Summer attains its greatest dignity & power in August. In this dignity & power exist simultaneously a sinister quality,
Evening (about 6:30) call from Art (whom we were not expecting until Wed. or Thurs) – He and Violet had just arrived at Buffalo I said “Is it congratulations?” & he said it was!
Definite sounds now ceased; the town had fallen asleep, a train had roared thru the valley and died away; Now came the time of imaginary sounds...
"...This is a real rainy day...The softened outlook does not attract the eye. One looks out across those mist blurred trees into illimitable distances & think wonderful thoughts..."
Evening – B+I to Bailey Th. [theater] to see “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.” – A fanciful whimsy well done. We stayed for the Bingo.
This evening at dusk as a storm from the Southwest swept out of the orange sky; as the huge misshapen trees, thinned by the wind waved against the afterglow, as the wind’s course was marked in waving corn & leveled sunflowers — as I saw light windows in the puny houses — As I saw the fearful immensity of the storm, I felt how small how futile my attempts so far have been — A great discouragement came over me –
I dream visions of immense storms in mountain valleys on seas which war with mountainous shores; of immense boiling rivers curling down mountainsides; of sudden flashes of sunlight at the heights of such storms and wonder if it will ever be my joy to paint such scenes — I must — I will —
At midnight a strange phenomenon — Streaks of pale light radiating from zenith most of them extending over the north half of the sky – Great nervous waves of light flutter upwards from the north —
I think of myself, artist-wise, as being a perfectly happy man, living in an environment that is exactly suited for me.
Arthur could hardly believe me when I told him it was rain, and seemed to marvel that it eventually proved so, and I though to myself how all my youngsters have been deprived of the experience of common natural events; but perhaps the memory of such an event will linger with him longer for experience it in just the way he did.
Worked on three pictures started last year - The dream of "albino" monarchs, the church and goldenrod, and "Sea of Queen Anne's Lace.
...he falling drops caught the sunlight, sparkled brilliantly...Sunlight falling on gutter rills broken into a thousand flecks...