sync with your muse. 

Art is a voyage of discovery. Leonardo da Vinci advised us: Do not be tethered to your expectations. By wanting something to be good, by desiring a particular result, we jeopardize what wants to have life. Artists must be cautious not to super-glue themselves to their initial vision, but rather to alway live in new beginnings. That way we leave the door open to all potential.

from "The Goldfinch and the Teddy Bear," Winter 2013

Life. Full of meaningless, random coincidences? I think not! There are signposts all along our path. Everything that happens has a purpose; everything that happens helps us in some way. Everything. Pay attention and see what magic unfolds.


Christine Cote
Shanti Arts

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

It is not colorful, it has no sweet flowery scent, and it can very easily be missed as one strolls through the woods, but the Jack-in-the-Pulpit is quite possibly my favorite plant. When I moved to Maine twenty years ago, I found a few of these interesting plants growing in my woods, and I have carefully transplanted, protected, and nurtured them so that I now have several dozen growing and blooming in my gardens and plenty more still in the woods behind my house.

I think of Jack-in-the-Pulpit as the quintessential New England wildflower, though I'm told it can be found as far west as Minnesota and as far south as Florida. It is most certainly a plant found in the moist coniferous woods of the northeast, much like two of my other favorites—the Trillium and the Lady's Slipper. But Jack is so adorable—the cute little guy standing tall in his pulpit covered with a stunning purple and green striped hoodie.

From Jack-in-the-Pulpit, edited by J. G. Whittier, 1884

Jack in-the-pulpit
 Preaches to-day
Under the green trees
 Just over the way. 

Squirrel and song-sparrow,
 High on their perch,
Hear the sweet lily-bells
 Ringing to church. 

Come, hear what his reverence
 Rises to say
In his low painted pulpit
 This calm Sabbath day.

Christine Cote
Shanti Arts

Genuine Silence

It took a long time this year for spring to arrive in northern New England. But, finally, it is here. The leaves are mostly out, the forsythia is in bloom, and a few hummingbirds have zipped by me while out in the garden.

When spring arrives, we head north to our cabin in the woods. Our cabin is near the end of a six-mile long dirt road, so we have to be absolutely certain that the mud has dried up before we start the trip. We’ve gotten stuck in the mud before, about half-way in, and had to walk the rest of way to get an ATV to go back to pull out the truck. You only do that once and the lesson is learned—wait until the end of mud season.

This year, we had no such trouble. We arrived at our cabin on May 23 for a long weekend. The weather was gorgeous and the pesky black flies, generally out thick on Memorial Day weekend, were still nowhere to be found.

So, on the morning of May 24, I stepped out the front door of our cabin to walk down to see the lake and I was immediately reminded of one of the most wonderful things about the woods up north. Silence.

C. B. Cote, Silence.

No traffic. No machinery. No voices. Nothing.

Silence—genuine silence—is hard to find. It’s not easy to get away from the sounds of society. But when you find it, it’s like experiencing cool water on a blistering hot day. Silence is refreshing, soothing, joyful. It feels unbelievably wonderful as it washes over you. Like water, silence flows over your body, following every curve and seeping into every pore. It surrounds you like a soft blanket.

Contrary to what we might be led to believe, silence is not nothing. Silence is not a lack of something . . . a lack of sound. Silence is something all to itself. Genuine silence can be felt. It is thick and full and rich. It is fresh and pure. Silence is life-giving.

“In some places, silence can be an emptiness that is paradoxically, full. You do not occupy this silence; it occupies you.”

Mark C. Taylor, Recovering Place

Christine Cote

Shanti Arts

Away by the Pond

I want to go soon and live away by the pond, where I shall hear only the wind whispering among the reeds. It will be success if I shall have left myself behind. But my friends ask what I will do when I get there. Will it not be employment enough to watch the progress of the season?

~ Henry David Thoreau

The Trouble With Thurber

Shanti Arts recently released Nothing But Trouble by the renowned master of the short story Bob Thurber. My first encounter with Thurber was when he submitted a short essay for Stone Voices titled “The Cheap and Gaudy Heart.” We published the piece in the summer of 2012. 

Oddly, rather mysteriously, some of us are more malleable than others. Implanted with some essential and ancient aptitude that we can take no credit for. I was fortunate, almost clever, not quite bright, but able to adjust. Like Siddhartha, I was able to fast, and think, and wait. I survived by my wits, gritting my teeth, taking my beatings, clutching my belly against hunger, determined to outlast one suffering event after another, constantly observing, studying every sting, every soreness. I learned as I burned. And I grew, and I adjusted (or maladjusted) but I endured.

As I learned more about Thurber from reading about him on Goodreads and various blogs, I was compelled to read his “dysfunctional novel,” Paperboy. It was a good decision on my part. The book grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. I read the book in one day; it’s short, so that’s not saying much, but I simply could not put the book down. When I would look up off the page for a moment, I just stared ahead, feeling numb and shaken, as if I’d been slapped in the face. Dark, gritty, raw, wrenching. I never knew there were people and situations like those I met in Paperboy. But now I know.

Thurber describes himself as an old (not true because he and I were born the same year), self-taught writer who grew up dirt poor in Rhode Island. He worked at writing every day for twenty years before submitting his work for publication. He went on to publish three hundred short fictions and collect more than forty awards and citations, including The Barry Hannah Fiction Prize, the Meridian Editors' Prize, and the Marjory Bartlett Sanger Award.

His stories are rough and tough, sometimes disturbing. Still, they’re hard to put aside. Something about his straightforward, succinct, and, dare I say, sincere writing style keeps you tethered to his work. I think it’s because his writing is true—not in the sense of being autobiographical—but in the sense that they germinate and grow from that place in him that remembers his difficult beginnings. His background is the breeding ground for his stories. So they are true, coming forth from his experiences, his difficulties, and, as he says, his ability to endure.

I’ve thought about this quite a lot—how traumatic and difficult experiences impact and shape our lives and our creative endeavors. Thurber works through his difficult life experiences by writing and churning out stories. Others paint or make photographs or act on stage or write poems. As a photographer, I am often asked for an artist statement, just as I ask for one from the artists whose work I feature on our website or in our publications. For the first several years of my work with photography, I rewrote my statement dozens of times. Then, one day it hit me. For me, it’s quite simple. I make photographs because it makes everything right. It helps me to make sense of the world. I think that’s what art is all about—making sense of what is happening to us and around us and in us. When an artist does this successfully, the work is true, not in the sense of being autobiographical, but in the sense of touching upon Truth, with a capital T.  

Thurber, with a capital T, is a successful writer. His work uncovers some difficult parts of humanity, but, in his own wonderful way, his work makes sense of the world. Maybe it’s because buried deep within his dark and difficult tales, there is hope. And hope is what makes everything right.

Nothing But Trouble

Stories by Bob Thurber
Images by Vincent Louis Carrella 

$22.95  |  ISBN: 978-0-9885897-6-6 

available at www.shantiarts.com, 
most online booksellers, 
and many fine bookstores

Christine Cote
May 4, 2014

My Heart Rests on A Drawing Lesson

It finally felt a bit like spring yesterday. The temperature was near fifty and there was no wind, so it felt warm and hopeful. There is still quite a lot of snow and ice in our yard. It softens and melts a bit during the day, and then freezes hard during the night when temperatures fall below freezing. But there was a promise of spring yesterday, and I took some time to enjoy it.

I made a trip to Portland to run some errands and see the exhibit Fine Lines: American Drawings at the Portland Museum of Art. The exhibit features one hundred drawings from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum. In this era of color and multi-media creations, we don't often have the chance to look at drawings made simply of graphite or charcoal on paper. 

My favorite was A Drawing Lesson (1865) by Constantine Hertzberg. The museum provided magnifying glasses with which to look at the pieces, and I used one to examine and admire this beautiful piece. The subject is charming. The detail and technique is spectacular. The composition is perfect—notice how the large lush tree with all of its precisely-drawn leaves reaches around the top right of the scene and shelters the three people during their lesson; on the opposite corner, the stone walkway leads the viewer to the top of the ledge on which the women sit for their lesson; the focal point is the outstretched arm of the gentleman meeting the upward look of the woman, and this gesture guides the viewer to look at the bright background scene that the women are presumably drawing. The scene is genteel. The execution is dazzling. On a day when spring was in the air, this piece felt utterly delightful. 

On another day, I might have been entranced by something entirely different, perhaps something minimalist in execution or something abstract. The exhibition has tremendous variety. But on this day, my heart found a resting place with A Drawing Lesson. I think I might have to return to see what my heart enjoys on another day.

Christine Cote

April 4, 2014

 

A Beautiful Surprise

Robert D. Richardson, author of Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind, said of Thoreau: "He always insisted that his whole life was one of extraordinary luck, and he could have said, as Picasso did of a similar life, 'I do not seek, I find.'"

I do not seek, I find. For a long time, I had these words scrawled on a piece of paper that was pinned to the bulletin board above my desk. The greatest things in my life haven't been things I looked for, they were things I stumbled upon. What I provided was the willingness to see them and draw them into my life. It would have been so easy to pass them by, but my passion for discovery and my drive to not be limited by what is possible led me to places and opportunities that have shaped and defined me. Some times I feel as if I move along on a kind of moving walkway, never knowing what lies ahead, always being surprised, and, like Thoreau, feeling that every moment is one of extraordinary luck. 

In the current issue of Stone Voices (Spring 2014), columnist Vincent Louis Carrella writes about the beautiful surprise. "I'm not looking for anything in particular, only the fascinating discovery I've come to call the beautiful surprise." With camera and notebook, Carrella takes off on vision quests, walking through nature, listening, watching, waiting, discovering. His camera bears witness to his discoveries; it documents the gifts that present themselves. Carrella knows too that his life is one of extraordinary luck, for he sees himself as a " . . . child watching God's magic show, an endless array of jaw-dropping tricks."

Choose not to seek. Choose to find . . . a beautiful surprise.

Read Carrella's entire column here.

Christine Cote, Publisher and Editor

Shanti Arts Publishing

Patience, Why?

Over the years I've made a number of quilts. I learned about quilts when I lived in Indiana, and I quickly discovered that the whole process was more enjoyable and relaxing when done without a sewing machine. So I starting making quilts by sewing all the pieces together with nothing but a needle, thread, and a thimble, and then I stitched the pieced top to the batting and the back—again entirely by hand. Obviously, it took a long time to complete a bed-size quilt, but, for whatever reason, getting it done quickly wasn't the point. For me, I loved the process. 

One day someone was looking at my work and said, "I would never have the patience to do something like this." The comment confused me; it didn't make sense. I never thought that I needed patience to make these pieces entirely by hand. And now, thanks to Theresa Sweeney, columnist for Stone Voices, I understand why the comment didn't make sense to me. 

In the spring 2014 issue of Stone Voices, Sweeney begins her column, "The Art of Patience," like this:

As an artist I work in all media, but drawing with pen and ink has always been my first love. When people look at my intricate and detailed images, they often say, "Wow, I would never have the patience to do something like that!" I tell them that it really has nothing to do with patience. Patience is what you need when you're standing in line at the register and the salesclerk calls for a price check for the woman in front of you . . . . Times like those are when you need to willfully summon restraint to cope with the gap between what is happening and what you wish were happening. 

So I understand now why the comment about patience didn't make sense to me; patience is not what's needed when making art. In fact, Sweeney says that if you need patience when engaged in an artistic endeavor, walk away. It's quite possible that you are tethered to your expectations, fixated on the outcome. 

Art is a voyage of discovery. Leonardo da Vinci advised us: Do not be tethered to your expectations. By wanting a certain outcome we jeopardize what wants to have life. We endanger the passion and joy and flow of the process—and that is art. 

Hope: The Last to Die

Sometime last week I received in the mail a complimentary copy of Indie Spiritualist: A No Bullshit Exploration of Spirituality. I've been spending a bit of time every evening watching the Winter Olympics, but I still have to have a book in my hands, and this seemed like a good choice.

The work of Chris Grosso, the book starts like this:

"Hope, it's the last to die," said an elderly man sitting across from me some years ago on a bus in Rome at 2:00 AM. He'd just read the word hope tattooed across my knuckles, and I have to say that, in my own personal life experience, man, was he right. Life is full of terror and beauteous rapture, and I've experienced both on numerous occasions. From a life filled with despair, jail, emergency rooms, detoxes, and rehabs, to one of hope.

C. B. Cote, Beyond (8)

Hope . . . I remember telling a therapist many years ago that I had a lot of hope and a good amount of faith, but I struggled with love. I've always been very hopeful . . . an optimist, a dreamer, focused always on what is possible, fully convinced that good will always overcome evil and light will always pierce the darkness. During the very lowest point of my life, when I found myself gripped by the emotional and physical pain of depression, I still had hope; the darkness was thick and dense, but I could sense a tiny, dim light. Eventually the light grew stronger and I was restored to full life. From my experience, I have to agree—hope is the last to die, perhaps because without hope, we would die.

In this way, hope is like art. Without it, we have nothing. It occurs to me that art may actually be a physical manifestation of hope, and hope, I now realize, is what I manifest every time I work as an artist; hope, I now realize, is what I feel every time I connect with art. Art centers us, holds us in the moment, and in that moment, with everything else have fallen away, we experience hope.  

The Big Picture

I'm captivated by small things in the natural world—leaves, seedlings, flower buds, snowflakes, tiny baby birds pointing their wide open mouths toward the sky. I watch them, examine them, touch them, collect them, and photograph them. But I'm also mesmerized by the big picture, the part of the natural world that I can't get my arms around—the landscape. Landscapes may well be my favorite subjects for art.

So I decided to show landscapes (see our current exhibition), but with a little bit of a twist—landscapes by day and landscapes by night. The exhibition is wonderful—many amazing images of the world by day and by night. A few need special mention, and I'll talk about some of these special images over the coming weeks. (The exhibition closes April 30, 2014.)

The nighttime landscapes of photographer Bob Avakian are nothing short of stunning. They illuminate the unique color palette, the rich shadows, and the glowing warmth of the night. These landscapes do indeed show a part of the natural world that is big—too big to get your arms around, but not too big to sink into and absorb into your pores. Look at these images and be mesmerized.

Winter Blues

Living in Maine, I truly have the opportunity to enjoy the seasons, and in Maine, we have more than just the traditional four seasons. We have spring, summer, fall, and winter, but we also have mud, bug, fishing, tourist, lobster, harvest, hunting, shrimp, shoveling, and sledding. They each have their unique characteristics and customs and . . . colors. Yes, colors. 

I associate each of the seasons with certain colors. Staying with the traditional seasons, I associate fall with orange and rust, gold and deep red. I connect spring with green, the kind of green seen in new leaves and fresh grass. Summer, for me, is bright, hot, blazing red . . . an uncomfortably hot red. And winter, my favorite season, is blue.

There is a kind of blue we see in winter when everything is covered in mounds of pure white snow, the sky is clear, and the sun has just set. Dusk settles in, and a beautiful blue cast fills the atmosphere  . . . spreading out like a blue fog. I know blue is considered a cool color, but, for me, blue has a way of adding warmth to the cold of winter. 

Still Point Art Gallery's current show is Winter Splendor. Here are a few of my favorite images from the show that feature the beautiful color of blue. (Be sure to see the entire show before it closes on January 31, 2014.)

The High Peaks, Eleanor Goldstein

Morning Frost, Leslie Parke

Northern Lights, Bob Craig

Winter Cold, Marie Dancy-Brennan

Snow and Ice Floes on the River, Michael Welch

The River Rests in Winter, Margruite Krahn

Sea Smoke and Ice, Dave Clough