“We shall not cease from exploration; and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.”
– T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets: Little Gidding, ll. 239-42 • #8 in a series: 12 Sayings for Christmas 2014, aka One Liners I Have Learned From…
Rest Stop #4, oil and acrylic on canvas, 20″ x 74″ • collection of the artist. Started in the mid-80s while living in Portsmouth NH, this extrmely panoramic painting was revised, updated, significantly added to, and finally signed this past fall. The Janus figure on the left looks back at what’s left behind, out of sight, as well as to what’s ahead, also beyond vision. Photos of Rest Stop #1-3 plus some background chatter about their creation, are featured in a posting from December 5 last year.
To celebrate the New Year, some snapshots from bygone years and the picnics that brought family together, on the lawns behind the Cottage at Cole Farm, where Robert and Dorothy Cole lived with their children, my first cousins, Bob Jr., Gordon, Lib and Margie.
1947: Dorothy Tenney Cole was the photographer as well as the artist who hand-tinted this group shot from a family summer picnic that includes Dorothy’s two sisters Ruth and Eleanor, with their families of three children each; plus a few unfamiliar faces.
1948: A school picnic in which I recognize only four individuals: the little boy at front left is myself; cousin Lib is center back, just to the left of teacher Pauline Meserve, plus my aunt Charlotte at rear right.
1947: Another family picnic with just about everyone smiling for the photographer who remains unknown: Edeth “Ma” Cole, Lois Cole, Margie Cole, Charlotte Cole, Robert Cole Sr., Mary Waterhouse, Dorothy Cole, Lib Cole, Wally Cole, Bob Cole, Richard Cole, Ernie Hirschy, Helen Hirschy, and myself at right just about to crawl into the hammock that was beckoning me into its embrace.
1948: Dorothy Cole’s unposed portrait of her family picnicing in the back yard: Margie, Lib, Robert, Bob, and Gordon, all enjoying the benefits of lunching en plein air.
1948: Bob Cole Jr took this vertical family portrait vaguely reminiscent of the formality of Grant Wood’s American Gothic. Over the years I’ve noted very few vertical format snapshots from the various albums I’ve had access to. In my estimation this particular shot is a classic portrayal of New England endurance and Emersonian self-reliance.
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