The Drawing Board

The view out my studio window this morning . . .

...on a chilly, rainy, blustery spring day here in the hills of Devon. I've written about the significance of rainbows to me in a previous post. This one comes at the perfect time.

"If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine."  - Diana Wynne Jones

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."  - Dolly Parton

The View From Your Window*

The picture above comes from Alan Lee, who usually lives down the street from us here in Devon, but who is currently in New Zealand working on the filming of The Hobbit.  Alan writes: " So this is where I happen to be; the view on tuesday morning before setting off for a day's work in Wellington, New Zealand."

The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Above and below: the views from Ellen Kushner's windows in New York City. Ellen says: "The first picture is actually the photo from our (Delia Sherman's & my) livingroom, where I have gone to spread out to edit the new Bordertown anthology, as my study had gotten to the 'so cluttered I can't even think in here' stage.  The view from my study, in the next room, is pretty much the same, though, minus the fairy.  He may seem a bit twee, but remember that we live in Manhattan - and in a neighborhood full of kids; so maybe one or two of the multitude who are walked to and from school by various caretakers have looked up and seen the profile against our curtains at night, and wondered....  The stained glass was a wedding present from our amazing friend, the Boston glass artist Alice Johnson.

"We really do live in the concrete heart of NYC;  I feel incredibly lucky to have the trees of Riverside Park out my window.  In summer, it's a thick wall of green - but in winter,  the bare trees reveal layer after layer of city landscape - on a clear day, all the way across the Hudson River to New Jersey."

The second picture is the view from Ellen's study window, taken during the snow storms of this past winter.

The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Above and below: The view from my husband Howard's office/music-room window, which is in an alpine cabin in our back yard, up against the woods. That's Tilly, of course, on the little balcony in front of the window. Dartmoor is in the distance (beyond the green hills and trees), crowned with the granite peak of Kestor -- near which there are Bronze Age ruins.

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Above: A photograph from John Bridges, one of the good people behind the Mythic Imagination Institute in Atlanta. "It's a view of the backyard from my kitchen breakfast nook in Stone Mountain, Georgia," John writes. "Stone Mountain is a part of the Atlanta Metro Area, and I live about a mile as the crow flies from the actual giant piece of exposed granite that gives the area, and the park that contains it, its name. My dog Django was napping when I took this, otherwise he probably could be seen out in 'his' yard, patrolling for squirrels or being surprised by the occasional deer that visit the neighbor's yard in the early morning. You can glimpse a string of faded Tibetan prayer flags strung between a couple of branches towards the back of the yard. To the right is my favorite room in the house: the enclosed porch. Its a great place to sit and read or sketch on a breezy evening, though we're already starting to feel the end of spring here and the start of a steamy Atlanta summer."

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Above: A window view from artist & musician Oliver Hunter in Melbourne, Australia. He writes: "I hate to have left this so late but the schedule and the lengthening nights (my south-facing window is usually shrouded by gloom at this time of year) have left me few windows of opportunity, excuse the pun. But this morning was gloriously sunny for about 5 minutes, long enough for me to snap you this."

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Karen Shaffer has sent in a clever series of window views of various kinds, taken during her trip to Los Angeles past this week:

First, the window view from the airplane:

Next, the view from her car window:

 

A window view of the Hollywood Hills:

 

Looking out the window straight down on Sunset Boulevard:

 

Full moon over LA through a hotel window:

And (my favorite), an etched hotel window, with city lights beyond:

Next, we have a series of window views from Karen's home -- a farmhouse in rural Virginia shared with her husband, Charles Vess, and an assortment of animals:

Prudence's view through the bay window:

Two views from the patio windows:

The view out the kitchen window (with Kaylee napping):

The view through the etched windows of the Little Studio
(yet another napping spot for Kaylee):

The view from an upstairs window:

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

The view from Freyalyn Close-Hainsworth's window this morning, in northern England.  "You'd think we were in the middle of the Yorkshire countryside," she says. "In fact there's a whopping, noisy main road just below the view, between out flat and the field, and we're just between Leeds and Bradford, but there are fields with horses in just beyond, and there Buck Woods and the Aire river and the Leeds-Liverpool Canal up towards the hills.  And the sun is shining...."

 * The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Above: Two photographs from Rossitsa, a puppet theatre director in Bulgaria. The first shows her current view, the second shows how that same view looked during the past winter. She says: "The window looks at the church St. George, the patron saint of my town Rousse in Bulgaria. It's always exciting and inspiring to watch through it how the seasons change. It's so beautiful...and calming!"

Rossitsa's recent puppet show "Rapunzel," inspired by the oldest versions of the story, has just won has the Best Performance Award and the Children's Jury Award at Lutfest, the International Puppet Festival in Sarajevo, Bosnja and Herzegovina. Congratulations!

Below: A Los Angeles window view from artist & writer James Graham, who is recuperating from a motorcycle accident. James says: " The view from my home studio window is boringly bucolic. I really can't believe I live here. This is the first time I have lived in a house and not a warehouse since leaving the Brooklyn hippy slum I grew up in thirty one years ago. I still feel like a trespasser in the middle class. I have sure as hell appreciated this view all winter, stuck in a wheel chair looking out of the window. It was this sunny even as the rest of the world was buried in snow!"

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

The photo above is from Delia Sherman, who writes: "I'm in upstate New York, finishing up my novel Freedom Maze at a friend's house. It's lovely, quiet, and peaceful, far from the madding crowd."

Below: two window views from Holly Black in western Massachusetts.

 

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

The view from Mary Layton's window, near Greensboro, North Carolina. She writes: "When we bought our house, we picked my studio based on which room of the house had the best light for painting. Unfortunately, it is a bit lacking in 'views'. So, I often take inspiration by peering out of my kitchen window into our garden whilst I wait for my morning tea or coffee to brew. This morning was a good morning for that. The robins are feeding babies located in the vines that surround the window, the bluebirds are feeding babies in their house (the baffle can be made out in the middle pane), and the goldfinches are courting -- you can spot one on the arbor to the left in the same middle pane. The middle pane is where all the action is, actually, for if you look closely, to the right of the bluebird house, you might make out our resident groundhog (who we think lives in the tall grasses in the distance), just before he scarpered in a panic at some perceived threat."

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

The view from Bri Henderson's window, just north of San Antonio, Texas. She writes: "I positioned my reading desk so that I can gaze out into the woods while working and always make sure that there are at least a few objects of interest on it that draw my eye and refresh me.  The rose, snipped from the garden, is an antique variety named Emily."

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Three wonderfully atmospheric window views from photographer Carol Amos, who lives here in my village in Devon. (Her husband Todd sent in the window view from a film set in Utah on Wednesday.)

"The first photo," she says, "is an Impressionist view of Meldon Hill from our kitchen window. The second photo is a Realist view."

Below: "Lucifer's leg from the round kitchen window." ("Lucifer Falling" is a sculpture by Toby Froud that hangs from the kitchen rafters.)

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Above: The view from the window of photographer Stu Jenks in Tucson, Arizona. "This shot was taken from my little balcony at my apartment in The Catalina Foothills," Stu says. "I work on my photos on a desktop in the living room, and I record music at my studio in Downtown Tucson, but I write on my laptop, sitting on my Civil War bed in the early afternoon, using an old folded wool blanket as the pedestal for my Apple. And I can see this view through the screen door as I type. Not a bad place to write at all. Not at all. And for those of you not from the Sonoran Desert, that's a Saguaro cactus and a Palo Verde tree on the right, an Ocotillo on the left and a Mourning Dove resting in the Ocotillo. A lovely sunset today as well."

Below: The view from Michelle Simkins' window in western Oregon. She writes: "This is the view through our patio door, when sitting at the kitchen table. In our Oregon valley we get a lot of fog, and I love to write at the dining room table on foggy mornings so I can look out at the foggy trees and hill.

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Above: Two photos sent in by Cathy Francis, of The Flying Dragon Bookshop in Toronto, Canada. She writes: "Last year I moved to this neighborhood when we sold our family home in Toronto. (People ask me if I miss it and I really only miss the magnolia tree.) It was a wonderful place to raise our children but after they left home we decided to build a timber frame up near Algonquin Park. That is now what we call 'home' and where the family gathers. We down-sized to a Art Deco complex that I have loved since childhood. Now the 'view from my window' looks out on one of four courtyards that are grouped around a large central courtyard, where there is a grove of ash and linden trees. I love walking the dog in the evenings along the paths lined with cedar hedges and in the morning walking to the bookshop under the gnarly branches of the weeping elms and mulberries."

Next, we have three photos sent in by C. Merry  on the Lower East Side of Manhattan (New York City):

Above: "This is looking toward the Williamsburg Bridge," says Christian; "it crosses right behind the big red building."

Below: "We have a resident squirrel who has built a nest in an old metal table on our balcony. (That's Patches lounging in the corner there.)  The balcony is right in the trees so in the summer it's like being in a our own little city treehouse."

The photos below come from Carrie Osborne in Somerset, England:

Carrie writes: "My daughters opened their curtains this morning to find a daring visitor perched precariously on the window sill! He's quite a long way up and watching the swallows nesting in the eaves and the goldfinches in the garden....In the evening this window is filled top to bottom with all the changing colours of westward twilight, soft with owl calls; and with the fleet flickerings of bat wings in summer."

People have asked me if they can send their photos in over the weekend, so I'm extending the deadline until Sunday evening. I should have made it clear that I'm looking for pictures of what's out your window right now (I believe all the photos here have been taken this week), but I'm going to make an exception for the wonderful photos below, shot in January and sent in by Luciana Lhullier. She writes: "I live in Southern Brazil, and I took those photos from my city apartment window on January 29th, a Friday, the night the Moon was at the closest distance from the Earth. In Portuguese we call that ''perigeu' . I believe in English it is called 'wolf moon'. Is that right?"
Yes, indeed!

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

The photo above was sent in by William Todd-Jones, who lives in my Devon village but is currently working on a film set on Lake Powell in Utah. Todd writes:

The view from my window is one of borrowed beauty.

Eons old, compressed in grain... forced back to light, by flexing crust,
Navaho Sandstone, shaped by wind and rain, frozen, baked... from dust, to dust.

Ancient dunes by nature hewn, show ossified memory in vermillion cliffs.
Time, action and waters ruin, leaves expansive monoliths.

But for a moment, in desert land, the cycle of form and collapse is slowed.
Hominids learnt to mix lime with sand, waters passage held mid flow.

And from my window with subjective eyes, a transient beauty catches breath.
Retina interprets reflected lines, beauty borrowed before dark & death.

Above: a hauntingly lovely photograph from Kel Flowers in Australia. "This was taken out of my lounge room window," Kel writes. "It's raining, misty and cold - I love Autumn! I live in a wee tiny mountain town in Tasmania."

If you'd like your view to be posted here this week, send in a photo by this Friday (May 14th) via the Endicott Studio's email address: endicottstudio [at] yahoo.com. Please include a brief description. All views are welcome!

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Above: The view from Jen Parrish's attic studio in Massachusetts. She writes: "Galatea is looking for the rabbits that visit at dusk in our little patch of green."

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Window views from three very different parts of the world:

 

Above: a photo from Wendy Froud, who lives in a 17th century farmhouse on the outskirts of our village in Devon. "This is the view from my studio window," she says. "I opened it because it's SO dirty that when it's closed I really don't have a view. Sorry -- no animals in it (at least not that I can see) -- probably a faery or two though."

 

Above: a Sonoran Desert view from Beth Meacham's editorial office in southern Arizona. The Santa Rita Mountains are on the horizon, and her horses are close by (though not pictured).

 

Above: the view from Christina Cairns' family room in Western Australia, close to the sea. "It's my favourite room in our house," she writes, "and this is the best spot to sit now the mornings are turning colder and winter is on its way here in the southern hemisphere.  I don't usually work down here, but I've been busy sewing lately, and this is the loveliest spot to sit and stitch."

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Here we have two views from Ari Berk & Kris McDermott's livingroom window in Michigan.

In the picture above, we see part of their son Robin's imaginary solar system hanging on the glass. Ari writes: "The planets of Reptylea (and its moon), Vulpter, Zolan and Orta Putunya rise up between the viewer and the garden beyond, with our stone circle just visible in the distance. The second photo is of the same garden, our 'pretty-ish sort of little wildness,' this time showing our stone circle and a rabbit who happened by at just the right moment."

(Two points to you if you can correctly identify the Jane Austen reference.)

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.

The View From Your Window*

Above: Two photographs sent in by Mo Crow in Australia. "Here's two views from my window here in inner city Sydney (errr... actually their from the door onto the verandah if that's OK, the window is too fragile to open!)"  The lovely feline is Ariel P. Cat.

Below: A photograph from Shane Odom in Maryland. The view "looks out onto our deck in the mountains of western Maryland, our home, known as Flora Vale. A window cling in Celtic Spirals, our hanging 'Sky Chair,' named Glory, where I often take my laptop to write, and the bird feeder in the yard beyond. Flowers, and vines, and birds, and greenness."

Below: Two views from Valerianna Claff's window in New England. "I now live in Western Massachusetts," she writes, "in a magical - and very mythic - hemlock forest. When my mother first walked here, she said she felt as if King Arthur was just about to ride over the hill...."

* The original "View From Your Window" series was created by blogger Andrew Sullivan. Please check out the "View From Your Window" photos he posts on his Atlantic Monthly blog, which are sent in by readers from all around the world.