ANDREW WYETH
DEAD AT 91
Helga, Christina, Walt, Ben, Karl; immortalized
egg yolks immortalized too
.. He was plagued with "wrong-time-ism." A bit of representation in a world of abstraction.
This made him a target of critics and a hero to everyman and college rebels. How dare he paint what he saw? It now seems a grand joke! Blessings be upon his soul.
.. Maybe it's always dreary in New England, maybe not, but Wyeth captured the light of the best fishing days.
.. The bugs know this, the fish know this, the neighbours know this; only the people who make calendars and illustrate fishing books ignore this.
.. It's a simple equation:
dreary day=fishy day. We mentioned this just last October and
summoned "Christina's World" to illustrate the point.
.. We remember Andy, Helga, Walt, Ben, Karl, and the paintings that capture the light.
.. Be it a bedroom, a coot hunter, or a lobsterman's dory the signature style is distinctive - even the critics admit it. The mature style developed right after his father's death and was persistent over 50 years.
..
The New York Times,
Los Angeles Times, and
Smithsonian Magazine have notes about his passing. Less eloquent but more fun is a piece about his granddaughter's insights in
The Seattle Times 
a couple of year's back.
.. We're not nearly so eloquent or impassioned, however, Wyeth's pictures are a delight: need we say it - speak for themselves.
.. If you happen to be a Wyeth aficionado the subjects become intimate friends, protagonists, neighbours, and characters. The places become as familiar as your own kitchen. You can become fascinated with the ordinary.
.. Helga fascinated us, along with the rest of the country, in the 80's. Did painters still paint nudes? Did they do it in secret? What went on? Prurient interests fueled a
sort of Helga mania. The critics loved it. Scholars doted on it.
.. The neighbours winked and acknowledged that painters were people too. It was fun. We caught fish and called them Helga.
.. We are still in a world that loves the abstract. The best fishing place, the best fly, the best fighting fish, the most spectacular venue, the most exotic trip, the finest wine, the rod with best action, are all abstractions employed to enhance a fictive experience of the mind.
.. Wyeth celebrated the mundane. He reminded us of
the day-to-day world. No escapism, no meaning in blotches and swirls, no denial of what was just next door and around the corner: just the mundane - Hallelujah!
.. The top of a chest, the landscape outside the window, the house next door, a neighbour, an old car, a baker and caregiver, all are available to the rest of us. No "BEST" just the rest.
.. We can associate with this. Our fish are mundane, normal, accessible, and next door. Our tackle is pedestrian and utilitarian, some of it older than we are: it works. It's familiar and friendly and has seen many days when a calendar photographer would stay home.
.. We don't idolize our gear, we see no exaltation in a pleasurable pastime, and we acknowledge that our sport represents a pleasant and rather mundane bit of the universe. But we enjoy it.
.. The spirituality of the mundane is too often overlooked. The vibrancy of the neighbourhood is reduced to oblivion by the
promise of adventure, in exotic and unvisited places. We always seem to forget that there's no place like home.
.. The emotionalism, spiritualism, and abstractions evoked by some critics and Wyeth himself is cerebral.
.. It's a meaning of the moment, and requires more than the
viewing of the images. It requires that you know about Christina or Helga, or Walt. It requires that the viewer enter the neighbourhood and become familiar with Wyeth's home.
.. It requires that you evoke the time and place that is . . . Here & Now. A snapshot is just that, and Wyeth's are evocative. A history is written in a home; yours, ours, and his.
.. Wyeth enjoyed his home. He enjoyed his neighbours and neighbourhood and let us see it - warts and all.
.. We're watching to see if the walleye becomes a native fish through legislative action and if tips count as wages. The IRS wants you to know.
Yellowstone River and most of it's news and activities make the papers in Fargo, and Minot, North Dakota.
who thinks that it's the legislature's place to correct science. [[ Shades of the Butler Act and the Scopes Trial.]] - - - Is there a family resemblance?
The workers are restaurant staff, pub staff, fishing guides, hunting guides, tour guides, hotel staff, and everyone that strives to make visiting Montana a memorable experience.
the kitchen and your table, it's going to be picked up and presented just as carelessly as if it didn't fall under the 10-second rule.
.. Everyone wants to be a local. Move to Montana, splash around a bunch of 
money, fence off your stream, build a castle with a 10-car garage and stock it with everything but a pick-um-up, and call yourself a local.
influenced the bill and will feed legislators fried walleye the night before Thursday's [[ tomorrow's]] hearing.
Let's cherish the Grayling. Let's adore the Bull Trout.
This made him a target of critics and a hero to everyman and college rebels. How dare he paint what he saw? It now seems a grand joke! Blessings be upon his soul.
.. It's a simple equation: dreary day=fishy day. We mentioned this just last October and summoned "Christina's World" to illustrate the point.
a couple of year's back.
.. If you happen to be a Wyeth aficionado the subjects become intimate friends, protagonists, neighbours, and characters. The places become as familiar as your own kitchen. You can become fascinated with the ordinary.
sort of Helga mania. The critics loved it. Scholars doted on it.
the day-to-day world. No escapism, no meaning in blotches and swirls, no denial of what was just next door and around the corner: just the mundane - Hallelujah!
.. We don't idolize our gear, we see no exaltation in a pleasurable pastime, and we acknowledge that our sport represents a pleasant and rather mundane bit of the universe. But we enjoy it.
promise of adventure, in exotic and unvisited places. We always seem to forget that there's no place like home.
viewing of the images. It requires that you know about Christina or Helga, or Walt. It requires that the viewer enter the neighbourhood and become familiar with Wyeth's home.
. . . . The Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA) is a global asset that is treasured for its natural beauty, geological wonders, biological diversity and plethora of recreational opportunities. People from all over the world visit the GYA to enjoy its natural wonders and resources. The GYA is the headwaters for three major river systems that are of immeasurable economic importance to the United States.
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