Winooski River, September

Winooski River Bend, September- painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper, September 2012.

In the morning, the bell-and-buoy

voices of birds

to mark a sky channel.

 

And then, after lift

of silver fog,

a stillness.

 

In trees, in grass,

the green of growth

held in sere suspension.

 

This is September, when the river sheens and mirrors,

 reflecting the ripeness of journeys fulfilled,

 in depths, in shallows, beyond shadowed bend.

     

 -Kevin Macneil Brown

new music: viridian

VIRIDIAN WAVES was conceived as a half hour immersion in overlapping waves of sound color-- deep greens, blues, rust, and white light.. The piece has its source in a single steel guitar improvisation recorded at Christ Episcopal Church in Montpelier, Vermont in June 2012. Subsequent reworking of this material preserved the tonality, harmonic motion, and proportions of the improvisation, while exploring spatial, timbral, and temporal transformations. - kmb

island horizon- for marsden hartley (painting.)

ISLAND HORIZON- FOR MARSDEN HARTLEY- painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor and gouache on paper, 2012.

high summer meditations (poem and painting.)

Meditation, High Summer (For Thomas Merton) -painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor and gouache on paper, July 2012.


----------------------------------------

Past dry creek-bed

in dark hemlock-shadowed
summer woods

Parabola
of hermit thrush song
spilling
into rill of
amost-silence

Now to compass

an infinity

No longer enclosed within
muffled greenwood
echo

But instead

Streaks of quicksilver
to stir and shard
the rust-blood
heart of this morning.

 -Kevin Macneil Brown

from dawn to dusk, the longest days...(new paintings.)

Woodland Map, Summer Solstice; Dusk Journey, Summer Solstice. Paintings by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper(s), June 2012

christ church dark skies almost rain ( art walk improv.)

At the Montpelier Art Walk opening for my art exhibit at Christ Church, I had some wonderful conversations, many of them turning toward water and memory. When people got curious about the steel guitar in the corner, I played some soundscapes for them. I think the shared watery remembrances got into the music. 

Art Exhibit in Montpelier, Vermont, June 2012

Kevin Macneil Brown will exhibit a selection of paintings in watercolor and acrylic at the Christ Episcopal Foyer in the Parish House, Montpelier, Vermont, from June 8 through the end of the month. An opening reception will be held during Montpelier Art Walk, Friday, June 8, from 5 – 7:30 PM, with the artist presenting original music/ sound art to accompany the images.

Kevin Macneil Brown makes art inspired by the revelations and mysteries of shorelines and mountains in New England light. “I spend a lot of time outdoors in nature, in motion and meditation,” Brown says, “and the layers of the landscape, of water and landforms, of a perceived past and present, come alive with something that I just need to explore and convey.”

In particular, the changing waters and mountainous horizons of Lake Champlain offer a deep connection and communion, and Brown engages with those energies in visual art, writing, and musical composition.

The exhibit space will be open Mondays through Thursdays, 10-5.

Depth of Place: Music and Art (Video)

New Music: DEPTH OF PLACE & THE INNER HARBOR

I am in love with changing light, with the colors, textures, and resonances of sky, water, and landforms. Something inside me vibrates when I experience these things. That's why I make this music. -KMB

Coming Soon: DEPTH OF PLACE AND THE INNER HARBOR

My new collection of contemplative compositions and soundworks will be available in April

DEPTH OF PLACE AND THE INNER HARBOR is a collection of recent music inspired by sense of place: by light and water, by liminal horizons and quiet journeys.

Here is some video capturing part of a recording session for the composition "Depth of Place"-- tracking steel guitar and live looping:

DEPTH OF PLACE AND THE INNER HARBOR will be available for download in a variety of digital formats, and also in a limited edition hand-packaged CD-R version.

-KMB

Secret Shores, Spring Horizons

SECRET SHORE 1, 2, and 3--paintings by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper, 2012

Craving a new season's light on familiar waters, for a few weeks in late winter I tuned my palette to reflect and evoke something between memory and new horizons.

-KMB

Dawn Crossings (watercolors)

DAWN CROSSING 1, DAWN CROSSING 2- Paintings by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper, February, 2012

Running Deep

I'm excited to announce the publication of my new book, RUNNING DEEP: MOVING MEDITATIONS THROUGH NEW ENGLAND PLACE, TIME, AND MEMORY.
Inspired by my journeys through the New England landscape, it's a collection of essays exploring distance running as a way to discovering a sense of place, self, and transcendence.
For a while I have been wanting to gather these pieces previously published in magazines and newspapers. I decided to release the book in the heart of the long New England winter, hoping it might come at a good time to inspire other runners!
You can find the book-- and read a bit of it-- here:



The Kindle Edition is available here: http://www.amazon.com/Running-Deep-Meditations-Through-ebook/dp/B0078F0K6E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331604765&sr=8-1

Eastern Uplands, Winter Morning (for Imbolc)

Eastern Uplands, Winter Morning- Painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Late-winter morning
spent out mapping
the infinite resonance/distance
between

strong blue shadows,
burgeoning light.

-kmb

A Mountain Calling

WHITE ROCK AND MOUNT HUNGER, AFTER SNOW-- painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper.


You might know the feeling. Having been gone from high country for a while, you are on the return trip. You turn a corner and, suddenly, the shape and line of a certain mountain in the distance lets you that know you are truly home.
For the past twenty years I’ve been getting that heart-tugging welcome from central Vermont’s Worcester Range; in particular from the sight of the bare-rock half-dome of Mount Hunger and the sharp little point of White Rock Mountain, a short ridgeline away.
As a distance runner, I’ve made the 30-mile round-trip from my house to the Hunger summit and back at least seven times; I’ve run and hiked the trails around these two mountains in all kinds of weather, with the trails in varied conditions-- from clear and dry to barricaded with wind-fallen trees.
I won’t ever forget my first trip to the summit of Hunger, starting on a sunny, leaf-strewn late October day in Montpelier to arrive at a snow-covered summit. Looking in all directions from bare rock, I had the powerful sensation of a shifting self; of somehow, deeply—in ways beyond words—arriving instantly at a new relationship with the place I called home, its hills, valleys, rivers, meadows, forests; the further distant mountains and the silver band of big lake that marked my horizons.
These sort of ineffable experiences of connection in the outdoors are, of course, not limited to those who encounter mountain ranges, distant or close-up. The hunter in crisp autumn woods, the farmer in a sun-baked summer pasture, the angler in a forest-shadowed late-spring brook are just a few of those who can feel, in their own very personal ways, the stirring of deep connections.
For myself, I know that after the descent of my home mountain, there is always a point at which I look back to see it behind me—-in full, from some distance. At that moment, I am often struck by the paradoxical feeling that, while I know the mountain—-its rocks, trees, trails, and vistas—-a little better than I did before, I also have a compelling sense that the overall mystery of the mountain has somehow deepened.
I’m pretty sure it’s the same mystery that continues to call me whenever I turn that highway corner and think, “Home.” And it’s what keeps me coming back to the mountain for more.

-Kevin Macneil Brown

(This piece originally appeared, in slightly different form, in the BARRE-MONTPELIER TIMES ARGUS)

hushed bells in winter twilight

I made this music with guitar and cascading delays-- in one take, in-the-moment, while I watched the sky and changing light and shadows of a cold afternoon becoming evening.
-kmb

Eastern Horizon, Winter Morning

Eastern Horizon, Winter Morning

Painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paer, 2011

from mystery, quiet light... (music and images for the winter solstice.)

Morning, Late Autumn, Berlin Pond

Morning, Late Autumn, Berlin Pond-- Painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper, 2011

November Morning, Broken Overcast

November Morning, Broken Overcast--painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper, 2011

This November here in central Vermont has been full of big skies and changing light. Certain moments, seen while I'm out running on trails, have stayed in my inner vision-- held until I paint them. I am grateful for the chance to re-experience and contemplate within myself these mysteries of light and land-form and cloud and shadow ...

-KMB

November Shore

November Shore--Painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper, 2011

You Are My Horizon --New Music

My new collection of contemplative music is out today. These pieces were made in the fall of 2011, with baritone guitar and steel guitar. I think of these works as sonic prayers and meditations: inspired by the energies and mysteries of autumn's landscapes, inner and outer.

october liminal (morning journey)

Images by kmb

gathered on the morning of October 17, 2011

Lines For Rowland Robinson

Through hardwoods, followed

the merest suggestion of footpath, found

the sudden flume,

the foaming pool :

slate-lined, deep gray;

shadow-blessed,

October-cold.

-Kevin Macneil Brown

Writer’s Harvest and Words of Gratitude

This fall brings a harvest that is of particular importance to me. With the publication of BRIGHT PATH, DARK THICKET, I honor a writer’s commitment I made to myself more than a decade ago: a commitment to complete three books in the Liam Dutra New England mystery series.

It all began on a September trail run up into the woods and open ridgelines of Irish Hill in Berlin, Vermont, when a coyote running along the trail ahead led me to an old stone cellar hole, and I thought to myself, what if….

I am grateful for what the writing process has taught me about joy and despair, discipline and trust.; for what I have discovered about the history of the place where I live, its people, it’s landscape, mountains, shorelines; for the experience of becoming immersed in a story and being part of its unfolding day to day. (Along the way I've also written three other novels outside the series.)

I am utterly grateful for my first readers, who read these books in various stages of manuscript and generously shared their expertise and wisdom. They are:

Ray Zirblis, Robin Cornell, Phil Zallinger, Raina Lowell, Ted Richards, Bill Fraser, David Blythe, Lindsay Riggs Brown, Patricia Macneil, Robyn Sargent, Rob Halpert, Erika Mitchell.

I’d also like to thank the kind and committed people at Bear Pond Books and Kellogg-Hubbard Library-- both places in Montpelier, Vermont-- for graciously hosting author events, and for keeping my books on their shelves.

Thank you to the anonymous editors at Poisoned Pen Press who, while ultimately passing on the Liam Dutra series, paradoxically convinced me that the books were worth publishing.

And thank you, too-- all who read my words!

-kmb

Kindle edition at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Bright-Path-Dark-Thicket-ebook/dp/B005ONM5L0/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1316910622&sr=8-5

Slow Shimmer in Secret September (soundwork for the autumn equinox)

You Are My Horizon (4)

YOU ARE MY HORIZON 4- Painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, acrylic on canvas, August 2011

Morning Passage

Morning Passage--Painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor and gouache on paper, 2011

Changing Tides

Beach at Good Harbor, Dawn ( 2 and 1)--Paintings by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper, 2011

Some of my most satisfying watercolor days have come at those times when my paint supply is low-- when I am down to two or three all-but squeezed-out tubes of color.

One day this summer I decided to use up the last of what I had: two shades of yellow, some alizarin crimson, a tiny residual amount of zinc white.

I began with a wash of clean water, then squeezed out colors— mixing them, with brush and water, right on the sheet. I made two paintings that afternoon, both of them views of Good Harbor Beach, in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

After spending some weeks with these paintings —and making some small re-wettings and re-workings—I began to see that I had not only used up my paint; I had also come to the completion of something: the visual and energetic expression a place, a moment, a feeling—that I had been carrying for a long, long time.

Of course I will restock my colors. And I will most likely paint Good Harbor images again. But I am also excited to harbor that sense of completion, to look up now and turn my attention to a change in tide.

-KMB

Liminal Music 5: drift chart (from the northern voyages)

I made this long, slow, quiet, maritime soundwork over the course of three rainy, cool days while a North Atlantic air mass was stalled inland here in Vermont. I had been reading about John Cabot's 15th Century voyages, which led to thoughts of the generations who have fished Brown's Bank and other northern waters out of Gloucester, Mass.

My intent was to conjure in sound an oceanic sense of quiet--but powerful-- mystery and awe, along with a strange deep peacefulness.

All sounds are from lap steel guitar and digital treatments (sound smear.)

- KMB

At the Edge of the Longest Day...

Dusk, Mountains, Pine
Painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper, June 2011


That one white pine in
one dark brush-stroke reaching up
from curve of hard
New Hampshire ridgeline

is held now
in the heart and in
a granite chamber
of memory

So that
here at the edge
of the longest day
possible in this latitude

I feel it again:

The lifting ache of
something ancient.

- Kevin Macneil Brown

Offshore, Halibut Point

Offshore, Halibut Point

Painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper, 2011

Three Mornings

Video paintings by Kevin Macneil Brown, June 2011

Another Shore Remembered

Evening, Kennebec River, June.
Painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper, May 2011

-----------------------------------------

Lately, I've been visited by sudden, strong memories of certain times and places--particular shorescapes I've experienced. After these memories come upon me, I spend time--over the course of a few days, usually-- refining the images within my mind. Once they are clear to the recall, I begin to paint...
-kmb

Book Launch: HIGHWAY IN THE BLOOD

www.highwayintheblood.wordpress.com

this one morning...

...this one morning is the reason i came to this place... (York Beach, Maine)
Painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper, May 2011

Good Harbor, Remembered May Morning

Good Harbor-- Remembered May Morning
Painting by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor on paper, 2011

There are certain places I return to by conjuring inside myself: real-world places that have made a deep imprint of color, mood, energy, motion; stillness, space, distance; geologic shape and form, inner and outer engagement. By contemplation and imagination I put myself in these places and create a vivid and refreshing sanctuary; a connection and confluence with something I call depth of place.
Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, Massachusetts is one of those places. I return again and again, in memories, meditations, dreams. This painting, made in hazy May sunlight, brings me back to a certain remembered spring morning at Good Harbor: waking up in a sleeping bag in the dunes; watching morning arriving and changing over the water--bringing light from above and shadows from below.
-kmb

Woodland Passage, April Morning

In depth of dark
woods, the sudden slant of
April’s empty light.

Near hard noon meridian
over softness of moss—viridian
underfoot—I stop,
wanting some stillness

and stand
beside a massive quartzite boulder
left here a long time,
almost motionless, glacial
erratic ( but only to limited perceptions.)

I’m not sure
what I can bring
to all this:

Yes, the gift of respiration;
The manifold graces
of being present—

These thoughts cross
inner oceans and
eons in an instant

and at once I find
that I want
to be one who

will stand at the marge of
this season with prayers and passion

seeking the true glide
of wisdom, imagination;

will watch open-hearted for
the fields’ first greening,

the hazing-over of
the hot, coppered sun,

and on the horizon
distant, small, strong,
the broadwings’ lifting arrival.

-Kevin Macneil Brown