Imagekind Gallery Bits_and_Pieces

Peace Shines

© 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

To paraphrase John Lennon:
All we are saying is give peace a chance
and we'll all shine on
like the moon and the stars and the sun.

All I Own

© 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

the poverty of words

life’s stripped me bare
left me naked to the world
without a thing to my name
but these words
words are my only currency
with which to barter for what is necessary
to my existence

i live in a tent of words
jumbled and tossed
and needing constant rearrangement
to keep wild dogs
from devouring me

words are what i clutch
to my skin
hoping they’ll disguise
my frailties and flaws
my lack of all that is valued
in the marketplace
too often they abandon me
leaving me exposed
with nothing to offer

i am impoverished
a pauper
unfitted for anything
but the exchange of thought
and feeling
and we all know
what that’s worth
in the eyes of a world
where everyone scrambles
for position and place
and to hell with tired sincerity

i am bereft of all those intangibles
i so desire
for the value of words is small
when one cannot demonstrate
their true beauty
in a life face to face
© 2013 RC deWinter

Morning Fix

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Almost all my middle-aged and elderly
acquaintances, including me, feel about
25, unless we haven't had our coffee, in
which case we feel 107. ~ Martha Beck

Hanging On

© 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

call me pandora

i was greedy
and curious and willful
i wanted it all
i opened that box
out flew lies out flew death
out flew everything
no one in their right mind would want

now i sit
in the autumn of my life
clutching that box
that holds my birthstone
and only my birthstone
an amethystine shimmer
that is my only treasure

i cling to life
on a slender thread
called hope
as a sapless leaf
catches on to a spiderweb
to avoid falling
to its death
© 2013 RC deWinter

Thanks to Terry Travers for the photo
from which this is painted.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated
to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

My Thinking Chair

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

My Thinking Chair

There’s no thinking to be done in the jangle of the world;
the shrilling of the phone, the proselytizer at the door,
the overfull laundry basket speaking in a reproachful voice
give the mind no peace.

No, true thought requires silence.

There is a special place I go to think,
the only place I truly can, apart from that monstrous bed
that yawns empty and cold each night when I,
exhausted from the worries of the world,
throw myself into that waiting despair.
But the thinking done there stems from the well of anxiety,
not the calm and reasoned introspection that fosters understanding.

So, when I must puzzle out this tangle of my life,
I seek the clearing in the wood where awaits my chair,
battered by exposure to the elements but yet enduring,
much like the spirit that finds no peace neither in the day to day
nor in the claustrophobic grip of lonely nights.
In the familiar embrace of that rough wood I sit
and close my eyes –
knowing the sun is still shining, the earth still spins,
my heart still beats –
and think thoughts if not deep, at least meaningful to me.
© 2011 RC deWinter

Digital oils; taken from an original photograph shot
in Haddam, Connecticut, October 2011.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated
to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Farmhouse Fruit and Flowers

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A vintage enamel coffeepot, a glass pitcher filled with dried roses
and a wooden bowl of nectarines sit on a placemat on a table
by a window in an old farmhouse kitchen in Wisconsin.

The Pearl and the Promise

© 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

I Wear No Man's Ring

I wear no man’s ring,
Not one has sworn his fealty to me
Nor offered more than casual concern,
Nothing beyond the offhand written word.

I wear no man’s ring.
A universe abounds within my soul
But having no manifest destiny
Is doomed to turn and feed upon on itself.

I wear no man’s ring.
No voice greets my arising to the day
Nor folds itself, soft, round my tired mind
As down in gray sleep I surrender.

I wear no man’s ring.
The freedom found is lonely company
For one who yearns to clasp another close
And thus entwined be freer than alone.

I wear no man’s ring.
A plainsong chant accompanies my days
As, wrapped in my indifferent cloak of form
I silently negotiate the hours.

I wear no man’s ring.
The calendar bears naught but emptiness
The days slip down so tasteless on the tongue
That cries for salt and savor, spice and sweet.

I wear no man’s ring.
A silver circlet crownèd with a pearl
Adorns my finger, solitarily,
Its satin surface mirroring the void.

I wear no man's ring.
© 2011 Regina Coeli deWinter

And now that ring is taken from my hand as well.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated
to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

There's a Key Here Somewhere

© 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Unlocking

"Tell me what's inside your heart," you wrote,
so I went hunting for the key to that neglected vault:
repository of old hurts, old loves, old lives, old dreams,
perfect hiding place for guilt and fault.

Reservoir of secret hopes,
ofttimes flooded o'erfull by streams of tears:
enough to float all happiness away,
stranded, drifting in a sea of years.

Hunt I did, in every dusty nook,
looked high and low in all the chambers of my weary soul:
each sealed room, each spiraled stair, each twisting endless hall,
that damnably elusive key my goal.

One dim map, one battered candle frail,
nothing breaking clumsy fall, a flight:
so steep a drop, but in that darkness lay,
so long abandoned, my heart's key, once bright.

Take the key, unlock my fragile heart,
together we'll discover what has long been sleeping there:
revealing each layer, lying close upon another,
tightly packed, no room to move, no air.

Out pours passion, out pours pain,
out pours need, pain's brother in arms:
an overwhelming gush of bitter juice,
which only Love can heal with its charms.
© 1997, renewed 2012 RC deWinter

Captive in Stone

© 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

The Carvery

I can’t blame you.
I climbed up on that table by myself,
knowing you held knives,
full aware of your skill.
Here I lay, eyes wide open
as you inspect me critically,
calculatingly, cold-bloodedly,
before running the tip of a blade
delicately – though you disclaim that art –
from jaw to hipbone,
never breaking open a single epidural cell
but marking with your practiced eye
the line that you will flitch.
I will not flinch.
I knew what I signed on for.
You need the nourishment
so carve away.
I won’t complain,
even as you toss aside
the parts you need the most,
consuming only those bits
easily digested.
© 2013 RC deWinter

Detail from the exterior of the archway bridge across High Street in New Haven, Connecticut, connecting the original Yale Art Gallery (Louis Kahn, 1953) to the expanded section in Street Hall, (Peter Wight, 1864).

On a Rustic Kitchen Table

Love Among Chaos

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

love among chaos

like a tree uprooted i topple sideways,
crashing to the reality of unforgiving earth.
limbs cracked have nothing on the shattering of the soul
as one is ripped from the harsh but familiar comfort
of one’s grounding.
lying stunned as cold sunshine gives way to sullen rain
i look up and see that phantom, love,
dangling not so far above me but tantalizingly
out of reach.
i am worthy! i will win you! i cry as determination floods in,
filling cracks and fissures as, fixing myopic gaze
upon that teasing shade i rise,
battered but not beaten,
ready to replant my roots in this new ground.
© 2012 RC deWinter

Stigmata

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

My Vocation

Sometimes I think I should have been a nun,
A simple sister telling beads and praying on her knees,
Estranged from life, from sun to setting sun,
A bride of Christ, protected, safe from dark and windswept seas.

Behind the veil, imprisoned in a cell,
My rage and lust for life contained within those cloistered walls,
No worldly taint to point the path to hell,
My senses filled with holy grace, immune to satyrs' calls.

But in my heart I know this vision false,
A wish to obviate all choice, to abdicate my needs.
With outstretched arms I dance the Devil's waltz,
And wear, vainglorious – instead of telling – all my beads.
© 1997, renewed 2011 RC deWinter

Hitchcock Chair in the Corner

© 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

This beautifully-crafted Hitchcock chair sits in a quiet front corner of the bar at The Yankee Pedlar Inn in Torrington, Connecticut. Built in the grand Victorian Gilded Age style of 1891, there was no other accomodation in the state that rivalled its luxury at the time. Orignally called Conley's, Frank and Alice Conley spent $40,000 - a fortune in those days - on the decor, which featured marble floors, oak furniture antiques, two dining rooms and 52 guest rooms, each equipped with hot water. The inn changed hands several times over the years and was finally reopened as The Yankee Pedlar Inn in 1940. There are several ghost stories attached to this venerable lodging, the most popular of which is that Alice Conley, rumored to have died in Room 353, still wanders the halls of her hotel, checking to see that all the guests are comfortable. Her rocking chair in the inn's lobby has also reportedly been seen rocking on its own, with no occupant visible.

Old Firepit by the Pond

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

I stumbled across this abandoned firepit at sunset while exploring a rural area of Middletown, Connecticut the day after Hurricane Irene went through in early September 2011. Imagine the tales it could tell.

The Answer

© 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

The Answer

It was deep into the wee small hours;
I found no rest.
Awakening again and again,
vague voices roamed my brain,
half-formed questions floated
in and out of consciousness.

In frustration I arose,
throwing off warm blankets,
standing naked in the winter chill
of my solitary chamber.

Wrapping in a robe
I padded through the unlit rooms, and,
knowing I would burn in the bitterness
of the black New England night,
stepped out.

The sky was washed with clouds
but off to the west I saw my Mother Moon.
Lifting my voice to the sky I called to her.

“Tell me – is it worth it?
Is the pain to bring reward
or only ashes of a promise?”

I waited, watching my frosty breath
dissolve and fade
just as well all do
in the end.

And then, not with my ears
but deep inside my frail being
I heard her voice,
my Mother Moon,
filtered through the warp and weft
of time and space
and my belief
in the true old ways of knowledge.

Just one word at first: “Yes.”
I waited, skin chilled to stone.
And then again: “Yes.”
Then silence.

I turned, thinking her wisdom finished.
And then it came,
resonating so that I trembled with its power:
“The answer is always YES.”

Now reassured, half-smiling in the dark,
I went back to my bed
and slept a sleep I had been needing
for a long long time.
© 2013 RC deWinter

Rough and Ready for Love

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

And if you’re rough and ready for love
Honey I’m tougher than the rest.
~ from Tougher than the Rest,
Bruce Springsteen

Virtuoso

Boardwalk Bikes

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Bicycles rest easy on the boardwalk at Asbury Park,
New Jersey during the Bamboozle Festival in May 2012.

Harvest of the Unborn

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird:
it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to
learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are
like eggs at present. And you cannot go on
indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg.
We must be hatched or go bad. ~ CS Lewis

First Date

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

ships passing

I know what you want
and as Zimmerman said a lifetime ago –
when we still owned our souls,
when the future was ours –
it ain’t me, babe...

you lipservice the virtues
and downplay the shell but come on!
I’ve seen where you live,
I’ve seen what you drive –
and this rough rock, untumbled,
doesn’t fit into that daydream.

you need the flawless stone
of urban perfection
the polished nails,
the saloned hair subtly highlighted every month,
the gymnastic thighs of an eighteen-year-old,
the mind of a Venetian courtesan
and the heart of all-forgiving mother.

pass me by quickly in my faded jeans –
nails clipped for the strings,
hair untouched by any hands but mine,
strong thighs supporting an innocent mind
and the heart of a lover –
as I riffle the deck and out drops
the King of Hearts,
who’s then blown away by a swift vagrant breeze.
© 2001, renewed 2012 RC deWinter

The Gift

© 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

The Gift

The package that you sent arrived today,
My eager fingers tore the tissue off,
And there inside the careful wrapping lay
Your heart – so unimaginably soft.

How brave of you to send it all this way
Not knowing certain what its fate might be!
The gift you give means more than I can say,
Would my heart in return speak clear for me?

And do you have the wish to willingly
Hold close my heart forever and a day,
As I will hold yours – gently, faithfully –
Until the last stars fade and fall away?
© 2013 RC deWinter

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated
to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

The Cooperage Draw Knives

Copyright 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Wood shavings litter the floor and antique draw knives, used for debarking wood and curved carpentry, sit in a barrel in the cooper's workshop at Mystic Seaport, Connecticut.

Heartbloom

© 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Theft

You stole something of mine
and I want it back.
You nicked it when I wasn’t looking
and hid it in a trunk you never open.

I know you took it just because you could
and not because you think it precious.
It’s no way fair to keep it prisoned,
a butterfly pinned in a box,
fluttering feebly as the iridescence fades
from frail wings of promise.

You’re going to make me beg, aren’t you?
All right, I’m a fool
and no one knows it better than I.

I’m on my knees.
Give it back.
Give it back.
I have no strength for standing.
I want my heart back, please,
and I want it now.
© 2013 RC deWinter

Leaving New York

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Detail of the George Washington Bridge that crosses the Hudson River from New York to New Jersey.

Alll Danced Out

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free. ~ Rumi

Artist's Soul

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

artist’s soul

sitting here watching evening’s curtain fall,
my thoughts turn far inward.
i brood on wornout clichés:
why am i here?
what is my purpose?

there are no answers to these questions that haunt me,
at least none that have been revealed to me.
i ask them again and again, however,
because by all rights i should have been dead,
mangled and bloody, two years ago on the highway.
yet here i am, walking and talking,
but without a clue as to why i’m alive
when the person i loved most is not.

on sunny days, when things are going right,
i know who i am, anyway.
i have settled into the person i was born to be
and am happy, for the most,
with what i see when i examine myself
in the mirror of my heart.
some people don’t get me,
they see a jumble of contradictions,
but i know i'm only mysterious
to those who refuse to see with the heart.
but the artist has a restless soul –
at least this artist does.

i question and i fight the universe,
even when my mind says don’t – don’t do it –
and it’s almost always painful.
but strange moontides tug at me,
pulling me into those deep waters
where unfinished business lurks.

it can’t be helped,
even when the me i know knows better.
it’s a curse and yet a gift,
for when i can tread those waters calmly
i emerge in wisdom,
even when the gaining of it’s cost me dearly.

i am what i am.
i am who i am.
i am not unknowable
unless you refuse to look beyond
what your mundane senses show you.
look with your heart, if you still have one,
and you will know me.
© 2012 RC deWinter

Reliable Companions

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Books are the quietest and most constant of
friends; they are the most accessible and wisest
of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.
~ Charles W. Eliot

Coffeetable Book

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A natural pairing sits on a bedside table.

Digital oils from a photograph by Chris Glickman.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated
to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Battered Barn Door

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

We're running out of time. Can you imagine an America without a barn
on the landscape? Is that the America we want? ~ Rod Scott

A Chequered Past

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Midnight Snacking

Flesh is cheap and spends so easily,
purchasing pleasure, purchasing warmth,
a bit of comfort here and there,
especially when no demands are harnessed
to the heart.

The coins flow freely, glinting in the dark.
Sometimes the aftermath is vain regret,
sometimes satisfaction guaranteed.
No matter which, no matter what,
the consequence remains the same.

The hungry heart is never filled,
no appetite appeased,
but, prowling ceaselessly, consumes
whatever it can find:

a morsel here, a morsel there,
some sweetness can be found, but always
tinged with the aftertaste of bitterness
on the tongue, fading fast, mere froth, meringue;
no solid sustenance to feed the spirit
when the world grows dark.

How long can one's eyes linger at the feast
without one's vision blurring in disgust?
How long can one's heart filter out the beast
before it's drowned in dull despair and dust?
© 2012 RC deWinter

Digital oils.

Cherry Espresso

Broke Window

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

For several months I've sat, almost every evening, undisturbed,
by the same window in the gathering gloom,
expecting nothing, wanting it all –
embroidering quietly with furrowed brow and busy hands,
filling the creamy blank muslin with visions in silk,
hoping – always hoping –
to get the pattern to a place where I'd be comfortable enough
to set the hoop aside and live a bit.

There have been those occasions, less rare than I'd like to admit,
when I've pushed the needle through carelessly
and gouged myself awake, startled into action to prevent
the bright and living blood from staining my stitches.

A fortnight ago,
during a quiet bloodless spell of stitching,
the crystal crash of a rock through a window
caught me dreaming.
I leapt from my chair with an involuntary shriek.
Dropping needle, hoop and thread I ran, heedless of the night,
out the door into the velvet blackness,
hoping to spy the miscreant who shattered
my glass and my silence.

Of course no such person waited,
having satisfied whatever destructive urges aimed the rock,
and had rushed away into the arms of darkness,
safe from my recriminations.
~ from Rock Through a Window
© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Digital oils; taken from an original photograph shot
October 22, 2010, Middletown, Connecticut.

There's a Heart Under There

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Fluttering

My heart is cursed with sentient antennae,
all feathers, alert to waves so trifling
the very cosmos barely shudders at their rippling,
so finely tuned
the slightest waft of disenchantment
registers with thunderous resonance
across my spirit.
Oh for the leathern hide of vast gray giants,
careless Titans roaming the savannah,
sunbaked, heedless of any disturbance
less tumultuous than the earth being split asunder,
lightning-sparked infernos
or the killing machines of men.
Alas, my heart is wingèd,
soft and fragile,
dusted iridescent,
shy of capture,
damned antennae
quivering –
silent, wired and restless –
at every signal,
be it drops of nectar sweet
or whispered warning.
Somewhere a silver net of softest silk
awaits me.
Will this heart discern its shining welcome
or retreat,
affrighted, from the haven offered?
© 2010 RC deWinter

Freehand filtered and painted digital oils.

A Chair for Tiny Tim

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live."

'I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die."
~ from A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Digital oils; detail from an original photograph shot December 4, 2010, at the Barnes Museum in Southington, Connecticut.

Somebody's Old Bowl

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
An small, antique (c. early 19th century) English china ware bowl unearthed in a Connecticut field sits on a bedroom chest in an old house. _______________________________________
Digital oil painting; from an original photograph shot June 12, 2010. _______________________________________
This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Temptation by Torchlight

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ____________________________________________
An elaborately worked pewter purse, inlaid with polished agates, glints tantalizingly in a torchlit medieval vendor's tent. ____________________________________________
Digital oils with a light grunge layer; based on an original photograph shot at King Arthur's Harvest Faire
in Hebron, Connecticut, October 23, 2010.

Long Out of Print

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Definitions

It must be that our dictionaries differ
in more than just the binding round the spine.
Perhaps mine is an earlier edition
while yours is of a novel new design.

They could be printed each in different language
for all the similarities there be.
In mine the definitions are more constant,
yours bend to fit what circumstance you see.

I will not ask to borrow yours if ever
my volume should appear hopelessly lost.
I'd rather write a new one from my memory
than stoop to borrow yours to cut the cost.

And yes, my pages, printed small, are lengthy,
admitting no convenience to the now.
But better on the shelf, ignored, unopened,
than cheaply made and incomplete somehow.
© 2012 RC deWinter

Digital oils from an original photograph shot June 12, 2010.

Almost An Angel

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

preparing to fly

she lays down in her softly welcoming bed,
relieved to feel the embrace of satinfinished sheets
on her weary shell. each
empty
day
that passes
strips a little more of the shiny fairydust of optimism
from her spirit.

soon, she thinks,
my eyes will glaze with resignation,
my flesh will dry to dull desiccation.
i won’t remember being happy, feeling loved,
necessary to someone else’s existence.

and knowing this –
that denuded of that dream she may as well be dead –
she almost eagerly awaits the morning
that she finds it impossible to rise from the tangle
of the only warmth she has –
her kingsize field of dreams
where her long-gone lover’s ghost is always present.
© 2000, renewed 2012 RC deWinter

Digital oils; taken from an original photograph
shot December 25, 2011.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated
to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

You Saw Me Standing Alone

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Blue moon,
you saw me standing alone,
without a dream in my heart,
without a love of my own.
~ Rodgers & Hart

Outdated

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Friction Field

The wind, on this blue night,
is howling like a banshee,
sad voices carried on it.
It's the kind of night
when all your sorrows
come back to haunt you.

The electricity in the air
is a palpable thing,
an element so strong
your skin prickles
with the unrelenting
friction of those atoms.

I feel you especially.
Your presence swirls
in those atoms,
rubbing relentlessly
across my skin,
across my soul.

I won’t sleep tonight,
not as long as that wind persists.
I’ll lie in bed like a prisoner in a cell.
And carried by that wind,
your electrical arms embrace me.
© 2012 RC deWinter

Pens in a Box

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

I Will Never Write Like Ernest

Every so often I admonish myself,
"No more tapestries thick with adjectives,
enough of gilded cages brimming overfull with words."

And I vow to emulate that rough-hewn chronicler
of the masculine world,
he who writ so spare, so cleanly of all the passions some men have:
war and ruin,
drink and blood sport –
sharppolished as a fine-forged blade –
as well as matters of the heart.

No sentiment,
no heavy lace,
but straight and sure as a skillfully-wielded rapier to the bone.

So I sit with best intentions
vigilantly scouring all my trim.
Gingerbreading ruthlessly sliced from every line,
tossed onto Webster's scrapheap
like so much faulty and imperfect scrollwork that
rather than adding to the beauty of a structure
draws the eye unerringly to its poor proportions,
until naked, trembling, my hapless verse stands stark and empty,
the words that flow so naturally from my soul
espaliered firmly to an alien fence
instead of vining freely in their own wild way –
my way! – forced to feign a sturdiness their slender graceful limbs were never meant to have.

And, seeing this unnatural form,
I pause, take up my pen,
and having freed the stiff green shoots from their shackles,
re-adorn my arbor with all the ripe and heady fruit,
perfume and sweetly-curling tendrils intended by my nature's own design.

So Ernest I am not, and never can/shall be,
but in my opulence recline and offer my harsh luxury.
© 1997, renewed 2012 RC deWinter

Textured digital oils from a photograph by Chris Glickman.

Awaiting the Match

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

The lamp fills with a pale green glow
The trees of the avenue.
~ from The Twilight Turns, James Joyce

Another Saturday Night

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Thoughts While Waiting

I should be in Santa Fe,
not here on this sidewalk two blocks off the river
waiting for someone I don't know
and probably don't want to.

I should be in Half Moon Bay,
not here in this stifling air thick enough to choke on
waiting for a suit and tie
enslaved to paid-up premiums.

I should be – oh, far away!
Not here at this tarted-up café
waiting for a miracle
to fall upon my forehead.

But should is SHOULD
and is is IS
and that's the plate life's served me.

I'll garnish it with fragrant herbs,
a slice of real
and freshest fruits in season.

Devour it with delight I shall.
The shoulds – those sour scrapings –
can be tossed where they belong:
out onto the compost heap of learning.
© 1999, renewed 2012 RC deWinter

Digital oils; detail taken from an original
photograph shot August 27, 2011.

Jewel in the Crown

The figures are the standing Mercury in the center, with Hercules on his right and Minerva on his left, with an eagle between him and the figure of Hercules. The Beaux-Arts group was designed by French sculptor Jules-Alexis Coutan and carved by the John Donnelly Company. In 1914 when the finished work was presented it was the largest figural group extant in the world. These figures surround an enormous clock that has a circumference of 13 feet, and the entire piece stands at 48 feet high.

In Vitro

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Living Doll

A doll was what you wanted,
a pretty little pet
to dress in crinolines and lace,
forever in your debt,
with big blue eyes and curly hair
and blessed with quiet grace,
a live tabula rasa
on which to paint a face;
a little girl without a voice
so you could write the script,
a female Pinocchio
whose strings you’d never clip.
But Fate wrote a new act into
the human comedy;
you didn’t get your living doll:
instead, She gave you me.
© 2012 RC deWinter

A collection of antique character dolls
stands on display in the window of a shop
in Cobalt, Connecticut.

Digital oils taken from an original photograph
shot September 5, 2011.

The Call of the Wild

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Oh Beautiful For...

I walk alone down lanes time has forgot
and smell the crisp sharp autumn in decay,
the cobbles wet with sullen drizzle gray
the lanterns all a-sputter, barely hot.

My hem drags, listless, on the curb of stone,
my feathers torn and tattered, disarrayed,
recalling what Burns said of schemes best laid
and sore regretting the deaths of my own.

So what to do now that the box is bare
of all but hope? – that amethystine blaze.
Pandora’s weeping drowns the hymn of days
and hangs a short harsh echo in the air.

There is no haven safe enough for me:
the outcast – willful, wild, as yet untamed.
All shrink away as if they might be maimed
or tainted with invisibility.

So walk I shall till midnight’s madness fades
as like an orb of fire the sun awakes.
Avoiding the stern glare his curtain makes
I slip behind whatever shadow shades.

The twilight gods now paint the dying sky.
I watch the frightened scurry to their fires –
so smug, so sheltered, hypocrites and liars.
I breathe the mist of freedom’s final cry.
© 2012 RC deWinter

Digital oils taken from a photograph by
Canadian artist and friend Constance Widen.

Linng Up the Shot

What TIME Is It?

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Prom Sunday

Spiraling downdowndown roundroundround as the wheel turns
relentlessly across the vast indifference of the cosmos,
a lone small voice calls out in the chaos:
The time, the time! What TIME is it?
Is it time to splash across the firmament in a gaudy crescendo of color,
unmistakable and wild,
or is it time to be stone, mosscovered, unremarkable except for the
solidity?
Who is entering through the revolving door – who is heading out to where
no one can see the end of all the light there ever was?
Is there time enough to live without regret, or have there been so many wrongs
that nothing we can ever do will right them?
Is it time to give up, taste the bitter powder of defeat,
or time to batter 'gainst what crushing odds crouch, silent?
Is the clock ticking doubletime now that the tunnel shortens,
or is that simply the perception of the ones who walk on farther?
Secondsminuteshoursdaysweeksmonthsyearsdecadescenturiesmillenniaeons
pass as slowly or as swiftly as we let them.
We can't stop Time; he races with the sun and always wins,
but we can be immersed, afloat, surrounded
in his generous embrace.
There is always time for living.
There is always time to feel.
There is always time to give and time for taking.
And no, the graysuits down on Wall Street can't invest it,
can't hold it ‘til the time is right to trade it;
no yellow howto books for dummies on this subject.
Alone we occupy our carrels in the millionmaze of mayhem,
striving mightily to ravel out, judiciously, our efforts.
Is is time?
Is it TIME?
Are we THERE yet?
© 2012 RC deWinter

Digital oils taken from an original photograph shot in the historic
Killingworth Inn Café, Killingworth, Connecticut, December 31, 2011.

Old 6900

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Union Pacific railroad's Centennial 6900 engine, built in 1969 and the largest and fastest diesel locomotive ever run. Now retired, it sits on display in Kennefick Park in Omaha, Nebraska.

Locked Away

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Gitmo Heart

too many wounds
too many scars
you’ve learned to not trust anything
except what’s in the stars

the shades are drawn
no candle lit
you hold the dark and tattered page
on which your life is writ

no one but you
can parse the scrawl
in which you’ve tortuously scribed
your voluntary fall

the shackling bound
the lock secure
around your head the blindfold harsh
your fingers knotted sure

no victim here –
no foreign hand
sequestered what is locked away –
you’ve lost what you command
© 2011 RC deWinter

Digital oils; taken from an original
photograph shot September 24, 2011.

Spartan Morning

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Sometimes that's all there is...

Digital oils from a photograph by Chris Glickman.

Summer Night with Birdhouse

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A home-made birdhouse full of nesting material stands in the country yard
of a house in Middletown, Connecticut.

Riding the Lion

Get Off Our Backs

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Truth to Power

You mighty patriarchs –
keepers of the keys,
titans of theocracy –
your world is built on paper lies.

You will not drag us back
to servitude or own our bodies.
Those chains have long been melted,
forged into the strength of unity.

Lest you forget – sisterhood is powerful.
We are here, we are legion and shall remain:
wise women warriors,
free to live as we see fit.
© 2012 RC deWinter

Digital oils; figure taken from an original
photograph shot March 25, 2000.

Old-Time Remedies

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A cupboard shelf crammed with old-fashioned medicines looks much as it did one hundred years ago. I'll take the aspirin - you can have the rest. :-)

Original photograph antiqued into an old-fashioned watercolor poster; shot at the Barnes Museum, Southington, Connecticut, December 4, 2010.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the
Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Antiquaria Nautica

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

An 18th-century quadrant, nautical map
and logbook remind us of the history of
naval exploration and discovery.

Digital pen, ink, charcoal and watercolor
wash from an original photograph shot in
October 2009 at Mystic Seaport, Connecticut.

Shed of Secrets

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _______________________________________________ Who can know what lies behind this locked and battered shed door in the yard of an eccentric recluse? Any ideas? ______________________________________________ Wood-cracked, textured digital oil painting adapted from the photographic collection of Constance Widen, artist extraordinaire!

My Foolish Heart

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Fluttering
My heart is cursed with sentient antennae,
all feathers, alert to waves so trifling
the very cosmos barely shudders at their rippling,
so finely tuned
the slightest waft of disenchantment
registers with thunderous resonance
across my spirit.
Oh, for the leathern hide of vast gray giants;
careless Titans, roaming the savannah,
sunbaked, heedless of any disturbance
less tumultuous than the earth being split asunder,
lightning-sparked infernos
or the killing machines of men.
Alas, my heart is wingèd,
soft and fragile,
dusted iridescent,
shy of capture,
damned antennae
quivering –
silent, wired and restless –
at every signal,
be it drops of nectar sweet
or whispered warning.
Somewhere a silver net of softest silk
awaits me.
Will this heart discern its shining welcome,
or retreat,
affrighted, from the haven offered?
©2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A visual realization of my ongoing journey
through life and love painted in digital oils.

This image has been licensed by ABC for use as set decor for the TV show 'Desperate Housewives'.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the
Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Summerglow

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Svmer is icumen in
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweþ sed and bloweþ med
and springþ þe wde nu.
Sing cuccu!
~ Middle English poem (ca. 1240 AD),
traditionally sung as a round

Summer has arrived,
Loudly sing, Cuckoo!
The seed grows and the meadow blooms
And the wood springs anew,
Sing, Cuckoo!
~ Modern English translation

Digital oils; taken from an original photograph
shot in Fairfield, Connecticut, June 19, 2011.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated
to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Smoke and Fog

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Steam engine No. 14 pulls into a station on the historic Georgetown (Colorado) Loop railway, adding its own blue-gray smoke to the fog rolling in across the front range. _______________________________________
Digital oil painting from an original photograph
shot in April 2003.

Unchain My Heart

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Embracing the Inevitable

Your renitence, a blessing in disguise,
Has kept me from some hideous mistakes,
And though in silence still my spirit aches,
Your firm renunciation wisdom makes.
All comers to you likened in my eyes,
Their failings obvious to recognize.

No doubt one day a champion shall rise,
Who in his glory your enchantment breaks,
All thirst for passion's succulence he slakes,
My heart, so ripe for ownership, he takes.
His words ring true, no phantom pack of lies,
A gift free-given, his love be the prize.
© 2011 Regina Coeli deWinter

An ancient, homemade barn door lock
with a stout chain through it; detail in
digital oils from an original photograph
shot May 8, 2011, in Essex, Connecticut.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of sales of this picture will be donated to
the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Trimmed in Trade Cloth

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Antique Plains (likely Sioux) tribal moccasins display the beauty and craftsmanship of traditional Native American bead work. These are finished off with stitched trade cloth and have beaded soles as well. _______________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph shot in Omaha, Nebraska, May 2006.

Dollhouse Gothic

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Oh, you beautiful doll...

Digital oil study of a window at Calling All Dolls, a doll collector's dream located in Cobalt, Connecticut. From an original photograph shot September 5, 2011.

Tea and Toys

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

After tea it's back to painting. ~ Gustav Klimt

Vintage Christmas gifts and toys share table space with the family teapot.

Digital oils; taken from an original photograph shot December 4, 2010, at
the Barnes Museum in Southington, Connecticut.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated
to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

She Loved Hats

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Aside from her temporary mania for tatting lace, Auntie Rose had one other quirky penchant – I suppose it could almost be considered an obsession – collecting, and wearing, hats. Formal, large-brimmed hats spectacularly adorned with feathers, flowers and beads, toques, berets, straw hats, cloches, Merry Widows, turbans – the moment a new millinery design was introduced, Auntie was off on one of her shopping sprees, spending lavishly on the latest styles whether they suited her tiny frame or not.

Papa was constantly amazed and amused whenever Auntie returned from one of her trips to New York, having bought so many new chapeaux that her driver would stagger behind her into the house, burdened like a Mexican burro, dancing about while balancing a mountain of elaborately beribboned hatboxes without dropping and potentially crushing any of her latest acquisitions.

“Rosie,” Papa would bellow in mock dismay, “I am going to be obliged to erect a new outbuilding for all these hats. Wherever will you put them?

Auntie would make a demure moue and tinkle merrily, “Oh brother dear, never fear. I shall paw through my collection and give some away to the church collection boxes for the poor in deepest darkest Africa,” while Teddy and I laughed and laughed.

Auntie never did give away any of her hats, however; it would have been sacrilege to orphan any of her beloved headgear, even when styles shifted and made obsolete one-third of her collection. Instead, Auntie used the no longer fashionable pieces as decorations throughout her rooms, changing her displays according to the season. Although many in our town doubtless thought Auntie an eccentric, we knew that she really was a treasure, blessed with an unfettered imagination and boundless humor.
~ from the diary of Ellen Fall (1889-1965)

Digital oils from an original photograph shot in Southington, CT, November 13, 2010.

Frosted Fantasia

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Silent night, holy
night, when the bough flies from the tree
and is hung everywhere, when
from tables the crusts fly,
when the gifts begin to tremble
because lovelessness walks through the world,
because it snarls at you, barks at you from the snow,
and the silver ribbons rip and the tinsel rustles silvery,
and the silver and gold, and a golden word
come to you on which you choke
because you have been sold and betrayed,
and because it does not suffice that for you
one is redeemed who once died.
~ Ingeborg Bachmann, On the Plazas of the City at Christmas,
translated by Peter Filkins.

Digital oils; detail from an original photograph
shot at Westfarms Mall, Farmington, Connecticut,
December 14, 2011.

Symphony in Rusty Nails

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Beauty in found objects.

Digital oils taken from an original photograph shot September 5, 2010.

Rum Punch Christmas

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Too much party...

Digital oils from an original
photograph shot December 16, 2011.

Heading Out to Plow

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

As the devastating snowstorm of October 29, 2011 begins, the driver of a pickup truck with a plow heads out to begin the first of many long hours of work.

Digital oils from an original photograph shot on that date in Tolland, Connecticut.

Broom Closet Christmas

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Could that be where the Jolly Old Elf is hiding the gifts?

Digital oil from an original photograph shot December 4, 2011 at the Barnes Museum in Southington, Connecticut.

Old Stone with Stick

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

My walking stick urges me on,
takes my hand like a friend,
Comforts me, steadies me
over rough terrain...
~ from Staff, © Antler

Digital pen, ink and watercolor from an
original photograph shot on the grounds
of Wadsworth Mansion, Middletown,
Connecticut, October 23, 2011.

Dobbin Resurrected

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Unearthed from a 19th-century attic, a carved and painted wooden horse sits patiently on his platform waiting for small hands to give him a push.

Digital oils; the figure of the antique toy is taken from an original photograph shot December 4, 2010.

Just a Little Green

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Just a little green,
like the color when the spring is born...
© 1970 Joni Mitchell

Digital oils from a photograph shot in
Middletown, Connecticut, November 2004.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated
to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Santa Was Here

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

I wish I'd woken up to this on Christmas morning!

Digital oils; taken from an original photograph shot
December 24, 2011, Fairfield, Connecticut.

Tankard and Drums

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A tankard of ale and vintage percussion instruments await a Scots drummer
in a music tent at an outdoor festival.

Digital oils; taken from an original photograph shot May 1, 2011, in Guilford, Connecticut.

Up on the Curve

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Trusty Engine No. 12 hauls passengers around
a high curve through the mountains on the
Georgetown (Colorado) Loop Railway. ____________________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph
shot in April 2003.

Little Brown Jug

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Ha, ha, ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, don't I love thee!

Although the song Little Brown Jug wasn't written by Joseph Winner until 1869, I'm sure American colonials loved their little brown jugs too. This one, dating to the late 18th century and sitting under a table of the same vintage, was likely used to hold beer or ale, since the water back then was often not safe to drink.

Digital oils; taken from an original photograph shot in Haddam, Connecticut on June 12, 2010.

The Birdcage

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Give me freedom, not things.

Digital oils taken from an original photograph shot
September 17, 2011 in Wethersfield, Connecticut.

High Window in the Barn

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Upward view of a beautifully crafted window in an old, abandoned barn.

Digital oils with a tempera wash from an original photograph shot near Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada in September 2003.

Cord Phaeton 1936

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

This example of a beautifully sleek, art deco luxury car produced by Ford for the touring market is on display at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

Digital oils from an original photograph shot in June 2006.

Bang on a Can

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Urban reality: razor wire, a trash can and graffiti.

Digital oils from a photograph by artist Constance Widen.

Life Carved in Stone

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

watching you strip

gazing intently as you expose everything,
stripping off layers of guilt you've accrued ‘til finally,
down to the flesh and the bone,
your long-buried burdens sit plainly in view:
on your shoulder a boulder of igneous shame,
working its heaviness into your soul,
tilting your balance a bit to the right.

a raven of sadness is clutched to your chest,
too precious to free but too painful to own;
a barbed-wire surcingle girdles your waist.
great bloody beads fall, staining your thighs.
your seat of desire upholstered in grief,
brass nailheads of fear keep it safe from the world.

padlock and chain are embracing your legs,
hobbling your steps so you'll never escape.
but, even as your eyes hotly gleam,
imploring my help in abandoning these,
you straightarm my hands as they reach to assist
and, dressing once more in your hairshirt divine,
turn and walk silently to the next shrine.
© 1997, renewed 2011 RC deWinter

Digital oils from an original photograph
shot in Durham, Connecticut, June 5, 2011.

Gustav's Couch

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved
2 weeks after Gustav brought my belated birthday cake, he called. 'Hallo!' he shouted, 'what are you doing?' 'Laundry. You sound elated. New girlfriend?' 'Nein! More permanent, less exhausting and in the long run, more emotionally rewarding. And you must come by to see. Leave the wet clothes, make haste!' 'It must be pretty special for you to be so anxious to show it off,' I laughed. 'Give me half an hour.' 'If you must wait that long,' he grumbled and slammed down the phone. With the laundry into the dryer, I drove to Gustav's place, all the while wondering what could have gotten him into such a state. Usually, it meant he'd seduced yet another pretty young thing with his combination of worldly charm, knowledge of all things cultural and wry amusing anecdotes. I found myself growing curiouser and curiouser the closer I got. Gustav was standing in the doorway watching for me as I pulled up. 'Come in and see my treasure!' he crowed as I trotted up the walk. 'All right, I'm here - impress me!' Ushering me inside, he led me to his formal parlor. Against the far wall sat something covered in muslin. 'Now for the unveiling,' he said. 'Can you guess what it is?' 'Gustav, it's clearly not a new painting, unless you've taken to long and narrow panel work, it's too short to be a car, just show me!' Hurrying over, he grasped a corner of the cover and cried, 'Le voila!', yanking away the muslin. There it was: an elaborately carved, velvet-covered couch. It was of a venerable age but extremely well-preserved. 'Gustav,' I said, 'it's a couch.' Glaring at me, he said, 'It's a Louis XV-style canape settee, 130 years old, hand-carved in France, and I paid a pittance for it. Because of a few smalls tears in the velvet it was considered junk. I myself repaired it and defy you to detect my handiwork.' 'I'd rather sit on it and have coffee and canapes.' He roared with laughter. 'Ignorant child! Canape is French for sofa!'

Dawn's Early Light

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Very early in the morning, the door to a 19th-century cooperage
opens and floods the workshop with sunlight.

Digital oils; taken from an original photograph shot at Mystic Seaport,
Connecticut, October 2009.

Everblooming

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A single rose on its stalk blooms eternally
on this 19th-century gravestone in remembrance
of a beloved son.

Digital dry brush from an original photograph shot in Durham,
Connecticut, June 5, 2011.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated
to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Antique Child's Chair with Quilt

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A classic New England child's hoop-back chair with turned spindles
sits in front of a hand-stitched quilt in the entryway of the Haddam Neck
(Connecticut) Congregational Church parish house (ca. 1822).

Digital oils from an original photograph shot April 9, 2011.

Green Machine

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A vintage flywheel sits on display at the Haddam Neck, Connecticut, Agricultural Fair.

A flywheel is a spinning wheel or disc with a fixed axle so that
rotation is only about one axis. Energy is stored in the rotor as
kinetic energy - specifically, rotational energy. This particular
machine belongs to one of the members of the Tobacco Valley
Flywheelers Gas & Steam Engine Club.

Digital oils from an original photograph shot in September 2009.

Seeking Rumpelstiltskin (Rustic Ballet)

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Spinning Wheel Dreams

And who wouldn’t want to spin straw into gold?
Not gold for the king or the market;
not the gold of the greedy or the powerful;
but the gold of imagination, of vision, of love,
for one’s own soul alone.
What a mantle of wonder one could weave
if the gift of Rumpelstiltskin were so easily mastered.
It’s an elusive alchemy, but it can be done, I know it;
every day I sit at my wheel, set my spindle and spin.
Some fine day I will see the straw of my life transfigure
as it passes through my fingers
and shine with the magick of the possible.
© 2011 RC deWinter

Digital oils from an original photograph
shot October 22, 2011.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated
to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Showoff Shoe

Morning Bus

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

I think that more and more you're going to see people of good will on their side of the aisle say you know what, we got to get off the bus here, this is not headed in the right direction. ~ David Axelrod

Digital oils; thanks to Terry Travers for the photograph from which this is painted.

Bowls in Basket Moderne

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Traditional still life painted with a bold contemporary twist.

Digital oils; adapted from an original photograph shot February 5, 2011.

Wild Oats Gathered

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Wild Oats
They speak of sowing wild oats,
scattering bits and pieces of indiscretion
willy-nilly into unplanned furrows
across the landscape of life.

But what of the results?
Someone must reap the harvest.
For good or ill, some of those chance-sown seeds
must ripen into grain.

Grain blighted perhaps,
or grain grown into beauty unimagined,
unimaginable,
unforeseen at the time of sowing.

They speak of wild oats in secret if at all,
but surely some of those ripe random stalks
add richness to a world that would be
the poorer without them.
© 2011 RC deWinter

Digital oils from a photograph by friend and artist Constance Widen.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated
to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Convergence

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

The angled, shadowed boards of an antique door, wall and floor create interesting geometry in the entryway of the Haddam Neck (Connecticut) Congregational Church parish hall (built 1822).

Digital oils taken from an original photograph shot May 9, 2011.

Cloth Salad

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A colorful olio of vines, veggies and virgin olive oil surrounds a pottery bowl full of salad on this rustic strip of cloth from an artisanal quilt.

Digital oils with a dappled natural cloth and grunge texture; taken from an original photograph shot March 9, 2011 in Haddam Neck, Connecticut.

Bench by the Barn

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A Yorkshire Tale
Tossed out in the wilderness of rockstrewn moors,
the girl who was meant for a rich man’s wife and the boy
who didn’t belong there
Found in the other a twin.
Alike in their minds but different in longings
they twined their fortunes, they said, for all time.

For she wished his freedom and he for her birthright,
Then could he be that rich man and she the wife of him that
he’d become.
So it was settled.
His fortune would be her cloak of freedom,
Her promise his dream made flesh.

And, if escape to the vast open spaces in which
they lived their lives was impossible, they sat, the two,
seeming decorous
On the bench by the barn,
Outwardly appearing only to have met by chance
in the bustle of a busy day.

But who could know their plottings and their dreams?
They pledged silence until time’s turning wheel would
free them – finally –
To make a pair.
But the girl who was meant for a rich man’s wife
And the boy that didn’t belong there –

Alas for them, their twinship split asunder.
Time’s turning wheel, in its infinite treachery of
unpredicted change
Dissolved the bond.
No more the laughing escapades,
The bench by the barn is abandoned.
© 2011 RC deWinter – with gratitude and apologies to Emily Brönte

Vintage style photograph shot April 10, 2011 in Haddam Neck, Connecticut.

Chair by the Hearth

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

When Auntie Rose turned fifty, she suddenly picked up a new skill - crocheting lace. At first we were at a loss as to the origin of this sudden passion, but Teddy, never reticent, asked her outright at dinner one evening why it was she began to spend almost every evening in a chair by the fire, needles clicking away furiously, for two or three hours."Teddy", began Mama gently - "It's all right, Maude," interposed Auntie. "It so happens that I was calling on Miss Amanda Byers," she began, "and noticed a new vase on one of the small tables in her sitting room. Underneath the vase was the most delightful oval of lace. I had to ask about it; she told me in strictest confidence - so this is now a great secret among us - she had had lessons in lace-making from the wife of Tom, her man of all work. She had made it herself. I admired it extravagantly, for I was impressed with the quality of the thing. Amanda was so touched by my interest that she offered to teach me to do the same. Although as a young girl hundreds of years ago"- here Auntie winked at Teddy - "I had worked samplers and edged hankies, I have never been a noted needlewoman. But what could I say? I agreed to learn to make lace."

Here, Mama smothered a smile in her napkin; Papa harrumphed gruffly, not at all troubling to hide his amazement. Auntie ignored them, continuing blithely, "On succeeding visits I observed, paying close attention as Amanda demonstrated various stitching methods. Strangely enough, when she finally deigned to place a pair of needles and thread in my hands, I found it soothing to count and stitch, turn and stitch some more. So now, Teddy, you have the reason for my hobby - and if you find occasion to mock my work, you may find nothing but a pair of lace stockings to wear with your knee breeches in your Christmas box."
At this we all laughed heartily, as we were meant to. ~ from the diary of Ellen Fall (1889-1965)&l

Teddy's Gifts

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

My brother Teddy was a bright and inquisitive boy. He was blessed with a decided scientific bent as well as a strong competitive streak.

Papa and Mama encouraged both of these natural proclivities. Although they were traditional in their core beliefs, my parents were also forward-thinking and could see that scientific knowledge would prepare Teddy for the changes that inevitably occurred with the passage of time. In addition, the notion of social Darwinism had gained popularity even in the farther reaches from intellectual ferment; they wanted Teddy, as their only son and natural heir to the family's fortunes, to be a leader - a winner financially, socially and in his personal habits.

To this end, Papa, in the guise of Santa Claus during our childhood, would be sure that the jolly old elf gifted Teddy with amusements designed to teach as well as enchant. I particularly remember the Christmas when I was thirteen and Teddy, eleven. I received an embroidery kit and a beautifully bound and illustrated edition of 'Little Women' by the late but still revered Miss Alcott, along with various other items designed to promote useful and decorative feminine accomplishments.

Teddy, however, was the recipient of games to encourage mental as well as physical skills and educational materials to further his academic understanding and progress.

In this regard did the Santa bolster the common wisdom embraced by most somewhat educated and well-off parents of the times.
~ from the diary of Ellen Fall (1889-1965)

Digital oils from an original photograph shot December 4, 2010 at the Barnes Museum, Southington, Connecticut.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the
Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Milady's Toilette

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A vintage ensemble of soaps, decorated with poinsettias for Yuletide, rests on a small cabinet in a Victorian-era dressing room.

The image of the queen on the center box appears to be that of Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother of the United Kingdom, although the appellation 'Queen Regent' above her likeness would be incorrect. The term refers to a queen who rules as a stand-in for an incapacitated monarch or minor child, and the Queen Mother never did.

Digital oils; based on an original photograph shot at the Barnes Museum, Southington, Connecticut, December 4, 2010.

Moonlit Silk

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Moonlight glows through an old window and its delicate silk curtains.

Digital oils taken from an original photograph shot in East Haddam,
Connecticut, April 24, 2011.

Apothecary Antiques

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ I purchased these vintage patent medicine bottles about 35 years ago from a woman standing out in front of her house behind a long metal table full of old glass objects. The odd thing is, it was in the heart of the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. I wonder how many people passed her way each day? I still have a photo of her standing and smiling behind her table. Photograph shot in November 2009.

Send Us, Bright One, Light One

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ________________________________________
The light from an antique Edwardian brass lamp is reflected in the window in front of which it sits.
The title is a quote from the chapter Oxen of the Sun in James Joyce's Modernist masterpiece, Ulysses. ________________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph
shot November 21, 2004.

Spice Island

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Dark study of a woven wicker tray of herb and spice seasoning packets on display atop an antique with an exotic design in front of an antique New England chest.

Digital oils; taken from an original photograph shot on February 5, 2011 inside the New England Food Emporium in Middletown, Connecticut.

The Toy Chest

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Look what Santa brought!

Digital oils of vintage toys, games and Christmas eclectica from an original photograph; shot December 4, 2010 at the Barnes Museum, Southington, Connecticut.

Curved Span on the Georgetown Loop

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ____________________________________________
Vintage photograph of a graceful, curved piece of track along the Georgetown Loop Railway in the mountains of Colorado. Shot in 2003.

Mixed Signals

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

The date: Late June, 2000
The place: Savannah, Georgia
The time: Somewhere around midnight

Film-grained photograph shot from a moving car as we cruised around, exhausted, looking for a hotel after a never-ending drive from Connecticut.

Cooking Retro

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A bucketful of hand-crafted wooden cooking tools
evokes memories of the days when sturdy New
Englanders made everything they could at home.

Digital oils; taken from a photograph shot
February 5, 2011 at the New England Food
Emporium in Middletown, Connecticut.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the
Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Bowls and Baskets

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ________________________________________
Artisanal bowls and baskets form an attractive grouping on a vendor's table.

Shot October 23, 2010.

Sewing Basket in Sunlight

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Yarn, knitting needles, and quilt scraps have been carefully preserved for future use in this antique woven basket. ___________________________________________ Digital oils from an original photograph shot in an early 19th-century house in Mystic, Connecticut in August 2009.

The Captain's Cabin

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ____________________________________________
A pair of small keepsake chests -
one old, lock missing, veteran of many voyages,
the other relatively new and intact -
sits on a battered table in the cabin
of the captain of a vessel of bold buccaneers.
And of course, what pirate captain would be without
his bottle of rum?

I wonder if the newer, decorated chest held jewelry belonging to a lady travelling on a ship that the pirates robbed.
____________________________________________
Digital distressed oil painting; taken from an original photograph shot October 23, 2010.

Hitched on a Hill

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
A homemade wagon sits on its trailer hitch on a grassy incline; a silent red chair keeps watch as evening approaches. ________________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph
shot in Haddam Neck, Connecticut
on September 5, 2010.

Time Suspended, 9:36

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A dark contemplation of how long a minute can seem to last.

Digital oil painting after an original macro photograph shot in February 2010.

In the Blue Hour

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

L'heure bleue - the blue hour - is that brief span of time at sunrise and sunset when natural light casts a distinctive glow on the world. It is believed by some to be a magickal time as well as flattering to any person, place or thing caught in its light.

Digital oils; the vase and flowers are taken from an original photograph shot Valentine's Day, (February14), 2010.

Faded Glory

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Detail of a decaying but still stately Colonial-era house in Essex, Connecticut, with a matching weathered frame.

Textured digital oil painting based on an original photograph
shot in April 2006.

Old Friends

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
Vintage books, many in none too good condition, line the shelf of an antique cupboard dating to the late 18th century. Part of the now-restored and preserved Thankful Arnold House maintained by the Haddam Historical Society in Connecticut, the cupboard sits in a short (two steps or so) connection between the front parlor and the short stairway to the first floor bedroom. _________________________________________ Digital oils on a cracked-wood panel surface; from an original photograph shot June 12, 2010.

Your Sporran, Sire

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Aithnítear cara i gcroílár fiú níos mó ná ór sa sparán.
"A friend in the heart is worth more
than gold in the purse." _______________________________________
Digital oil painting of a beautifully-crafted leather sporran with brass accents; from an original photograph shot May 22, 2010.

Bluebeard's Closet

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Bluebeard
This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed…. Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see…. Look yet again —
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay ~
Sonnet VI from Renascence and Other Poems (1917)

Chandelier in Garland

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A gracefully ornate antique chandelier hangs in golden splendor, ready for the Christmas season.

Digital oil painting from a detail of an original photograph shot December 4, 2010, at the Barnes Museum, Southington, Connecticut.

Vintage Comfort

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

In a snippet of vintage Americana, a pair of elaborate antique toss pillows contrasts sharply with the hand-stitched crazy quilt on this antique bed.

Digital oils from an original photograph shot December 4, 2010 at the Barnes Museum, Southington, Connecticut.

How They Did It Then

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
A few staples of rural life in the mid-19th century hang on an antique barnboard wall, with a bit of a draft animal yoke visible below; there weren't many laborsaving devices available way back when. ________________________________________
Digital oil painting; detail from an original photograph shot at the East Haddam (Connecticut) Historical Society Museum, June 12, 2010.

Precious Commodity

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ________________________________________
Two ancient oaken buckets sit on a well-used bench in the cooking area of a medieval military encampment. They each hold clean water for drinking and cooking, which had to be laboriously transported from a fresh-water stream a good distance away. Note the heavy iron cook-pots leaning against the firewood in the upper right.
________________________________________
Digital pen, ink and oils with a watercolor wash;
from an original photograph shot October 23, 2010.

The Old Beer Barrel

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ____________________________________________
In the camp of the Guild of St. Maurice Landsknecht unit, the women have readied the beer keg, awaiting the return of their brave soldiers from their exploits.
____________________________________________
This group of soldiers and their families are members of the Reischach, Bavaria Das Geld Fahnlein (The Money Regiment), of the 16th century Holy Roman Empire.
____________________________________________
Digital oil panting from an original photograph
shot at King Arthur's Harvest Faire in Hebron, Connecticut, October 23, 2010.

The Old-Fashioned Way

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Shelling dried corn the way our ancestors did, using a flywheel engine-powered shelling machine. ________________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph of a member of the Tobacco Valley Flywheelers demonstrating how it's done; shot at the Haddam Neck, Connecticut Agricultural Fair, September 6, 2010.

Dream of a Stained Glass Window

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Impression of an Italian stained glass window from the mid-19th century.

Digital watercolor with natural paper texture; detail from an original photograph shot December 4, 2010. Unfortunately the detail is not clearly visible here.

Screen Lean

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
A beautifully-preserved, vintage wooden screen door is propped against a tree with a shim in a rural yard
in Cobalt, Connecticut. ________________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph shot September 5, 2010.

Getting Away from It All

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
I live in that solitude which is painful in youth,
but delicious in the years of maturity.
~ Albert Einstein ~ _______________________________________
Digital oils from a photograph by artist
Constance Widen.

Hyacinth Heart

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

A rustic, vintage grapevine heart is festooned with white grape hyacinth, barberries and ribbon.

Digital oil painting on a handmade paper surface; taken from an original photograph shot Christmas day, 2010.

This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the
Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Tiny Tools

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
These diminutive cooking and baking tools were another odd lot rescue from an estate sale. They have obviously been well-used; note the scorch mark on the underside of the handle on the strainer. I wonder what was fried in the miniature fry basket? ________________________________________
The little cupcake tin reminds me of the one from my favorite childhood toy, a child-size working oven complete with pans, tins, bowls, baking mixes, etc.
________________________________________
Digital oil painting from an original photograph
shot September 4, 2010.

String Theory

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
No, it's not dental floss. This antique, ornately-decorated tin string holder/dispenser was rescued from an odd lot box at an estate sale.
It now sits in majestic minimalist simplicity on a pine shelf in my living room. ________________________________________
Photograph on textured paper;
shot September 4, 2010.

Communication Station

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
This early 20th-century workstation is equipped with the latest technology of the times: telephone, typewriter and telegraph equipment. ________________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph shot at the Durham Western Heritage Museum in Omaha, Nebraska; May 2006.

All You Need Is...

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Every so often, something reminds me
that love does exist... ________________________________________
Digital grunge oils with a noticeable weathered wood texture; based on one of artist Constance Widen's photographs.

Rocks and Dust

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
A collection of small rocks sits in a dusty
vintage glass ashtray - a meditation on the future. ________________________________________
Digital oil painting from an original photograph
shot in April 2009.

Chugging Across the Devil's Gate

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Remnants of snow still linger on the mountains on this late April morning as Engine No. 14 pulls a trainload of passengers across the Devil's Gate. _______________________________________
Digital oil painting; from an original photograph
shot in 2003 along the historic
Georgetown (Colorado) Loop railway.

Everyday Reading

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
An early 19th-century table holds two of the most important volumes in the lives of the early colonial settlers: the journal of household accounts and the Bible. The spectacles and case make sense in this context; I wonder about the significance of the knife - maybe to cut pages? _______________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph
shot June 12, 2010.

I've Been Working on the Railroad

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Two railroad mechanics make some adjustments to Engine 14 in one of the yards of the
Georgetown (Colorado) Loop railway. ________________________________________
Digital oil painting from an original photograph
shot in April 2003.

You're the Top

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Study of a collection of antique chapeaux displayed in the East Haddam (Connecticut) Historical Society Museum.
With apologies to the late, great Cole Porter. _______________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph
shot June 12, 2010. _______________________________________
Copy & paste the following url into your browser address bar to view a highly entertaining video of the things and places mentioned in You're the Top, one of the many hit songs from the 1934 musical Anything Goes, with Cole Porter singing and accompanying himself on piano.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njzqv5gWt6k&feature=related

Hanging Around Waiting for You

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ________________________________________
SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

~ William Shakespeare ~ ________________________________________
Digital pen, ink and watercolor drawing with a vintage influence; from an original photograph.

Thomaston Train at Night

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
A retired New Haven Railroad train approaches the 19th-century station in Thomaston, Connecticut. _______________________________________
The train station was built in 1881 and became a stop on the the old Naugatuck line. The last actual passenger train left the station in 1958, and the station was abandoned. In 1993 vandals set the station ablaze; the damage was devastating to the station and its surrounding structures. _______________________________________
In 1996, the Railroad Museum of New England re-opened the line as a subsidiary of the existing Naugatuck spur; restoration on the station was begun in 1997 and is ongoing, although the major portion of the work has been completed for over a decade. Now one can visit the museum, ride the restored rolling stock and enjoy the refurbished station and grounds. _______________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph shot in September 2002.

Tilt!

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
The evening landscape as reflected in a window
of a vintage barn. ________________________________________
Photograph shot May 22, 2010
in Guilford, Connecticut.

Back on the Chain Gang

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Pistons, flanges, grease and a chain belt - more guy stuff for the mechanically inclined. ________________________________________
Digital oil painting from an original photograph of an antique flywheel engine; shot September 6, 2010.

Round and Rusty

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Made to last, this beautiful wooden wagon wheel clad in iron ages gracefully in a verdant field. _______________________________________
Digitals oils from an original photograph shot
May 22, 2010 in Guilford, Connecticut.

Moonlight on the Devil's Gate

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
The Pink Moon illuminates the historic Devil's Gate trestle and the tracks below on the Georgetown (Colorado) Loop railway. _______________________________________
Native Americans in northern regions traditionally called the April full moon the Pink Moon after the herb moss pink, because its pink flowers begin blooming in that month. _______________________________________
Digital oils; based on an original photograph
shot in April 2003.

Vintage Kitchen Magick

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Who knows what ancient magick lurks in these antique tings filled with arcane ingredients, sitting on a shelf in a 19th-century general store?
I see rennet and Lemon something... ________________________________________
Textured digital oils from an original photograph
shot in August 2009.

Circle Game

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
The Real Circle Game

Ah, Joni, you had us riding ponies
on a platform parallel to the ground beneath.
Presumably, however, one can jump off a pony,
even if it’s running fast –
and especially if it’s close to the ground.
A leap, a roll and up you get and walk away,
in control.

But on that great blazing wheel that splits the sky,
cutting the great gravitational field with
devilish energy supplied by something else,
you have no chance.
Jump, and you smash yourself on unforgiving ground.
Stuck at the top, no one hears you scream for surcease.

No, wait you must until the stranger who controls
the turning of that wheel in its eternal circle,
all of you buckled in and trapped,
at his mercy –
pulls the lever, kills the force, and
lets you off at last.

© 2010 RC deWinter - All Rights Reserved ________________________________________
This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Waiting for the Mare

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
An antique Amish courting buggy waits for a young farmer to hitch up the mare for a jaunt to town. ____________________________________________ Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in late summer in Intercourse, Pennsylvania c. 1984.

Working Up a Head of Steam

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
The wheels on this vintage flywheel engine are spinning furiously as a cloud of steam pours
from the vent. ________________________________________
Digital oil painting of a Tobacco Valley (Connecticut) Flywheelers machine; from an original photograph shot September 6, 2010.

An Extraordinary Ordinary

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ________________________________________
This rustic alehouse with a naughty name is a popular gathering place at a medieval market fair.
________________________________________
Digital grunge oils from an original photograph
shot at King Arthur's Harvest Faire in Hebron, Connecticut,
October 23, 2010.

Comin' Round the Bend

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Steam engine No. 12 chugs into the station under a starry Colorado sky; one of the many scenic views along the historic Georgetown Loop narrow gauge railway route between the old mining towns of Georgetown and Silver Plume, Colorado. _______________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph
shot in April 2003.

The Forgiveness of Time

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
The Forgiveness of Time

Some pain cuts so deeply
it seems the wound can never heal;
yet Time’s wingèd chariot, as Marvell named,
has power to mend most grievous hurt –
even if only to temper one’s arising each day
from a task inconceivable
to one that can be faced with equanimity.

And as the rolling years do circle and embrace
the past the way they have
since time and space commenced,
the damaged heart, like phoenix charred,
does resurrect,
and at snail’s pace sends out the
fragile green filaments of life reborn.
© 2010 RC deWinter ____________________________________________ Digital oils from an original photograph
shot in May 2006.

Demeter's Bouquet

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
A beautifully simple arrangement of dried wheat stalks in a vintage vase pays homage to
Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest. _______________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph
shot in a New York hotel, February 1999.

Odd Couple

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Rescued from an odd-lot box at an estate auction, an antique pastry blender and a craftsman's dusting brush make an unusual couple in this still life. _______________________________________
Digital oil painting from an original photograph
shot July 27, 2010.

Jeff and George

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
A river-level view of The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge. _______________________________________
That is the title of a classic children's book by Hildegard Swift and Lynd Ward, the popularity of which contributed greatly to the restoration and conservation of, rather than the dismantling of, the Jeffrey's Hook Lighthouse. This small red structure sits directly underneath the George Washington Bridge on the shore of the Hudson River. _______________________________________
The little red lighthouse was originally built in 1889 in Sandy Hook, New Jersey and was taken down, moved and rebuilt in its current location in 1921 to aid navigation on the Hudson River; it was in use until 1947. The bridge itself was not completed until 1931, but the lighthouse was carefully preserved during construction.
In 1951 the lighthouse was considered obsolete and demolition was planned, but the outcry from the public, many familiar with the 'little red lighthouse' only through the book, prevented its destruction. Instead, the City of New York's Parks & Recreation Commission became the conservator of Jeffrey's Hook. Eventually the little red lighthouse was named a New York City Landmark under the purview of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and was re-lighted 2002. As early as 1979 the lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as 'Jeffrey's Hook Lighthouse'. One must read the book that inspired its reclamation to understand why 'the little red lighthouse' was so important to so many. _______________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph
shot in September 2003.

A Variety of Vintage Tins

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Antique tins c. 1900 sit proudly against a barnboard wall. To the left is a copy of Geer's Hartford (Connecticut) Directory for 1876. __________________________________________ Geer's was the local Google of its day, providing the Hartford area with name and addresses, maps, business information and municipal information, advertisements, etc. __________________________________________ Digital oils. Based on an original photograph shot June 12, 2010 at the East Haddam Historical Society museum.

Surely You Jest

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Okay, fools and court jesters, pick your poison! ___________________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph of elegant, elaborate masks at a vendor's booth at the Guilford (Connecticut) Renaissance Faire, May 22, 2010.

Blue Night through Casement

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ____________________________________________
Blue shadows pervade a small bedroom on a cloudy night. ____________________________________________ Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in June 2004.

Making a Spectacle of Themselves

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
A pair of glasses gets cozy on a rustic picnic table in the late afternoon sun. __________________________________________ Digital oils from an original photograph shot June 19, 2010.

Nostalgic Eclectica

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Antique bottles, some empty, some not, share shelf space with vintage advertising and - an old boot. __________________________________________
A close examination of the label on the rightmost bottle reveals it to be:
'Grand Union Extract'
Vanilla and Tonka for Flavoring Compound
Extract Vanilla, Four Fifths
Extract Tonka, One Fifth
Alcohol 45% __________________________________________
Note the dark red and blue marbles
in the largest milk bottle. __________________________________________ Digital oils from an original photograph shot June 12, 2010, at the East Haddam Historical Society Museum.

It's a Guy Thing

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Old grease, flanges, bolts and it's red - a big boy's perfect toy. No, it's not a milking machine, it's an antique flywheel engine belonging to one of the members of the Tobacco Valley Flywheelers (Gas & Steam Engines) Association here in Connecticut. _______________________________________
Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot at the Haddam Neck Agricultural Fair,
October 7, 2009.

Marbled

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
A father and his young daughter show off some of the vintage shooters they've collected. _________________________________________ Shot June 12, 2010.

Relic in the Field

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
I wonder if the trees grew up around this old tractor. ___________________________________________
Digital oil painting from a photograph by artist Constance Widen. ___________________________________________
This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Light Reading

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Lafcadio Hearn's Some Chinese Ghosts sits atop a heap of other books, magazines and periodicals placed on an up-ended antique alligator trunk. Star-shaped bibelots and a photograph of the sparkling sea under glass complete the tableau.
Artist's note:
Every bathroom should be this well-equipped! ___________________________________________
Rough-textured digital oils based on a photograph shot in my bathroom of February 2001. ___________________________________________
This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Cracked in America

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Hot air rises from a cracked and pitted, steaming cup of tea, although frankly it looks a lot like piss to me. ________________________________________
There was so much I wanted to include in this satire-cum-warning about Tea Party political extremism.
But, because much of the nonsensical rhetoric spewed by so many of these bordering-on-sociopathic individuals is so ugly and misinformed, the image would have had to have been so filled with hate, I kept it to some of their more ironic concepts and left it there. ________________________________________
Sure wish they could spell.
Sure glad they revere the Constitution, even though they want to rip it apart to suit their horribly skewed view of Liberty.
Hey, seen any talking mice lately? Oh yeah - MICKEY!
Think O'Donnell got secret government labs confused with Disney? ____________________________________________
If you think men rode dinosaurs, that gays and lesbians are not full citizens, believe that the US government is interbreeding animals with humans, don’t want the privilege of voting for your senators but would rather have them appointed by the powers that be, that it’s perfectly OK for insurance companies to refuse affordable insurance to those unfortunate enough to have pre-existing conditions and to drop their insured who are diagnosed with cancer or some other malady they don’t wish to cover, and want to deny people in the US the right to worship as they please – if you believe that our country belongs only to the rich, the powerful, the Christian, the straight and the healthy, then the Tea Party is for you –
more’s the pity. ____________________________________________
Digital oil poster inspired by the most dangerous,
ignorant and extremist elements
in American politics today.

Detroit Deco '34

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
The elaborate grille of a 1934 Ford V-8 Roadster exemplifies the influence of the Art Deco movement on car design in the middle decades of the 20th century. __________________________________________ Shot in November 2007 at the New England Air Museum, Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

The Curve of Desire

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Macro detail of a sensual curve on a vintage boudoir lamp. HDR Orton-style photograph shot in May 2009.

The Book Bear

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

This charming little lady bear must love to read; she's sitting on the edge of a bookshelf chock-full of books.

Digital oil painting based on an original photograph shot in November 2009.

Gemglow

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________ Okay, so they're not gems - they're polished agates and other stones. But their colorful beauty rivals that of some jewels. _____________________________________________ Shot in Guilford, Connecticut on May 22, 2010.

Herb Garden Walkway

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Herbs in landscaped gardens are often planted so that they will spill over onto a walkway and send forth their pungent fragrance when crushed under the feet of passersby. _______________________________________
Digital oil painting after an original photograph
shot July 31, 2010.

Almond Blossom Tea

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Mini carnation blossoms and candied almonds only add to the charm of this vintage English china teacup and matching saucer, sitting on a hand-embroidered, antique muslin tablecloth. _______________________________________
Digital oils with a soft watercolor wash; adapted from an original photograph shot in November 2004.

And I Waited

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
And I was all dressed up with no place to go,
You said you'd pick me up but you never did show...
~ from All Dressed Up, © 1985 Cate Mackay _______________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph shot in
East Haddam, Connecticut, June 12, 2010.

Kitchen Alchemy

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
A worn and dented vintage tin with an elaborate classical motif sits atop another against a wainscoted wall. The legend at the bottom of the tin's illustration reads, 'Easy and simple to make', but I have not been able to identify either the product or the manufacturer. _______________________________________
Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in the East Haddam (Connecticut) Historical Society Museum. _______________________________________
This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Woodworking Elementals

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Study of a collection of 19th-century chisels and other woodworking tools assembled on an antique workbench. __________________________________________ Digital oils from an original photograph shot June 12, 2010 at the East Haddam (Connecticut) Historical Society Museum.

Chair in Isolated Corner

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
A wonderfully hand-decorated, painted but more than well-used straight chair occupies a corner that is separated from the rest of the room by the heavy draperies of the canopy bed next to which it sits. My first thought upon seeing it was, "An Early American time-out chair?" I really couldn't think of another reason why it would be set off from the rest of the room. ___________________________________________ Digital oils after an original photograph shot in the main bedroom of the Thankful Arnold House in Haddam, Connecticut on June 12, 2010. Each surface in the image has its own discrete texture.

'Tis Better...

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
'Tis better to light a single candle
than curse the darkness.

I've learned that it's much more satisfying to curse as you're lighting the candle. ___________________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph shot in the historic late 18th-century Thankful Arnold House in Haddam, Connecticut.

Far from Home

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
This poor old rowboat must be a little 'dinghy' from living in a forest clearing so far from the water. __________________________________________ Digital oil painting from a photograph by friend & artist Constance Widen.

Old Pals Out to Pasture

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
A pair of long-retired vintage hand tillers lean companionably against an antique barn. _________________________________________ Digital oil painting with a heavily-textured brush stroke and fine wood-cracked finish; from an original photograph shot in Guilford, Connecticut at the fairgrounds on May 22, 2010.

The Keepsake Chest

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Battered and worn, hide binding frayed, lock long gone, this early 18th-century brass-studded desk trunk must once have held a family's small treasures along with their important papers. ___________________________________________ Digital oil painting with linen canvas texture; based on an original photograph shot June 12, 2010, in the main bedroom of the Thankful Arnold House in Haddam, Connecticut.

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _____________________________________________
No, it's not Rosebud, but I suppose it could be a close relative. A child's painted antique wooden sled hangs, roped to barn board, high up on a wall in the East Haddam (Connecticut) Historical Society Museum. _____________________________________________
The title is from Ballade des dames du temps jadis (Ballad of the Ladies of Times Past) by François Villon, a 15th-century poet, teacher, and (later pardoned) murderer. Part of a larger work called 'Grand Testament', Villon called it simply Ballade; a publisher added the rest of the title in 1533. _____________________________________________
Dante Gabriel Rossetti translated the poem into English as 'Ballad of Dead Ladies', and the quotation from that poem that serves as the title to this piece as 'But where are the snows of yesteryear?', although in the original medieval French d'antan means 'last year'. Mais où sont les neiges d'antan? is one of the most popularly-translated quotations in the history of literature. _____________________________________________
Digital oil painting with on a cracked-wood panel from an original photograph shot June 12, 2010.

Victorian Bling

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
Faceted crystals on an antique chandelier glow quietly in the backlight entering the room from French doors. _________________________________________ Photograph shot at Wadsworth Mansion, a Beaux Arts landmark, in Middletown, Connecticut, April 2007.

Battered Barn

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
Worn and weatherbeaten - with peeling paint, cracked window panes - this vintage barn in Guilford, Connecticut is still beautiful to me. _________________________________________ Digital oil painting after an original photograph shot May 22, 2010.

Meditation by the Light of the Moon

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved
A place to collect oneself...
to remember, to forget, or whatever... _________________________________________ Vintage style photograph shot in May 2003, Denver, Colorado. _________________________________________ This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Colonial Comfort

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
An early 18th-century spindle-back rocker and a rustic footstool reflect the severe simplicity of the furnishings in the New England working person's household of the period. Utility and economy almost always took precedence over comfort. _________________________________________ Shot in the historic Thankful Arnold House in Haddam, Connecticut on June 12, 2010.

I Thought I Heard a Noise

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
It's the middle of the night...a faint thump, the tinkle of broken glass, and the prospect of descending the stairs to confront...

The cat went here and there,
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
~ William Butler Yeats ~ __________________________________________ Digital oils from an original photograph
shot in April 2005.

The Actor's Interview

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
Detail portrait; an actor's hands holding a lit cigarette as he talks about his experience in the theater. _________________________________________
This photograph was published in the July 2009 black and white issue of Arts Creation Magazine. Gritty, film-grained, semi-posterized; shot in New York City in 1999.

Waiting to Be Played

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________ Beautifully-crafted antique pan pipes sit on a cloth-covered table, awaiting someone who will pick them up and play a haunting melody. _________________________________________ Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot May 22, 2010.

A (Very) Condensed Poster of the Ascent of Man

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________ ...with apologies to the late Jacob Bronowski... _________________________________________ Digital pen, ink and oil painting.

Vintage Tableau

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Old, barn, old wagon in an old town...looking back at yesterday. _________________________________________ Shot May 22, 2010, Guilford, Connecticut.

Lovelight

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight.
~ Joseph Joubert ~ __________________________________________ Digital oils from an original photograph shot in November 2004. ___________________________________________
This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Waiting for Mr. Right

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Judging from the style of the wedding dress, I'd say she's been waiting for a long, long time. __________________________________________ Digital oil painting; the figure is taken from an original photograph shot in April 2005.

There Is No News Fit to Print

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
Well, is there? ___________________________________________ Digital grunge oils from an original photograph shot May 13, 2010.

Ornament for a Wild Garden

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
This antique wooden wagon wheel looks like a garden ornament for the meadow grasses and wildflowers growing around and in-between the spokes. _________________________________________ Vintage-style sepia photograph shot in a meadow at the Guilford, Connecticut fairgrounds on May 22, 2010.

For Want of a Nail

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
This antique iron-rimmed wagon wheel has a nail protruding from one of the spokes. When I saw it all I could think of was the ancient proverb:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Variations of this saying go back as far as the 14th century, although it is most commonly associated with the Battle of Bosworth Field, where Richard III of England was killed. _________________________________________ Yes, it's not a horseshoe nail, but hey - close enough for jazz - or art! _________________________________________ Sepia photograph shot at the Guilford, Connecticut fairgrounds on May 22, 2010.

Menu from a Medieval Restaurant

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
Three Merrie Maidens, a medieval theme café (that exists only in my imagination), offers a contemporary menu based on the food of the times. _________________________________________ Digital oil and vector painting.

Jackdaw's Hoard

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
Scattered bits of jewelry sit on an antique tablecloth; part of an outdoor vendor's display. These trinkets are a certain lure for jackdaws, who love to snitch and hoard glittery objects. _________________________________________ Inspired by the poem The Jackdaw of Rheims, first published in 1837 as part of The Ingoldsby Legends under the pseudonym Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor (Richard Harris Barham). _________________________________________
Photograph shot May 22, 2010. _________________________________________
This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Unspoken For

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________ This antique wooden wagon, built to be drawn by a horse or an ox, sits in a field next to the barn at the Guilford (Connecticut) Fairgrounds. I couldn't resist a close-up of one of the beautifully-designed but decaying, rusty-iron-rimmed wheels. _____________________________________________ Sepia, shot on May 22, 2010.

Crumbling

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________ Life as an old cobblestone road. _________________________________________ Digital oil painting from a photograph shared with me by artist Constance Widen.

Medieval Primitive

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________ A folk-art study of one of the windows on the third leg of the interior staircase leading to the top-floor apartment where I live. The way the late afternoon light shone in, it reminded me of a medieval stained glass window. ______________________________________________ Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot May 9, 2010. There is a light-to-medium vintage wood-grain texture on the wall and window casing.

The Art of the Sword

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
Detail of a beautifully-crafted reproduction of a 17th-century Torino swept-hilt rapier. These swords were not made for combat; they were used for fencing and other gentlemanly pursuits. ___________________________________________ Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire held in Guilford, May 22, 2010. The wall and wooden display rack are individually textured.

The Forge and the Ship

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________ The reflection of the fishing vessel L.A. Dunton, moored in the harbor at Mystic, Connecticut, shines in the window of this 19th-century ironworks. ___________________________________________ Digital watercolor from original photograph shot in August 2009.

Looking Up from the Road

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________________ Detail of the Arrigoni Bridge, which spans the Connecticut River from Middletown to Portland, Connecticut, shot on April 2, 2010 while underneath it in the car.

Old Basket, New Yarn

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _______________________________________
New yarn sits inside an early 19th-century woven basket, along with a pair of knitting needles of the same antique vintage. The ensemble rests on a wideboard floor inside the historic
Thankful Arnold House in Haddam, Connecticut. _______________________________________
Digital oils from an original photograph
shot June 12, 2010. _______________________________________
This is an ART for Cancer Group image.
25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Midnight in the Window of the General Store

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________________ It's 1874 - a sultry, summer Friday midnight in Connecticut. An advertising placard for Comstock, Ferre & Co. - located in Old Wethersfield and the oldest continuously-operating seed company in America - holds pride of place in the front window of a general store. ________________________________________________ The quiet main street is reflected in the window as well. Most everyone is tucked in and fast asleep, but if you look closely, you'll see an elderly gentleman tiptoeing off the porch of the boardinghouse across the street. It's anybody's guess as to what he's been up to. _________________________________________________ Digital grunge oil painting from an original photograph shot in August, 2009 in Mystic, Connecticut.

Coming Apart at the Seams

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
A picturesque old wagon wheel sits in a field of weeds and wildflowers, the wooden liner for its iron wheel rim slowly separating over time. _________________________________________ Vintage-style photograph shot in Guilford, Connecticut on May 22, 2010.

Have a Nice Cup of...

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ ...whatever you'd like most: coffee, tea, gin, absinthe - you name it, I'll get it for you! Digital paintwork from an original photograph shot in November 2009.

Old Homestead Sunset

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ The setting sun illuminates this antique wicker rocker and rug in the back anteroom of this vintage Colorado homestead. Digital oil painting based on an original photograph shot in April 2005.

Light through a Japanese Screen

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________
An Art Deco rice-paper screen from Japan beautifully diffuses the morning light steaming in from the windows behind. _________________________________________ Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot May 22, 2010.

Wind and Salt Water

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________ The relentless depredations of salt air and gusty winds off the water are evident on the exterior of this 19th-century fishing shed near the Mystic River in Connecticut. ___________________________________________
Digital pen, ink and watercolor from an original photograph shot in August 2009.

Music Box Memories

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ It's not an antique phonograph - it's a replica of an antique music box style manufactured by the Porter Music Box company of Vermont. This kind of music box plays music by reading patterns that have been hole-punched into copper-coated steel discs, creating surprisingly vibrant sound.
Aged vintage-style photograph shot in 2005.
You can see this music box as it is manufactured here:
The Swan Elite Music Box by Porter

Still Life with Barrels

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
A group of whale oil barrels, along with a rendering cauldron, sits outside a fishing shed at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. ___________________________________________ Digital watercolor from an original photograph shot in August 2009.

View from the Orwell Corner Church

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Digital oil study of a window in the Orwell Corner village church. Built in 1861 as a Presbyterian place of worship, it stands today as part of the Prince Edward Island Agricultural Heritage Museum at Orwell Corner. Based on an original photograph shot in September 2003.

Tarnished

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Silver jewelry, long unworn, ages over time.

Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in February 2010.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________ Visual metaphor for the world-wide results of the bloodbath on Wall Street. _________________________________________ Heavily-textured, grunged digital oil painting from an original photo shot in 2004

Rough and Rustic

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Detail of the contents of a 19th-century pantry digitally oil-painted on a wood surface. From an original photograph shot in August 2009.

25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

All the Modern Conveniences

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Vintage-style photograph of an antique cast-iron stove in a 19th-century kitchen. Shot in September 2003.

Directions in Deco

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Vintage-style sepia photograph of the wonderfully Art Deco signage on the marble wall in the lower level of Grand Central Terminal in New York. And yes, the Oyster Bar is still open and still serving the freshest, widest variety of oysters in the metropolitan area.

You Go First

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _____________________________________________ Behind the rusting iron fence and wild grapevines beckons a mysterious tunnel - where does it go? What's at the other end? _____________________________________________ Any group of self-respecting 11-or-12-year-olds would be over that fence in a red-hot minute to find out. At that age, even I would have been checking it out - as long as somebody had a flashlight. I definitely would have said, 'You go first!' _____________________________________________ Digital oil painting with a very fine, faint canvas texture. From a photograph by artist Constance Widen that she shot in Glasgow, Scotland.

Filamentary, My Dear Watson

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Antique light bulbs, three of which are clear glass and proudly display their convoluted filaments, sit on a screw-in shelf in the Kensington Train Station on Prince Edward Island, Canada. Digital grunge watercolor from an original photograph shot in 2003.

A Profusion of Chintz

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ A sturdy, maple, 19th-century New England four-poster is swathed in bedclothes of chintz.

The name 'chintz' is derived from the Hindi word for 'spotted', and is a glazed cotton cloth originally produced only in India. Unglazed chintz is called 'cretonne'. Chintz was extremely popular during the Victorian era and continues to be used as a decorative fabric today.

Digital painting from an original photograph shot in Mystic, Connecticut in August 2009.

25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, which sponsors research into a cure for breast cancer.

I Was a Drug Addict and Other Great Literature

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Truth will out! LOL!!!
Seriously, this is a canvas-textured digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in December 2009.

No Excuses

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ When my son was a toddler, we often went on 'pebble hunts' - something we'd read about in a Winnie the Pooh storybook. We would take one of his little socks and start off up the road, bending down often to collect the pebbles and small stones we liked the best. Eben often chose creamy white or oddly striated and marked stones.

Today, I still bend over and pick up stones like these whenever I happen across one; I keep them, in his memory, in a little vintage glass ashtray he once gave me. Photograph shot in November 2009.

25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Checks and Balances

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ______________________________________________ The precise checked pattern of the slipcover on this cozy, comfy chair in a corner of my living room is balanced by the unmatched throws and pillows I've heaped on it. ______________________________________________ Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot April 4, 2010.

The Throne Room

Blotted Out (Postcard from South Africa)

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _________________________________________________ Sometimes when life is blighted by misery, one cannot see any beauty. Behind the rain and clouds are majestic mountains, but they are masked by unhappiness; the vines on the inside of the window will soon blot out everything. ________________________________________________ Digital oil painting from one of dear Constance Widen's photographs - Bonnievale, South Africa.

Provisioning the Ship

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _______________________________________________ There are myriad reasons why anyone from our time - being of sound mind and body and in full possession of his or her faculties - would never want to sign on as a sailor on a 19th-century (or earlier) ship. One of the big drawbacks was the food. _______________________________________________ Shown here are small containers of the type of non-perishable staples that most ships back in those days carried. There is a small vial of molasses, jars of flour and other grains, and the inevitable bane of both land and sea, hardtack. The price list per pound for these goods was always kept on the counter so that the sailors charged with purchasing provisions could calculate how much they needed vis-a-vis how much they could afford. _______________________________________________ Non-perishable they may have been, but after a few weeks there inevitably were bugs and meal worms in the grains. Even the hardtack and dried peas were not immune to the depredations of insects. _______________________________________________ Although ships also carried brined and salted beef, pickled eggs and other preserved goods, on a long voyage - say, from New Bedford to the whaling waters of the Pacific - even these items reached a state of inedibility. The potatoes and fruits eventually rotted, and if all these things were not enough, ships' cooks were often elderly seamen, unable to do the hard work aboveboard, who were also alcoholics. Arrrgggh, matey! _______________________________________________ Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in the 19th-century general store at Mystic Seaport, Connecticut in August 2009.

Riding the Rails

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Detail of the bottom portion of an antique trolley car that now resides at the Connecticut Trolley Museum in East Windsor, Connecticut.

Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in May 2008.

Grading the Ring

© 2010 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ An authentic slice of the American agricultural pie - preparing the ring for a traditional horse pull at the Durham Fair, held annually the last weekend in September in Durham, Connecticut. Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in 2002.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

© 2008 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
One of a pair of magnificent lion sculptures in front of a Federal office building in Washington, DC. Shot in 1999.

Teapot Delusional

Let There Be Light

Soft, What Light...

© 2009 RC deWinter - All Rights Reserved

..through yonder window breaks? Vintage style black and white photograph of an old-fashioned lamp glimpsed through a softly-draped curtain in New York City.

Sending to the War

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ When I shot this photograph at the Haddam Neck (Connecticut) Fair on Labor Day 2009, I saw this wheel as just a component of a well-preserved antique grain grinder. When I began looking at it later, it brought to mind a fragment of William Morris's The Pilgrims of Hope poem cycle, Number Three - Sending to the War:

War in the world abroad a thousand leagues away,
While custom's wheel goes round and day devoureth day.
Peace at home! - what peace, while the rich man's mill is strife,
And the poor is the grist that he grindeth, and life devoureth life?

If you are interested, you can read the complete version here: William Morris - Sending to the War.

Simple Elegance

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ A vintage embroidered cotton pillowslip with crocheted lace accents shows its age but also it beauty against a wood-panelled wall. Digital oil painting based on an original photograph shot in 2005.

Still Life with Straw Hat

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ A table full of colorful, old-fashioned items beckons in a shop that specializes in vintage merchandise. Digital oil impasto based on an original photograph shot in November 2004.

Window Detail, The Assumption

Old & Forgotten (Texas Bar)

Sponge-Painted Plaster

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Graceful vines featuring morning glories and fruits adorn the border where wall meets ceiling in an antique kitchen. Digital panel textured oil painting from an original photograph shot in November 2009.

Tea Is Served

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Study of an elegantly-decorated, lidded china teacup and saucer. Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in November 2009.

There's still time to order one of my themed original artwork calendars for 2010, available exclusively on redbubble. You can view them here: Calendars for 2010 by RC deWinter.

Great gifts for the holidays or any time - or treat yourself! Visit The Contemporary Crone's Magical Marketplace at Zazzle for a variety of attractive and affordable items imprinted with my original artwork.

Harvest Home

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ This somewhat faded, yet beautifully detailed decoupage-style painting of the fruits and flowers of the autumn harvest graces the painted plaster wall of the dining room in an old house. Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in November 2009.

25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Childhood Dreams

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ A sphere full of charming vintage knickknacks appears in a child's colorful and happy dream. Digital pen, ink and watercolor based on an photograph shot in April 2009.

Looking for that perfect holiday gift? Browse my original artwork themed calendars for 2010 exclusively on redbubble.

Wooden Wall, Painted

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Detail of a beautifully decoupaged, antique wooden wall in an old kitchen. Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in November 2009.

25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Sunlight on Leather Chair

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Late afternoon summer sunlight illuminates this 19th-century parlor, focused particularly on a leather-upholstered mahogany chair. Digital wood panel oil painting from an original photograph shot in August 2009.

New Shelf, Old Memories

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ A collection of blue-themed trinkets, acquired over many years, sits on a modern kitchen shelf. Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in September 2009.

The Well-Equipped Pantry

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ A well-stocked mid-19th century pantry shows the variety of life at the time and what was needed to maintain it. Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in October 2009.

The Pit Crew

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Horse pull officials watch as the pit crew rakes the surface of the pull ring smooth in preparation for the next team. Digital pastel and pencil from an original photograph shot at the Durham, Connecticut fair in September 2006.

Fair Weather Prayer

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ A figurehead displayed in a wonderful collection at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. Hand-carved and painted, she seems to be rapt in the ecstasy of prayer. To me, she brings to mind Mary, Queen of Scots, on the night before her beheading. Digital oil painting from an original photograph shot in October 2009.

25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Roll Out the Barrel

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Antique, handmade barrels of all sizes and styles sit in the early 19th-century cooperage at Mystic Seaport village. Digital watercolor sketch with a distressed panel finish from an original photograph shot in August 2009.

Tools for the Times

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ 19th-century tools as displayed in a general store of the same era. Digital study with a glazed fabric finish and a Cubist influence; painted from an original photograph shot in Mystic, Connecticut in August 2009.

Raspberry Pitcher

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ An English china pitcher shares a kitchen shelf with a set of earthenware jam pots. Digital painting from an original photograph shot in September 2009.

25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Check out my latest video!

Somebody's Grandfather's Clocks

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Two very old and rare clocks bear silent witness to the passage of time.

The tall case ('grandfather') clock was made and signed by Aaron Miller of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, circa 1747. The case is cherry wood. Once owned by a ship captain Smith of Mystic, Connecticut, today these clocks are highly prized and worth many many thousands of dollars.

More on Aaron Miller: The first definite record of a New Jersey clockmaker is the following advertisement which appeared in the New York Gazetteer of November 23, 1747.

Aaron Miller, clockmaker in Elizabethtown, East Jersey, makes and sells all sorts of clocks after the Dutch manner, with expedition. He likewise makes compasses and chains for surveyors; as also bells of any size, having a foundry for that purpose and has cast several who have been approved to be good; and will supply any person on a timely notice with any of the above articles at any reasonable rate.

The regulator wall clock was made by the E. Howard Company of Boston, Massachusetts; E. Howard was one of the premier manufacturers of quality clocks in the United States from the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries. This clock was likely made sometime between 1842 and 1860. A clock very similar to this recently sold for $12,650.

Digital panel painting from an original photograph shot in Mystic, Connecticut in August 2009.

Handmade Paper, Never Sent

Grist for the Mill

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Dry corn kernels sit in a bushel basket next to and under the antique wooden sheller that just stripped them off the cob. Sepia photo taken at the Haddam Neck, Connecticut, Fair in September 2009.

Fieldstone Stairs, New England

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ One of the things I love best about New England is the ubiquitous fieldstone. From stone walls to entire structures, fieldstone is an architectural feature dating back to the earliest mid-1600's settlements.

The colonists built things from fieldstone in the spirit of self-preservation: the ground throughout most of the region is full of buried rock. In order to grow crops and build houses and barns, the stone had to be removed, and the colonists put this stone to good - and beautiful - use.

Digital painting from an original photograph shot in August 2009.

Notes to Myself

The Trolley Out Back

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ A relic of the New England Trolley Line sits out in the open behind a 19th-century house at the Mystic (Connecticut) Seaport Museum. Digital painting from original photograph shot in August 2009.

Firehouse Velocipede

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ This sleek, mid-19th century ancestor of the bicycle, known as a 'boneshaker' for its rough ride, sits alongside an antique fire truck in an open shed. It was likely used by the fire company as a messenger vehicle to spread fire alarms and fetch help. Shot in Mystic, Connecticut in August 2009.

Shelf with Things Treasured

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Every household has its gods - the bits and pieces of memories embodied in physical reminders. Here is a shelf displaying things beautiful and meaningful to those to whom they belong. Digital painting from Jerry Carlin's photo.

The Harvest

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

The hand of Demeter (or Ceres), the goddess of the harvest, offers a handful of grain in token of a bountiful crop. Photograph shot at the Stamford, Connecticut Arboretum.

This image has been licensed by ABC for use as set decor for the TV show 'Desperate Housewives'.

25% of all sales of this picture will be donated to Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, which sponsors research into a cure for breast cancer.

American Gargoyle

The Square Piano

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Study of an 18th-century square piano. This one, on display in the Isaac Stevens House in Wethersfield, Connecticut, is further evidence of the level of comfort and luxury the family enjoyed thanks to Isaac's successful leather-working business.

The keyboard spans four-and-a-half octaves and the keys are layered with ivory; the instrument was likely made in England, perhaps by a German craftsman, for the design of the square piano was perfected in Germany and Austria.

Digitally painted from an original photograph shot in June 2009.

This image has been licensed by ABC for use as set decor for the TV show 'Desperate Housewives'.

Fabric of the City

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ A twisted tree embraces and entwines around the ironwork on the entry stairs of a New York townhouse. Digitally penned, inked, painted and fabric-finished from an original photograph shot in 2002.

Baby, You Can Drive My Car II

© 2006 RC deWinter - All Rights Reserved ~~ The original color shot of a classic car ready to go. if any of you gearheads recognizes this interior, please tell me - I think it's a Ford but since I neglected to make notes when I took the photo I'm not sure. Companion piece to "Baby, You Can Drive My Car I".

Heart of Stone

Omaha Retro

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ An old-style GMC bus has been retrofitted with handicapped access, an LED screen denoting the route and other improvements while maintaining its 1940's charm. This bus route cruises right through the Old Market district in Omaha, Nebraska. Digitally painted from an original photograph shot in 2006.

Trolley Cathedral

© 2009 RC deWinter The exquisite interior of an old trolley reflects a cathedral-like glow in the gloom of a dark afternoon. Painted from an original photo shot at the Connecticut Trolley Museum in East Windsor in 2008.

Storm Coming

© 2009 RC deWinter The sky grows dark as a sudden summer storm rolls in. Painted from an original photo shot in 2008 at the Connecticut Trolley Museum in East Windsor, which is the oldest incorporated organization dedicated to the preservation of trolleys and the times in which they ran.

Chugging Along

Waiting for a Train

Pennsylania Hopper

© 2008 RC deWinter An old hopper car from the Pennsylvania Railroad sits in the yard at the Railroad Museum of New England in Thomaston, Connecticut. Rendered in smudge stick from the original photograph.

I Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow

© RC deWinter - All Rights Reserved This is a digitized sideline photograph of Union Pacific's Big Boy engine 4023, now preserved in Kennefick Park, Omaha, Nebraska. Arguably the largest successful steam engine ever built, the first group of Big Boys was used on UP's run from Ogden to Wahsatch, Utah, and was specifically designed to be strong enough to pull a freight train over the 1.14% grade of the Wahsatch. The engine pictured here was built in 1944 as part of the second group of Big Boys manufactured as part of the WWII effort. Most of the Big Boys were finally retired from service in 1961;

Reflection in Drawn Glass

© 2009 RC deWinter The spring sky and leafy trees are reflected in the drawn glass of this fanlight, which if part of a historic house in Essex, Connecticut. Drawn glass is the type of glazing used in the earliest windows in this country. It's made by stretching (drawing) the glass directly from the furnace to the correct dimensions. This accounts for the wavery appearance you see in the original glass of colonial-era houses that have been preserved. Painted from an original photo shop in April 2004.

Rattan Rocker II

Rattan Rocker I

A Bird's Nest for Thought

© 2009 RC deWinter An abandoned nest sits undisturbed in the corner of the foundation of an old shed. The title is taken from an old-fashioned aphorism: "Well that's a bird's nest for thought"- meaning a confusing or complicated situation. Painted from an original photograph taken in Colorado in 2004.

Welcome!

The Old Ball and Chain

© 2009 RC deWinter Literal visual representation of whatever it is in your life (and mine) that chains you (and me) to insecurities; what we perceive as preventing us from soaring. Rendered from an original photograph shot at the Western Heritage Museum in Omaha, Nebraska in 2006.

Taxi!

© 2009 RC deWinter An antique neon sign advertising taxis glows in the old Union Station in Omaha, Nebraska. Now the Durham Western Heritage Museum, it is affiliated with the Smithsonian. Painted from an original photo shot in 2006.

Intimacy

25% of all sales of this photograph will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Nine Thirteen

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________
The intricate face of this grandfather clock shines in the sunlight streaming in through tall windows at Wadsworth Mansion in Middletown, Connecticut. ________________________________________
This historic Beaux Art landmark, once a private residence, was built in the 19th century and originally landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted, and is now open to the public for tours, celebrations and special events. ________________________________________
Shot in November 2006.

The Christmas Chandelier

Grandpa's Union Suit

Coming Soon?

Rhus Radicans Triumphant

© 2009 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ A sturdy and persistent poison ivy plant flourishes in the cracks of this bricked-over window at Old Newgate Prison and Copper Mine in East Granby, Connecticut. Copper was discovered on what became known as Copper Hill in 1707, and a mine was established. The first copper coins in the English colonies were made from this copper in 1735. Mining operations ceased, and in 1773 the colony of Connecticut began using the property as a prison to incarcerate dangerous criminals. Tory and Loyalist prisoners were also kept here during the Revolutionary War. In 1827 the prison was re-converted to a mine under a charter issued to the Phoenix Mining Company. The site was given to the state of Connecticut in 1968, and in 1976 Old Newgate Prison and Copper Mine was named a National Historic Landmark. Painted from an original photograph shot in May 2007.

Weatherworn

Sunflowers, Wheat and Pearls

Regret

Orpheus Looks Back

© 2003 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ~~ Study of the bust of Orpheus; part of a larger piece of statuary.

Orpheus is Greek mythology's premier poet and musician, the mortal son of the Muse Calliope. It was said his music was so beautiful it caused trees and stones to move. He was also also one of the Argonauts. It was his music that saved the ship from crashing into the Sirens' deadly rocks.
Orpheus was married to Eurydice and devoted to her. When she was bitten by a poisonous snake and died, Orpheus descended into the Underworld to retrieve her. His music so charmed Hades that he allowed Eurydice to be taken back to the living, with one stipulation: Orpheus must not look back at her while leading her above-ground.

Alas, just before ascending into the realm of mortals, Orpheus forgot the stricture. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw his beloved Eurydice slipping back down into the darkness of the realm of the dead.

Orpheus was so desolated he avoided all women and generally lived apart from other people. He was attacked and killed as he sat under a tree, singing, by the Maenads.

Film Noir Café

Baby You Can Drive My Car I

© 2006 RC deWinter - All Rights Reserved ~~ Classic b & w shot of a classic car ready to go. if any of you gearheads recognizes this interior, please tell me - I think it's a Ford but since I neglected to make notes when I shot the photo I'm not sure. Companion piece to "Baby, You Can Drive My Car II".