Sunday, October 14, 2012

Curtis Wilson Cost - A Magpie Tale

Midnight Snack - Curtis Wilson Cost, 1984
This image is available as a Miniature Print. Matted Minis are $25. Matted Minis signed by the artist are $49. Matted Minis framed in fine Hawaiian Koa (8 x10) are $85.

Curtis Wilson Cost: "I am a night person. I paint late into the night, just like my father. Either of us can call at 1:00 in the morning and know that the other is probably involved in some captivating project. It might be a gene pool thing.

"It's very serene in the early morning. Those quiet late-night hours are very conducive for getting focused and going with it. Paintings like Midnight Snack are one of the more obvious rewards of such a life style."

"My work is about place and timelessness. I've been living and painting on Maui most of my life. Rural Hawaii is my subject matter. My work has become an archive of the island over the decades as Maui has grown. These paintings are my way of preserving the old Maui through a rendering of the way it once was, and the way it remains underneath the surface of change."

Curis Wilson Cost

Works for a living
in soft color and yearning,
a money machine
island up country
near the steep volcanic slopes
in the rainy light.

When I visited
Maui I wanted to stay
like Jim Nabors did,
so many others,
and I went there twice, smitten,
a true double take.

October 14, 2012 10:12 AM

9:40 PM - I am not that happy with my poem. Here's another inspired by Tin and Rust found on Writing Without Paper:

Waiting For The Dawn

At the outskirts
a shack roofed with rusted tin
(Of course ferrous, not
really tin there but
we say tin don't we)and in
the window I see
your shift taking place
from my love to black raven
waiting for the dawn.

October 14, 2012 8:49 PM

Produced for participation on The Mag, the creative writing site established and managed by my colleague, Tess Kincaid

10 comments:

  1. I like this - soft color and yearning ~ A lovely place to be ~

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  2. Yes,once you are in any of his landscapes, it must be impossible to leave again.

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    1. Maui was remarkable in the late eighties and probably even better before that. You had to go four wheel drive to get all the way around the edge of the island both the north coast road around Puu Kukui and the south coast road around Haleakala.

      The helicopter tour of Haleakala was spectacular. And on the slopes of Haleakala it is high enough and dry enough that you get snow at the coldest part of the year. Poinsettia is often just a weed. Also on the slopes of Haleakala, cows and .... cowboys. The northeast end of the island nearly drowns in the weather and so that part is jungle, but Molokini is in the Haleakala rain shadow and so are the southwest slopes. Molokini island is desert and so is the Haleakala crater because the crater rim is higher than the clouds. Thus Wailea is one of the choice locales, blessed by the dry though Kihei just a little north is not so choice because it is square in the valley made by the land between both volcanoes and is then considerably wetter.

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  3. "From love to black raven"...hmmm...how different things look by night.

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  4. This is a double treat...actually, a triple...and who can resist the raven? Lovely...

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  5. I love the ideas of 'soft colour in the rainy light', the 'rusty tin roof' and -the 'waiting for the dawn'. Beautiful imagery. Thank you for sharing, Christopher. =D

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  6. This has put a bit of iron in my soul, thanks Chris

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    Replies
    1. Interesting. I presume we say "corrugated tin roof" because it once was true or something like that, or because it is such thin metal. The corrugations are for strength across the surface, making the sheet support itself far more than it would as a flat piece. On the other hand, on edge it will fold up rather easily while as a flat sheet it turns into a knife blade being so thin.

      If you support beneath in short enough spans, then people can walk on a corrugated roof, but you can support it sufficiently with a lot less if you don't need it to carry concentrated loads of 350# or so.

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  7. Enjoyed the double dip! And the info about the artist.

    =)

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The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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